Help me out, Joe. Are you saying that the cause of anti-slavery was mere
> propaganda in the case of the U.S. civil war? In which case, I disagree. Or
> have I misunderstood.
>
I'm hard-pressed to believe it was much more than that. Do you think that abolitionism was any kind of a major factor in the Union's decision to go to war? Why?
> Crushing the confederacy, and slavery with it, seems like a good thing, to
> me.
>
And for all I know, you might also agree with the M-E line on the Mexican-American War. My interest here is the way these positions differ from those held by anti-imperialists of the Marxist left today. (Based on your recent posts, I take it your reason for opposing the Afghanistan war is your belief that nothing good can be accomplished there. This isn't a perspective I'm currently interested in arguing against, but it doesn't entail the same kind of principled basis for opposing imperialism we see in what currently pass for Marxist parties - although they, too, curiously exempt the Civil War.)
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."