w.
On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Carl G. Estabrook
<galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
> There's hardly any question that the Lincoln presidency marked a substantial
> increase in central government power and a corresponding diminution of
> liberty - war is the health of the state.
>
> And the apparently great counter-example - that the Civil War freed the
> slaves - turns out to be a good deal more ambiguous that it seems. See now
> Douglas A. Blackmon, "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black
> Americans from the Civil War to World War II" (Doubleday 2008).
>
> The war, a great evil in itself, led to the "loss of liberty" (and life) of
> more than a half million Americans, plus those injured and immiserated.
>
> It was a contest between two ruling classes with incompatible methods of
> exploiting labor - chattel slavery and wage slavery. The latter won, but
> it's not at all clear that liberty did.
>
> --CGE
>
>
>
> On Jan 23, 2012, at 12:13 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jan 23, 2012, at 1:04 PM, Carl G. Estabrook wrote:
>>
>>> In fact, far from being a racist, Ron Paul is the only major party
>>> candidate who has attacked the single most racist program of the federal
>>> government, the "war on drugs."
>>
>>
>> You really have to wonder how much a man values black people when he says
>> that the Civil War marked a loss of liberty. I've spent a lot of time
>> following the right and I still find that remark shocking.
>>
>> Doug
>> ___________________________________
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>
>
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-- Wojtek http://wsokol.blogspot.com/