But as emerged from the Historikerstreit in the 1980s, the gas chambers were the result of the Allies' refusal of an earlier armistice - and then the thoroughly immoral demand for "unconditional surrender." That of course in no way exculpates the German ruling class <http://harpers.org/archive/2011/05/0083402>. --CGE
On Jan 23, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> [WS:] By this logic, WW2 was a struggle between empires, one won, and
> a few thousands slated for gas chambers were rescued in the process.
> But it is not clear that "liberty" did.
>
> wojtek
>
>
>
> 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
>>> ___________________________________
>>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
> --
> Wojtek
> http://wsokol.blogspot.com/
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk