"[Perry Anderson's] undergirding assumption [is] that American imperialism remains, if I may so condense it, the primary enemy ... A few years ago, when we jointly addressed a gathering in New York, he startled me by announcing that he thought the Confederacy should have been allowed to secede. His reasoning was elegant enough — slavery was historically doomed in any case; two semi-continental states would have been more natural; American expansionism would have been checked; Lincoln was a bloodthirsty Bismarckian étatiste and megalomaniac…”
But I agree with you on poppy sales and Grant’s memoirs. —CGE
> On Jun 3, 2016, at 11:14 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> (Note: I don't think either historical or immediate political judgments should be grounded in mental telepathy -- i.e. in the ascription of motive to particular agents.)
>
> I agree of course that the "wages system" has to be abolished, that it is incompatible with real and general human freedom. But I don't think that undermines the struggle against particular forms of unfreedom within capitalist society. Such unffreedoms (Microsoft spell check does not like the word) _also_ can be a radical barrier to solidarity in resistance to capitalism. And of course it was a disaster that the 13th Amendment included the phrase, "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." But this and premature dismantling of Reconstruction (never yet even _close_ to completed) does not undermine the legitimacy of the Union armies in the Civil War. (It is also true that probably the present would be less disastrous had the U.S. been torn apart and Balkanized in the 19th-c. Mere second guessing, not historical analysis.) The judgment of Frederick Douglas, George F. Hoar, et and the willingness of Blacks to enlist in the Union Army also merit respect.
>
> And I remain irritated at poppy sales at stop signs on Memorial Day.
>
> Carrol
>
> P.S. Have posters on this list noted the greatness of Grant's Memoirs -- and the comment there-in on the Mexican War?
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Carl G. Estabrook
> Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2016 9:40 AM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Memorial Day
>
> That’s rather un-marxist of you, Carrol.
>
> Against the American mythology of Lincoln and the crusade to free slaves, it should be clear by now that the US civil war was a contest between two ruling groups who exploited labor in different and eventually incompatible ways - chattel slavery in the South, wage slavery in the North.
>
> Lincoln’s launching war for that purpose was hardly a "clearly legitimate use of military force…”
>
> See now William Marvel, "Mr. Lincoln Goes to War” (2006); and
> Douglas A. Blackmon, "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II” (2009).
>
> Regards, CGE
>
>
>> On Jun 1, 2016, at 7:42 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> The ORIGINAL purpose of Memorial Day was to celebrate/mourn those who died
>> in the struggle tocrush the Confederate slime. That is, it memorialized the
>> only _clearly_ legitimate use of military force in U.S. history.
>>
>> I can't figure out how to do it (how to sloganize it), but there ought to be
>> a movement to return Memorial Day to its original purpose.
>>
>> Carrol
>>
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>
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