====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
Yeah, OK, I think I know what you're saying, (although some of it I have a hard time following), that failure to prevail in certain struggles at certain times was due to objective circumstances and not the failures of the progressive camp. Your references to the 30s are well taken as I think we've listened too long to the screeds of liberals, sectarians and neo-cons about Spain, the Popular Front etc, with hardly a word about the crimes of Franco etc., something tied in with a certain "moralism", the hypocritical liberal moralism that attacks the alleged atrocities of revolution and oppressed while downplaying or completely obscuring the crimes of the old order and reaction. Thus the cult of Marie Antoinette etc. Trotsky eloquently lambasted all this in "Their Morals and Ours". I think you're comments about the First American Revolution are well intentioned, but misguided and innacurate, being rooted in our patriotic indoctrination in this country in this mythology since childhood. Yes, America was a colonial society, but not in the way Third World countries were, even then. Thus India was a true colony, which was exploited pro tanto, while America was a settler colony, like South Africa or Israel. big difference. Nonetheless, there surely was a progressive aspect to this, particularly in the Northern colonies and ideological gains in what was put out, but not as big of a deal as our school book mythology makes it out to be and which understandably some well intentioned people want to appropriate to the movement. Surely, Ho's reference to the Declaration of Independence in 1945 was entirely appropriate. But let's keep in mind he wasn't a French settler colonist either, a mileu that, particularly in Algeria, was entirely behind the motherland as a huge hunk of Americans were in the 1770s. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
