| Read this article and come with your questions and comments.
Excerpt from part 3:
“What Was “Brought Forth” through the American Revolution Was Not a New Nation “Conceived in Liberty,” and Not a Nation “Dedicated to the Proposition that All Men Are Created Equal.”
What I have already indicated here (and examined more fully in the previous article in this series) reveals clearly that neither the American Revolution of 1776, nor the Civil War in the 1860s, was actually fought to establish, or to preserve, “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” The essential “liberty” brought about through the American Revolution was the removal of the constraints that the British empire enforced on the slave-owners and developing capitalists in the colonies, who were the “fathers” and basic beneficiaries of this Revolution.
And as for today:
Finally, and most importantly: The crucial question is not comparison with past oppressive and murderous countries and empires, or with other oppressive regimes in the world now (although U.S. capitalism-imperialism far surpasses its rivals now in terms of war crimes and crimes against humanity). The decisive question is: what is now possible for humanity, in terms of actual and fundamental emancipation—in opposition to the way that this system of capitalism-imperialism stands as the direct barrier to the achievement of unprecedented emancipation, and the fact this system is, in an all too real and terrible sense, force marching humanity toward the abyss. |
