From The American Left History Blog Archives (2007) - On American Political Discourse

 

Markin comment:

In 2007-2008 I, in vain, attempted to put some energy into analyzing the blossoming American presidential campaign since it was to be, as advertised at least, a watershed election, for women, blacks, old white anglos, latinos, youth, etc. In the event I had to abandon the efforts in about May of 2008 when it became obvious, in my face obvious, that the election would be a watershed only for those who really believed that it would be a watershed election. The four years of the Obama presidency, the 2012 American presidential election campaign, and world politics have only confirmed in my eyes that that abandonment was essentially the right decision at the right time. In short, let the well- paid bourgeois commentators go on and on with their twitter. I, we, had (have) better things to do like fighting against the permanent wars, the permanent war economies, the struggle for more and better jobs, and for a workers party that fights for a workers government . More than enough to do, right? Still a look back at some of the stuff I wrote then does not a bad feel to it. Read on.     

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HUE AND CRY OVER SLAVERY

COMMENTARY

NO POST-DATED APOLOGIES REQUIRED, THANK YOU- THE VICTORIES OF THE UNION ARMIES IN THE CIVIL WAR HAVE SPOKEN FOR US 

Earlier this year the Virginia legislature passed a formal resolution ‘apologizing’ for its history of slavery. A few days ago the North Carolina Senate passed the same kind of resolution. Reportedly, other states of the former Confederacy are considering similar actions. What gives? Apparently these elective bodies have succumbed to the same fits and starts of non-actionable ‘collective guilt’ noted in other situations as such as President Clinton’s apology to Native Americans and the German apology for the Holocaust. Of course, these anti-slavery resolutions are toothless. Of course, they come much too late to do those who were actually affected any good. More importantly, in the case of the descendents of the slaves no real benefits accrue or are proposed to alleviate today’s very real wage slavery for the vast majority of blacks. Thus, we should accept such apologies for what they are worth and move on.

I have stated more than once that politics is many times a matter of timing. I would be, for example, much more impressed by the force of these anti-slavery resolutions if the various legislatures had enacted them in say, 1957. Or 1927. Or better yet, 1877. Certainly not 2007. Moreover, in 2007 I much prefer to stand by actions against slavery like Captain John Brown’s at Harpers Ferry. Or the big fights by the Union armies at Gettysburg or Vicksburg. Or the brave black Massachusetts 54^th Regiment before Fort Wagner. Or Grant’s merciless pounding of Lee’s remnants in the above-mentioned Virginia or pursuing General Johnstone’s forces down into the also mentioned North Carolina. For those not so militarily-inclined the codification by post Civil War Radical Republican-dominated Congresses against slavery and for the expansion of civil rights in the 13^th, 14th and 15^th Amendments to the United States Constitution as a result of those victories will do as well. Enough said.