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meatcleaver -> RE: Michael Collins (11/19/2008 10:35:39 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: slvemike4u
Rubbish,pure and simple rubbish.In your view no revolution,no violence is justified it would seem.On another thread you have made the case that the American Revolution was the consequence of propaganda by the few to drag the many into violence....you made the case that it was pretty much a power grab by a minority and further that the colonists were worse off at the end of their war for Independence than before....pure rubbish.
Most revolutions are a power grab, that's why they are revolutions and they are rarely started by people who are oppressed, they are usually started by the educated people with political ambitions, be it the French, Russian, German or Irish revolutions.
On the other thread I said the American revolution wasn't a revolution but an independence war. The leaders of your American revolution did not want to overthrow the socio-political system (mainly because they had priveleged positions in it) they wanted to take control of it. Once they got power, why do you think they restricted voting to property owners, classed blacks as less than full human beings and cleansed areas of Indians that fought against their cause from their land and allowed white settlers to have it, because they believed in freedom and universal human rights for all? I don't think so. After the so called revolution radical advocates like Tom Paine were an inconvenience, the new leaders didn't want anyone advocating universal sufferage, that sort of stuff was dangerous and could undermine their positions. People like Paine who had truely radical thoughts were a surplus to requiements. Paine's radicalism made for good propaganda during the war, afterwards the founding fathers wanted him to shut up.
The economic data of the new US state is in tyour national library, it is in many history books written by American authors, I suggest you read them. Post independence it took many years for the colonies to regain the GDP it had before independence because by far and away the biggest importer of American goods was Britain. Hell, even France bankrupted itself in N America because it rather foolishly would back anyone who was against the British. The price France paid for the costs incurred in backing the rebels in the colonies was a revolution itself. Revolutions are usually hijacked by people hungry for power and use the aspirations of the politically naive against them. One of the reasons the British radical left wanted to change the system from within rather than have a revolution.
The independence war was as Churchill put it, a skirmish in what he called the first world war between British, French and Spanish Empires in which the Spanish Empire was destroyed, the French retired severaly wounded and the British went on to grow.
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