File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 80


Date: Mon, 05 Jan 1998 23:20:43 +0000
From: Mark Jones <Jones_M-AT-netcomuk.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: Mythologising native Americans


Heartfield wrote:
> I was guided ... by Jairus
> Banaji (Capital and Class #3, 

James, I was an editor of Capital and Class and I recommended the 
Banaji piece. It is excellent. If I could download it I would.

The rest of your post is a paean of praise to the American Dream.

>  the 100 000 Pennsylvania Dutch who squatted land .. could not be
> described as capitalists or landlords

Yes, those Dutch squatters, they were part of the dream.

> Many of these were fleeing the defeat of the German revolution ... took
> with them a love of liberty and a fierce spirit of independence

Those Krauts, they lisped but they knew Marx personally.

> Yes they were persecuted, but they were not simply 'driven'. That is to
> deny the positive spirit of the settler movement and to reduce these
> real historical actors to hopeless patsies, which they were not.

Jeez,  I need a drink. Is that the star spangled banner, is
that John Wayne I see pointing at me?

 >you turn opponents of the East Coast
 establishment into mindless automatons of capitalism.

No, I see German and Dutch bonneted lovelies on wagons, I see Clint
 forging the trackless waste, killing them thar injuns.

> What do I think of the
> genocide of native Americans? I think it was a grotesque evil.

That's man talk, James.

> the East coast ruling classes used native Americans as a border police 

Of course! It's so obvious, really. 

> If you want to talk
> about lost opportunities, there is a story to be written about the
> initial attitude of settlers, such as the quakers, towards cooperation
> with native Americans.

James, I thought Richard Nixon was a Quaker, but you've opened my eyes.

>  what are we to make of the United States today?
> [snip] the 200 million or so north
> Americans are amongst the most creative part of humanity, whose
> contribution to human civilisation is second to none.

Of course! I see it now! I guess you have your Carnegie application in, 
James. Well done, sport. Please do not forget us, up that greasy pole.

Mark




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