I love this quote.

[orpheus42]

The problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a lesson? --- A.J. Muste

This would have been a good lesson for the United States after the so-called Cold War "victory".

Comments

[phebes_legacy]

Shoot, it would have been a good lesson for the Yankees after they beat down the South after the War of Northern Aggression.

[orpheus42]

I still don't buy the whole War of Northern Aggression bit (though it's certainly a more complex matter than most people's apparent understanding of "one side good other side bad"), but yes a lot of things during the so-called Civil War and immediate aftermath can probably be shown to have directly contributed to the imperialist attitudes that prevailed especially in the time of the conquest of Hawaii and the Spanish-American War/Philippines War.

Though those tendencies were already evident from the wars with Mexico in the 1830s-40s, and both Northern and Southern people participated wholeheartedly in those campaigns.

On the flip side, if the earlier attempts at Reconstruction (so-called Radical Reconstruction by most history books) had been allowed to continue a lot of the racial problems of the 20th century might have been different. But, as it turns out, (several but by no means all) people in the North were (are) just as racist as (several but by no means all) people in the South.