re: #97 ckkatz

During the Civil War there was a gradual realization among Confederate soldiers that they were not that much different than the slaves they were fighting to keep enslaved. Despite all the pre-war secession talk of Southern free men needing to stick together.

Since before Marx that has been the key to class solidarity. We seem to be losing that battle in the face of carefully-fostered divisiveness.

When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, He would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.
John Ball, preaching the Peasant’s Revolt, 1381