El 24 Jun 97 a las 9:16, Lawrence Libby nos dice(n):

>  I have
> come to believe that the myth of the independant homesteader in the
> US is just that: a convenient myth.  It is of great use to the
> people who slash welfare and other socially beneficial programs.
> What follows is one paragraph from _The Way We Never Were, American
> Families and the Nostalgia Trap" by Stephanie Coontz HarperCollins
> 1992:
>
> "In reality, prairie farmers and other pioneer families owed their
> existance to massive federal land grants, government-funded military
> mobilizations that dispossesed humdreds of Native American societies
> and confiscated half of Mexico, and state-sponsored economic
> investment in the new lands.  Even 'volunteers' expected federal
> pay: Much of the West's historic 'antigovernment' sentiment
> originated in discontent when settlers did not get such pay or were
> refused government aid for unauthorized raids on Native American
> territory. It would be hard to find a Western family today or at any
> time in the past whose land rights, transportation options, economic
> existance, and even access to water were not dependant on federal
> funds. 'Territorial evperience got Westerners in the habit of
> federal subsidies,' remarks Western historian Patricia Nelson
> Limeric, 'and the habit persisted long after other elements of the
> Old West had vanished.' "

Thank you for this piece of social historic realism.  It is very
useful when one has to deal with neoliberals who praise an inexistent
"lonely individual without State" in America.

I believe, however, that the "free homesteader" was none the less
free because there was a whole nation behind him.  This has always
been the case when settlement took place. But settlement itself can
assume many different forms.

Will return on this later.
Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky
[log in to unmask]