Rustin Film Screening
Your Are Invited to the Washington Premier of
"BROTHER OUTSIDER: THE LIFE OF BAYARD RUSTIN"
A documentary film about the black, gay socialist who understood that the civil rights movement of the 1960s needed to pursue a mainstream strategy, built broad-based alliances, organized the pivotal March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and shared his know-how with movements for freedom around the world--all this despite personal hardships.
This 84-minute film by Independent Television Service producers Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer will be aired soon as part of the prestigious PBS P.O.V. series, and has been selected as an entry in the 2003 Sundance Film Festival.
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
4:00 pm (reception to follow)
National Press Club, 13th Floor
529 14th Street, NW,
Washington, D.C.
Co-Producers Nancy Kates and Bennett Singer will be available to discuss the film after the showing.
(For more information about the film see www.rustin.org)
Please RSVP to info@socialdemocrats.org, or call 202/467-0028.
ORGANIZATIONAL SPONSORS*
AFL-CIO
A. Philip Randolph Institute
The Bayard Rustin Fund
Freedom House
The International Rescue Committee
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Social Democrats, USA
INDIVIDUAL SPONSORS*
Thomas R. Donahue
Sandra Feldman
Carl Gershman
Ernest Green
Dorothy Height
Hendrik Hertzberg
Norman Hill
Rachelle Horowitz
Max M. Kampelman
Penn Kemble
Joyce Ladner
Rep. John Lewis
William Lucy
Harold Meyerson
Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton
John Sweeney
Ben J. Wattenberg
Leon Wieseltier
*List in formation
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War on Terror NotEroding Freedom
The new 2002 Freedom House Annual Survey of Freedom reports that, despite often-repeated claims to the contrary, freedom and democracy have continued to make gains during the past year – Year One of the war on terrorism.
According to Freedom House President Adrian Karatnycky, some 29 countries showed progress toward freedom, while only 11 gave evidence of decline. The gain is significantly greater than that for the previous year.
The Freedom House survey also found that there was progress in a number of countries where Islam is strong. "Genuine evidence of change was registered in majority Muslim Senegal, which entered the ranks of the Free, and in Bahrain, which moved from Not Free to Partly Free. There were also distinct signs of civic ferment in Iran and Kuwait, together with indications of a commitment to political opening in Qatar. Progress was also registered in majority Muslim Afghanistan, Albania, Comoros, Tajikistan, and Turkey."
Several prominent human rights organizations – Human Rights Watch, the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights – contend that the war on terrorism is fostering an atmosphere of repression at home and abroad. Those resisting terrorism somehow emerge as the important threat to democracy and human rights. While not disputing that vigilance is required to prevent abuses by those resisting terrorism, Freedom House asserts clearly that the terrorists themselves are responsible for a major setback for freedom in what was otherwise a reasonably positive year. (For complete Survey of Freedom go to www.freedomhouse.org.)
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"Emerging Democratic Majority"
David Kusnet reviewed the John Judis/Ruy Teixeira election book (The Emerging Democratic Majority) for the November 24 New York Times Book Review -- a few weeks after the mid-term election was over. Kusnet calls it an "informative and intellectually adventurous study," which contends that "three decades of social and economic change have shaped a society favorable to Democrats: 'a new postindustrial metropolitan order in which men and women play equal roles and in which white America is supplanted by multiracial, multiethnic America.' "
As Kusnet indicates, this interesting and much-discussed book represents a shift on the part of the authors away from many of the enduring orthodoxies of the Democratic left. Democrats are encouraged to turn their focus from "old economy" middle and working class voters to liberal professionals in the nation's cultural and educational centers. Much in it recalls the "new class" theories that so entranced liberal thinkers back in the 1970s.
What happened back then was that while liberal pundits and consultants pursued their fascination with educated, affluent liberals, many voters at lower levels drifted toward the right, repelled by dismay over Demoratic stands on so-called "social issues" and doubts that the heirs of George McGovern would stand firm on matters of national security. Judis and Texiera treat the upsurge in concern about national security that followed September 11 as passing matter that is not likely to upset their central thesis. Given the depth and complexity of the challenges arising from Islamic extremism, this seems optimistic.
Judis and Teixeira also suggest that the extremism of the religious right will have an impact on the electorate similar and opposite to the impact that the Sixties counter-culture had – this time moving voters to the left. But the religious right is no longer so politically potent or provocative it once was, and the Democrats still have plenty of Al Sharptons and Barbara Streisands to contend with. It's far from clear who is winning – or ought to win – the culture wars.
But what is especially puzzling about this book – another point Kusnet touches on – is the way it glides over the role the labor movement is to have in the new Democratic coalition. Maybe educated moderates can be swayed to vote Democratic, but who is going to do the swaying? The declining strength and consequent political weakening of the labor movement, the institutional backbone of Democratic campaigns in recent times, seems to be getting Karl Rove's attention. It deserves more attention from Democrats. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira ought to have something interesting to say on this subject.
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Blair for President
"Right now there is only one Democrat who could live up to all [my] rules: the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Maybe the Democrats should give him a green card. He's tough on national security, he has an alternative global vision, people like him and he's a beautiful, reassuring speaker. He's Bill Clinton without baggage."
-- Thomas R. Friedman, The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2002
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Transitions
Eugene Victor Debs Rostow, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration and Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Reagan years, died on November 25 at the age of 89. He was a leader in challenging wishful thinking about the Soviet Union during the era of guilt and confusion that followed the Vietnam War.
Rostow parted company with many in the foreign policy establishment to oppose the policy of détente advanced by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during the Nixon/Ford years. He helped rally support for tough-minded organizations like the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, the Committee on the Present Danger, and the Committee for the Free World. He churned out pages of reasoned but forceful argument against any illusions about Soviet purposes, whether it was arms control, the Third World or the Middle East.
Notesonline readers may notice that the Kissinger/Rostow debate about détente gets comparatively little attention from journalists and academics who have commented about either of these figures recently. Vietnam is still what matters to those setting the tone in much of American political culture.
Case in point: the vehement attacks on Henry Kissinger, which assuredly contributed to his unwillingness to chair the panel of inquiry into the September 11 terrorist attacks. One can imagine Gene Rostow arguing that Kissinger's signal failure did not involve Vietnam (a conflict about which many of Kissinger's critics have much to answer for themselves.) Kissinger's greatest deception was a self-deception -- involving the nature and behavior of the Soviet Union.
Christopher Hitchens and other Kissinger-baiters might also ponder this: does it make the American Metternich more uncomfortable to accuse him of ruthlessness and deception, or to point out a matter about which he was hugely wrong?
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