Your Invitation Attached
click on the link below for
your invitation to a MAY DAY SYMPOSIUM & REUNION
at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 1779
Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC at 4:00 pm.
Invitation
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Time for A "Democracy Process"
“{Yassir Arafat] is the head of the Palestinian Authority, an
organization that we helped create. He is seen as the leader of
the Palestinian people.” -- Secretary of State Colin Powell.
It's difficult to think about long-term strategy in the midst of
desperate crisis, or to reflect on past missteps. But if we
don't we may make things even worse.
When the Palestinian Authority was created in Oslo in 1993, it
was announced (Article 3) that its purpose would be to permit
the Palestinian people to “govern themselves according to
democratic principles.” Yet from the very beginning that purpose
was subverted by Yassir Arafat and his circle. Elections held
in 1996 had serious irregularities, and a National Legislative
Council that was intended to have sovereign legislative powers
was turned into such a rubber stamp for Arafat and his henchmen
that elected leaders simply resigned. Corruption is endemic,
critics are beaten and the press is bought or intimidated.
Everywhere in PA land, it's mob and gangland justice.
Two governments and two peoples may be able to make peace. But
how can Israel make peace with an authoritarian movement whose
essence is to mobilize for the destruction of Israel? Peace
would be the undoing of such a movement, and political suicide
for its leaders.
One hopes that some kind of cease-fire or armistice can be
achieved between Israel and the Palestinians. But if it is,
let's hope just as fervently that we don't go back to a
“peace process” unless its priority goal is creation of a
Palestinian interlocutor that permits debate, respects law and
human rights, and that reflects a range of the Palestinian people's
interests. American policy in the Middle East has traditionally
belittled democracy and sought deals with the sultans and tyrants.
Anyone who questioned this “realism” was dismissed as wooly-
minded. Now we see the naivete of such “realism.”
http://www.jmcc.org/media/report/98/May/3d.htm
http://www.memri.org
http://www.hrw.org/worldreport99/mideast/israel.html
http://www.metimes.com/2k/issue2000-14/reg/palestinians_beat_minister.htm
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Hayden's New Look
Is it possible to feel sorry for Tom Hayden? To test your capacity
for compassion take a look at Ian Buruma's review of the former SDS
leader's latest book in the April 11 issue of The New York Review
of Books. It's brutal.
Hayden has gone from alienated youth to peace activist to street
fightin'man and on to serve as radical tribune for tinseltown in
the California State Legislature. Having exhausted available roles
in politics proper, he, like many of the Sixties Left, turned to
the politics of identity, and there discovered his Irishness.
(Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America,
by Tom Hayden. Verso, 312 pp., $25.00.)
“There, in the glass-strewn streets of Derry or Belfast with
the smell of cordite in his florid Irish nose,” Buruma writes,
"Hayden feels he can finally live up to his name. Hayden, we
learn, is from Ó hAodain, which means 'the person of the flame.'”
Buruma adds, “And I had always thought the main reason so many
people flocked to America was to be rid of such nonsense.”
Buruma seems genuinely astonished by Hayden; he doesn't appear
to be grinding old axes. This gives all the more edge to what must
be the unkindest cut imaginable: “Hayden, in his vulgar Freudian
angst, actually sounds more like a bored Californian than a poor,
suffering Irishman....”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15241
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"Dissent" Seeks Affirmation
“Can There Be a Decent Left?” asks Dissent Editor Michael Walzer.
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/
One has to welcome this forthright critique of the Left for any help
it may give to counteracting those who are undermining America's war
on terrorism. Here's a paragraph for flavor:
“Many left intellectuals live in America like internal aliens,
refusing to identify with their fellow citizens, regarding any
hint of patriotic feeling as a surrender to jingoism. That's why
they had such difficulty responding emotionally to the attacks of
September 11 or joining in the expressions of solidarity that
followed. Equally important, that's why their participation in
the policy debate after the attacks was so odd; their proposals
(turn to the UN, collect evidence against bin Laden, and so on)
seem to have been developed with no concern for effectiveness
and no sense of urgency. They talked and wrote as if they could
not imagine themselves responsible for the lives of their fellow-
citizens.”
Such sentiments deserve a robust cheer. Let's not allow any churlish
memories get in the way -- such as, "What would Dissent editors say
about anyone else who made comments such as these, and what have
they been saying about those who have been worrying about this
problem for the past 35 years?"
No, let's instead hope that Dissent editors will not now balk at
taking their critique beyond the Left's deficiencies on terrorism
and Israel to take up other issues as well: defense spending, race,
the global economy, ineffective government services, the labor move-
ment, the under-class.
A decent left will challenge abuses of corporate, financial
and political powers, but it will also challenge the monitors of
political correctness who have so ardently stifled examination of
a whole range of left and liberal orthodoxies. There are signs
that the swing toward the moderate left that developed in Europe
and the U.S. (Bill Clinton) at the close of the Cold War may be
coming to a close. The center/left parties have found it too
difficult to deal with issues that provoke the ire of their more
orthodox elements. This challenge offers a new role for Dissent.
But it is one that will first of all require Dissent itself to
accept radical change.
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The Third Way: A Divided Highway?
The difficulties of creating a “decent left” are becoming more
apparent in the UK, where Tony Blair's Labour Government and the
Trades Union Congress have had a sudden and troubling falling out.
Last week the TUC's moderate and savvy leader, John Monks,
announced his prospective resignation, declaring himself a
candidate for the European Trade Union Confederation based in
Brussels. Most observers saw a link between Monks's resignation
and the tensions between Blair and the unions.
The conflict centers on Blair's intention to reform Britain's
ailing public services. Some believe that the prospects of labor
winning yet another term depend on this. In Blair's view, reform
means greater accountability, more management authority, more
contracting out of public services to the private sector. For the
unions and the workers this looks like lower pay and less job
security. In some instances, it could lead to a two-tier work
force, in which senior workers with better contracts work alongside
new hires with diminished pay and benefits.
Some of Blair's ministers contend that they have responsibility
without authority: they appear to be running government services
but have little capacity actually to manage the workforce. There
are too many rules and entrenched practices. Workers and unions
reply that they are being made scapegoats for the effects of budget
cuts and feckless privatization schemes that began in the Thatcher
era.
The issues are not easy ones, and debate about what should be
done has gotten off on an especially ugly footing. In anticipation
of an upcoming battle, workers in two railway unions have elected
leaders who come from the remnants of Britain's hard Left. Blair
has lashed out against his opponents as “wreckers” and conserva-
tives with a small 'c,'” who have to be taken on the way the
militant tendency of the Labour Party was taken on in the 1980s.
John Monks, the TUC Secretary General, called Blair's remarks
"bizarre and juvenile."
The conflict has comparisons to tensions within our Democratic
Party in the U.S., where yuppie “progressives” often find
themselves at odds with unions and other interest groups. These
conflicts erupted from time to time in the Clinton-Gore years,
but a combination of Clinton's nimble footwork and dread of the
looming Republican alternative helped contain the differences.
Blair's big majority in Commons and the high expectations created
by his overwhelming re-election have not made his situation easy.
But his footwork can also be faulted.
Conservative pundits have long been needling Blair about an
approach to government that is heavy on spin and short on
principle. Perhaps he has let this get to him: his approach to the
unions has been surprisingly confrontational. Rather than consult
and explain in order to ease fears and underline the benefits that
many union members can gain from more efficient public services,
Blair has lashed out. His manner reminds many Britons that he
has never really seemed at home around the country's enduring
working class culture. “He just always looks uncomfortable when
he comes to the TUC Congress to give a speech,” one seasoned
observer told us. “He just hectors them.”
He still does have one advantage, though: the Tories, his eventual
opponents, still can't even find their way into the ring.
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Kemble to Study Slavery in Sudan
Secretary of State Colin Powell has asked Penn Kemble to
lead an international “Eminent Persons Group” to Sudan to
study “slavery, abductions, and forced servitude.” The
group will include former Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs George Moose and six European experts and
diplomats. It will submit a public report at the end of
May.
Sudan has been the scene of one of Africa's most awesome
humanitarian and political disasters. Over a million and a
half people have died in more than a decade and a half of civil
war, drought and famine. The government in Khartoum, led by the
National Islamic Front, denies that slavery exists. But the United
States Government's Human Rights Reports and the reports of a
succession of United Nations' Rapporteurs argue that indeed it does,
principally as a consequence of attacks by Arab tribes in the north
on Christian and animist tribes in the south.
Many observers believe that the September 11 attacks and the U.S.
war on terrorism have stirred new currents in Sudan that could
possibly encourage peaceful change.
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Muravchik's "Socialism" at the Bookstores
Josh Muravchik's book on socialism is out, and we hope to discuss
it in our next issue. It's a collection of biographical portraits
of socialist and communist figures through history, and, although
we are not ready to offer any conclusions, we already can say the
book is interesting and readable. The book will be a featured topic
in our May Day symposium and reunion and will be available (see
invitation above). (“Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of
Socialism,” Encounter, 417 pp, $27.95.)
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