From A Different Angle UNCOVERING THE MEDIA :. Todd Gitlin
.,.. • 1 Following the Advertising Dollars
I ) , . Elayne Rapping • How Feminism is Changing TV Dorothee Benz •What the Press Says About South. Africa
• Constructing the Candidates INSIDE DEMOCRATIC LEFT UNCOVERING THE MEDIA On the Left by Harry Fleischman . . . 12 Following the Money DSAction . . . 14 by Todd Gitlin ... 3 DSA Celebrates Ten Years Reading Between the Lies by Joseph Schwartz . . . 15 by Dorothee Benz ... 6 George Packer's Half Man TV Highlights reviewed by Tom Canel ... 22 by Elayne Rapping . .. 8 Janie Higgins Reports . . . 24 Constructing the Candidates by Jo-Ann Mort . .. l 0 Cover photo by Hazel Hankin/Impact Visuals.
ing a rich vein. A popular, sometimes association, and Nestle continues to EDITORIAL even populist, sensibility argues that promote infant formula with deadly it's time to put our own needs first, to consequences. step back from the rest of the world. Yet, all three represented an out- A COMMON American socialists would be pouring of organized outrage across foolish and insensitive to ignore the national borders. Socialists were in real grievances U.S. workers have valved in all three campaigns, but FUTURE? about policies that have often traded none of them were formally led by BY }ACK CLARK their jobs for grand geopolitical de- socialist parties. Religious leaders, signs. Still, we understand that Amer- consumers, students and trade union SERBS and Croats fighting in the ica First is not an option in the world ists came together and stayed to streets provide us with the most of the 1990s. For more than a century, gether to promote greater human graphic image of nationalist fervor, socialists have known that our move- decency and solidarity. but the strength of nationalism is not ment stood for internationalism or we On those values of human de- confined to the former Yugoslavia. failed. Repeatedly, we failed. cency and solidarity rest socialism's A mythical United States of Perhaps socialism has a second second chance. Translating values America once was isolated from such chance. Socialist internationalism into politics is often problematic, but turmoil, oceans away from the con seems a faint and distant beacon, but American socialists can begin by op flicts of the Old World. In this century, three transnational campaigns offer posing loudly and clearly the twice isolationism has not meant insularity. some hope for our common future: tainted slogan of America First. Im As we hear Patrick Buchanan's cries of the anti-apartheid movement; the 11 American First," once again, it is Nestle boycott; and the worldwide la- Jack Clark is a member of DSA 's National Political Committee. well to recall that the original America bor campaign to free Guatemalan un------Firsters were anything but isolated ionists from death squad terror. Nel DEMOCRATIC LEFT from the conflicts of the Old World. son Mandela was freed in large part German, Italian and Irish Americans, because of worldwide pressure Founding Editor suspicious of the Anglophile bias of brought to bear against the South Michael Harrington (1928-1989) African government. The Nestle com the Eastern Establishment, formed Managing Editor much of the base of the America First pany has signed protocols on the dis Michael Lighty movement. The leadership was an tribution of infant formula in the unstable mixture of genuine anti-war Third World because of an interna Production radicals, like Norman Thomas, and tional boycott. Coca Cola restrained Ginny Coughlin open Nazi sympathizers, like Charles the murderous impulses of its Guate Editorial Committee Lindbergh. It seems safe to guess that malan franchise when the Interna Dorothee Benz, Joanne Barkan, Buchanan is not summoning the spirit tional Union of Food and Allied Howard Croft, Mttch Horowitz, of Norman Thomas in his America Workers Associations organized to Sherri Levine, Neil Mclaughlin, First appeals. halt the distribution of Coke. Maxine Phillips In none Of these CaSeS lS Victory Oemocro tic W1(15.SNOl6403207)i• pubhllhedfi> 2 DEMOCRATIC LEFT Following the Where Does Money Your Advertising Dollar Go? BY TODD GITLIN hy should it be news that advertis ::;wing toward simple-minded charges. ers exert pressure on joumali::.ts Instead of inquiring into the many limits on and their manager:,, or that the content imposed by commercial financing, one W managers, and even the journal encounters, for example, a simplistic suspicion ists, often t>nough :,uccumb? of NBC's news now that the company is owned One might have thought these two proposi by General Electric -- as if the framing of issues tions self-evident. We live in a business civiliza had changed flagrantly from the epoch of the tion, after all - indeed at a particular moment prior owner, the Radio Corporation of America, when bu:,iness prerogatives are riding high and with its own vast military contracts; as if, for that opposing values scrambling to stay alive. The matter, NBC's news judgments were drastically law in its majesty is inclined to protect the privi different from CBS's or ABC's. Instead of con leges of money. Predictably, the Supreme Court centrating on the manifold dependencies of the recently ruled that businesses can prevent un media on their advertisers, we hear a folk para ions from leaving handbills on cars parked in the noia about subliminal advertising -- the letters company lot. So why should journalism be ex "S-E-X" ostensibly hidden among ice cubes, as if empt from the :,uccessful pre:,sures, actual and the collective unconscious were literal-minded anticipated, of its proprietors? Suppliers of :,ub· and the images in the ads net'ded the magic sidies are far from omnipotent, but neither are letters to promote the association of their prod they negligible in the practices of law firms, drug ucts with sexual prowess. companies, medical practices, or, for that matter, From the First Amendment forward, Ameri universities. Then why should journalism, of all can ideas about the press have been shaped by the professions, be different? If journalists didn't the colonial experience and the Enlightenment at times bend their interests toward those of their faith of the Revolutionary period. The presump sponsors, they would be the only professionals tion was that the enemy of free expre:>s1on was that didn't bend because of the preferences of the the State. The Amendment figures as part of a people who pay their bills. charter for popular rights against government, after all. It lays its restraining hand on the state: Public Suspicion "Congress shall make no law .... " The meta And yet, accounts of such influence come as phorical foundation of the First Amendment is a surprise, even a shock, to many a reader. In utterly clear. Here stands the font of information recent year:,, much of the educated public has left and truth: The Press. There stand:, the govern behind its former suspicions that the press, which ment. To do its democratic work, the public has achieved something of a sacred standing in requires a free press -- requires, in turn, that the American lore, is profaned by its ::;ystem of sup government stand back and let the press do its port. Even as general public confidence in the work. The image that comes to mind -- the image media dt'clines, we find it replaced , less by a that came to mind at the time -- was John Peter profound and complex suspicion of the press's Zenger, the lone, brave, sturdy printer up against choice of inve::;tigablt:! subjects and more of a the king's brute force. TI1e First Amendment M,-.Rc11/APR1L 1992 3 says: Free John Peter Zenger to tell the truth! their time-honored enemy, The State. And yet On that foundation, journalists since the too often there has been an undeserved and eighteenth century have laid claim to their right unthinking leap from the value assigned to the to proceed unencumbered. And on that same ideal of objectivity to the assumption that it is foundation, the public has granted them their ordinarily achieved by what journalists do every rights to do so -- although, from time to time, day in their furtherance of what they deem pro large publics have advocated restricting those fessional duties. And this leaves out of the ac rights, as during the Gulf War, for example, count the many unthinking premises of journal when polls suggested that most Americans wel ism -- for example, that news concerns the late comed military censorship. Still, the normal state breaking scandal, as of a drug bust, not the of opinion is that the press ought to regulate incessantly scandalous condition, say, that of itself. Since the press whose freedom is appar death by smoking. ently guaranteed is seen in the image of the In trying to understand why the media are heroic lone Zenger, freedom of the press is taken frequently herdlike, shallow, and obsequious, to belong to the proprietors of presses. The rights there are good reasons to stalk larger, more are taken to adhere to the producers, not the difficult game rather than simply to -- in the employees or consumers. Thus, the anomaly that immortal words of Hal Holbrook's Deep Throat in 1974, a Florida law guaranteeing a right of in the movie All tlze President's Men -- "follow the reply to critical articles was ruled unconstitu money." First, the follow-the-money style of tional. argument was exaggerated in earlier years, and in reaction, scholars have preferred more com Start Your Own Press plicated models. Properly, they have empha Freedom in the United States, then, has been sized the ways in which the system of finance understood, traditionally and legally, to mean through adverfo;ing limits the content of news freedom from the State. It is, then, in the law as and entertainment principally by skewing it toward conventionally understood, not an inalienable the most prized demographics -- and thus a right of journalists but a property right of em murder or rape on Park Avenue rates generally ployers. And if advertisers, the financiers of their vastly more coverage than one in the Bronx. employers, infringe upon journalists' rights - Next to this class skew -- a skew one would aJso why then, there is no recourse but to start your find in state-financed news systems like the Brit own press. "That," goes the industry's cynical ish -- it may seem petty to trace crucial news wisdom, "is the price we pay for living in a free judgments to the interventions of particular society." That is not only the law but, alas, the advertisers. Follow-the-money seems vulgar. It common sense of a disabused public. For the is vulgar, but that doesn't make it wrong (or public also has its suspicions about pipers, pay necessarily right). More important, it is intrinsi ment, and tunes. With the other halfof its under cally harder to demonstrate influence than the standing, the public has an uneasy knowledge lack of influence, especially when the possible that after John Peter Zenger came the Pulitzers, principals are so unwilling to give evidence. the Hearsts, and the bottom-line fanatics of Net This article was adapted from the work, Broadcast News, and WKRP in Cincinnati. Tlte Smoking Gun foreword to a Popular imagination had little trouble imagining We do have testimony cited in a new report report recently the cigar-chomping tycoon telling reporters what from the Center for the Study of Commercialism Issued by the and what not to say. But the MBAs and the by Ron Collins: reporters are, perhaps increas Center for the Study of Commerclallsm, advertisers are out of sight. ingly, fearful of being caught steppingoutof line. a non-profit publ/c As support for the press has, overall, de If these accounts were not enough, we have the lnterest group in clined in recent years, many critics have blasted story in the report of a New England f ourruil of Washington DC. The report, by away against ideological allegiances and blind Medicine article offering statistical evidence of a Ronald Co/fins. is spots. The ideal of objectivity, much honored in strong correlation between the amount of ciga titled, 'Dictating the breach, paradoxically remains the standard rette advertising in a magazine and the likeli Content: How by which journalism is judged -- as if an unbiased hood that it will carry an article on the dangers of Advertising Pressure Can view were possible. But the ideal of objectivity smoking. Writes New York Titrzes reporter, Deirdre Corrupt a Free still rules the roost. Obviously it gets a good Carmody: "Asked yesterday about the influence Press.' press -- and not only for cynical reasons. How of cigarette advertisers, Helen Gurley Brown, ever much honored in the breach, it has served editor of Cosmopolitan, replied: 'It's a subject I many journalists as a wall against the most bla can't discuss. Absolutely no. Not one word."' tant and brutal demands of established power. It Yes, much of the evidence is not surpris has insulated them, if not well enough, against ingly, "anecdotal." But anecdotal evidence ought 4 DE.MOC:RATIC LEFT Instead of Inquiries Into the many limits on content Imposed by commercial • financing, one encounters a slmpllsHc suspicion of NBC's news now that the company Is owned by General Electric. to be followed up, not dismissed. Many anec fund sources. None of NPR's funders, he points dotes clump into a pattern. They may not add up out, has been especially interested in underwrit to the only pattern -- presumably we could also ing coverage of hunger and infant mortality in find cases of journals and journalists virtually the inner cities, for example. free from advertising pressure -- but the pattern Journalists may properly ask what system of Collins's report discerns is bad enough. Smoke finance would be preferable to the predomi pouring out of the wings is a good reason to nance of the big bucks. Instead of thinking the investigate backstage for a fire. question answered merely by asking it, Ameri After all, the standard for journalistic free cans should pay more attention to systems of dom and responsibility ought not to be the vastly public regulation where private media financing worse conditions under Communism or fascism. is severed from control (like Britain's Channel 4) Are we really to rest satisfied that the American or bolstered by State grants (as in Sweden's press is spunkier, toothier, less predictable, than newspaper subsidy). Lingering skepticism about Pravda used to be? We are entitled to indignation alternatives -- in part, the fruit of the Cold War even if the direct attribution of pressure to a and the market boosterism that has outlasted it - particular advertiser is scanty. We have gotten - should not be permitted to defeat the inquiry, altogether too accustomed to the need for a and the action, before they start. Journalists who "smoking gun" when trying to trace the chains of draw ethical lines and accordingly run risks malfeasance. One can become so preoccupied deserve active public support. Whistle-blowers with the search for smoking guns that one over need protection. Even if much of journalism is looks the evidence that corpses are piled on the still less constrained by advertisers Ulan by pat ground. terns of deference and fatuous ideas about how There is plenty of room, and need, for more to flatter an audience, the full flood of scrutiny research. The subject ofdirect censorship is straight needs to be turned on the high and mighty of forward, but an equally important subject is that fenders. Eternal vigilance against all sponsors, of advertiser enticement. We need, for example, public or "private," means just that-- eternal and a good account of the part in shaping content vigilance. ml played by commercial sponsors on public televi sion and radio. One prominent National Public Todd Gitlin, professor of sociology at tl1e University Radio reporter has complained to me that the of Califomia, Berekeley, is the author of The Whole news agenda of that most impressive of broad World is Watching and Inside Prime Time, among cast services is being shaped, and limited, by other books, and he is a member of DSA. M1iRCH/ APRIL 1992 5 Reading Between entirely intact, and has been used to dedare over fifty townships "unrest areas," local states of emergency, since the national state of emergency the Lies was lifted in 1990. Detentions without charge continue, as do political trials. Question 2. More than 5,000 people have been killed by political violence in South Africa Deciphering Press since February 1990 when the African National Congress (ANC) and other anti-apartheid groups were unbanned. That's 3,000moredeaths Coverage than were reported during U1e two years before legalization of the ANC. Burned offices, assassi of South Africa nated leaders, fear, and chaos have taken a dev astating and immeasurable toll on democratic organizing. In fact, opposition groups have stated that they now feel that in many ways there BY D OROTHEE BENZ was greater freedom of political activity in South Africa before February 1990 than there is today. 11 Reality has nothing to do with it. 11--Gloria Steinem Reality notwithstanding, the U.S. press seems to have made up its mind that the deKlerk ere's a quick quiz to help assess your regime is bringing apartheid to a quick end. knowledge of current events in "South Africa Moves to Scrap Apartheid," de South Africa. clared a Times headline on February 2, 1991, H 1. True or false -- Most apartheid when President deKlerk announced his intention laws were lifted in 1991. to have several apartheid laws repealed. The 2. True or false -- More people were killed in theme since Mandela's release has been the 'new' South Africa in the two years since opposition South Africa; so much so, in fact, that the Tunes organizations were unbanned than in the two felt compelled to use the same headline several years before they were unbanned. times last year. "South Africa: New Reality," it The answers are (1) false and (2) true. If you proclaimed on July 8 and again on December 23, got them wrong, chances are you've been read 1991. ing the New York Times. If you're tempted to Of all the gaps and distortions in press cov switch your subscription to any of the other erage, the most misleading and harmful one has ma1or dailies, not to worry, you would have been the portrayal of violence. The violence is flunked anyway. And if you're relying on televi sponsored and orchestrated by the government, sion for your information, you probably drew a and is clearly aimed at destabilizing the country, blank on both questions. terrorizing the population, and weakening the Question 1. A June 21, 1991, Times article al opposition. International indifference, fueled by leged that the South African Parliament was the perpetuation of the myth of "black-on-black" "scrapping the last legal pillar of apartheid." Yet violence, has allowed the situation to escalate despite the repeal of several laws last year, at and become endemic. Wholesale attacks, in least twenty-two racial laws and hundreds of by which gunmen open fire in shops and township laws and provincial ordinances remain on the streets or slash and hack train commuters, com books. These include the statute creating the plement targeted assassinations of activists and segregated tricameral parliament, which ex their families. The perpetrat~rs include trained cludes blacks, and the electoral law that denies hit squads, large vigilante groups, white attack the vote to the country's African majority. The ers and elements of the police (SAP) and security repeal of the Population Registration Act in 1991, forces (SADF). which was heralded by the Times and others, A large part of the violence involves the applies only to those born after January 1990. In Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP)and its leader, Chief addition, security legislation remains almost Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi. Since 1987, 6 DEMOCRATIC LEFT Buthelezi's campaign of terror, assault, and murder against the anti-apartheid movement has served as a substitute for legitimate political influence. The Southern Africa Report called it an effort "to bully his way to the centre of the negotiations table." For years, the U.S. press referred to Buthelezi as an anti-apartheid leader and characterized Inkatha as a "rival" of the ANC, and even ~ "a kindred anti-apartheid organization." In fact, far from. being an anti-apartheid leader, Buthelezi is -- literally -- an apartheid of ficial. He has been the Chief Minister of the Kwazulu bantustan since 1970. As a bantustan leader, he receives 75 percent of his budget from the Pretoria government (about $700 million a yeM). Moreover, his political fate is dependent on the preservation of the apartheid bantustan system. Apart from that, his record speaks for itself: years of disrupting anti-apartheid meet ings and opposition to sanctions, local boycotts, and an elected constituent assembly. The violence is most often described by the U.S. press as " ethnic" and "factional." The Washingto11 Post described "bloody tribal battles" between Zulus and Xhosas. "Ethnic fighting threatens the country's fragile peace process," the Los A11geles Times remarked on August 16, 1990. Jn reality, the conflict originated as a political struggle for power. In Natal, the historical base of Zulus, most of Inkatha's victims have been Zulus. In the townships, the Inkatha attacks happen to be aimed at mostly Xhosas because Xhosas are the country's second largest ethnic group. To describe this as a tribal conflict not only misses the point, but plays into the apart heid government's efforts to provoke and exac erbate divisions within the country. Just below Political Repression (originally set up by he Opposition the surface in some reports is an unmistakable South African Council of Churches) and the groups have appeal to the prejudice that Africans cannot rule South African Human Rights Commission, U1e said there was themselves and will always be primitive tribal country's most respected monitoring agency, greater freedom warriors. have documented hundreds of eyewitness ac of political activity In In July 1991, it was revealed that the IFP and counts confirming police and military support of South Africa the Inkatha-affiliated labor organization, Inkatha. On a trip to South Africa in February prior to the UWUSA, had been given substantial funding by 1991, Mike Fleshman from the American Com unbanning of the apartheid government, and that the SADF mittee on Afnca asked both organizations when the ANC. was involved in the train massacres. A New York the last time was that a U.S. press correspondent Newsday editorial on July 25, 1991, said, "The had contacted them. He was stunned to hear that news that South Africa's government made they had never been contacted. substantial payoffs to enemies of the African Incredibly, Buthelezi continues to be treated National Congress was a surprise." It added, by the Times as a legitimate political leader in "but maybe it shouldn't have been." South Africa, and Inkatha is still referred to as an Indeed. Evidence of government sponsor ANC rival and anti-apartheid organization. On ship was available for two years before the August 3, 1991, just two weeks after the govern "lnkathagate" scandal. Organizations like the ment slush fund was revealed, the Times de- Independent Board of Inquiry into Informal co11ti1111ed 011page18 MARCii/APRiL 1992 7 TV HIGHLIGHTS Feminism and the Media in an Age of Reaction BY ELAYNE RAPPING ack in the sixties, when we second is on the rise, sexual and domestic violence seem wave feminists began revving up our to be increasing, affirmative action and women's motors for the war against sexism, one studies are under siege. B of our most obvious targets was the But that's just one side of things. The very media. In those innocent days, before "gender term backlash implies that there is a battle going representation" replaced "images of women;" on, a pitched battle in which those on the right are before media theory became an academic disci exerting enormous energy and resources in an pline; before women's studies became -- in the effort to dislodge an enemy which they take very nightmares of the right -- a threat to western seriously indeed. And that enemy is feminism civiJization; we had a fairly simplistic, but pow which, in the last twenty years, has unquestiona erful idea. We believed that if we could just bly and profoundly altered the way in which replace the almost exclusively "negative role gender relations and values are understood and models" of women in movies, television and discussed in this country. And the proofofthatis advertising - the airheads, bitches, hausfraus nowhere more dramatic than on television and sex kittens -- with "positive" alternatives, One reason it's so easy to trash television is we would go a long way toward destabilizing the that we have forgotten what things were like ideological foundations of sexism. before the sixties. More and more of us, ofcourse, Na'ive and starry-eyed as we were in those aren't even old enough to remember. And, be heady days, when songs about revolution made cause of feminism, our expectations and de the Top Forty and no one had yet teased out the mands have grown from zero to infinity. But I'm myriad ways in which the media might thwart old enough to be vividly aware of why the old and outsmart us, we were nonetheless onto men at the top are in such a panic about the something. The media do obviously, have power of feminism. And, after twenty years of enormous powers of persuasion. And, less obvi monitoring, writing and teaching about media, I ously perhaps, they do, in significant ways, re believe they are right to be apoplectic. We are spond to public opinion and political pressure. gaining on them. In fact, I would argue-- at the risk of appear Take the issue of sexual violence, to use just ing mildly deranged in these dark political days one very dramatic example. Every time Gone -- that one of the few truly heartening phe With the Wind runs on television, I'm shocked to nonema of the last decade or two has been the recall how firmly, and how recently, the idea of enormous effect of feminist thinking on the mass forced sex as a romantic courting style was en media, especially television. In fact, I believe if trenched in popular consciousness. Remember we look closely at what's really on television - when Rhett carried Scarlett upstairs kicking and especially 'women's' television -- and analyze it screaming? Remember her contented purr the historically, the whole backlash phenomenon next morning? That was rape, gicls. ln fact, it was may look a little less ominous. only about ten years ago that the hottest couple There's no doubt that, in the legal and eco on daytime TV -- Luke and Laura of General nomic arenas, things look very bad indeed. Case Hospital -- acted out the same demented scenario by case, census figure by census figure, we are with virtually no public outrage. In fact, even ten losing ground and hurting badly. Abortion years ago, it would have been inconceivable for rights are slipping away, feminization of poverty two movies like The Accused and Thelma & Louise 8 DEMOCRATIC LEFT to be made and distributed in mainstream week. We put an end to all of that too. Ask America. The political concept on which they Roseanne. were founded -- acquaintance rape-- simply was No, we haven't made a feminist revolution. not understood back then. It is now though -- be Lesbians are rare on TV; poor and minority cause of feminism. women and especially, women "of age," are And what is still mostly tokenism in film, marginal. But we are in the game and we have (where serious themes of any kind have become more chips than we started with. And make no rarities) is everyday stuff on TV today, especially mistake about it, these changes are political vic daytime. In fact, I cannot imagine a current day tories for which feminists can claim credit. time soap opera even considering a "Luke and Procter & Gamble, who pays the bills for so much Laura" storyline. A mere few years ofconscious television programming, has marketing re raising through national media by feminists and searchers telling it every day that women - who television's representation of sexuality has been continued page 20 transformed. On at least two soap storylines I know of in the last two or three years -- Santa Barbara and All My Children -- date rape cases were presented from a decidely feminist view point. In both, the women had checkered pasts, the men were (realistically} acquitted and then- amazingly-- they saw the error of their ways and confessed. One even began volunteering at a rape crisis center. And this was long before the Thomas hearings or the Kennedy trial. I could go on endlessly with such examples, from soaps, TV movies, and prime time sitcoms and dramas. I could also remind everyone of June Cleaver endlessly tearing her lettuce into her Pyrex bowl, of Lucille Ball howling "Oooh, Ri-i-i-icky!" and collapsing in hysterics, of the Andersons steering "Princess" and "Kitten" away from football and chemistry and into pink organdy prom dresses, week after depressing Ten years ago movies like Thelma& Louise and The Accused would have been lnconclevable. MARCH/ APRIL 1992 9 Constructing the Candidates Have the Media Already Picked the Next President? BY Jo-ANN MORT onths before any voting took is insulating most of the coverage from average place, legions of reporters and voters in the rest of the country. commentators were declaring the Pauline Kael once noted that one of the rea M outcome. Mark Shields, syndi sons Woody Allen received such favorable re cated Washington Post columnist and commenta views from movie critics is that critics saw Al tor for PBS's "MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour," len's characters as mirror-images of themselves. said it best when he remarked that the voters They identified with the upscale, neurotic, liter merely interfered with the pundits' predictions ate Manhattanites whom Allen brought to the once the voting actually began. screen and were therefore unable to distance Shields -- and his partner in commentary on themselves when critiquing Allen's films. MacNeil-Lehrer, David Gergen -- provide Similarly, the media feels comfortable with among the most insightful news coverage on Bill and Hillary Clinton. Many of them share a national TV. Yet, in many ways, this brighter generational similarity as baby-boomer children than-average media pair exemplify what's of the sixties. The Clinton campaign's advisers wrong with media coverage of the '92 campaign. cast a wide net across the liberal-left political Mark Shields, a liberal Democrat, and David spectrum, enveloping many reporters. And, like Gergen, former communications director for the the rest of the nation, the press is ready for a Reagan White House and now an editor at U.S. change, after covering more than a decade of News & World Report, are consummate Washing Republican leadership. ton insiders. Gergen, though a Republican media strategist, showed an early weakness for Demo Tabloid Wars . cratic candidate and Arkansas Governor Bill Andy Kopkind, writing in The Nation, re Clinton. He admitted on national TV that Bill and marked that several national reporters were Hillary Clinton were old friends of his and thus practically providing the "spin" for Clinton, joined the long list of reporters and media com even before the campaign did. These anxious mentators who fall into the social circle of the en reporters did no favor for Clinton, anointing him terprising couple It 1s this insider reporting that the frontrunner before one vote was cast. Then, 10 DEMOCRATIC Lr.FT as swiftly as they built up Clinton, reporters tore the first Democratic primary. him down, forcing him to run against his fron And what about the Republicans? Just nights trunner status after allegations about his per after Pat Buchanan stunned the nation with his sonal life showed up in a supermarket tabloid. showing in New Hampshire, reporters on at least Ironically, the same press corps that had two inside-the-beltway TV shows admitted that declared Clinton the frontrunner and whom the one reason the press hadn't gone after Buchanan Clintons had befriended, pounced on the allega for his extremist political viewpoints was be tions of a paid-for character witness. ABC News' cause the press likes a fight and Buchanan was "Nightline" led th~ pack, reporting the allega challenging George Bush to a duel. (An excep tions while pointing out that Gennifer Flowers tion to this was Washington Post reporter, E.J. had been paid in the triple digits by the Star. Dionne, who wrote a brutally frank analysis of CNN ran the entire Flowers press conference. Buchanan immediately following the New The alleged taped conversations between Flow Hampshire primary.) ers and Clinton were played on TV, even though the Star's lawyers wouldn't allow independent Reconsidering Character veri fica ti on. In 1988, a scandal-weary press corps ended While newspapers like the Washington Post that campaign wondering how presidential and the New York Times tried to downplay the campaigns could be run without being em scandal, the Clinton-Flowers allegations oc broiled in the private lives of political candi curred in the midst of a fierce tabloid war in New dates. The press is attempting to come out from York City, where Newsday, the Daily News, and the New York Post kept the story alive to sell papers. These allegations so weakened Clinton The narrowness of American that when the Wall Street ]011mal broke the story about his draft record, he was perceived as a politics is painfully visible. wounded candidate. Falling By the Wayside under campaigns based on photo opportunities While Bill Clinton was on "60 Minutes" and and sound bites. To that end, the TV networks "Nightline" defending his character, the other have pooled their resources and agreed on a Democratic candidates were being sidelined. number of broadcast debates where candidates Tom Harkin was deemed the candidate of "big can attempt to debate the issues. This is a positive labor" by the New York Times (the same newspa response to an unseemly process. Yet, the media per who claimed that the loss of membership of needs to reconsider the "character" issue. ls "big" labor cost unions a labor beat at the paper). character about politicians' relationships to their The headline, of course, insinuates that "big" spouses, or about a president, for example, who labor was trying to shove its candidate down the has changed his beliefs on everything from abor voters' throats. Never mind that, in fact, organ tion to taxes? ized labor's ranks were split between Harkin and The March issue of Mirabella magazine in Clinton. And, never mind, that the press' dis cludes an excerpt from a new biography of missal of Harkin as the end of the line for old time Eleanor Roosevelt by historian Blanche Weisen liberalism didn't adequately investigate whether Cooke, revealing the "arrangement" struck be the failure of the Harkin campaign was the mes tween FDR and his wife, including his womaniz sage or the organization. Were Cuomo to have ing and her long-term affair with a female re entered the race, for example, he would probably porter. God forbid, were FDR to run for presi have been labeled an immediate "frontrunner" dent today! by the press, and would have run with strong The narrowness of American politics is pain labor backing and a "New Deal" message similar fully visible in this campaign. As Buchanan to Harkin's. pushes Bush to the right and Tsongas runs as a Immediately after the New Hampshire pri Rockerfeller Repubhcan in the Democratic pri mary, the media trotted out their new front mary, the nation slips further and further away runner -- Paul Tsongas. Never mind that fewer from a viable vision of the future. The voters are Democrats voted for him than live in any neigh offered an ever-shrinking spectrum of political borhood in Brooklyn. Almost no African Ameri discourse. ml cans. No Latinos. No urbanites. New Hamp shire--a conservative Republican state-- is about Jo-Ann Mort is a member of the DSA National as unrepresentative a state as there could be for Political Committee and the Dissent editorial board. MARCH/APRii. 1992 11 1, Sacramento DSA Latino Commis- KENTUCKY sion activists are organizing against proposed state budget cuts targeted Central Kentucky DSA'ers at immigrants. DSA'er Jack Hen marched in the Martin Luther King ning, executive secretary of the Cali parade and program January 20. fornia Labor Federation, joined Kathy Blee, University of Kentucky other DSA'ers in tesifying before sociologist and author of Women of state hearings on single-payer state the Klan: Racism and Gender in the by Harry Fleischman health care reform. 1920s, spoke to CKDSA on "The Rise of the Radical Right." The local also DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA held a screening of the video Who ALASKA Killed Martin Luther King? Juneau DSA held a February DC/MD/NoVA DSA has ini 19 meeting on the Canadian experi tiated a campaign to urge the DG MARYLAND ence, recent U.S. government re City Council to pass a resolution in ports, and why only South Africa favor of establishing a national Baltimore DSA worked to get and the U.S. among industrialized single-payer health care system. out the vote for Tom Harkin and is countries do not have a national They are also working with Balti organizing for single-payer health health care system. DSAer Niilo more DSA to push a bill in Mary care in Maryland and nationwide. Koponen, a five-term State Repre land's General Assembly to estab sentative, reports that efforts are lish a single-payer health care sys MASSACHUSETTS under way to create an Alaska DSA tem for the state. Tim Sears spoke on Youth Section within the next "Labor in the New Europe" at The Yankee Radical, newsletter month. DSA's February meeting, reporting of Boston DSA, reports that Boston on his recent travels in the formerly DSA's pledge objective has already communist East European states. CALIFORNIA passed the 1991 objective, amassing DSA members joined striking hotel more than $3,350. The Boston DSA Trish Bailey of Pasadena has workers picketing at the Jefferson Religion and Socialism Commis been hired as DSA Southern Califor Hotel. A celebration of DSAer Victor sion's January forum featured Fa nia organizer. She hails from New Reuther's 80th birthday was held in ther Edward Boyle, executive secre Jersey, where she did considerable February at the Cannon House Of tary of the Labor Guild of the Boston fice Building. grassroots organizing in SANE/ Archdiocese, speaking on religion Freeze and Women in Engineering and organized labor. Boston DSA's Program Advocates Network. ILLINOIS February forum heard Carl Oglesby, Eloise Klein Healy, chair of journalist and activist, speak on Women's Studies at CSUN, dis Chicago DSA held two suc "Who Killed President Kennedy?" cussed "TI1e Current Moment in cessful new members' meetings. Also included was a report by Judy Homosexualities" at Valley DSA's They have also put together a local Deutsch of last December's meeting February meeting. DSA Health Care Task Force. of the International League for Reli Los Angeles DSA, on Febru University of Chicago DSA gious Socialism's representative ary 23, celebrated DSA'er Den sponsored a forum with Heather assembly. Dobbs' 80th birthday and his Booth and Jackie Grimshaw. struggle for democratic socialism MINNESOTA and a better life for all Americans. INDIAN A San Diego DSA held a well The Fist & Rose, newsletter of attended forum in February on "Po Indiana DSA is currently Twin Cities DSA, reviews Which litical Correctness, Multiculturalism working to establish DSA locals and Side Are You On? Trying to Be For and the Left." youth section chapters in Lafayette, Labor When It's flat on Its Back by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, presi Indianapolis, South Bend and Thomas Geoghegan, and Reflections dent of Mexico's Partido de la Revo Bloomington. DSA'ers there are of an Affimiative Action Baby by lucion Democratica and 1988 presi working on health care reform and Stephen Carter. The DSA local dential candidate, spoke to Sacra labor solidarity. At the Indiana DSA · heard Charles Viebahn, chair of Up mento DSA about organizing inter movie series, they recently screened and Out of Poverty NOW. national opposition to free trade. Roger & Me. 12 DEMOCRATIC LEFT Youth Section Activists Meet in NYC MISSOURI ver 100 activists from fifteen states converged on Columbia Uni versity in New York City, February 14-16, for the twelth annual Every Saturday, St. Louis O Youth Section Winter Conference. The weekend featured speak DSA organizes a tabling effort to ers, such as Barbara Ehrenreich, Dr. Victor Sidel, and Komozi Woodard; gather signatures in support of the topics such as national health care and electoral politics; and workshops on Russo bill (HR 1300) that would issues such as anti-racist organizing, cultural activism, and talking about implement single-payer national socialism. health care. The Youth Section held its first direct action organizing training session at this conference with Stacy Sheers. Choosing a target and "cut NEW JERSEY ting" issues were explored. Chapter activists reevaluated campaigns they had worked on and gained new ideas for future activism. Norman Eiger, Rutgers Pro The height of the weekend, however, came with the closing presenta fessor of Labor Studies, spoke on tion by jos~ Ramirez, secretary-general of the Inter-American Federation "The Mondragon Cooperatives" at of Textile, Garment, Leather, and Shoe Workers. Ramirez, speaking only the February Central Jersey DSA at in Spanish and passionately translated by Jose La Luz, Education Director the Rutgers Labor Education Cen for the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, urged young ter. Central Jersey DSAers set up a socialists to travel to the free trade zones of Central America; to see study circle to discuss political and firsthand the squalid living conditions, poverty, and labor rights abuses economic strategy, including the there and to come back to the U.S. to inform our follow citizens. roles of the Progressive Unity Alli The weekend was not all work, however. On Saturday, the members of ance and New Jersey Citizen Action, the Bates College chapter provided everyone with a "Revolutionary Free which is pushing national health Lunch" of sandwiches and salad (the funding source of which cannot be care. disclosed). Saturday evening everyone relaxed at the West End Gate club. YS Coordinating Committee members Andrew Hammer and Jim Noone NEW YORK provided acoustic interludes between periods of frenzied dancing. If you were unfortunate enough to have missed the Winter Conforence, Ithaca DSA met February 9 the Youth Section offers many opportunities to get together with comrades for its annual retreat to decide on a from across the country. On March 14, the Campus Labor Institute will be plan of action for the coming year. in Lafayette, Indiana; on April 5, DSA-YS will be marching in Washington, Already on the agenda are: health DC for reproductive freedom and will hold a reception afterward; May 16 care, taxes, elections and union sup is the Mayors' March to Save Our Cities in DC; and sometime in August port. is the Youth Section's annual Summer Conference, somewhere in the mid New York City DSA held its west. See you there! --Tom Ellett, DSA Youth Organizer fifth new members' party with DSA Vice Chair Steve Max. Hugh Cleland, of Suffolk John Haer, Theresa Chalich and WASHINGTON County DSA, testified at a health George Goldstein. care meeting sponsored by Con Philadelphia DSA recently Seattle DSA sponsored a fo gressman Tom Downey (D-NY). organized a successful new mem rum on "Politics and Organizing in bers' meeting. The feminist commit the 1990s" with Juan Bocanegra, PENNSYLVANIA tee has been organizing successful Larry Gossett, and Betty Pa tu. They women's brunches. held a general meeting in February Reading-Berks DSA mem to discuss "The 1992 Elections and Socialist Electoral Strategy." Speak bers recently participated in several TEXAS local demonstrations of worker soli ers included Reiko Hayashi, Karen darity, including picketing the Van Austin DSA members, along Hulbert and Steve Soifer. The local's Heusen factory outlet to protest the with DSA National Director Mi movie night in February featured company's attrocities to workers in chael Lighty, recently participated The Russians Are Coming! The Rus Guatemala. in a Jobs With Justice national meet sians Are Coming! and Red Night Pittsburgh DSA held a forum ing and a spirited action against a mare. Seattle DSA is helping to train February 15 on "National Health local cable company that is trying to organizers and speakers on health Reform -- Organizing for Change." bust its workers' union. They have care reform and recently organized Speakers included Dr. Anne Mast, also convened a study group. a workshop on respecting diversity. MARCH/APRIL 1992 13 DSAction---- l!]pcoming Events (§Jtaff News +May 16, 1992 -- Mark your calendar for the Mayors' March on Washington + DSA welcomes Barney Stein to staff to Save Our Cities. The purpose of the march is to call attention to the urban as our new Office and Financial Man crisis and to demand more federal funding for cities. DSA and the DSA ager. Barney is a former foundation African American Commission are organizing for the march. administrator. When not at DSA he is an actor, musician, and volunteer at + See the New Europe -- from a socialist point-of-view! Join the Youth Gay Men's Health Crisis. Dominic Section Summer '92 Tour of London, Brussels and Prague. Call Tom Ellett for Chan, our previous Financial Man further information, (212) 962-0390. ager, is currently a graduate student at State University of New York- Stony Brook where he is president of the Graduate Student Association, an li]esources affilitiate of the Communications Workers of America. + DSA's latest literature piece lays out a progressive platform for the 1992 elections and urges the Democrats to accept that platform. You can help +National Director Michael Lighty is distribute "Challenging the Democrats." Order bulk copies from DSA. See about to embark on a ten-city tour of order form page 21. DSA locals in the midwest and west coast. He will tour locals on the east +Wear a DSA T-shirtattheMarchforWomen's Lives and the Mayors' March to Save Our Cities. Order yours by sending $10 to DSA, sizes: large and X coast in the fall. Be sure to catch Mi large. The T-shirt will say: Democratic Socialists of America surrounding a chael when he's in town! handshake and rose. Union sewn and printed. See order form page 21. [!Jngoing 1992 +A call to join DSA's Mission/Vision discussion! What is the vision of NATIONAL democratic socialism? What is the or ganizational mission of DSA? If you have thought about these questions BOARD we hope you will participate in DSA's ongoing organization-wide discus Join sion about our vision and mission. Submit a paper to your local newslet ter, join (or organize) your local Mis Barbara Ehrenreich sion/Vision study group, organize a DSA Honorary Chair retreat to discuss mission and vision, or submit a paper to Socialist Fornm, DSA's internal discussion bulletin. Electoral Action Strategizing •Local Organizing• Meet The deadline for SF submissions is ings of the African American, Feminist, Latino, Anti April 15. Papers must be neatly typed, Racism and other Commissions • Discussion of DSA's single-spaced, caivera-ready, 2500 Mission and Vision• Fun and Relaxation• Don't Miss It! words or less. SF will not be able to publish all papers. We especially en June 12-14 II Washington, DC courage people of color, women, gay men and lesbians, differently abled Check the next issue of Democratic Left for more information. and working class people to submit papers. 14 DEMOCRATIC LEFT DSA Celebrates Ten Years BY JOSEPH SCHWARTZ en years ago this March delegates rep DSOC/ ~ UN\1~ resenting the Democratic Socialist Or ganizing Committee (DSOC) and the CHANG THE USA T New American Movement (NAM) met to form the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). Though Ronald Reagan had been elected 10\tl lHE DSA! president just sixteen months before, an atmos ' phere of high expectations characterized the meeting. Gathering amidst the sharpest post war recession in a shabby downtown hotel in devastated Detroit, delegates for once shared Mike Harrington's perpetual optimism that cor porate irresponsibility would give rise to popu lar demands for democratic control over the economy Reagan's chilling "evil empire" rheto ric and his attacks on the women's and civil rights movements temporarily served to coa lesce a previously disper:;ed American left. DSA's fir:;t post-convention mobilization would bring a contingent of over 1,000 members to the million-strong June 12, 1982 disarmament march in New York City. Not just in Detroit, but acro:.s the globe, a new ecumenical spirit of unity pervaded the left, centering upon a rejection of statist and authori tarian conceptions of socialism. Many delegates were veterans of the faction fights of the Ameri can old and new left; now they were participat ing in something unheard of in socialist organ izational history -- a merger, rather than a split. Little did delegates know that the militanst In Europe, the French left had gained the presi Keynesian, indebted "economic recovery" be dency for the first time; numerous socialist par gun in early 1983 would provide the material ties had adopted workers' control as a program basis for a decade of dominance by the right. The matic focus and had developed relation:. with inegalitarian bt>nefits of that recovery could not Eurocommunist parties who concurred that de alone secure a conservative presidential major mocracy must be central to the socialist project. ity. That resulted from the right's sophisticated In the Third World, revolutionary movements in use of racial politics. They successfully displaced Nicaragua, El Salvador, Zimbabwe and else the economic anxieties of portions of the white where searched for a third way between inegali working and middle ·class into hostility towards tarian capitalist development and authoritarian "liberal" means-tested social welfare programs communist modernization. seen as disproportionately benefiting people of M.-.RCH/APRJL 1992 15 the Jackson campaign in the late 1980s did a positive program of democratic reinvestment in the civilian economy and expansion of universal social programs gain a mass audience. Nor is it an accident that our current rapid growth comes amidst widespread recognition, even among parts of the establishment, that Reagan-Bush's devastation of the cities, infrastructure and pub lic provision has severely weakened our econ omy. But even at 6,000 strong at the merger, DSA represented the largest democratic socialist or ganization since the 1930s. Before the merger, both DSOC and NAM had made modest, but significant contributions to the trade union, community organizing and feminist move ments, as well as to the left of the Democratic party. Though shaped by distinct cultural and historical experiences, most members of both organizations had come to the same operative political conclusions: an American socialist movement must be committed to democracy as an end-in-itself and work in coalition with non socialist progressives. DSOC, founded in 1973 when the anti-war Delegates at color As the liberal coalition decomposed, DSA wing split from the old Socialist Party, con the 1982 continued to argue that in the face of increased sciously strove to build a socialist presence OSOC/ NAM international economic competition and result within a liberal coalition. Its particular strengths Unity ing stagnation, only democratic industrial, labor lay with its small, but significant (and open) Convention socialist network~ among trade union and left participate In market and trade policy could restore growth discussions with equity. Not just in the U.S., but also (to a Democratic Party activists. The organization that formed lesser extent) in Western Europe the right con helped, through its Democratic Agenda project, OSA. vinced a majority of the public that the causes of to coalesce liberal opposition to the Carter ad economic stagnation were strong unions and ministration's drift to the right (which culmi overexpanded public provision. Rather than nated in Ted KeMedy's near successful chal greater public controls over capital, corporations lenge to Carter in the 1980 primaries). And, in had to be "freed" from government restraint large part due to the indefatigable Mike Harring while America reasserted its military ton's campus barnstorming, by the late 1970s "strength". DSOC had constructed the first national network It was on this terrain of the most conserva of student leftists since the collapse of Students tive decade in Western politics since the 1950s for a Democratic Society (SOS). that DSA would be built. At its founding DSA NAM's historical origins were not in the old consisted of close to 5,000 members from DSOC Left, but rather in SOS and the socialist-feminist and 1,000 members from NAM (though NAM women's unions of the late 60s and early 70s. probably contributed close to a third of the new New left veterans fleeing the sectarian excesses organization's grassroots activists). By1983DSA of late SOS and moving from campus to commu reached a plateau of 7,000 members, which it nity politics, NAM focused on building chapters would not surpass till our recent rapid growth to rooted in local struggles around affordable hous 10,000 members. The 1980s were not easy on ing and utility rate reform. Explicitly a socialist DSA, for as the broader left goes so goes Ameri feminist organization, NAM played an impor can socialism. The organization -- as with the tant role in the reproductive rights movement broader liberal-left -- was forced to devote its and in helping the left reconceptualize the rela energies to fighting defensive battles -- against tionship between race, gender and class. militarism, against attacks on reproductive and The founding leadership of both organiza trade union rights, against intervention in Cen tions on their own could not have constructed a tral America, against poverty and homelessness. merger. NAM's Students for a Democratic Soci Not until our work in the Rainbow Coalition and ety (SOS) veterans, nurtured by the "anti-anti- 16 D£MOCRAT1c Lrrr communist" politics of the anti-Vietnam move presence in American politics revealed itself ment experienced DSOC's founding leader most dearly after the death of communism. As ship's left-wing anti-communism (formed in the the mass media trumpeted theend of history and anti-Stalinist struggles of the 30s, 40s and 50s) as the triumph of capitalism, thousands responded culturally alien. Conversely, many of DSOC's to DSA's call that the collapse of communism (a leadership could not understand the refusal of critical gain for democracy) in no way justifies some NAM leaders to recognize opposition to the blatant injustices of capitalism. While some authoritarian communism as a central moral on the left have retreated to a defensive "politics obligation of democratic socialists. Not surpris of identity," DSA argues that true diversity can ingly, the two most sticky issues in the merger only manifest itself in a democratic society com talks focused not on immediate political projects, mitted to equal citizenship for all through the but rather upon the organization's ideological democratic public provision of basic human positions on communism and the Middle East. Perhaps because of the energy devoted to ham mering out clear statements on these issues, few It was something unheard members have since questioned the organiza tion's principled opposition to authoritarian of in socialist history - communism or its commitment to both the Jew ish and Palestinian people's rights to secure a merger, rather than a split. states of their own. Two infusions of newer members helped spur the merger process. DSOC's younger local needs. But universal social programs alone can activists, many of them students, some veterans not guarantee equality -- we also need affirma of the new politics of the McCarthy and tive efforts to redress the legacy of racism, chat McGovern campaigns, found NAM's emphasis tel slavery and the subordination of women. on grassroots activism attractive. Whereas in Through our mission and vision discussion, NAM, it was veteran ex-Communists, many of we have begun to develop a more compelling whom joined in the mid-70s after a split in the vision of a feasible socialism which would utilize California Communist Party, who concurred a regulated market to coordinate diverse forms with DSOC's emphasis on coalition work with of democratic ownership. But while markets can non-socialists and valued its greater national serve as useful servants to ascertain comparative organizational and ideological presence. costs of production, unrestrained markets rap During the conservative 1980s, as most liber idly become unjust and inefficient masters of als retreated before the god of the "free market,'' society. Advancing a vision of a feasible social DSA continued (and later the Rainbow Coali ism is far from irrelevant to our day-to-day work tion) to advocate progressive taxation, cuts in for humane reform. Our enemies on the right wasteful "defense" spending, and expansion of well know that at the heart of meaningful social universal social programs to redress the public reform is achieving democratic controls over squalor in healthcare, education, childcare, and capital. Hence, it is no accident that George Bush housing. As the "l" word (liberalism) joined the redbaits modest proposals for unpaid parental "s" (socialism) word in being banned from main leave as a socialist interference with corporate stream political discourse, it was left to socialists property rights. And, as he frequently reiterates, to remind the public of the damage done by ex Canada's national health care system is socialist cessive capitalist greed. Not only does an un inspired. Thus, DSA's mission is as relevant as regulated market lead to irrational speculation ever -- to build a movement strong enough to (witness the S&L and real estate debacles), but place socialist values and program onto the unrestrained capitalism radically underfunds mainstream American political agenda. Such a the public goods essential to an efficient, com " revolutionary" achievement would render our petitive economy. While it is in the interest of all politics as normal as those of every other indus firms to have well-trained and healthy workers, trial democracy in the world. Thus, maybe some no one firm wishes to pay for such training and day people will look to the United States as a healthcare. That is, a society that underfunds model of an efficient and just society. Who, may collective, public goods out of a blind, ideologi we ask, does today? Im cal worship of the free market cannot compete with more efficient and more just societies that Joseph Schwartz is a professor of political theory at do fund such programs. Temple University and is a member of the DSA This imperative need for a vital socialist National Political Committee. MARCH/ APRIL 1992 17 as "an effort to end factional fighting among South Africa blacks." The Washington Post described South African troops occupying townships "to try to continued from page 7 restore order," and reported that "police ...fired scribed the ANC and the IFP like this: "Both volleys of tear gas, trying to stop blacks chanting organizations say they oppose apartheid, but war cries from slashing and stabbing at each Inkatha differs with the congress over the viabil other." It is incredible that anyone could put ity of sanctions and over the guerrilla struggle much faith in the South African police so soon that the congress suspended a year ago." As for after the many years of police terror and murder. UWUSA, the alleged "rival federation" of Press accounts generally fail to note that the COSA TU and the beneficiary of most of the police still use live ammunition for crowd con government funding, it was actually set up by trol. the SADF in 1986 to disrupt COSATU organiz More recently, the Times continues to frame ing, a fact widely omitted by the U.S. press. the violence as the result of rivalry between Evidence that elements of the SADF have blacks. "South African Black Groups Move been directly involved in creating a "third force" Toward Accord," the August 16, 1991, headline similar to the South African-backed RENAMO read. In fact, the National Peace Accord was a movement that has killed over 100,000 people in multi-party agreement involving the govern Mozambique began emerging in 1990. Since ment, the IFP, the ANC and many other groups. then, information detai I ing the seruri ty force role Among its mam purposes was the establishment has snowballed. Nelson Mandela and others of commissions to probe the causes of the vio have called it simply "overwhelming." The lence and codes ofconduct for the security forces SADF has armed and trained vigilantes who as well as other parties. carry out the train massacres and other seem The most astounding development in South ingly "random" attacks. Former security officers Africa coverage has been the emergence of what have stated not only that the SADF armed vig one might call the teflon police state. Press ac ilantes, but also that they fashioned a campaign counts have stuck to the theme of the "new" based on the South African destabilization effort South Africa even while reporting the latest carried out in Namibia (another sabotage effort "allegation" of government sabotage of the revealed in the summer ofl991, to the tuneof$35 opposition. A July 25, 1991, Times article re million). ported that government funding for covert ac This information is well documented and tivities, such as the lnkatha slush fund, increased readily available, yet the press has persistently by 38 percent since deKierk took office. Its analy treated it as unfounded or irrelevant, and has sis was that this rise "suggests" covert activities relegated it to the bottom of news accounts. might have continued under his presidency, "African National Congress officials accused the which it nonetheless described as "moving to police of siding with Inkatha, a charge the police share power with the black majority." In fact, denied," one typical New York Times article re funding and training of Inkatha has continued. ported. Nothing further is mentioned in the en It should be obvious by now that what is tire article. "Official denials notwithstanding, going on is not"government efforts to dismantle suspicion grows of a police role," observed the apartheid," as press accounts routinely note. Times on October 15, 1991--as if volumes of con What the government has done is give in to some firmed evidence were no more than a hunch in initial anti-apartheid demands (releasing Man the mind of Nelson Mandela. dela, unbanning the ANC, beginning negotia Despite the evidence, an image has emerged tions, repealing some legal statutes), all of which in newspaper accounts of the government as allow it to retain political and economic control caught in the middle, with the police and military while easing international pressure. It has as a peace-keeping force. Without a hint of cyni worked to create an aura of reform while increas cism, the Times quoted Law and Order Minister ing destabilization efforts to make reform impos Adriaan Vlok as saying" there can be no winners, sible. only losers and untold misery when opposing Thanks in part to the U.S. press, Pretoria has parties fight each other." A year later, Vlok been enormously successful with this strategy.ml commented on the lnkatha slush fund by saying, "I am quite happy that taxpayers' money has not Dorothee Benz, a memberofDSA's National Political been wasted at all." Untold misery indeed. Committee, is tlze Director of Communications of At one point, the Los Angeles Times character ILGWU Local 23-25 and a member of the New York ized the imposition of emergency police powers Labor Committee Against Apartheid. 18 DEMOCRATIC LEFT Democratic Socialists of America Join us! Members of the Democratic Socialists of America work in immediate struggles for justice -- as we build a movement for long-term social change. We bring to our work a strategy for building alliances among social mo\·ements and a vision of a more just and equitable society. Join DSA and become a card-carrying member of the largest and most exciting democratic socialist organization in the U.S.! ------NAME.______:J Send me more information about DSA. ADDRESS ______~ Q Enclosed are my dues! Cm /STATE/Ztr ______Q $50 sustainer Q $35 regular a $15 low-income/student PHONE------~ UN1or-.:/ScHoot/OH.cA:-.:1zATION ______::J Enclosed is $8 for a subscription to Democratic Left ':I EncJosed is a contribution of$__ Make checks payable to DSA, and return to DSA: to help DSA's activism. 15 Dutch St., #500, NY, NY 10038. (212) 962-0390 CLASSIFIEDS MEET OTHER LEFT SINGLES - THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA through Concerned Singles SCHOOL OF LAW Men and women Not /1ist Another Law School ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE Newsletter. who care about peace, social AMERICAN LEFT, 970 pp., If you want to go to law 'chool in Washington, DC, you justice, and racial equality. have ''" •chools from which to choose. If you don't want dozens of entries on and/or to attend 1ust another law school, you have only one choice. by DSAers. Get socialism into National and international The DC School of Law membership. All ages. Since your libraries. $95 prepaid to 1984. Free Sample: Box555-D, DC School of Law offers: Garland Publishing, 136 Madi •A curnculum that blends theory and practice son Avenue, NY, NY 10016. Stockbridge, MA 01262 • A one seme.ter internship program • A low cost quality legal educ:ation COMMUNITY JOBS, socially •A divcr..e and accomplished student body ACTIVISTS wanted to organ •An out,tanding faculty and skilled attomev/dinicians ize low income neighborhoods responsible job opportunities. • A convenient downtown location Subscribe to the only nation • A sm,111 student - faculty ratio nationwide. Fight for hous wide listing covering organiz • An opportunity to provide legal services to low ing, health, education. Con income people ing, disarmament, labor, en tact ACORN, 522 8th St. SE, vironment, and more. $3.50/ Washington, OC 20003 (202) DCSL is accepting applications for sample $12/6 issues. Box 547-9292. Fall 1992 Juris Doctor Program 051516 P St., NW, Washing ton, OC 20005 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SCHOOL OF LAW CL1ssified adverlisi11g mies dfe $2 Admissions Office per lint, $50 per rolu11111 inch. P11y- 71913th Street, N.W. DEA TH ROW INMATE 15 yrs 111e11t i11ndtir111ce. Tlzereisn 20%dis Washington, D.C. 20005 (ti?} needs friends, Ron Spivey, Box cou 111 ifnd(s) run two or more times. 202-727-5232 I We reserr>e the rig/it to reject ads. 3877G4104, Jackson, GA 30'233 MARCH/APRIL 1992 19 these topics have long been familiar to daytime Feminism TV viewers. And, surprisingly enough, the folks continued from page 9 who appear as guests and speak from the audi ence on talk shows are a lot more open-minded still buy most of the the soap, cake mix and than George Bush would care to know. cleaning supplies -- have very different ideas When we consider all of this and then rethink about gender relations and sexism these days the events of the last year-- the Thomas hearings, because of feminism. And money talks in corpo the Kennedy trial, the Thelma & Louise scare - rate America. they take on different meaning. Of course the There's another important factor in the po rich white men in the Senate wanted Anita Hill to litical changes wrought by feminism in television seem crazy and shut up. Of course the legal programming which explains why so many crit system was rigged in favor of (more) rich white ics have missed it. More and more women -- as a men like William Kennedy Smith. Of course the result of feminism -- are now in the professional mainstream media was outraged to the point of workforce, especially in media. But, for obvious talking censorship at the screams of support in reasons, they are concentrated in less prestigious movie theaters for a couple of working class places -TV rather than film, daytime rather than women who decided, on the spot, that they no primetime. Since we on the left are often as guilty longer saw the point in acquiescing to male de of unconscious sexism and class bias as anyone sire, in sexual matters or anything else, and were else in things cultural, we tend to focus almost willing to get nasty if pushed on the point. What exclusively on programs such as Nightline and did we expect? The power structure is not going MacNeil-Lehrer instead of the shows people really to quietly accept the changing attitudes and val talk about, like Oprah Winfrey and Sally Jesse ues of women. They have too much at stake to Raphael; on classy primetime drama like LA Law give up the male sexual privilege upon which and thirtysomething rather than the endlessly gender inequality ultimately rests. popular and ubiquitous daytime soaps. But for We can choose to feel despair about the re women writers, producers, and actors, it is TV sults of these trials and hearings, the attacks on not film, and daytime not primetime, that offers these movies. But that would be to miss the the most opportunity to develop skills and repu point. The public outcry from women when tations. And of all media forms it is daytime TV Anita Hill first spoke; the endless discussions of where risk taking is most likely to occur because, date rape and sexual harassment that these two as everyone knows, it's a women's ghetto that events engendered -- all this was made possible policy makers don't watch or care about. Since by the work of feminists in the last twenty years it's considered trash and not taken seriously, it's in bringing these issues into consciousness in the allowed to get away with a lot more than Ted first place, so they could be challenged and dis Koppel or Steven Bochco -- the guys Standards cussed. And it is television, more than we have so and Practices and Walter Goodman keep track far realized, that has been the arena in which this of. fertile public discourse has been and continues to But if the pundits and policy makers are be carried on. missing the boat, we should be paying attention. The lesson for activists, it seems to me, is to Once you get past your understandable distaste start thinking more seriously about media strat for the exhibitionism and sensationalism of day egy. We may have been selling ourselves short by time talk, you will hear things on Oprah and Sally misreading the political climate. Political change that will, more than anything else in the media, is slow and it takes a long time, in particular, for prove how powerful feminism (and the other changes in attitude to show up in actual events. sixties-spawned mass movements to a lesser But if we are losing badly in the political arena extent) has become in this country (even if it isn't right now, I'm convinced we're doing very well necessarily called by that much maligned F indeed in the hearts and minds department, word.) especially where gender issues and cultural val Where Ted Koppel will talk endlessly to ues are concerned. Im other powerful white men about subjects deemed "serious" from angles deemed "legiti Elayne Rapping teaches media studies at Adelphi mate," Oprah and Phil are likely to be chatting University and writes frequently on the media and with regular people, many female, black, gay and culture. Her book, The Movie of the Week, will be poor, about issues which often as not have been published by University of Mmnesota Press in raised by progressives, especially feminists. September. She is a member of DSA. Date rape, gay parenting, sexual harassment -- 20 DEMOCRATIC LF.FT Books, Videos, Etc. Available From DSA! 0 Now in paperback 0 Socialist Fomm, DSA's Discussion Bulletin Dre Worst Years of Our l..ives: A series of viewpoints 011 DSA 's vision of socialism and Irreverent Notes From a Decade of Greed our organizational mission. Featuring Joanne Barkan, by Barbara Ehrenreich Dick Flacks, Evelyne Huber and John Stephens, David Montgomery, Christine R. Riddiough, Rosemary Ruether, :'\ collection ofshorter pieces by DSA Honorary Chair Barbara Steve Tarzynski, Michael Walzer. Discussions include Ehrenreich, on topics rangingfrom Oliver North to Wall Street market socialism, anti-racism, feminism, and electoral to Yuppie Food Cultists. Smaus but fun. New York Newsday politics. This one's a must-read. calls it 11 Nmre treat •.• utterly dazzling.# 1990 Circle one: Softcover, $10.00; Hardcover, $19.95 Published by DSA, Fall 1991, $.3.00. O Socialism and :1.merica by Irving Howe O NOW ON VIDEO! DSA Honorary Chair Irving Howe explores the history of socialism in /\mericnfrom Eugene Debs to the present. Billy Bragg ti Pete Seeger HBJ, 1977, Softco\•er, 218 pages, $7.00 THE CONCERT FoR Joss, PEACE & FREEDOM Produced by IDS, $20 O 'Toward a Democratic Socialism: Theory, Strategy, and Vision'' by Joseph Schwartz Published by DSA, 8 pages, $2.00 O "Challenging the Democrats" by Barbara Ehrenreich and Harold Meyerson O "Socialism Informs the Best of Our Politics" Published by DSA, free by Michael Harrington Published by DSA, 1988, 4 pages, $1.00 DSA Buttons 0 Democratic Socialists of America O "Socialist Perspectives On Race" 0 Health Care For People Not For Profit by Jerry Watts and Corne! 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NAME.______~ Published by DSA, 1989, 46 pages $.3.00 ADDRESS.______~ O "Youth Section Organizing Manual" CITY/STATEIZIP______Published by DSA, 1990, 72 pages, $.3.00 PHONE ______ O "Health Care For a Nation In Need" TOTAL AMOUNT OF ORDER$.___ _ by Victor W. Sidel, MD _Payment enclosed _Charge my credit card Find out more about health care reform and the prospects for n11tion11f health care in this compelling booklet. If paying by Visa or Mastercard please fill in credit card Published by rDS, 1991, 36 pages, $.3.00 number, expiration date, and sign below. _VISA _MASTERCARD T-Shirts & Sweatshirts Credit Card Number------ Expiration Date------0 DSA Sweatshirt, Circle size: Small Med $20.00 Signature X ______ 0 DSA T-Shirt Circle size: S L XL $10.00 Please rehm1 this fonn witl1 payment to DSA, 15 Dutcl1 St., #500, NY, NY 10038 (212) 962-0390. L------~ MARCH/APRIL 1992 21 REVIEW Political Travels A Review of George Packer's The Half Man BY TOM CANEL eorge Packer's second novel, The existential fascination with violence and at Half Man, is an extremely powerful tracted to it. Between the oppressive status quo example of a work of fiction that can and the Army of Liberation, there seems little G enrich our political thinking. Packer, room for a democratic socialist third way. By a DSA member, is a great storyteller. On a liter inciting feelings of both attraction and repulsion, ary level his novel is an engrossing and entertain Packer forces the reader to confront these power ing thriller. Politically, it is a fascinating account ful contradictions. of real world politics in the post-Cold War The ideology of this revolution is not world. grounded on any scientific socialism. Rather, it The story centers on a young American jour steeps itself m magical myth. The end of Cold nalist, Daniel Levin, working in the invented War politic!> has, in Direv Saraun at least, been Southeast Asian country of Direv Saraun. We associated with a break from Enlightenment ra meet Levin as he prepares to travel to the se tionality. cluded guerrilla headquarters of the revolution ary Army of Liberation (a movement with some Stalking tlte Forest similarities to the Peruvian Shining Path and the This antagonism is played out in Packer's Filipino New People's Army). There he will idea of the 'half man.' On the surface, this phrase refers to a local myth of a forest creature, Ngot, with only half a human body, who stalks the We see how enticing countryside and confronts people it meets, forc ing them to fight. If Ngot wins, the unfortunate revolutionary ideology can be. wanderer is destroyed. If Ngot loses, the wan derer is given wbdom. Among the local villag ers, whites are called 'Ngot.' Fra Boboy uses this interview Fra Boboy, leader of the Army of Lib to turn Ngot into a symbol for the American eration. He employs a Saraunese photographer, enemy as a whole. Conflicts with Ngot become a Ding, for the journey. Ding comes from an afflu symbol for political struggle in the modem pe ent family that has lost its wealth. riod. As they journey to guerrilla headquarters, In the Half Man, racism ideologically and so the relationship between Ding and Levin turns cially diminishes human beings, producing half sour. fncreasingly, mutual distrust and recrimi men in a variety of ways. The relationship be nation surfaces. Despite their tensions, Levm tween Levin and Ding is ~rought with such and Ding do reach Fra Boboy ideological and social diminishment. An aware Through his description of the camp, Packer ness of social and racial inequality and the sense provides the reader with a strong fL •f the of inferiority produced makes Ding embittered. atmosphere of a revolutionary leftist mo. ement. Levin, on the other hand, is continually making By experiencing the reactions of Levin and o;ng, sure that he is not "ripped off" by Ding or any we see how enticing revolutionary 1deolog" ""tn other Saraunese. His fear is not one of substan be. The reader isatthesame ·medisturbe-1J:.,) its tive material lo!:ls (the money involved is trivial 22 D£MOCRATIC LEFT for Levin) but of loss of face. He sees in the Saraunese a constant threat of humiliation. Packer vividly portrays how the antagonism Cuffing Down the Woods between Ding and Levin is rooted in inequality. "Ngot, as the professors would say, is the Jola's central mythic Levin has money and status of whiteness. In an figure. Ngot is one reason they don't understand my walks. economically unjust and racistworld, that makes He is dangerous, hidden, tricky, violent. He has no pity in him his very presence a threat to people oppressed by because he comes from the forest where pity has no place. So those structures, just as the very presence of there is no appeasing him. For Ngot there's nothing but Ngot is a threat to tfie forest wanderer. (This is struggle -- defeat, victory." The surrounding buzz of the particularly true for Ding. His loss of social forest absorbed Fra Boboy' swords. Levin became aware of the status has put his sense of identity in a perma absurd ityof human speech -- so many cicada abdomens chirp nent crbis.) ing. Here in the wet scratching woods it was just pitch and Normal human interaction becomes impos tone. Yet Fra Doboy kept talking - and it seemed like hubris sible under these conditions. Racism and ine again, gross defiance. A man who could converse in the rain quality turn Levin and Ding into half men. And forest could blow up bridges, bring war to a large city, goad a they threaten to do the same to all of us. nation into violent frenzy. If the woods said, You are nothing to us, then two human responses were possible: lie down and Cross-Cultural Exploration sleep under them, or take the chain saw to them. Defeat, Levin ultimately provokes ambivalent feel victory. Fra Boboy was cutting down the woods. ings in the reader. While many will identify with - from The Half Man him a~ a character, he is exploring a world he does not fully understand. As a result he makes mistakes and commits acts of betrayal with far The emphasis on personal integrity can ignore the inescapable importance of social structures greater implications than he imagined. This lack of understanding is recapitulated on the ideo upon human development. The emphasis upon social structure can avoid the human implica logical level. In discussions with Saraunese, whether revolutionaries or members of the reac tions of political developments. The need to syn tionary elite, Levin displays a pompous na·ivete thesize the two perspectives can be articulated that worsens not only his interactions with oth through social theory. Packer adopts a different ers but the overall situation. Both left and right approach: he leads us through experiences that are disdainful of Levin's attempts at interpreting make us feel the need for this synthesis. the dynamics of their country. The limitations of our own cross-cultural understanding are repre No Viable Altemative sented through the limitations of Levin. Packer's novel will not please everyone on At one point in the book, Levin attempts to the left. He paints the Army of Liberation as an transcend the situation by declaring the impor ultimately unattractive force. And he does not tance of personal integrity. We feel ambivalent present an alternative to communist authoritari about this declaration. On the one hand, we have anism or capitalist inequality. There is no viable seen how oppressive the half man status is. We democratic socialist option in the Saraunese cannot but share with Levin the desire to escape struggle. it. However, we are also aware of the social basis While the account of the human damage ofhumandiminishment. The efficacy of personal done by injustice situates this work as a book of declaration is brought into question. The broader the left (Packer's account of working and living social environment that structures the lives of conditions in Direv Saraun constitute a profound Levin and Ding needs to be changed. indictment of global economic injustice), Packer These themes portray the tension between does not present the reader with a glowing left to liberal humanism and radical structural analy admire and support. Yet Packer's vivid narrative sis. lt is a tension that is particularly relevant for pushes the reader into fictional experiences that democratic socialists who look both to a struc highlight real social and political problems and tural critique of injustice and to the moral lan contradictions - certainly a left objective. guage of individual self-realization and integ The fiction of George Packer is an example of rity. Levin is caught on the liberal humanist pole, literary excellence informed by sophisticated while his contact, Connie, seems caught on the politics. Im other pole. She displays a capacity to close her eyes to brutality by hiding behind rhetoric about Tom Canel, a long-time DSA member is active in social structures. Each bias has its limitations. Boston DSA. MARCH/APRIL 1992 23 Janie Higgins Reports POLLUTION WHAT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES? You'd think the AFL-ClO would have a little more REDISTRIBUTION respect for the public sector -- considering that so many An official at the World Bank sug of its members work there. But for American Institute gested recently that redistribution of the for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), AFL-CIO, Execu industrialized nations' toxic waste tive Director William H. Doherty, it all depends on who would be world "welfare-enhancing." you're talking to. At a recent Carnegie Council meeting Lawrence Summers argues that people of pro-privatization business execs, he told them, "I in countries where "under-5 mortality is think we should clarify from the very beginning that 200 per thousand" are less likely to American labor is not opposed to privatization;" or "We worry about a pollution "agent that causes a one-in-a believe that priviatization is good because it's the best million change in the odds of prostate cancer." Yes, and form to promote democracy;" or better yet 'We even they are less likely to picket polluting plants and boycott protect privatized medicine so long as it's accessible to dangerous products. everybody and we can afford it." Unfortunately, for His personal views of course do not affect the argu Doherty, that's impossible without a public system. ment but he dpes offer this, ''I've always thought that un der-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-pol luted." END OF RECESSION CRASH Not only that, he says, but it would save us all Will any serious recovery send the already bloated money. You see, if the cost to workers of pollution is stock market through the roof? Don't count on it. Some calculated in lost earnings (due to disease or death) then analysts say that signs point to a recovery-based crash. the workers who lose less in wages are better off. Third Better economic times could prompt investors to take World workers, of course, would stand to lose less money out of stocks and put it into plants and equip because they make so much less. ment. And stock prices have already figured in the Ah, the wonders of logic. recovery -- forcing a sell-off once 1t actually happens. MARCH F 0 R WOMEN'S DSA CONTINGENT LIVES April 5, 1992 • Washington DC Join DSA Honorary. Chair Gloria Steinem 5:30 p.m., at our reception. MARCH RECEPTION 10:00 a.m. 4:00 - 11 :00 p.m. Meet on Constitution Avenue NW at 16th Street, Kelly's Irish Times, basement.14 F Street, NW. It's 1/2 block north side. It is at the south-central part of the from Union Station (near the intersection of Massachusetts ellipse, which is the large field separating the Avenue and North Capitol Street) and very close to the march White House and the Washington Monument. finale. By metro, you can take the red line to Union Station.