Exchange Exchange
Quo Vadis, Democrats? Columbus, Ohio Thank you, thank you, thank you for L.R. Runner’s “How to Save the Democratic Party” [Dec. 24/31, 2012]. I absolutely agree. Special thanks to Runner for noting the damage done to the party by its current hero Bill Clinton. He took pride in giving away the party’s influence and abandoning its principles, helping to start the United States on the downward path from which it will not return soon or easily. The talk of Hillary Clinton as a 2016 presidential candidate makes my blood run cold. LINDA SLEFFEL New Paltz, N.Y. Is this where The Nation has sunk to? A cover story on how to “save the Democratic Party”? Really? This is the new “progressive” rallying cry? Shame. GLENN GIDALY Kigali, Rwanda Thanks, Nation, for L.R. Runner’s passionate commentary on the state of the Democratic Party. More than one of the responses critiqued Runner for expecting an aggressively progressive party in the absence of a social movement pushing it to be so, as the labor and civil rights movements did in the 1930s and ’60s. I have to ask if these folks missed the vibrant demonstrations in Seattle in 1999 and after, the antiwar demonstrations that attracted millions into the streets in 2003, and the Occupy movement that blossomed in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street–created financial crisis. The movement is there; the Democrats just don’t seem to be listening. The party helped gut banking regulation and voted for the Iraq invasion en masse, to name just two times the party tacked in the opposite direction from progressives in the street. MARK PICKENS Richmond, Va. I made it through two pages of “How to Save the Democratic Party” before the yawns set in. The Democratic Party is just what its members want it to be, despite whatever fantasy L.R. Runner has for it. The best thing the party can do for itself and the country is to marginalize the nativist yahoos who dominate the Republican Party. It can do that by coalition-building in Texas and Arizona, not engaging in a “showdown” between its “reformist” (read: do-nothing) and “accommodationist” (read: politically realistic) elements. Instead of helping the GOP by fighting among ourselves, how much better to take their electoral crown jewels while they eat one another alive. Runner may settle for being a “second party.” I want to be first. PAUL GOODE Embarrass, Minn. L.R. Runner’s subhead that “America needs an unapologetically partisan party” is right on. The Democratic Party is not a vehicle for real change. Its simpering bipartisanship abhors hints that our sacred economic system must be considered the culprit. Capitalism is so deeply embedded in the gray matter of most Americans that it is unthinkable that it could be the cause of our waning economy. WILLIAM R. LAMPA Bremerton, Wash. I agree with a lot of what L.R. Runner says. The progressives in the Democratic Party need to take the party back. I disagree with those who want to give the party the credit for the progressive actions of the past few years. Moveon.org with its millions of members, along with dozens of other progressive organizations, have been very active doing what the Democratic Party should be doing. Bring back Howard Dean! MICHAEL J. BENEFIEL Bradenton, Fla. L.R. Runner says, “In the two most representative elections—the direct popular vote for the presidency and the House of Representatives—the Democratic Party won the former by less than 4 percent and lost the latter.” Readers should remember that Democrats won the popular vote for the House but lost the House itself because of aggressive redistricting by Republicans. ROBERT SALZBERG Runner Replies En Route, USA Too many comments on my “How to Save the Democratic Party”—published with it in the magazine, appearing at TheNation.com and now on the letters page—confirm the adage that in politics people, including progressives, it turns out, stand where they sit. The heads and other representatives of well-established progressive groups, from Congress, a state third party and a university to “grassroots” and “social” movements, flatly reject my call for a liberal-progressive struggle to take over the Democratic Party establishment. They assure us instead that they have already accomplished a lot and will achieve even more sometime in the future. Even apart from their self-referential tone and considerable exaggeration of “victories” on November 6, their argument is unpersuasive—and perhaps a bit uncaring. They can’t explain the Democratic Party’s longstanding complicity in the bipartisan policies that have wrecked tens of millions of American lives. And their assurances that their “progressive infrastructure,” “grassroots organizing expertise” and “legislative sausage-making” will eventually prevail, “slowly and subtly,” will not save more tens of millions of our fellow citizens facing the same fate. In this progressive long run, all of these gravely endangered Americans, like all of us, to recall Keynes, will be dead. As for historical objections to my manifesto, unlike Dick Flacks I don’t know all the parties that “exist on the planet,” but his odd assertion that “a political party, even if it is controlled by the government,” cannot “lead major change” misses much of the history of the twentieth century. And the historian Michael Kazin’s fear of “tearing apart the existing Democratic coalition,” referring (somewhat misleadingly) to 1972, seems to have missed Benjamin Todd Jealous’s documented observation: “It would be folly for Democrats to assume that their majority coalitions will continue to hold in key swing states.” Instead, let’s heed those Nation commentators, including Jim Hightower, Fred Harris, Andy Schmookler and Amy Dean, several of whom speak from personal experience, bitter and sweet: progressives should “hate losing when we win”; adopt “militancy” against “Democrats as Chamberlain”; and rebel against being “captives” in their own party. A great twentieth-century transformational leader once remarked, reflecting on his own struggles, that radical reform always begins as heresy. In our context, I’d say it means that too many American progressives aren’t progressive enough. L.R. RUNNER Thoughts on the Good Book New Berlin, Pa. Re Christian Parenti’s “The Book That Launched a Movement” [Dec. 24/31]: Wingnut foghorns like George Will like to repeat the Margaret Thatcher quote, “The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].” After reading about the book The Limits to Growth, I thought of a rebuttal (and you can quote me): “The problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of planet [to wreck].” GARY KENDALL
Jan 15, 2013 / Our Readers and L.R. Runner
Letters Letters
“Financial, economic, military and political” inertia, fracking, National Socialism, Henry James, the Battle in Seattle
Jan 9, 2013 / Our Readers and Leo Robson
Letters Letters
Can Israel Do No Right? New York City There’s something I don’t understand about Phyllis Bennis’s editorial “Israel’s War on Gaza” [Dec. 10] regarding Israel and Hamas. The latter is a totalitarian organization devoted to terrorism, Jew-hatred, kidnapping, the oppression of women and the destruction of Israel, and was lobbing hundreds of rockets into Israel proper (not the West Bank). This led, as we know, to Israel’s attack on Gaza, where Hamas rules. Now, one may not approve of Israel’s reaction—I sure don’t. Indeed, I believe it to be profoundly counterproductive, just as I believe Israel’s occupation policy to be so. But in Bennis’s editorial you will find no mention of any of the above. Israel, once again, appears to be attacking and oppressing Palestinians for no good reason. Or perhaps because it’s just fun. Who knows? The issue is never engaged. I have to wonder. Who are such editorials supposed to convince? Certainly nobody in Israel is going to listen to a voice that evinces no concern for the safety of its citizens. And why is Hamas given a pass for its horrific behavior and rhetoric? A recent report by Human Rights Watch, for instance, details cases of alleged torture and death in detention, a lack of due process and trials of civilians in military courts. A man named Abdel Karim Shrair was executed by firing squad in May 2011 for allegedly collaborating with Israel, based, according to HRW, on confessions apparently obtained through torture. In the words of Joe Stork, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, “After five years of Hamas rule in Gaza, its criminal justice system reeks of injustice, routinely violates detainees’ rights and grants impunity to abusive security services.” Where, pray tell, is the outrage? And what about what its leaders say about Jews—not “Israeli” Jews? I could give thousands of examples, but how about this one: “Our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave,” according to the organization’s charter. “Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims.” Does that sound like a party with whom one might negotiate a lasting peace? One can disagree with the degree of importance one attaches to such statements, but to ignore them entirely is to ignore reality and, in this view at least, morality. Just what practical value it has also escapes me. ERIC ALTERMAN Nation columnist Bristol, Pa. I have been reading The Nation since the 1920s. Now I know why—again! Ahead of The New York Times, where I “copy-boyed” in 1946, Phyllis Bennis lays out all I’ve been feeling for so long. ARTHUR B. SHENEFELT Bennis Replies Washington, D.C. Eric Alterman is angry that I gave “no good reason” for Israel’s recent assault on Gaza. Israel had very clear motivations—but I guess Alterman didn’t like my explanation of them. I don’t know why; I quoted Israel’s army chief of staff. I would have thought Alterman would like that. Maybe he didn’t like my saying the timing was likely linked to Netanyahu’s January re-election plans. But not to worry. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether I got the reasons right. Alterman knows exactly what caused Israel’s most recent escalation. Actually, “we” all know. It’s because Hamas is a “totalitarian organization, devoted to terrorism, Jew-hatred, kidnapping, the oppression of women and the destruction of Israel, and was lobbing hundreds of rockets into Israel proper (not the West Bank).” Really. That’s a lot to be “devoted” to. It’s also straight out of AIPAC–style talking points, resting on the longstanding Islamophobic assumptions about Hamas so popular in the West. And even for mainstream American media—which too often blithely accept government definitions of Hamas = Terrorists—it’s hopelessly out of date. Israel began this escalation with the assassination of Ahmad Jaabari, the military chief of Hamas. Was he responsible for attacks violating the limitations that international law places on legitimate resistance to occupation? Almost certainly. But he was also negotiating peace with Israel at the moment he was murdered. I guess Alterman didn’t read enough of my editorial to learn how Hamas’s strategic positioning has changed in the new Middle East: having broken with Syria, and distanced itself from Iran, Hamas has among its closest supporters these days Egypt and Turkey, the same governments Washington so desperately needs as allies in the region. Maybe it’s those changing relationships pushing Hamas in new directions—such as when Hamas leaders recently condemned the killing of six alleged collaborators in Gaza. Maybe they’ll also help Hamas create a more transparent and accountable legal system. And by the way, Eric, don’t worry if “nobody in Israel” reads or agrees with my articles. Sorry if you think Israelis are the only ones who matter, but they’re not the ones I’m writing for. Unofficially, Israelis actually talk to Hamas. I write for people in this country who pay the taxes and vote in the politicians that finance and enable Israel’s assault in the first place. PHYLLIS BENNIS Chicken Wire & Nietzsche Santa Clara, Calif. Regarding Thomas Meaney’s review of Robert A. Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson [“Chicken Wire and Telephone Calls,” Dec. 10], he uses the terms “antiquarian,” “monumental” and “critical” to describe Caro’s treatment of Johnson’s history. These are not his terms, but were borrowed from Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life” (1874). Because the meaning of these terms is not intuitively obvious, especially the first two, Meaney could have explained how Nietzsche used them and then how they apply to Caro’s book. Briefly, the monumental consists of glorifying past events at the expense of the present, the antiquarian preserves details that define identity and local communities, and the critical interrogates the past seen as anti-life. All three approaches are valuable in their own way but have their limitations. Not being a historian, I do not know if these terms have become standard usage in the field, but since they were highlighted on page 31, they invite additional consideration. ALFRED JAN Meaney Replies London Alfred Jan is right that I borrowed those historical categories from Nietzsche. I expected readers familiar with Nietzsche, like Mr. Jan, to pick up on that. I did not want to burden other readers with a digression on how Nietzsche himself understood those terms. In any case, Nietzsche did not think monumental history was “glorifying past events at the expense of the present.” He thought the past could often be of service to the present. THOMAS MEANEY
Dec 31, 2012 / Our Readers, Eric Alterman, Phyllis Bennis, and Thomas Meaney
Letters Letters
Swank Filer, where are you? (reprise); Poland in wartime; four-letter words.
Dec 19, 2012 / Our Readers, John Connelly, and Eric Alterman
Letters Letters
At last we exhaled…; who brought down the Berlin Wall?; Mike Davis on Susie Linfield on Fred Halliday; Linfield’s reply
Nov 27, 2012 / Our Readers and Susie Linfield
Letters Letters
Now let’s move forward; bottom line: he's gone; a plague on both their houses; weapons of mass terror; clear the air with Russia on Syria; Swank Filer, where are you?
Nov 14, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
Teachable moment; lizard brains’ll getcha every time; good deficits, bad deficits; industrial diet; the debates next time
Nov 8, 2012 / Our Readers