The Nation since 1865.

September 27, I993

CONTENTS.

Volume 257, Number 9

EXCHANGE
302

Bill Lynch, Jennifer Anderson, Jan Pierce

Frances Fox Piven, Dennis Rivera
Manning Marable, Per Fagereng, Michael Tomasky

EDITORIALS

301 Lean, Mean Government

303 Chancing Peace
304 Political Dragnet
304 More Plathitudes

COLUMNS

305 Mission to Mars

306 Minority Report

303

Richard Lingeman
Calvin nillin
Christopher Hiichens

ARTICLES

301 The Trials of Gregory K.:

Children in CourtThe New Crusade

Andrew L. Shapiro

307 Politics and Pollution:

E.P.A. Fiddles
While W.T.I. Burns
Liane Clorfene-Casten
312 Looking Forward:
Does SocialismHaveaFuture?
Robert Hedbroner
316 Saving the A.C.D.A.:
Disarmament Disarmed?
Marcus G. Rrrskin

BOOKS & THE ARTS

320 Dyson: Reflecting Black: AfricanAmerican Cultural Criticism Robin D.G. Kelley
323 Heidenry: Theirs Was the
Kingdom: Lila and DeWitt
Wallace and the Story of
The Readers Dlgest
Benjamin Cheever
Miklds Vcimos
325 Szczypiorski: A Mass for Arras
Arthur C Danto
327 Art
Illustrations by Robert Grossman

Edrtor, Vlctor Navasky

Publrsher, Arthur L. Carter

Executive EdJtor,kchard Lingeman; Assocrate Edrtors,Andrew Kopkind,

Katha Pollitt, Micah L.Slfry; Lrtemry Edrlor, Elsa mer;AssocufeLrlemty
Edrtor, A r t Winslow; Poetry Edrtor, Grace Schuhan; Monogrng Eiirlor.
JOAM Wypljewski; Copy Chief.Rome Carey; Copy Editor, J u h th Long;
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Deporfrnents:Archalecture, Jane Holm Kay; Art, Arthur C. Danto; Actron.

John Leonard, A l m s , Stuart Klawans; MUSIC.
Davld Hamilton, Edward W.
silld, Gene Santom;.Theater, ThomasM.Disch; Bumotx Warhrngton.Dawd
Corn; Europe. Darnel Slnger; Budupest. Mlkl6s Vhmos; Tokyo, Karl Taro
Greenfeld; Cam, Stephen Hubbell; Corpomtrons, Robert S h e a Defeme,
Mlchael T Klare; Columnrsts andRegular Contrrbulors: Alexander
Cockburn (Beat the Devrl), Stephen E Cohen (Sovretrcus),Chnstopher
Hltchens (Mrnorrty Report), Aryeh Neier (Wotchmg Rrghfs), Elizabeth
Pochoda (Readmg Around), Edward Sore], Calvm Tnlhn, Contributrng
I
George Black, Robert L. Borosage,
Edrfors: Lucri Annunuata, K ~ Blrd,
Slavenka Dracuht, Thomas Ferguson, Doug Henwood, Max Holland, Molly
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Birnbaum, Rlchard Falk. Frances RtzGerald. Ptullp Green, Elinor Langer,
Deborah W. Meier, ToniMorrlson, Michael Pertschuk, Elizabeth Pochoda,
Neil Postman, Marcus G Raskin, David Welr, Roger Wllklns. Editors ut
Large, Rlchard Pollak, Katrina vanden Heuvel.
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EDITORIALS.

Chancing Peace

ot since the fall

ofthe Berlin wall in1989 has there
been suchan exciting breakthrough in
international politics asthat achieved bythe secret Norwegian
A 1 negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials. Forthe first time since the establishment of the Israeli
state in 1948 the core of the conflict is being addressed. The
five-year interim plan for
Palestinian autonomy, startingalmost
immediately with mutual recognition between the Palestine
Liberation Organization and Israel, and Israeli withdrawal

from Gaza and the West Bank townof Jericho, beginsa diplomatic process that could also quickly produce additional
agreements between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and Jordan,
as well as a framework for regional economic cooperation.
Israels Labor government has broken the longstanding
taboo against recognition of the
P.L.O. as the representativeof
the Palestinian people and, even more important, against the
simple recognitionof the Palestinians as nation.
a
As Foreign
If a land is peoMinister Shimon Peres told Israeli television,
pled by another people, thereis no sense to talk about landas
though the land[is] empty. The hoary Zionist myth ofa land
withoutpeopleforapeoplewithout1andhasbeenoverturned.

304

Nation.

The

But as hopeful as the momentis, it is premature to celebrate.

Indeed, even ifthe initial phases of
the Israeli-Palestinian deal
get off to a smooth start, which isnot assured, there willbe
many obstacles along the way. Extremists on both sides oppose the process. On the Palestinian side there is
uncertainty
about how deep this resistance will be, and whether it will be
placated or intensified by the limited Palestinian self-rule envisioned. Much depends
on whether violencecan be curtailed
on both sides, and on whether economic assistance is generous enough to bring tangible improvementsin the daily lives
of those Palestinians who may finally be emancipated from
decades of Israeli occupation.
By contrast, the 120,OOO-plusJewish settlers, especially
the
hard-core Gush Emunim ideologues, have every
reason to sabotage the interim Palestinian self-rule, and they are unlikely
to be assuagedby the gradual pace of change
in the territories.
They are heavily armed and have already demonstrated their
willingness to turn to underground violence. Andthe tentative
outlines of the Labor-Fatah deal leave plenty mom
of for confusion, insecurity and provocation.
Are the settlements in the
Gaza Strip, with their 4,500 Jewish inhabitants, to remain?
If so, under whose authority? What if a settler is attacked by
Palestinians who fleeback to Jericho? What ifa band of settlers goes on a rampage in a Palestinian town, as they have
in the past, to create a crisis?
There is a deeper, more subtle challenge to the peace plan:
Did the weakness ofthe Palestinians-exhausted, financially
bereft, dipIomatidy ignored--lead to the acceptance of a bargain that will soon strike the younger generation as a betrayal
of their quest for self-determination?The Israeli leadership
must sell a solid majority of its own peopleon the wisdom of
negotiating such unresolved
issues as the extent and pace of Israeli withdmwal, the futureof Palestinian refugees, the eventual
disposition of Israeli settlements,
the transition from autonomy to sovereignty for the Palestinians and the partial internationalization of Jerusalem. If the Israelis are not forthcoming
on these vital matters,
the Palestinians will likely feel cheated
and humiliated and resume armed struggle, probably under
far more militant leadership than Yasir Arafats.
Here, we should recall howthe harsh Versailles settlement
imposed on Germany after World War
I paved the way for N~
ultranationalism, racist perversionsand militarism. The bitter
ironies of such a comparison should encourage Israel and its
friends, especially the United States,to satisfy Palestinianaspirations for real independence and sovereign rights. This
would provide Israel withby far thebest, and least painful,
security it has ever known.

Political Dragnet

ew weapons in the legal arsenal are more farreaching than thevague charge of conspiracy; and
few have a more odious history, particularly when
politics are involved. So there are good reasons to
worry about theJustice Departments prosecution of Sheik
Omar Abdel Rahman and fourteen others for conspiracyrelated to theWorld Trade Center bombing. From a shadowy

September 27.I993

beginning with Britains infamous Star Chamber prosecutions, conspiracy laws have been used as often to stifle dissent as to punish lawbreaking.In the United States, conspiracy
law was in part created through early nineteenth-century prosecutions of workers leagues.It was a conspiracy conviction,
not murder, that placed nooses around
the necks of Chicagos
Haymarket martyrs and led to thedeportation of immigrant
radicals during and after World War I. Conspiracy was the
heart of the Smith Act prosecutions ofthe McCarthy era and
wasemployedbyLyndonJohnsons
Justice Department
against Vietnam draft protesters.
As scholar Herbert Packer wrote ofthe 1968 prosecution
of Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, WilliamSloane Coffin
and others for conspiring to promote draft resistance, a conspiracy charge is particularly well suited to being used as
a device for preventive detention. Preventive detention of
Sheik Abdel Rahman has been the demand from some quarters all along. And conspiracy confounds the usual rules of
evidence. Conspiracy isalso well suited to a case relying on
evidence gatheredby a government informant, who may well
have instigatedthe crimes he is now rewarded
for uncovering.
From the beginning, this case had more
to dowith dernonking the sheik and Islam than with hard facts.An F.B.I. agent
captures the alleged conspirators while theyare mixing the
witchesbrew, preparing a war of urban terrorismlanguage that resonates deeply inthe history of political repression, from the nineteenth century through the cold war.
There has been a continuity in the imagery of subversion that
bears no necessary relation to any given enemy, historian
David Brion Davis has written.
If there is hard evidencethat Sheik AbdelRahman and the
others committed crimes, why level the insidious charge of
conspiracy? If there isno evidence, why prosecuteat all? This
conspiracy trial is in some ways even more frightening than
the murderously foolishraid in Waco. Like Waco,it suggests
a paranoid belief that small groupsof extremists can somehow bring down the Republic and must be stopped at any
price, UnlikeWaco, this was not a decision made in the heat
of the moment. Janet Reno said she hopes her Justice Depart
ment will be rememberedfor its commitment to civil rights.
But now shes kowtowingto the conspiracy crowd.

More Plathitudes
BY JANET MALCONTENT

espite hershort life, SylviaPlotz has been the subject of a dozen biographies and innumerable
trashy articles in the press. The circumstances of
her death-she jumped or fell into a front-loading
washing machine ina London laundromat in 1964and its
timing-she had recently completed
the poems that made
her literary reputation-vaulted her into posthumous fame.
Times passage has fed
the legend: She wasunhappy; she had
broken with her husband, the British poetEd Mews; she was
working on Blue Monday, a sequel to her novel,The Ball Jar,
which would havemade her wealthy. (In The Bull Jar Sylvia