September 27, I993 The Nation since 1865. 303

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 Richard Lingeman COLUMNS 305 Mission to Mars Calvin nillin 306 Minority Report Christopher Hiichens ARTICLES 301 The Trials of Gregory K.:

Children in Court- The New Crusade Andrew L. Shapiro

307 Politics and Pollution: E.P.A. Fiddles While W.T.I. Burns Liane Clorfene-Casten

Does Socialism Have a Future? Robert Hedbroner

Disarmament Disarmed? Marcus G. Rrrskin

312 Looking Forward: 316 Saving the A.C.D.A.:

BOOKS & THE ARTS 320 323

325 327

Dyson: Reflecting Black: African-

Heidenry: Theirs Was the American Cultural Criticism Robin D.G. Kelley

Kingdom: Lila and DeWitt Wallace and the Story of The Readers Dlgest Benjamin Cheever

Szczypiorski: A Mass for Arras Miklds Vcimos Art Arthur C Danto

Illustrations by Robert Grossman

Edrtor, Vlctor Navasky

Executive EdJtor, kchard Lingeman; Assocrate Edrtors, Andrew Kopkind, Katha Pollitt, Micah L. Slfry; Lrtemry Edrlor, Elsa mer; AssocufeLrlemty Edrtor, Art Winslow; Poetry Edrtor, Grace Schuhan; Monogrng Eiirlor. JOAM Wypljewski; Copy Chief. Rome Carey; Copy Editor, Juhth Long; Assrstont Copy Edrtor, Mlranda Spencer; Assrrtanl to the Edrlor. D e m s Selby; Edrforral AsEistant/Publlclty Drrector. Jffl Petty; Interns, Bent B.H. Anderson, Valerle Burgher, Patrick Bryant ( Washmgton), Juhe E. Cooper, C . Mlranda Blva, Matt Ogonowski, Jasper Shahn. Annys Shin

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, Thomas M. 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 and Regular Contrrbulors: Alexander Cockburn (Beat the Devrl), Stephen E Cohen (Sovretrcus), Chnstopher Hltchens (Mrnorrty Report), Aryeh Neier (Wotchmg Rrghfs), Elizabeth

Edrfors: Lucri Annunuata, K ~ I Blrd, George Black, Robert L. Borosage, Pochoda (Readmg Around), Edward Sore], Calvm Tnlhn, Contributrng

Slavenka Dracuht, Thomas Ferguson, Doug Henwood, Max Holland, Molly Ivms, Joel Rogers, &rkpatrick Sale, Herman Schwartz, Bruce Shapiro, Ted Solotaroff, Gore Vldal, Jon Wlener, Amy Wdentz; Edrtor~alBoord- Norman Birnbaum, Rlchard Falk. Frances RtzGerald. Ptullp Green, Elinor Langer, Deborah W. Meier, Toni Morrlson, 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 N ot since the fall ofthe Berlin wall in 1989 has there been such an exciting breakthrough in internation- al politics as that achieved by the secret Norwegian A 1 negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian offi- cials. For the 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, starting almost immediately with mutual recognition between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, and Israeli withdrawal

from Gaza and the West Bank town of Jericho, begins a diplo- matic 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 representative of the Palestinian people and, even more important, against the simple recognition of the Palestinians as a nation. As Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Israeli television, If a land is peo- pled by another people, there is no sense to talk about land as though the land [is] empty. The hoary Zionist myth of a land withoutpeopleforapeoplewithout1andhasbeenoverturned.

304 The Nation. September 27. I993 But as hopeful as the moment is, it is premature to celebrate.

Indeed, even if the initial phases of the Israeli-Palestinian deal get off to a smooth start, which is not assured, there will be many obstacles along the way. Extremists on both sides op- pose 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 en- visioned. Much depends on whether violence can be curtailed on both sides, and on whether economic assistance is gener- ous enough to bring tangible improvements in the daily lives of those Palestinians who may finally be emancipated from decades of Israeli occupation.

By contrast, the 120,OOO-plus Jewish settlers, especially the hard-core Gush Emunim ideologues, have every reason to sab- otage the interim Palestinian self-rule, and they are unlikely to be assuaged by the gradual pace of change in the territories. They are heavily armed and have already demonstrated their willingness to turn to underground violence. And the tentative outlines of the Labor-Fatah deal leave plenty of mom for con- fusion, 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 flee back to Jericho? What if a band of set- tlers 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 of the Palestinians-exhausted, financially bereft, dipIomatidy ignored--lead to the acceptance of a bar- gain 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 people on the wisdom of negotiating such unresolved issues as the extent and pace of Is- raeli withdmwal, the future of Palestinian refugees, the eventual disposition of Israeli settlements, the transition from autono- my to sovereignty for the Palestinians and the partial interna- tionalization 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 how the harsh Versailles settlement imposed on Germany after World War I paved the way for N~ ultranationalism, racist perversions and militarism. The bitter ironies of such a comparison should encourage Israel and its friends, especially the United States, to satisfy Palestinian as- pirations for real independence and sovereign rights. This would provide Israel with by far the best, and least painful, security it has ever known.

Political Dragnet ew weapons in the legal arsenal are more far- reaching than the vague charge of conspiracy; and few have a more odious history, particularly when x politics are involved. So there are good reasons to

worry about the Justice Departments prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and fourteen others for conspiracy re- lated to the World Trade Center bombing. From a shadowy

beginning with Britains infamous Star Chamber prosecu- tions, conspiracy laws have been used as often to stifle dis- sent as to punish lawbreaking. In the United States, conspiracy law was in part created through early nineteenth-century pros- ecutions of workers leagues. It was a conspiracy conviction, not murder, that placed nooses around the necks of Chicagos Haymarket martyrs and led to the deportation of immigrant radicals during and after World War I. Conspiracy was the heart of the Smith Act prosecutions of the McCarthy era and was employed by Lyndon Johnsons Justice Department against Vietnam draft protesters. As scholar Herbert Packer wrote of the 1968 prosecution

of Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, William Sloane Coffin and others for conspiring to promote draft resistance, a con- spiracy 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 quar- ters all along. And conspiracy confounds the usual rules of evidence. Conspiracy is also well suited to a case relying on evidence gathered by a government informant, who may well have instigated the crimes he is now rewarded for uncovering.

From the beginning, this case had more to do with dernon- king the sheik and Islam than with hard facts. An F.B.I. agent captures the alleged conspirators while they are mixing the witches brew, preparing a war of urban terrorism- language that resonates deeply in the history of political re- pression, 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 evidence that Sheik Abdel Rahman and the others committed crimes, why level the insidious charge of conspiracy? If there is no evidence, why prosecute at all? This conspiracy trial is in some ways even more frightening than the murderously foolish raid in Waco. Like Waco, it suggests a paranoid belief that small groups of extremists can some- how bring down the Republic and must be stopped at any price, Unlike Waco, this was not a decision made in the heat of the moment. Janet Reno said she hopes her Justice Depart- ment will be remembered for its commitment to civil rights. But now shes kowtowing to the conspiracy crowd.

More Plathitudes BY JANET MALCONTENT

D espite her short life, Sylvia Plotz has been the sub- ject 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 in a 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 was unhappy; she had broken with her husband, the British poet Ed Mews; she was working on Blue Monday, a sequel to her novel, The Ball Jar, which would have made her wealthy. (In The Bull Jar Sylvia