EDITORIAL

THE MAN AND THE MOVEMENT

TURNING THE
TEAMSTERS

BUCHANANWED RATHER
BE RIGHT

Ron Careyssensational victory over a hulking establishment in the Teamsters union is predictably
being hailedas a David and Goliath story. Power
approves such stories, which, by their rarity, affirm as natural a state of affairs mostly impervious to upstart challenges. But Carey is not a lone
conqueror. His achievement capped fifteen years
of agitation by thousands of rank-and-file unionists who risked their comfort andsometimes their
lives for the right to control their union.
Change would not have come so swiftly without
government intervention,but neither wouldCarey
now bepresident without Teamsters for a Democratic Union, the insurgent caucus
that insisted the
government authorizedirect election of the unions
leaders instead of a plan for federal trusteeship.
As a movement the T.D.U. has labored to define thecontent of union democracy-informing
workers about shrouded contract negotiations, exposing corruption, securing worker rights, cresting a vehicle for ideas and ultimately forming the
organizational spine of Careys campaign.
The success of this insurgency offers workers
everywhere a chance, as one unionist put it, to feel
heroic. It also emboldens other insurgencies. In
June the New Directions Movement of
the U.A.W.
will put forward its own
candidate for International president, Jerry lhcker, and will push to establish one memberlone vote. After the Teamsters
sea change, can the defenders of one-party rule in
the A.F.L.-C.I.O., many with reputations already
tattered for trading a class-based agendafor a corporatist one, retain any credibility if they deny
workers the right to choose their leaders?
Democratic first steps and rank-and-file movements are notyet enough to turnthings around for
labor. But tomorrow there will be time to argue
out the structural impediments to change, even the
degree to which Carey and the T.D.U. represent the
masses of Teamsters. Today we should rejoice.

ANDREW KOPKIND
Concord, New Hampshire
Pat Buchanan struck at noon. Right on the button
for the cable news showsand precisely at the moment when workers in the Capitol offices here
took to the streets for lunch, the feisty fascist of
Sunday morning TV chat strode up to the microphones to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.Of course thecrowd
was mostly media, plus staff and a ringer or two
from other political camps. A Yale student working for Paul Tsongas had forgotten to take off his
candidates button, but he wassafe in thethrong.
An ACT UP demonstrator crying Fight Back,
Fight AIDS dramatically interrupted the scripted event and was carried, literally screaming and
kicking, out the backdoor of the state office building where Buchanan was speaking. The national
press corps, much too accustomed to New Hampshire in December,to unruly demonstrations everywhere and especially to Pat Buchanan, laughed
derisively. It may bethe last laugh of the season.
Buchanans entrance into a particularly flat and
tedious campaign has provided a certainvolume
and texture. He presents a serious though probably not life-threatening challenge to President
Bush, but more than that, he injects what the
commentators like to characterize as an unabashedly ideological elementinto theproceedings. (Thatsthe word du jour. Tom Brokaw called
Tom Harkin an unabashed liberal; Tsongas,
we know, is unabashedly pro-business. Is Jerry
Brown now unabashedly unbashful, Douglas Wllder unabashedly black, Bob Kerrey
unabashedly wounded in war
(Continued on Page 21)
377535

January 6/13, 1992

sinceNation The

1865.

CONTENTS.

Volume 254, Number 1

LETTERS
EDITORIALS
Timingthe Teamsters
3 TheLate U.S.S.R.
4 Buckleys Search
5 the
Clearing
Air
1

5
6
8
9

Gorbachevs Reward
Beat the Devil
Beltway Bandits
Watching Rights

Philip Green

Dale Maharldge
Steve Tesich
Clay Hathorn

Jennifer Vogel

BOOKS & THE ARTS

Calvin 7Tillin
Alexander Cockburn
David Corn
A ryeh Neier

ARTICLES
1

Grapes of Wrath Revisited:

And the Rural Poor Get Poorer
12 The Watergate Syndrome:
A Government of Lies
14 Fish or Hydropower?Both:
Save Our Salmon, Save Our Soul
18 Nation/I.E Stone Award:
The Pro-Police Review Board
10

COLUMNS

The Man and the Movement:

Buchanan-Wed Rather Be Right

Andrew Kopkind

Hamilton: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.:

The Political Biography of an
American Dilemma
Meyer: Vito Marcantonio: Radical
Politician, 1902-1954
Peter Dadey
28 Spiegelman: Maus 11: A Survivors
Tale. And Here My Troubles Began
LaurieStone
29 Art
Arthur C.Danto
24

Illustrations by D.B. Johnson

Editor, V~ctorNavasky

Publisher, Arthur L Carter

Executrve Editor, Rlchard Lingeman; Assocrate Editors, Andrew Kopklnd,

Katha Polhtt, Assrsfunt Edrtor, Mlcah L. Bfry; LifemryEdrtor, Elsa Dlxler;
Assocrate Lrterary Edrtor, Art Wmnslow; Poetry Edrtor, Grace Schulman;
Managing Edrtor. JoAnn WyprJewskl; Copy Chref, Roane Carey; Copy
Editor, Judlth Long; Assistant Copy Editor, Anne-Mane Otey, Assistant
to the Edrtor, Dennrs Selby; Interns, Janakl Bahadur, Elrzabeth Ely, Guy
Evans, Llza Featherstone, Robert Green, Scott Sherman, Jennlfer D Stem.
Jeffrey Young (Washington)

Presrdent. Ned Black, Advertising Director, Ellen Jarvls; ClasslfredAdvertrsrng Director, Gary Pomerantz; BusmessManager, Ann B. Epsteln; Bookkeepers, Ivor A. Rlchardson. Shlrleathia Watson, Art/Productron Manager,
Jane Sharples, Production, Carlos Durazo, Sandy McCroskey; Circulation
Manager, Cookee V.Kleln; Receprronists,Greta Loell, VwetteDhanukdhan;
Data Entry/MailCoordinator,John Holtz; Admrnrslrulrve Secretary, Shrley
Sulat; Natlon Assocrates Coordlnotors, Peter Rothberg. Peter Slskind;
Permrssrons/Syndrcatron, Josh Neufeld, Publicity, Andrew L Shaplro.
Advertlsrng Consulfant, Chrls Calhoun.

Departments: Architecture, Jane HoltzKay; Art, Arthur C. Danto; Dance,

Mmdy Aloft Fiction. John Leonard; Fdrns, Stuart Klawans, Lingo, Jlm
Qumn; Music, David Hamllton. Edward W. Sald, Gene Santoro; Theater.
Thomas M. Drsch, M o m Hodgson; Bureaus. Washmgton, David Corn;
Europe, Danlel Slnger, Unrted Kingdom, E P Thompson, Porrs, Claude
Bourdet; Corporations, Robert Shernll; Defense, M~chaelT Klare; Columnrsts and Regular Contributors: Alexander Cockburn (Beat the Devrl).
Stephen F. Cohen (Sovieticus). Christopher Hltchens (Mrnorrty Report),
Aryeh Neler ( Watchmg Rights), Elizabeth Pochoda (Readrng Around),
Edward Sorel, CalvlnTrllhn; ContrlbutmgEdrtors: K a l Blrd, George Black,
Thomas Ferguson, Doug Henwood, Max Holland, Molly Ivlns. Jefferson
Morley, Katha Polhtt, Joel Rogers, Klrkpatrlck Sale, Herman Schwartz, Ted
Solotaroff, Mlchael Thomas, Gore Vldal, Jon Wlener; Edrrorral Board
Norman Blrnbaum, Rlchard Falk. Frances FltzGerald. Phlllp Green, Ellnor
Langer. Deborah W Meler, Toni Mornson, Mlchael Pertschuk, Elizabeth
Pochoda, Ned Postman, Marcus G . Raskln. Davld Welr. Roger Wdklns.
Editors at Large. Rlchard Pollak, Katrlna vanden Heuvel
Manrcscrrpts: Address to The ator!Not responslble for the return of unsolicited rnanuscrlpts unless accompanled by addressed, stamped envelopes.

The Natron (ISSN 0027-8378) is publrshed weekly (exceptfor the first week
In January, and blweekly In July and August) by The NatlonCompany, lnc
0 1991 In the U.S.A. by The Nation Company, Inc., 72 Fifth Avenue, New
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on December 19, 1991

EDITORIALS.

The Late U.S.S.R.

n the halcyon hours of glasnost and perestroika, a leading Sovietologist, generally high on Mikhail Gorbachev,
had a dark moment of doubt. What if it all didnt
work-the economic reforms, the populardemocracy,
the socialist renewal? Lets hope it does, the expert told us.
Otherwise Gorbachev will be on a plane to the Hoover Institute and the Soviet Union will really be in trouble.
Gorbachev, at this writing,is stiIl in Moscow, but his term

has been cut short andhe will be a stateless president by the

new year.And theSoviet Union is in the deepest trouble of all,
on the verge of extinction. Many Americans, especially those
on the nght,greet that news as tidings of great joy, a victory
for America, international capitalism and self-determination.
But history, and of course the erstwhile Soviet citizens, may
come to see it quite differently. However cruelly it came together and developed, the union of peoples from Minsk to
Vladivostok had the potentialto improve the lives and realize
the dreams of milhons, as a confederacy of soverelgn and
unequal states cannot. Certainly theSoviet Union had im-

The Nation.

perialist and colonialist aspects, just as other continental

unions of disparate sectors do. The United States,Brazil and
China, tocite three examples, are paradigms of colonial development within their own borders. But democratic distnbution
of resources, participatory government and the institutional
regulation of privilege are at least possible in a single state of
many provinces, whlle they are virtually unthinkable in the
motherland-overseas model perfected by the Spanish,the Portuguese, the English, the French and the Dutch.
Gorbachev wanted to make the Soviet Union work,and the
fact thathe failed in no way demeans his vision. Of his skill,
not asmuch may be said. The wreckage we now behold was
not historically determined-any more than Communism
was. Gorbachev had options, he made
choices. Some of them
were correctly criticized as he went along, others will bear
scrutiny in the years to come. But he must takethe blamefor
making muchmisery along with credit for beginning the necessary process of change.
The old Soviet system is surely dead, but its replacement
has not really been born. Boris Yeltsins Commonwealth has
the look and
feel ofimpermanence. Dominated by Russia in
politics and by Slavs inculture, it cannot for very long express
the identity and aspirations
of the other nations thatfelt
oppressed by the Soviet Union.
Nor is there even the slightest whiff of democracy about the
new setup, as Secretary of State JamesBaker and the old antiSoviet activistsin this country wishfully think. Gorbachevs reformed Soviet Union was far more democratic in last
its years
than the Commonwealth is now, or may ever be. In Russia,
Yeltsin rules by decreein growing similarity to Czarist andStalinist methods. In the provinces, renamed but unreconstructed
Communist Party functionarieshold sway without even the
countervailing forces of the reformed union. Baker and Lawrence Eagleburger, his deputy in charge of the modest U.S. aid
program, promise theyll search for democrats in Russia and
the other republics, but they certainly wont find any in power.
Politics in the new RussiaPlus is about power struggles,
about privileges and aboutproperty-not about democracy.
The questions most often
raised by the new ruling elltes concern what kindof authoritarian models and mixes of public
and private capital will produce the greatest profits. China,
which under Dengist repression is booming, is one possibility.
South Korea, Chile, Taiwan and Singapore are viewed fondly.
Nowhere can one hear much concern for the lives and the
dreams of those who suffered under Stalinism
and after but
lack the new entrepreneurial spirit. If Darwinism has replaced
Communism, it cannot enhance the commonwealth.

Buckleys Search

ost of the December 30 issue of National Revrew

is allocated to a 40,OOO-word essay byWilliam E
Buckley titled In Search of Anti-Semitism.
Theres much that couldbe said on thelengthy
lucubrations of the former doyen of the now-aging New Right
(see Andrew Kopkinds cover article), but for now let us observe only that in his search Buckley seemsto have found what

January 6/13, 1992

he was looking for, namely (a) that charges of anti-Semitism

against Natronal Revrew are false, (b) anti-Semitism on the
right is no more, but (c) it is a growth industry on the left.
Buckleys focus, in the words of National Review editor
John OSullivan, is on anti-Semitism in the limited but influential milieu of opinion magazines, op-ed pages, syndicated columns,television talk shows. He confines himself
to four case studies, three of them onthe right-Pat Buchanan, Joseph Sobranand The Dartmouth Review-and one on
the left, The Natron. Hey, thats us!
His first three findings, lengthily discussed, may be summarized briefly: Buchanan is found sort ofguilty of making
anti-Semitic statements but kind of excused on the ground
that these arose not out of anti-Semitic impulses but from
an iconoclastic temperament; former N R senior editor
Sobran is convicted of reckless rhetoric but also excused of
being an anti-Semite at heart;The Dartmouth Review is declared innocent of putting a quote fromAdolf Hitler on its
masthead because it was the victim of a hoax.
As for TheNatlon-can you stand the suspense?-guilty of
publishing an anti-Semitic article by Gore Vidal (The Empire
Lovers Strike Back, March 22, 1986). Reasonable people
might disagree with Buckleysfirst three verdicts, but we shall
note onlythat his treatment ofhis colleagues is far moreonthe-one-hand, on-the-other-more-sympathetic-hand
than is
his handling of Vldal. Ignoring the irony factor (which he
grants Sobran),he flatly statesthat Vidal was genuinely and
intentionally and derisively anti-Semtic by whatever definition
of the term. Of course, he spoke from the Left,
which, because itenjoys a certain immunity,watches its language less
closely than the Right. Then Buckley proceeds to quote a
number of letters criticizing Vidal that were published in The
Nation, plus examples of Commentary editor Norman Podhoretzs publicitycampaign agamst this magazine.Immunity?
That aside, Buckley does notdisclose his longstanding animus toward Vidal, who had attacked him as a closet antiSemite inEsqum and who, whenthe two appeared as ABC-TV
commentators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention,
called him a pro crypto Nazi, to which Buckley riposted:
Now listen, you queer. Stop calling mea pro crypto Nazi or
Ill sock you in the goddamn face. . . .
Buckley concludes that the survival of the editorof The
Nution after the Gore Vidal episode either
proves that you
can get away withjust aboutanything thesedays or is due to
the fact that its editor is himself Jewish. Perhaps Buckley
is on to somethmg. Notonly did we publish Vidals attack
on the Podhoretzes (in response
to their attack onVidal), we
also published Robert Sherrills essay on Buckley himself.
Sherrill pointed out thatW.F.B. joined his anti-Semitic father
in opposing the marriageof his sister to a Jewish classmate
of Buckleys.Sherrill also wrote: If it is true that the
evil men
do lives after them, William Frank Buckley can be assured
a certain kind of immortality. Or perhaps it is going too far
to say that he did evil. . . . Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he lived off evil, as mold lives off garbage.
For concrete evidence proving his case ofthe Lefts growing anti-Semitism, Buckley drags in anti-Semitic black na-

January 6/13, 1992

The Nation.

tionalists and Palestinian terrorists-thus abandoning his

original ground rules. Had he stuck to The Nation, he would
have had to mention articles like Adolph Reed Jr.s demolition of Louis Farrakhan or various critiques of Leonard Jeffries. He would have had to deal with Elinor Langers special issue on neo-Nazis and skinheads, which, incidentally,
traces the affinities between such groups and the prevailing
conservative Zeitgeist.
As we noted at the outset,much more could be said about
Buckleys article, but by violating his own ground rules and
by applying a selective moralityto theLeft, he misses a salient point about contemporary anti-Semitism: It is part and
parcel of and is nourished in thatterrain where Republicanism overlapsthe isms and people who engage in gay-bashing,
race-baiting (quotas, Willie Horton), Christianchauvinism,
woman-demeaning (Alan Simpson et al. on Anita Hill) and
all the rest. Get real, Bill.

Clearing the Air

n November IO, 1975, in what The Nation a few

days later called an odious expression of racism,
the U.N. General Assembly votedto link Zionism
with South African apartheid and condemn it as
a form of racism. Now, after sixteen years,the United Nations
has finally purged itself ofthis poison; perhaps it can begin
to function in the Middle East (and elsewhere) as it should
have all these years.
It is important to understand just how the Zionism is racism resohtion was an endorsement of anti-Semitism. Some
critics, and victims, of Israel have been confused, because
Israel, once it had gained a territorial nation in which many
Jews had dwelled sincetime immemorial, behaved no better
(and sometimes worse) than any other nationalist state or
movement. Many Zionists, like socialists and liberal dernocrats and monarchists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have been white racists. The Arab minority of Israel
is deprivedof civil rights; members
of that minority have been
expelled from the land of their birth; Israel engages in acts
of violence that go beyond a legitimate response to the violence committed against it. All that is true beyond anydoubt.
But the Catholics of Northern Ireland (and the Protestants),
the Anglophones of Quebec, the Serbs of Croatia and the
Croats of Serbia, the a r k s of Bulgaria and the Hungarians of
Romania, the Armenians of Azerbaijan,
the Tamils ofSri Lanka, not to mention the Native Americansof North Americaall would be fascinatedto learn that there could conceivably be
any nationalism free of those aggressions and repressions for
which Israel is properly but uniquely
condemned. Fascinated,
and quite properly skeptical.
To have singledout Israeli nationalism forcondemnation has beena hypocritical anachronism.
But much worse wasthe conflation of nation with race: a
conflation to which, again, only Jews were subjected. For if
those Jews who have thought and acted as though they are
a nation were not to be allowed to call themselves a nation
and to behave likea nation butwere instead to be considered
a race, of which Zionism is the philosophy, thenthe U.N. was

repeating the doctrine thatlies at the root of the most hideous crime of this century. Indeed, a moments reflection
would have shown that those ardent Zionists, the J e w s of
North Africa and Ethiopia, could hardly be said to belong
to some white race that is oppressing the nonwhite peoples
of the Middle East, since in almost every respectbut language
and religion theyshare more with other Africans and Arabs
than they do with the Jews of Eastern and Central Europe.
What could be the natureof their allegedly racial otherness
but their Jewishness? To lump all those Zionists together,
as a race opposed to another race, as analien race among all
the others, was to return to 1933.
The U.N.s moral deformation has had a devastating impact on its functioning and on Middle East politics in general.
As long as the U.N. resolution lurked in the background, defining the Jews of Israel as the members of a race-and an
outlaw raceat that-supporters and defenders of Israel could
quite plausibly say that any opposition to Israel was nothing
but anti-Semitism. Now the U.N., although stilla deeply flawed
organization, is morally freeto insist on conformity to a long
line of its official resolutions: the restoration of civil rights
in Israel, the return of occupied territories and the rollback
of the settlements, the trade of land for peace. Perhaps with
the energy of new leadership it can even play an instructive
role inthe peace process, from which
it should never havebeen
excluded. Of course, it cannot do all this successfully without, in the end, taking a consistent stand on the other nationalistic aggressions of the late twentieth century, such as that
of Syria in Lebanon, or Iraq against the Kurds. Whether collective security and multilateral diplomacy are possible in an
age of American nuclear hegemony remains an open question. But at least the air isnowclear.
PHILIP
GREEN

GORBACHEVS
REWARD
He started down that slope so slippery.
Though talking toughb to the Gipper, he
Uncorked the bottle with the genie
Who showed the mighty bear was teenie.

And now his unions disuniting.

Does Gorbachev need some requiting
From those he previously was fighting?
Should Queen Elizabeth do some knighting?

Or Bush could now. at cold wars end,

Decide to send thrs newfound friend
A grft for tumbling &stern blocs:
Four pairs of white athletic socks.
Calvrn nillin