Name your socialism

...Now the repofl of this maneuvering offended my sense of fair play and raised questions in my mind about the good faith of the conference's organizers...

...Despite the fact that the confcrence's attendance fell far short of the anticipated 750 .and despite the fact that participants were being accepted at the door, it seems that various pressures were exerted to discour- age certain applicants...

...A premium was put on a species of manipula- distance of an outsider risks distortion, it can also provide tive rhetoric--popularly known as "mau-mauing"--and in perspective...

...The recent shift to the right in American foreign policy is ascribed only to "fears" and "myths...

...Instead they had mounted nine projects, each with its base in a separate constituency--blacks, Hispanics, women, labor, Native Americans, and so on...

...And then there is this bficf report: SAN SALVADOR, Aug...

...The junta seized the power plants, ending the strike...

...I F THERE IS any way that the outsider can fathom the mind of Theology in the Americas as it approached the Detroit meeting, it is through the "Working Document" prepared for the conference...

...from all these places they glitter and government and the ma-fair...

...About their liberation struggle the working document has nothing to say, nor any- thing about the form of "socialism" that oppresses them...

...their own socialism is of a qualitatively different sort...

...No doubt this is partly due to its being a collective effort, and one requiring compression...

...The larger answer has to do with the nature of the socialism that Theology in the Americas was posed to aff'Lrm...

...Those Theology in the Americas activists who wish to explore a "socialist alternative" should not be burdened with all the horrors done in the name of socialism--if, that is, they make 12 September 1980:485 clear their awareness of those horrors and the ways in which one of the things wrong with history...

...The circumscribed answer has to do with Theology in the America's attitude toward the U.S...

...observation of Clarence Darrow, "History repeat itself...

...It also raised some political questions: why should people who showed themselves so determined, even too determined, to urge an affm'nation of socialism want to discourage participation from one of the most successful socialist groups in the country...

...That is the circumscribed answer...

...the end both whites and minority members who were afflicted And I am persuaded that there are some matters of principle with any degree of intelligence and self-respect grew repelled that need to be candidly faced and honestly resolved about by these psychological games and took their concerns Theology in the Americas...

...The law went into effect three days after the strike by 1,500 hydro-electric plant workers who vowed not to return to their jobs until alleged government repression ended...

...If we could find the con- cends the individual...

...In the past (and for m~my of E PRIVILEGED have returned by blasted canyons of the South Bronx, us still), the very names of cities evoked ow...

...Five years ago, they claimed, a similar meeting had been "heralded...

...A coalition of representatives from the minority projects--blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans--joined with the women activists to take control of Theology in the Americas away from the conference organizers...

...In an article on why he is a socialist, the Berlin theologian Helmut Gollwitzer has written of "the nightmare image" presented to the world by "the countries that call themselves socialist...

...But if the self-destructive...

...Despite the fact that the whole document converges toward an endorsement of socialism, there is no discussion of the considerable experience the world ,has already had with what calls itself by that term...

...About the ulti- those in disagreement with the organization of the Detroit mate justification for such claims I need not argue...

...The or- ganizers of the conference being of this latter viewpoint, it followed that DSOC participation in Detroit should be covertly limited...

...One friend even warned me of their "takeover" also provoked in me a sense of dJjd vu...

...MAKING THE CITIES WHOLE AGAIN Cities, growing from the way their people came together, have personalities of their own...

...Unfortunately, the reports movement's public reputation...

...Its list of the standard evil "isms"-- racism, sexism, classism, and imperialism--omits statism (and, of course, totalitarianism)--even though, as a practical matter, anti-government fears and resentments are a major factor in that American socio-economic "context" the confer- ence was supposed to consider...

...He can, however, demand to discuss only the socialism that he represents...

...That can Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy probably never be done by plan...

...Unfortunately, this thirty-page tour d'horizon of the political and economic "context" and of theological premises verges on the unreadable...

...An opposing view has it that most labor leadership has been assimilated into the status quo, and that the only hope for change lies with explicitly radical dissidents within unions who must fight their own allegedly unrepresentative union leadership as vigorously as they fight management...

...Perhaps it is both...

...Leave personal politics, whether private or public, out of it...

...To begin with, and victim status and charges of racism (now sexism is added) to this should be stressed, every person I spoke with, including gain greater leverage in various organizations...

...Moreover, as one well-informed participant said, ~'The or- ganizers tried to shape the conference day by day so that it would lead to a rousing affirmation of socialism...

...Louis, Louie, meet me at the side towns...

...The outcome desired was the outcome achieved: Commonweal: 484 Theology in the Americas will target its concern on small groups of labor insurgents...

...In fact, the partici- pants in that 1975 meeting had found it impossible to coalesce around a single theology of liberation...

...There is a circumscribed answer and a large answer to that question...

...DSOC believes that there is a logic that leads from liberal reform to socialist demands, and accordingly it works willingly with a portion of the established labor leadership on common "liberal" concerns...

...Those hopes, however, went unfulfilled...

...But given the questions raised on this score, it can reasonably be demanded that Theology in the Americas, if it is going to "explore" socialism, demonstrate a basic clarity about what kind of socialism it has in mind...

...Consider this passage, from the section on the Hispanic community: Rejection of a future in the United States by Puerto Rico and increased solidarity of Hispanics with Latin America would necessitate a new economic order in the Americas...

...Obvious truths sit side-by-side with the most unqualified or far-fetched claims...

...Frankly I find this hard to believe...

...The style sounds a drum beat of assertions, with numerous problems, qualifica- tions, and doubts ignored or evaded...

...toward each other, toward a complica"Still the center...

...How sigant was this event--the second Theology in the Americas conference...

...I hope so, but I also recall the most important--a moral dead-end...

...There is III something organic about the rise and fall of cities...

...But whatever the cause, it must be said that large sections are intellectually pathetic...

...East the country and on the shore, back from the old wander like ghosts and the young Side, West Side, all around the town...

...Even Kansas City has its song...

...26 (UPI) --Jailed leaders of an electrical workers' strike that blacked out El Salvador last Thursday will be tried in military courts and face possible four-year prison sentences, the authorities.say...

...the cool mountains and beaches...

...In ment, of variety and texture, of bright radio voice cheerfully assures them, is some queer way both the rich in their lights and heightened experience...

...The young streams of traffic filter through the nection between them we might find the Quechua boy in an isolated village in the Commonweal: 486...

...If their run in predatory packs...

...The section on foreign policy skirts all questions of aggressive and dangerous actions by socialist nations...

...Which brings me to my second point...

...Now this is either (a) a bad translation from the Spanish, or (b) fanciful rionsense...

...DSOC, of course, is known for its belief that the American labor movement is a key component in any strategy for radical social change--the labor movement, that is, as it presently exists, in its distinctly non-socialist form...

...That's PETER STEINFELS way to make cities whole again...

...Ever since Lenin denounced the existing working-class'organizations for their support of World War .I, the view that the "true" interests of working people have been betrayed by their leaders, and that hope for the future can be located only in small, dissident groups, has largely been the outlook of a special strand of socialism...

...The answer to the when me and Mamie O'Rourke danced city is New York they came from Maine, South Bronx has been to run away or to the light fantastic on the sidewalks of from Vermont and New Hampshire, destroy like the arsonists whose fires may New York...

...The road it has been traveling, at elsewhere...

...as a practi- conference, thought that Theology in the Americas was, is, cal matter, the consequences almost always seemed to be and promises to reraain a valuable undertaking...

...In my opinion, it creates a barrier between Theology in the Americas and the major organized expression of American working people, but then I view from the matter from a DSOC standpoint...

...San Fran- Shore, from Cape Cod and the Islands, as to greed...

...tered in dark doorways love the city...

...The National Catholic Reporter cartied a story on the meeting on its front page...

...And the poor and cities were the center of life and move- there--td be near that city which, so the homeless make its streets their own...

...So were some seventy representatives of radical social movements in other nations...

...A gauntlet of lectures and panels left participants little time to react and express their continuing interest in the separate projects...

...It can help one get hold of matters of principle...

...By certain external measures, it was certainly i~t...

...This step is not as small a matter of tactics as it may seem...

...minority spokespersons combined the moral authority of their Yet I can understand their reluctance...

...Such a change would require a regionaliza- tion of production and energy consumption...

...Chicago, Chicago-- from the Berkshires, from the North be as much a response to ataVistic instinct that wonderful town...

...yet many of the insiders are reluctant to undermine their enced it...

...The eighties are not the sixties, and maybe some least to Detroit, strikes me as an intellectual, political, and-- lessons have been learned...

...Meet from Newport and the Connecticut sea- But at the heart of the city there is still me in St...

...And that, apparently, was pretty much it...

...Shortly after the conference ended, a friend mentioned to me the obstacles she had encountered in applying to attend the Detroit gathering...

...No two situations arc exactly parallel, but perhaps therc arc connections we should be making...

...The 1980 conference was meant to bring together the work of these projects and, if possible, unite them in a common direction for the period to come...

...Every evil besetting humankind is laid at the feet of capitalism...

...as a landmark event in the development of a North American theology of liberation...

...Any person who declares himself to be a Christian, considering the number of Christian groups and confessions, must immediately specify in what way he considers himself a Christian, and he may thus insist on discussing only that way, and not to be held respohsi- ble for the sins of other Christian groups...

...still the commercial center of the aerie-like offices and the homeless shel- The pull of cities is the pull of people world" but to be free of its problems...

...In the end, 'what the document says is not as important as what it doesn't say...

...Washington, our most-planned city, is only now, after two centuries, CiTY LIGHTS beginning to think of itself as an entity...

...A military spokesman said the 17 leaders would be tried under a new law bringing 100,000 public service employees under the control of the Defense Ministry...

...Once the Wall Street Journal remembers its priorities, it will be urging the Polish government to deal severely with the outrageous and inflationary demands 9f the toilers and recommending that Milton Friedman be taken on as special assistant to Edward Gierek...

...But for the mo- ment, is there anything more to say about Theology in the Americas...

...There can, in fact, be many other reasons for supporting labor dissidents--an old-fashioned liberal concern for union democracy, for example...

...Among the listed objectives for the Detroit conference was: "To keep the international dimension as a priority in theology and to strengthen links with movements in which Christians participate in liberation struggles...

...The They are manufactured songs, of course, through Westchester County...

...There is mention of the "liberation of Vietnam," but not of what transpired later, nor of the genocide in "socialist" Cambodia...

...And certainly the conference's organizers saw the event as important...

...cisco, open your golden gate...

...Of course, the meeting brought together a lot of old friends, and created some new friends, and there was surely much encouraging talk and even a bit of spiritually refreshing.socializing squeezed be- tween all those lectures, which lectures, too, will no doubt find their way into another Orbis Press volume...

...Therefore, the socialist finds himself today in a situation similar to that of the Christian...

...This strand believes that genuine social change requires the forma- tion and deployment of a revolutionary avant-garde, a theory that has led to the personal and party dictatorships of the Communist nations...

...I write all" this as an outsider to Theology in the Americas, In view of all this, I should be pleased that the coalition of although only after extended conversations with a number of minorities and women resisted the rush to affirm some vague knowledgeable participants (I did not reach the official or- "socialism," and that they insisted that the directing vision in ganizers, all of whom, I was told, were on vacation...

...Unfortunately, as I inquired into the background of the Detroit meeting, I was given to believe that the historical pattern was at work: key elements in Theology in the Americas were at least "close to" the Communist party and other Leninist left-wing sects...

...As I write, Polish work- ers, under emblems of their Christianity, are struggling for a minimum of freedom and dignity...

...The connection between this attitude toward the labor movement and this strand of socialism is historical, not logi- cal...

...Alexander Cockburn, in the Village Voice, was even sharper: "This solidarity with insurgent labor seems to wane once the strikes are taking place this side of the Iron Curtain...

...And in a way I am pleased...

...Their affluent do their business and find the but they have been sung enthusiastically radios rang with the Westchester invita- source of live entertainment and the in- by so many because to so many these tion to stay there, to bring their business spiration of the arts...

...I find it hard to believe that in 1980 thoughtful and humane individuals would identify with the kind of socialism that sponsors a Gulag any more than they would identify with the kind of Christianity that sponsors an Inquisition...

...They must think of They have lost community but they still tion of the experience of life that trans- that, and wonder how long, as their have the place...

...Moreover, this kind of shift would likely favor the autonomy of homogeneous political units in which the environment would be preserved and citizens could establish collec- tive goals instead of being victims of consumerism...

...Major theologians were participants...

...Heaven forfend...

...Today, whoever says that he is a socialist must im- mediately specify in what sense this term is to be under- stood...

...It that publishing criticism of Theology in the Americas would reminded me of events I witnessed in the late sixties, when give comfort to Michael Novak...

...They are back at work in the where tattered curtains flap through the snatches of song and verse: "Paris in the ty--back from summer places in broken windows in the high-rises, where springtime, Paris in the fall...

...And I know full well the destructiveness and fruitlessness of charges about individuals' "true" political beliefs, and consequent arg~iments about "red-baiting," etc...

...labor movement...

...What these applicants had in common was a connection with the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), the political group whose most visible member and National Chairman is Michael Harrington...

...The Soviet Union is mentioned only as a negotiating partner in SALT II, and Afghanistan only as providing an alibi for American Cold Warriors...

...I Theology in the Americas NAME YOUR SOCIALISM TIME FOR A BASIC CLARITY OR SIX DAYS at the beginning of August, five hundred Christian social activists gathered in Detroit...

...The result, naturally, was a revolt...

...returned, converging on the parkways chinery of money called trade...

...I am afraid there is...

...Because of this and other ambiguities, "it has become almost impossible to use the word socialism...

...There is a Theology in the Americas did not reflect the complexity or the considerable danger of misemphasis in such an outsider's concreteness of social injustice as their constituencies experi- view...

...The only references to "socialist countries" are favorable...