Editorials
Contents Volume CVIII, Number 7 Correspondence Editorials A chance encounter: Thomas Powers Caesar in our future?: John Garvey 194 195 197 199 The idea of a liberal education: J. M. Cameron...
...If much of the current eco- nomic crisis is psychological--the anticipation of continuing inflation, the hesitation to commit oneself to long-term plans under conditions of uncertainty--then we should remember that some people's psyches count for many thousands of times what others' count for...
...Special two-year rate: $35...
...If we see them at all, it is not even as Third World refugees but, as William Shawcross has written, as citizens of a Fourth World, an international nether world for the unwanted...
...I often saw him there in the last seven or eight years, always in the middle of the after- noon...
...Someone told me Lowenstein never slept more than a night or two in the same house, but I didn't understand why until I'd been there a couple of days...
...T HE LAST TIME I saw Allard Low- enstein was in the changing room at the Yale Club...
...that private enterprise and public interest neatly coincide...
...That is why the administration, elected by a version of the New Deal coalition that Carter managed to assemble at the '76 conven- tion, has in fact so constantly zig-zagged on economic i~olicy --trying to respond to its electoral constituencies but ultimately forced to seek "business confidence" and steer an essentially conservative course...
...In Cleveland we stayed with a young black organizer named Charlie McLaurin...
...Later, in Natchez with two black or- ganizers early one morning, we got a phone call telling us to leave town im- mediately...
...Large contingents came from Yale, where', Lowenstein had gone to law school, and Stanford, where he had been an adminis- trator for a time...
...This was Lowen-stein's doing but we didn't know it...
...Single copy, $1...
...Our secret bombings during the Vietnam War, the murderous reign of Pol Pot, the callousness of the Vietnamese who now control most Of the country, the still-active Khmer Rouge--time and again, we are told it is a mix that cannot be sorted out, a fatal impediment to Cambo- dian sovereignty and the work of the international relief agen- cies...
...For that, what is needed in an election year is serious las are receiving...
...Lowenstein was wearing a white T-shirt...
...It was about 10 o'clock at night...
...Copyright (~) 1980 Commonweal Publishing Co...
...Then we might feel their terror, as we feel the terror of our hostages in Iran...
...One day it's Washington, the next it's Wall Street, and the next it may be the Kremlin...
...We could see rifles hanging on a rack in the cab...
...Bentsen is a busi-nessman...
...McLaurin told me he was about to give up on voting rights...
...We are not pretending to have an all-purpose solution of our own to the current serious problem...
...The first time I saw Lowenstein was in Jackson, Mississippi, in November, 1963...
...asked the man at the pump...
...Will we go on seeing the Cambodians only as mutilated people marked for destruction...
...Yet it can hardly claim leadership on the grounds of its performance...
...His body was short, chunky, heavy with muscle...
...mediate future they will control Cambodia and that any solu- NICOLAUS MILLS tion to Cambodia's food problems must take into account the (Nicolaus Mills wrote "The Working American" in the last food shortages the Vietnamese are also experiencing...
...Mississippi was having an election campaign for governor that fall...
...But there is also an element in anti- corporate suspicion that simply wants to explain all life's problems by blaming malevolent forces that are mysterious and far away...
...Most people instinctively suspect what Mark Twain once remarked about another maligned group: businessmen are about as good and bad as the general run of humanity, and worse than that cannot be said about them...
...Crime in the suites" may make a catchy slogan, and it does attempt to balance the attention given to the kinds of crime perpetrated by those on society's margins...
...Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Marie Ponsot Correspondents: Brian Wicker (Great Britain), Desmond Fisher (Dublin), Alain Woodrow (Paris) Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky, Jacqueline Reeves Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, A Review of Public Affairs, Litera- ture and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and Au- gust, by Commonweal Publishing Co., 232 Madi- son Ave., New York, N.Y...
...Are we trapped by a complex past or the Carter administration's notions of self-interest...
...Big Business Day is a good idea--but it has some problems...
...One schedules the baseball game to suit the convenience of the kids who own the balls and bats...
...and Canada, $20...
...Contents Volume CVIII, Number 7 Correspondence Editorials A chance encounter: Thomas Powers Caesar in our future?: John Garvey 194 195 197 199 The idea of a liberal education: J. M. Cameron 201 Waiting for Lefty on campus: Milton Mankoff 207 Verse: Murray Hickey Ley, Sr...
...That stream is part of an American individualism resistant to"biggies" of all sorts...
...On the other hand, Winston Churchill's formulation that "the trouble with capitalism is capitalists" seems to have the matter exactly backward: the trouble with capitalists is capitalism...
...Subjects of a TV special on ABC and a show at New York's International Center of Photography...
...We hope," say the sponsors, "to focus attention on and educate the public about themes often neglected by established politicians and the press...
...Public policy has become increasingly responsive to the needs and desires of industry...
...Someone came up with an idea for a mock election cam- paign in the black community to dramatize how many people would vote if they could vote...
...issue of Commonweal...
...It will be different from its predecessors, which were held to defend and promote the interests indicated in their rifles: natural environment, distribution of food, solar power...
...His face had been designed for caricature...
...spittle caught the light...
...Shots had been fired through living room windows in Sunflower County, churches had been burned, people had been beaten...
...I never saw him on the squash courts...
...Senator Javits makes the same point in talking about the current direction of Congress's Joint Economic Committee under Senator Lloyd M. Bentsen: "Everybody is more con- servative and more business-oriented...
...The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced snick) had been running a voter-registration program with limited success...
...One of them grabbed me by the ann, swung me around, and pointed his pistol at me...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S...
...He had a brisk, liquid way of speaking...
...The obituaries say he was 51 years old but he carried the years well...
...He has a businessman's mind, and the things that attract him are business problems...
...For it is hard to avoid the message that Cambodia is beyond our ken...
...Anne Hig- gins, D.C., LeRoy Smith, Jr., Alan Seaburg, Joyce S. Brown 212 Screen: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...Such a step would indicate not only a The problem is how to get the administration to go beyond new sensitivity on our part to Cambodian suffering, it would such symbolic acts as having Rosalyn Carter visit refugee signal our disapproval of the arms shipments Pol Pot's guerril- camps...
...Lowenstein made some phone calls, found us a place to stay, gave us directions...
...Lowenstein and Moses seemed to be running the show...
...Big Business Day, by contrast, is aimed at what its sponsors--Ralph Nader, Douglas Fraser, John Kenneth Galbraith, and other labor, consumer, and political leaders--call "corpo- rate abuse of power...
...Then it might be different...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...That is, privately moral individuals are led by the "rules of the game" to implement policies they would otherwise see as deplorable...
...There is no fear like the fear of men...
...I Of several minds: Thomas Powers A CHANCE ENCOUNTER ALLARD L©WENSTEIN, R.I.P...
...There are at least two steps that can be taken immediately...
...I remember the pitching and bucking of the car as we tore down the long straight road, slowly pulling away from the pickup until it was lost in the distance behind us...
...We might hear their voices, as we hear the voices of the Afghan rebels...
...These failures have been covered by the propagation of a mythology woven of palpable falsehoods and half truths: that government spending and regulation is the source of the prob- lem...
...11 April 1980:195 There is a natural cause for this state of affairs...
...When we left two or three rednecks in a pickup chased us for a while...
...10016...
...that sixties' programs were spendthrift and "massive failures...
...This spring, on April 17, we will have Big Business Day...
...What you wanta go there for...
...Mississippi was another country in 1963...
...r v ,,r~lm~ Ijv II ~ • I...
...foreign, $39...
...I've for- gotten who was running, but the candi- dates certainly weren't courting the black community, which was almost totally disenfranchised through phony reading tests and sheer intimidation...
...He turned out his house lights before opening his front door at night so he wouldn't make a convenient silhouette for a sniper...
...Big business is smart enough to realize that America has entered a period critical for the shape of our economy...
...213 Books America Revised: Raymond A. Schroth 214 Teaching as a Conservative Activity: George W. Shea 216 Fifteen Thousand Hours: Maurice R. Berube 218 The Body in Question: Stephen Darst 220 I Staff Editor: James O'Gara Executive Editor: Peter Steinfels Assistant Editors: Daniel Murtaugh, David Toolan Editorial Assistant: Anne Robertson Columnists: John Garvey, Frank Getlein, Abigail McCarthy, Thomas Powers Movies: Colin L. Westerbeck, Jr...
...One could back up these judgments with statistics on business's lobbying power and campaign expenditures, which greatly overwhelm those of the supposedly all-powerful public-interest lobbies as well as those of the labor movement...
...Cover stories in The New York Times Magazine and Rolling Stone...
...Obviously its sponsors are trying to tap a deep stream of anti-corporate sentiment jn the country...
...But is it...
...The windshield on the car of a friend of his had been blown out with a shotgun blast...
...What is hard to know is whether this latest attention can make a difference...
...He gave an impression of force and direct- ness...
...But this more or less inevitable preponderance of business influence has been reinforced during the last decade by what a New York Times Magazine article called "Big Business on the Offensive": "These are the days of wine and roses--of cham- pagne, even, and orchids--for business interests in Washing- ton," reported Philip Shahecoff...
...Part of a week-long series in the Washington Post...
...llllllll'~ . I._--'.~ .. II...
...But as a blanket indictment it arouses defensive passions, and as a selective accusation it misses the real point...
...What they needed was a revolution, a guerrilla war in the countryside...
...At the moment the Cambodians are news again...
...Some of our largest and most basic indnstries--energy, auto, steel--have demonstrated nothing but mediocrity, if not downright incom- petence, in facing the recent challenges...
...Despite the constant complaining about government regulation--much of which actually serves business interests--business holds the upper hand when it comes to public policy in America...
...Naturally enough, big business wants to see these changes made on its terms...
...Even crucial definitions--of "full employment" and "poverty," for instance--are being reshaped to suit corporate politics...
...IIIII ", a In --rIWIYIv, * '"" fliP" THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA I I F IRST THERE WAS Earth Day, then Food Day, then Sun Day...
...If Big Business Day provides that, even with a little fire and brimstone thrown in, it's a good thing...
...Secondly and more importantly, we can go political pressure...
...Big business controls investment decisions...
...Telephone: (212)MU 3-2042...
...Some business complaints are justified...
...as such, it is basically a healthy impulse...
...For the fact remains that the business of America is business...
...If he didn't spend so much time here," my friend said, "maybe he'd get elected...
...I'm not sure what we thought we were doing there, but we had come anyway...
...The second night, on our way up to the Delta, we were stopped by the local police...
...Ralph Nader is especially prone to this sort of thing, announcing that Big Business Day is a response to "the corporate crime epidemic that is sweeping the country...
...But for now, at least, the Cambodians remain vaguely-imagined shades...
...With him that night was a slight, soft-spoken black man named Robert Moses...
...We can, to begin with, withdraw formal Commonweal: 196 recognition from Pol Pot...
...He was wine-dark with exertion and gleaming with sweat...
...And not small business either, despite the evidence that it is far more effective than large corporations in generating jobs and developing new technologies...
...A friend and I passed him once not long after he'd been defeated for the sec- ond or third time in a congressional race...
...foreign, $22...
...Despite these reservations about its potential for demagoguery and moralism, Big Business Day is badly needed--especially if, as its sponsors hope, it really does initiate an extended "period of scrutiny of corporate power...
...The second problem with Big Business Day is that its sponsors, being American, can hardly avoid a particu- larly American brand of moralism...
...some established approaches deserve overhaul (conservative ones as well as liberal), But at a moment when the poor are getting the worst of inflation, when middle-class families have kept above water only by adding spouses to the work force, when a typical bright idea (lime, March 24) is to fight inflation by reducing the cost-of-living adjustment for elderly on Social Security, we think the public debate needs a lot more balance...
...Can we do as much for the Cambodians as beyond diplomatic gestures...
...Stagfla- tion, energy shortages, ecological limits, and far-reaching changes in international economic relationships are forcing fundamental changes...
...Hair cut short, thinning wisps rising high on his crown, horn-rimmed glasses, lips pursed around prominent front teeth...
...It was just a remark...
...Cambodia STEPS OUT OF THE TRAP WE CAN GO BEYOND GESTURES p ERHAPS IF THEY did not look . . . so Cambodian, so marked by death...
...We can stop our hostile posturing some Americans have done in opposition to SALT or others toward Vietnam and instead face the fact that for the im- are doing in opposition to registration for the draft...
...A basic theme is that our giant corporations have gross public impcc~ wittmut adequate public responsibility--that they govern us ~vhile we can't govern them...
...But he had obviously been doing something which required great effort--weight lifting, chin-ups, some-thing strenuous and monotonous...
...Inside politicking, moreover, is now being supplemented by a concerted effort to shape public opinion, using millions of dollars in advertising efforts (tax deductible, to be sure), sponsorship of research institutes, university chairs of "free enterprise," educational materials for grade and high schools, and so on...
...A decade of increas- ingly conservative economic policy has produced increasingly poor results--provoking the cry that what is needed is even more...
...we had no idea why he'd been beaten...
...I heard him called the world's oldest living student leader, I didn't know any of the history behind the remark...
...If this country is serious about a breakthrough on Cambodia, we need not wait for a Geneva-style conference to resolve the question of Cam- bodian sovereignty...
...On the outskirts of Jackson we'd filled up with gas and asked directions to Lynch Street...
...I don't know what he did at the club...
...A couple of friends and I had driven straight through from Yale...
...he stood erect, a bit squarish in shape, and looked right at you, eyes bulg- ing behind his glasses...
...He looked about the way he looked when he died, perhaps not quite so chunky...
...I w~plain 11 April 1980:197...
...It is a temptation...
...another volunteer from Yale had been shot at the day before...
...Do you know what part of town that is...
...Take the shock of looking at them as we would a sleeping pill and let our fear that we are seeing the inevitable be an excuse for helplessness...
...The economic coun- sel it advocates has hardly been better...
...Lowenstein suggested bringing in a crew of white student volun- teers to help with canvassing and attract the attention of the national press...
Vol. 107 • April 1980 • No. 7
