Neoliberalism: Poland, Si, El Salvador, No

...With even deeper regret El Salvador would be surrendered to Cuba in the nameof idealism...

...In the latter case, the Polish eagle would indeed be thrown to the Russian bear, but by the same token, Soviet influence would be eliminated in places like El Salvador...

...Never mind that the Democratic Revolutionary Front members chose not to participate, or that the antielectoral behavior of their backers does not encourage one to believe in their democratic commitment...

...and that sovereignty and right to choose appropriate paths would be underwritten rather than undermined by the United States...

...An indisputably amazing 1.5 million Salvadorans went to the polls in the face of great obstacles to choose a Constituent Assembly...

...It flowed from their principles...

...The accuracy of the results, however quixotic, has not been challenged...

...Instead, they seek to delegitimize what took place by declaring that "most of the 60 countries the Salvadorans invited to send observers to the elections refused to do so...

...On the Right, Roberto d'Aubuisson's Nationalist Republican Alliance (arena) won 29 per cent of the vote and 19 seats, the National Conciliation Party 19 per cent and 14 seats, the Democratic Action Party 7 per cent and two seats, the Popular Salvadoran Party 3 per cent and one seat, with the remainder going to the Popular Orientation Party and not being enough for a seat...

...They should know better...

...In Cuba, except for the rubber-stamping of " institutionalization," the electoral process has been denied...

...There can be no doubt that the United States wanted these elections, and staked its policies on a Centrist outcome...

...With deep regret Poland has been returned to the Soviet Union in the name of realism...

...They make not a single criticism of the guerrilla "death squads" sent forth to sabotage the elections by destroying public transportation and killing and maiming innocents who dared to exercise the right to secure peace at the polls...

...Then the call for bilateralism was little more than an effort to forestall autonomous political behavior on the part of El Salvador, making it in effect hostage to external pressures...

...orbit...

...The reason for this is not too hard to locate: Liberalism has for the most part given way to a politics of appeasement...

...To counter these "incompetent attempts by the Reagan Administration to influence public opinion," Lowenthal urges us to "let the Latins have their turmoil in peace...

...and (d) U.S...

...Applied to the Caribbean, the same sort of realpolitik is declared contrary to human rights...

...But the larger issue is the basis of legitimacy: the ballot or the bullet, representative government or revolutionary armed struggle...

...The crisis of liberalism is disbelief in the democratic process...

...What now exists is a strange myopia...

...Now it must be argued for...

...The complete failure to anticipate this has cost the guerrilla leadership dearly, both in political strength and in its postelectoral isolation...

...economic interests may be scant measured in Wall Street terms, recent experience demonstrates that another torrent of immigrants a la those that have followed the installation of totalitarian regimes elsewhere in the world would be extremely difficult for this country to absorb...

...I have summarized Lowenthal at length, lest he offer his invariable response to critics and claim to be misunderstood...

...they are the shank of metaphysical Marxism, from Cuba in the 1960s to Nicaragua in the 1980s...

...the Salvadoran government sought in near-desperation to include the rebel forces...

...The rejection of even such modest goals by neoliberals casts a shadow over Democratic Party prospects in the next Presidential elections, offsetting the enormous advantages afforded by the Republican Party's domestic economic performance...

...Nonetheless, the postelectoral situation has begun to clarify the relationship among political forces in El Salvador...

...El Salvador provides an opportunity for the first major implementation of the Betancourt Doctrine, and the partial displacement of the Monroe Doctrine...

...In his more Panglossian moments, Lowenthal envisions a Central America of "independent, nationalist, Left-leaning, even Marxist-Leninist regimes," with the U.S...

...The same set of proposals now have the possibility of moving Nicaragua at least partly out of the Soviet-Cuban orbit...

...They gave Jose Napoleon Duarte's Christian Democratic Party 40 per cent of the valid vote and 24 seats...

...Ideologists prefer not to confront that possibility...

...Lowenthal provides the usual bromides: (a) Insurgencies are indigenous and not inspired or controlled by the Soviets or Cubans...

...Each country of the Central American bloc would have absolute sovereignty and a freedom of choice...

...Nicaragua could thus prove to be a vital core of independence, and could help prevent El Salvador from falling into dependence on Cuba...

...In Central America the problems may be indigenous, but the solutions that have been proffered are not...

...and (d) although U.S...

...The politics of even handedness must mean either complete dedication to liberal values and resisting their defamation everywhere, or the admission that these values now convey little more than selective antipathy for American interests...

...Next, we are told the Administration's desire to maintain friendly nations in the region is "unrealistic...

...The intimidation of blacks in the South came from established legal authorities...

...Further, our economic aid happens to be of critical importance to the Caribbean nations...

...And the "dependency model" of analysis has penetrated the consciousness of American liberalism...

...The crisis of liberalism is not the excessesof the "welfare state" or a system where there is scant relationship between program costs and benefits...

...Since in El Salvador such a consensus was blocked by a brutal oligarchy (presumably in contrast to a benign guerrilla faction), they say, it would be a mistake to put any stock in the balloting there...

...In practical terms, neoliberalism is confronted with a choice of strategies: It can develop a vigorous assault on all incursions of human rights, wherever they occur, or it can extend classical liberalism of the sort advanced by Hans Morgenthau based on a sphere of realizable interests...

...Oddly enough, it could in addition provide a beam of light through which Cuban factions might pass in their own maneuvers to establish some distance, small as it may be, from the Soviet Union...

...Ambassador to El Salvador, Robert White, a quintessential neoliberal best known for calling Right-winger Roberto d'Aubuisson "a pathological killer," has said the elections were "the same as what took place in the South 20 years ago...

...all political resistance is abandoned...

...Indeed, had Zamora exhibited sufficient courage to go to the people, Duarte would no doubt have been able to develop a Center-Left coalition...

...The mighty are falling everywhere...

...the country is part of the Soviet sphere of influence and should remain such...

...Nation after nation within the Hemisphere has fallen prey to such evaluations...

...It is to say that a small segment of the population, a foco carrying weight among perhaps 8 per cent of the citizenry, should be permitted to share power until its takeover becomes complete...

...But there is a second reason the authors deny legitimacy to the outcome: The fact that those guerrillas "who might actually favor genuine democracy are excluded from the political process, permits people to come to power who have no commitment to democracy whatever...

...All philosophical bases are covered...

...IT HAS BEEN argued that any attempt by Ruben Zamora and the Democratic Revolutionary Front to take part in the elections would have been met by Rightist assassination squads, therefore the invitation to the Left was largely a charade...

...The politics of the even hand has yielded to one of broken promises...

...economic interests are scant and nonvital...

...initiatives to open the Caribbean to democratic possibilities and pluralistic prospects...

...This is a much higher level of understanding, based on the right to sovereignty of every Central American nation...

...Solipsism translates into political isolationism...

...The parallel eludes...

...b) each Central American country being different is not at issue...

...The best we can hope for is "conflict avoidance" with the Soviet Union...

...It got only the former, and one could endlessly speculate on the implications of this...

...To assert that support for the elections in El Salvador somehow is "undermining democratic values here in the United States," besides being unconvincing, is simply to pander to extending a totalitarianism of the gun in Central America...

...What is not reasonable is the adoption of an antielectoral approach by American liberals...

...Neoliberals have disallowed a single defection from the Soviet orbit, while despairing of holding together the Organization of American States in the U.S...

...The former U.S...

...a /oco-guerrilla and not a mass-electoral approach...

...The military of a pseudo-populist type regime is likely to install an autocracy...

...Blachman and Sharpe deny the importance of a popular mandate in El Salvador because there is military might on the Right...

...If the meetings do occur, the negotiators must insist that the anti-Somozista revolution is not merely authentic, but that it is also autonomous of Soviet domination...

...the intimidation in El Salvador came from the guerrilla forces...

...Three Vice Presidents, representing arena, the National Conciliation Party and the Christian Democrats, have been named as well...

...At the moment, neoliberalism is neither the guardian of universal values with every person counting as one, no more and no less, nordoesit remind us of the aims of power and national interests, "ours" and "theirs...

...Thinking Aloud NEOLIBERALISM: POLAND, SI EL SALVADOR, NO BY IRVING LOUIS HOROWITZ THE MILITARY coup in Poland revealed a total collapse of intellectual nerve on the part of liberals, Leon Wieseltier observed recently in the New Republic: "American liberalism is losing its identity...

...Tough-minded neoliberal realism for Poland is magically transformed into tender-hearted idealism with respect to the Caribbean region...

...Latifundistas with a fascist approach to politics might reasonably advocate the employment of police terror to counter the guerrillas...

...permitted to pursue a policy assuring that "all of the nations should still be inserted firmly within the international capitalist economy...

...This has made analysis of the region difficult for serious people and simple for ideologists, who need only extrapolate from causes to policies...

...MEANWHILE, far from accepting the results of the elections in El Salvador as a rejection of guerrilla nonparticipatory tactics, neoliberals continue to see them in the most negative terms...

...In the larger context, the acceptance of a politics of despair places neoliberalism squarely in the hands of Providence—with what results one can only grimly surmise...

...Ultimately, he reveals his bankruptcy by urging a diminished United States commitment because "there is no other way out," no solution other than defeat is possible...

...The first indications of this have come in the reaction to U.S...

...Hostility toward the United States permits the ideologist to find any political ailments tolerable because of the higher good involved in weakening the Colossus of the North...

...What has taken place in relation to the Salvadoran elections is the obverse side of the Polish coin...

...Secondly, although high risk is surely part of electoral politics in El Salvador, for the Left to establish its claim to a voice in the makeup of the government, it must enter the electoral contest...

...It has become the address for a wide array of alibis...

...Abraham F. Lowen-thal, director of the Latin American program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, assures us in the Washington Post "every week brings more bad news: political and military reverse for the groups our government is backing in the region...

...There is a serious rift within the Sandinist forces originally united against Anastasio Somoza...

...It is also based on the overall defense of that sovereignty from Soviet incursions...

...It might be argued that this is a cynical view of democracy, a Machiavellian vision of El Salvador's future...

...Besides the reintegration of the Christian Democrats into the government, it holds out the prospect of the Left shifting gears from a guerrilla to an electoral strategy...

...c) the United States has nothing to worry about if strategic weapons are kept out of the area...

...To begin with, assassination attempts were made on the Centrist and Rightist candidates as well, with quite limited success...

...b) each Central American country is different...

...In Nicaragua, elections have been indefinitely postponed and free press guarantees have been suspended...

...Moreover, through the management of grants for economic rehabilitation and military buildup, theU.S...

...At the same time, the National Conciliation Party broke ranks with its coalition partners to make possible the selection of an independent centrist, Alvaro Alfredo Magana, as provisional President of the country...

...In truth, the Salvadoran vote was probably held under the tightest international controls ever witnessed, certainly in a Third World country...

...Still, the consequences of the decision to move from boycotting the voting to active hindrance had the same effects as the January 1981 announcement of a "final offensive" against the government: both denied legitimacy to the rebel forces...

...Hismisunderstandingof the "realities" is another matter: (a) The Nicaraguan and the Cuban authorities have conceded that arms supplies to their Salvadoran allies have been substantial...

...But no...

...IRVING LOUIS HOROWITZ is Hannah Arendt Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University, editor of the journal Transaction and the author of numerous books, including Beyond Revolution and Empire, to be published by Oxford University Press this month...

...those leading the chants preach a liberal gospel divested of respect for the very processes that once gave liberalism its bite...

...Yet such is the new liberalism being advocated for the Caribbean region...

...Realpolitik is said to dictate that the United States should not abet democratic forces in Poland...

...The latest case of their falling short, with a loud thud, is El Salvador...

...Advocates of Leninism and Maoism might reasonably welcome guerrilla-led movements in Cuba, Nicaragua and El Salvador...

...Political laissez faire is warranted because "American concerns are exaggerated, resting upon a serious overestimation of the region's own realities and significance...

...Questions raised about civil rights, human rights, the absence of legitimate forms of succession, and so on, are skirted...

...But the Salvadorans, with their high turnout at the polls, showed they preferred the European style...

...The neoliberal reaction to the elections last March 28 in El Salvador has been to deny their importance or legitimacy...

...Clearly, to negotiate is in some part to authenticate—a symbolic value of major significance to the ruling Sandinist junta...

...This is a noble enough sentiment, except that it would nullify the electoral process, defeat the possibilities for a self-determined rather than an American determined political initiative, and put us in an "honest broker" role more likely to involve American troops than a settlement by the Salvadoran people...

...One might well expect a liberal tradeoff of arguments: Poland is part of the Soviet sphere, and El Salvador is part of the American sphere...

...Wieseltier sadly concluded: "Liberals used to give help naturally...

...Rather, I am thinking of the willingness to move from concern with human rights to acquiescence to totalitarianism, all in the name of self-determination...

...At least liberal sentiments and policies are aligned on the domestic front...

...The Left chose to employ a Cuban rather than European model of socialism, i.e...

...The United States would become an actor in Salvadoran affairs in a fresh way that differs sharply from Lyndon Johnson's gunboat diplomacy involving invasion, as in the Dominican Republic in 1965, or from the CIA-inspired act led by Carlos Castillo Armas against the Democratic Socialist authorities in Guatemala in 1954...

...It must be candidly admitted that the record of Centrists and Rightists from 1972, when the previous election was voided, to 1980, when six Leftist leaders were arrested and assassinated, was not exactly conducive to opposition participation in the elections...

...These are not simply arbitrary dialectics, they are the stuff of major change in present-day Central America...

...In characteristic fashion, Lowenthal manages tocome out with the wrong conclusions by beginning with the wrong set of premises...

...c) the United States has a great deal to worry about, even in the very unlikely event that strategic weapons can be kept out of the area, for every U.S...

...ally there is directly threatened by the presence of some 10,000 sophis-ticatedly armed Soviet troops in Cuba...

...The latest failure of nerve exhibited by liberalism has virtually shattered this ideology as a vital force in foreign affairs...

...To be sure, this is an optimal scenario, yet one warranted by the increasing signs that Havana and Managua—no less than Washington—want the blood-letting epoch 1972-82 to come to a close...

...The democratic potential and even the socialist viability of El Salvador would be recognized...

...The United States must weigh the potential benefit of any talks for the antitotalitarian forces...

...More often than not, the purpose of elections is precisely to forge national goals, or unmake and remake them where necessary...

...His impulse is to "move the forum of confrontation in El Salvador from the battlefield to the negotiation table...

...If the cause of inequality is uneven ownership and distribution of wealth, the solution is a Communist-led coalition...

...Although Ronald Reagan's 1980 victory has triggered a great deal of soul searching about the domestic direction and objectives of liberalism, little has spilled over into foreign policy analysis...

...The idea of parity based on the disruptive capacity of terrorism only works where there is a strong Leninist-type Communist Party and a correspondingly weak mass base for electoral politics...

...It is to illustrate the near total collapse of nerve by American neoliberals—individuals who have demanded human rights as a condition of support in Latin America without stipulating the same goal elsewhere, notably in Eastern Europe...

...I think not...

...American villainies are castigated, whereas those of the Soviet Union and its allies are, if not applauded, treated with benign neglect...

...The people expressing their will is not discussed, nor are the actual involvements of foreign powers in the region...

...could influence the political process without necessarily canceling the democratic impulses...

...In short, a formula for power sharing is developing...

...Blachman and Sharpe contest it because Communist bloc representatives declined to help supervise what they would never permit to be held in their own lands...

...As for the "Mexican initiative" that would have the United States enter bilateral negotiations with Nicaragua, it has a different significance today than when it was set forth last February 21 by Mexican President Jose Lopez-Portillo...

...I am not referring to righteous liberal indignation over a half century of exploitation, intervention and impoverishment that was great even when measured in a Caribbean context...

...Southern politics was marked by the deliberate denial of the franchise to black voters, who constituted nearly 50 per cent of the population in some areas...

...That neither condition was met makes the March vote not so much a victory for United States strategy but a defeat for Cuban and Soviet tactics...

...some are concerned about the breakdown of democracy in their country, while others could scarcely care less...

...MY INTENTION here, though, is not a thorough analysis of the situation in El Salvador or the Caribbean generally...

...We should make clear our desire for nonmilitary or paramilitary intervention...

...Typical of the neoliberal response to all this is an article in the Nation by two decent political scientists, Morris Blachman and Kenneth Sharpe, who argue: "Elections can be a valid tool for choosing leaders and defining policies only when there is a consensus about national goals, a tolerance for differences within that consensus and a respect for human life and freedoms of speech and association by all parties...

...Lowenthal tells us that "there is no other way out...

...Duarte is out as leader of the Christian Democrats and d'Aubuisson has been chosen president of the Constituent Assembly by a rightist coalition...