BOOKS

...There is much merit in Robinson's proposals for dissolution of government and swift new elections...

...All too often in this century, the people's choice has become the people's curse...

...Luxemburg had an almost life-long, secretive, and torrid love affair with Jogiches...

...Add Nixon, who resigned to escape impeachment, and a truly sorry record may be perceived...

...I do not think Robinson would disagree...

...Freedom is always for the one who thinks differently...

...Yet, this is not a definitive biography...

...Frederick Ebert, who was appointed to head the German government after the collapse of the monarchy, had agreed to allow the military to restore order, and it was this military that arrested Luxemburg, assassinated her, and dumped her body in the Landwehr Canal...

...A biography is always a selection and therefore a biography is always 'biased.' This is then a portrait with no glass and no frame...

...Her mother was the daughter of a rabbi and a descendant of seventeen generations of rabbis and Hebrew scholars...

...It was the socialist government in Germany that indirectly played a role in her arrest and assassination...

...We are badly in need of a remedy short of impeachment for dealing with Presidents who are physically incompetent—the 25th Amendment did not solve that sticky problem—or who have lost the confidence of the people, and thus are incapable of governing...

...Robinson is too timid in his recommendations...

...We can no longer indulge ourselves in the fantasy that ours is the best of all possible constitutions...

...The book has just been re-published by Ath-eneum...

...Unlike Rexford Tugwell, one of President Franklin Roosevelt's brain trust who a few years ago proposed sweeping constitutional revisions, Robinson concentrates on the chief executive, his persona and his office...

...Yet she died a martyr, a leader of an armed insurrection in Germany...

...2) changing the terms of members of the House of Representatives to four years, and of Senators to eight years...

...Robinson has set the terms of a useful national debate...

...bv Arthur S. Miller Is the Constitution, as drafted in 1787 and amended and interpreted, adequate to the demands now confronting the nation...

...3) of most importance, providing for new elections at any time, either by Presidential proclamation with Congressional approval or by Congress with the President's concurrence...

...A human being...

...I made the revolution...

...She insisted that socialism could not be attained by force...

...She was no feminist...

...As a teen-ager she had boasted to the ten-year-old daughter of a co-worker...

...Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free exchange of opinions, life dies out in every public institution and only bureaucracy remains active...

...and a willingness to bend the prescriptions of the Constitution when considered necessary—or desirable...

...Those who would think seriously about constitutionalism in this perilous time should go further and inquire into the nature of the substantive obligations government should undertake, and how they can be identified and put into effect...

...Can there be any real doubt as to what should be done...

...In Zurich she studied natural science and political economy...

...This may well be...

...But, he concludes, those techniques or conditions no longer exist...

...Robinson's book is by far the best yet published in this bicentennial year of the constitutional convention...

...The first proposal may be summarily dismissed...

...The only question is whether it will be done in an ad hoc manner (as in the past, as Robinson relates) or as a result of careful planning...

...No useful purpose would be served by it...

...Americans, therefore, must face up to the fact that the framers failed, particularly with respect to the powers of the Presidency set forth in Article II, the "most loosely drawn chapter of the Constitution...

...286 pp...

...22.95...

...He forbade Rosa to talk about their affair to anyone, insisting their relationship had to be known only as a professional one...

...Soon after graduation, she joined the illegal Socialist Party, which eventually led to her arrest...

...Luxemburg spent the World War I years in a German prison but, with her comrade Karl Liebknecht, held together a small group of radical Marxists—anti-war in their approach—known as the Spartacists...

...Socialism," she insisted, "by its very nature, cannot be dictated, introduced by command...

...She preached nonviolent revolution...

...The volume captures her emotions and her life as an intellectual and as an activist...

...Fiery Rosa ROSA LUXEMBURG: A LIFE by Elzbieta Ettinger Beacon Press...

...As Ettinger writes, "While it is possible to analyze Luxemburg's economic and political writings independent of her personal life, it is not possible to present her personal life and at the same time ignore her work...

...her respect was reserved mainly for men...

...Here, too, she met Marxian theoreticians, among them Leo Jogiches...

...She similarly challenged Lenin...

...Lenin] is completely mistaken in the means he employs: decree, the dictatorial power of a factory overseer, Draconian penalties, rule by terror...

...Add, too, the ineffable Reagan, now staggering to the conclusion of his wretched Presidency...

...No attempt was made here, however, to give a comprehensive analysis of her writings...

...At the urging of Jogiches, Luxemburg moved to Germany, where over the years she engaged in a polemic battle with Ed-uard Bernstein from the right and Lenin from the left...

...This biography of Rosa Luxemburg by Elzbieta Ettinger is an appealing account of the life of the most important woman theoretician and activist in the history of the international socialist movement...

...He suggests some procedural adjustments while retaining the basic structure of the government...

...We should, furthermore, confront the hard fact that the Constitution will change in the future, whether or not we like it...

...Having said that, I would be remiss if I did not point out what I consider to be its major flaw...

...Government is neither effective nor accountable...

...The youngest of five children, she was born in Zemosc, Poland, in 1870...

...and (4) establishing a national council of 100 notables, one of whom would be chief of state...

...Most people, especially those who take part in the fulsome ceremonies of the Constitution's bicentennial presided over by former Chief Justice Warren Burger, doubtless would answer with a resounding yes...

...To the Best of My Ability" deserves the thoughtful consideration of anyone who is interested in the health of the body politic...

...several Presidents-Harding, Hoover, Truman, Johnson, and Carter—had lost the confidence of the people...

...He has performed a valuable service by delineating one of the major shortcomings of the constitutional scheme...

...As well he might: We have been ill-served by the separate executive created in Philadelphia 200 years ago...

...She sought to make the lives of all people complete, worth living, even though she knew that we are 'like the Jews, being led by Moses through the desert.'" —Arthur Weinberg (Arthur Weinberg is co-author with his wife, Lila, of the award-winning biography "Clarence Darrow: A Sentimental Rebel...

...She loved literature, drama, music, botany, and poetry, but her own writings were political polemics...

...Bernstein, a prominent socialist theorist, was a Marxist revisionist who insisted that neither the intensification of the class struggle nor the growing pauperization of the workers was applicable to the world of the 1890s...

...She argued for workers to take charge of their own destinies, with the mass strike their main tool...

...When I was your age I didn't play with dolls...

...Robinson believes that the nation has grown strong and powerful because of a unique set of environmental conditions Arthur S. Miller is professor emeritus of law, George Washington University...

...The Weinbergs team-teach at DePaul University, Chicago...

...Given the complexity and weight of duties laid on officers of both branches, one person, if at all conscientious, could hardly carry dual burdens...

...His new book, "The Secret Constitution and the Need for Constitutional Change," will be published this fall...

...She attended the Gymnasium in Warsaw...

...Ettinger concludes Luxemburg's biography: "Driven by an urge to live a complete life, Rosa Luxemburg left her country, her home, her family...

...Luxemburg emerges as "a person of flesh and blood, with strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and nightmares...

...Like Luxemburg, he too was an assimilated Jew...

...He therefore recommends four constitutional changes: (1) permitting members of Congress to be executive officers, and vice versa...

...nor was an attempt made to write a definitive biography...

...Others should add to his penetrating analysis of constitutional failures...

...Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one Party, no matter how numerous, is no freedom...

...Her father, the son of a prosperous timber merchant, had left Jewish orthodoxy...

...That is not enough...

...Congress and the President would have to work more closely...

...While the language spoken in the home was Polish, her father used Yiddish in his business...

...Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were physically incapacitated during their final months in office...

...Robinson acknowledges that the changes he proposes "would not necessarily produce sound policy," but he believes the Government would become more effective and accountable...

...Ettinger points out that though Luxemburg was attached to some women she "retained a slightly patronizing attitude toward women in general...

...To the Best of My Ability"'is a carefully crafted, mellifluously written disquisition developing the central argument that "the demands of governance, at least since the middle of the Twentieth Century, have strained our constitutional system beyond its limits...

...At the age of eighteen, Luxemburg fled Poland for Switzerland to escape imprisonment...

...Donald Robinson, professor of government at Smith College, is one of the few who publicly dissent...

...as Woodrow Wilson wrote in 1908, cooperation, not conflict, should be the hallmark of the relationships between the two branches...