|
Poems of World
War III
Charles Levenstein
|
Notes on the “Soul of
Socialism”
1. My father was a
childhood immigrant from Latvia who, after three
years in elementary school in New York City, became a delivery boy and
learned every corner of his adopted town. He was in the artillery
in
the First World War, served in France, never wanted to see Europe
again. He lived on the Lower East Side, voted for Debs, became an
electrician and finally joined the union when its doors opened to
Jews. He was a modern man, insisted on English in the
house. My
mother loved his frameless glasses, his wit and intelligence, his
modern-ness – left her own immigrant parents (from Kiev) in
Philadelphia to marry him, have four children and make a life in
NYC.
When he died in the 1970’s, my oldest brother – Republican, one-star
general in star wars mufti – spoke of Pop’s commitment to the working
class, to his union and to his fellow workers. When the rabbi
asked me
what I had learned from the old man, I replied, “Don’t expect no tips.”
2. One of my
former students, a Mexican physician and activist, was
the first in her family to get a university degree – the only one in
her generation. Her father was a leader of the sugar workers
union in
an impoverished province – and she decided to do her research on the
impact of privatization on the sugar workers and their
communities.
The picture she painted at her dissertation defense was devastating
–
massive layoffs, work intensification, a heart attack during harvest
season that brought the workers to her door – not to mention increased
air pollution, deterioration of roads and public services. And
all the
deals had been cut, the current leader of the union, already tied to
the dominant political party, further enhanced his political
career.
At the end of the presentation of the details of “hegemony”, I asked:
So there’s nothing much to be done in this situation, right?
Blanca
blanched – What do you mean? Well, if all the avenues for
potential
change have been blocked, there’s not much point in continuing to work
with the sugar workers --? That’s ridiculous, she said, of course
I
will continue to serve these workers!
3. When God died,
sometime in the mid-sixties, I watched my
Christian friends scramble to save something from the tradition in
which they had been schooled – leaving out the Crusades, the
Inquisition and various European religious wars, not to mention
quasi-imperialist missionary work. Going back to the accounts of
original Jesus, they extracted principles they liked and proclaimed
themselves Christian atheists. I think they invented liberation
theology as well, which got some in great trouble when applied in
difficult locations. In 1968, when the illness of “actually
existing
socialism” was signaled by events in Prague, later confirmed by the
purging of the “Gang of Four (or Five)” in Beijing, and finally
diagnosed as fatal in 1989, the search in earnest for the principles of
socialism – rather than utopian ends – became essential. The
triumphant bells of the market have drowned out this discussion,
however, and the despair of left intellectuals, taken in by Thatcher’s
slogan, “There is no alternative”, defined the last decade of the last
century. The collapse of the apartheid government in South Africa
gave
some hope – which has dissipated as the global neo-liberal
strategy
encircled, constrained – some say, swallowed the new regime.
4. A friend from Latin
America told me that left-wing intellectuals
were in despair when Allende was overthrown and killed. Their
hopes
for peaceful transition to more humane societies had been dashed.
The
worker organizations, he said, were of a different mind: They
were
saddened by the death of an esteemed comrade and by the political loss
– but their struggles had not changed, they were still confronted by
the same oppressive regimes, by the same exploitative employers, by the
un-altered dreadful living and working conditions. The
intellectuals
were confronted with difficult tasks of reconstructing theory,
re-examining material conditions, considering new configurations of
power and economy. The workers had fewer choices – their struggle
emerged from real day-to-day suffering.
5. In 1982 I
participated in a whirlwind tour of five cities in
China. I was one of a group of occupational health and safety
researchers and practitioners – the first delegation of the sort of
many years. In each city we held conferences with Chinese
counterparts, gave lectures, listened to assessments of the workers’
situation – and were treated to wonderful banquets and
entertainment.
We also traveled across the countryside and had some glimpses of the
primitive state of technology – and of loving conditions – in rural
areas. But most important for me throughout the trip was meeting
public health workers and professors who had suffered through the years
of the Cultural Revolution, not permitted to engage in their regular
work in the universities or in the urban public health agencies – sent
to labor in distant provinces at great personal cost. Yes, here
was a
middle-aged physician telling us about how much she had learned about
agricultural hazards. And here were her colleagues who had picked
up
their work again – still committed to the health of workers, still
hopeful that they could train another generation of committed
professionals . At one point, in Shanghai, I talked with a
biostatistician who had been learning about cost-benefit analysis from
an American health policy expert who had visited recently. He
showed
me an analysis of a vaccination program, demonstrating its great
benefits compared with the minimal costs. I asked him what he
would
have said if the results had been reversed. He was not sure what
I
meant. I explained that in the U.S. such tools were used for the
purpose of making decisions – if the vaccination program had not proved
to be cost-beneficial, the analyst might very well recommend against
the program. He replied: You must understand – that is
inconceivable.
This is a socialist country.
6. In the
mid-1980’s, a lawyer-friend and I spent long hours writing
policy papers and resolutions for the American Public Health
Association. He had found an article on socialist principles of
risk
in a critical legal studies journal – I can’t remember the author – and
we tried to infuse papers on victim compensation and the “right to
know” with what we argued were commonly held public health principles –
ideas about individual autonomy, community, equality. But, to
tell the
truth, there was no argument. Everything we wrote was adopted by
the
Governing Council – apparently the principles espoused were eternal
verities, non-controversial. I just picked up an old volume by
Rawls
on “fairness” – and was reminded that political philosophy was no way
to talk about the soul of socialism, nor other theological matters.
7. Mike Bloy was
the Protestant chaplain at MIT years ago. He was
the one who said to me that literature was the appropriate vehicle for
discussing and debating matters of faith. Once I sailed with him
on
Penobscot Bay and learned about the vigor and competence of poetry –
this, alongside political economy and social struggle. He wrote
about
Ignazio Silone’s novels – Bread and Wine, Seed Beneath the Snow – and
was intrigued by the notion: “the practice of the human presence.”
8. Marian Y., then
assistant director of our group at Urban Planning
Aid in 1969-70 told us (relative youngsters at the time) that she
had
known two kinds of socialists – those who were radicals because they
loved the people and those who mainly “hated the enemy”. The
latter,
she said, were too willing to sacrifice the people to get at the
enemy. I remember the Che poster we displayed – Ridiculous as it
may
seem, the true revolutionary is motivated by feelings of love – or
something like that.
9. At risk of
seeming an incorrigible romantic, the socialism I love
comes from the gut, not the brain. I don’t know if it is
reasonable to
call this “soul”; I know that for me, there is no alternative.
|
Guantanamo
The
moral bubble in which I dwell,
Blown
high by frivolous deity,
Even
as it floats resembles hell
Despite
the Western winds of piety.
The
purpose of a prison
in
U.S. occupied Cuba,
a
place neither here nor there,
is
to avoid the Geneva Conventions
while
maintaining the impression
that
the U.S., my home,
is a
civilized, legitimate society.
Guantanamo;
We
cannot sit at the table,
proclaim
innocence;
We
cannot say,
We
did not know.
As
we all know, the prisons
of
the U.S. are no picnic,
so
if our Government is inclined
to
hide its doings in Cuba,
are
we people of such small imagination
that
we believe these Afghan prisoners
are
coddled with pizza, double pepperoni
and
crab salad? What do we maniacs think
is
going on there!
I
smell the stench of Crusade;
let
us not say, we cannot say,
We
did not know.
I
will tear my balloon skin
like
a medieval flagellant,
I
scream fear and self-loathing:
The
plague is upon us.
There
is no excuse for torture.
And
no forgiveness.
|
|