The problem is that reparations is such a sure political loser and nonstarter that even a complete dumb shit like Horowitz, with the worst, most bad faith arguments, can make it into a cause celebre for the right. Now, on my Social Studies teachers list, all of the right wing teachers are making hay by pointing out just how impossible it is to make reparations "operative" [if I may borrow Doug's phrase] in any meaningful way and just how authoritarian and censorship minded anti-racists are. People on every left list I subscribe to are caught up in useless discussions over it, with some folks talking the inane position that if newspapers don't print Horowitz's ads, that in itself constitutes an act of censorship. Once you make the front page of the _New York TImes_ in the way Horowitz did, you have it made -- at least for the short term.
For all you Hegelians, Minerva's wings have spread: the very thing that our good friend Art, mirror image of Horowitz, did not want us to discuss, the political efficacy of such a campaign, is what now stares us in the face. One victory for the racists; one loss for the anti-racists.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
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