David Corn, however, isn't just an occasional contributor to The Nation; he is Washington editor of The Nation magazine (and so identified on _The O'Reilly Factor_ as well, as noted here), thus in a position to help define what does or does not get included in the magazine, I'd think. Are the Nation readers to be simply grateful for being spared his O'Reilly performance in the magazine and leave it at that?
At 5:23 PM -0500 11/22/02, Liza Featherstone wrote:
>Except for this recent labor/war piece, Cooper's work on the anti-war
>movement has also appeared in venues other than the Nation.
I'd say one piece is more than enough.
At 5:23 PM -0500 11/22/02, Liza Featherstone wrote:
>Who actually has written about the anti-war movement for The Nation?
Fewer pieces on the subject than one would expect from a left-liberal magazine, and _that_ is a problem. I guess it's better than In These Times, but that is not saying much! You learn more about the anti-war movement from SFBG, ZNet, blogs, and the like. There just are too many articles on the Dem politicos in The Nation (which tends to get more boring in an election year than usual).
At 5:23 PM -0500 11/22/02, Liza Featherstone wrote:
>I don't think my own coverage has been unfair, and only some sort of
>neo-Politburo would see it as largely unfavorable -- certainly I
>always describe many positive things people are doing.
I admire the wonderful book you wrote with United Students Against Sweatshops activists, and I'm the last to say that your coverage of various movements has been unfair (though I do disagree with you on this or that point made in it) -- excepting the problem in the piece on Palestinian solidarity activism ("The Mideast War Breaks Out on Campus," @ <http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020617&s=featherstone&c=1>), which we discussed before and about which some members of the OSU Committee on Justice in Palestine wrote letters to the Nation. With the permission of the author, I reproduce one of the letters here (from the faculty advisor to the organization):
At 10:37 PM -0700 6/6/02, Joe Levine wrote:
***** While I was glad to see _The Nation_ covering the Palestine solidarity movement on college campuses, I must take issue with two points in Liza Featherstone's report. First, her claim that the International Socialist Organization "plays a strong role" in the movement at Ohio State is simply false. As the faculty advisor to the OSU Committee for Justice in Palestine, I can attest that the ISO is not involved in our group at all, as Featherstone would have known had she checked. It wouldn't matter if they were, but Featherstone's inaccuracy is worrying.
Secondly, and more importantly, Featherstone claims that "one of the biggest problems Palestine's supporters face is anti-Semitism - in the form of both fantastical accusations and ugly reality." The clear impression she leaves is that there is rough parity between the two sides of the problem, though very little evidence is provided that actual anti-Semitic behavior is pervasive among pro-Palestine groups. From my own experience almost all of the problem has to do with the "fantastical accusations." _Nation_ readers should know that quite vicious and deliberate lies concerning alleged anti-Semitic incidents are being spread by Israel's so-called supporters on campus. Our group has recently experienced this first-hand. Here's a striking example: one of our members, herself Jewish, spoke at a Take Back the Night rally about the effects of the conflict on women in particular. She took care to mention Israeli mothers who have buried children killed by suicide bombings and mothers and wives of soldiers serving in the territories. Later that evening she heard herself "quoted" as having accused Israel of "ritually burning" Palestinian women. This could not have been an innocent mishearing; it was a deliberate smear.
In our group we are forthrightly opposed to any form of anti-Semitism. We, unlike the so-called supporters of Israel, distinguish clearly between Zionism and the State of Israel on the one hand, and Judaism and the Jewish people on the other. The wildness of so many of the accusations of anti-Semitism by our opponents is a measure of their desperation in the fight for hearts and minds on campus. I just hope that Nation readers - and writers - take future accusations with more than a grain of salt.
Joseph Levine Dept. of Philosophy 350 University Hall The Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210 (614)292-1931 *****
So, the issue is first of all accuracy and secondly proportion. I don't sub to the Nation -- I mainly read it on the Net or borrow it from a local friend who subs to it, so I don't know if Joe's letter got printed or if you had an opportunity to read it.
Anyhow, you may or may not accept Joe's objection regarding the second point. The point that I wish to make here is that criticism within the movement is and should be a two-way street. "Movement journalists" should be encouraged to criticize, fairly and accurately, the shortcomings of the social movement in which they take part; organizers and activists in the movement on which "movement journalists" comment, in turn, should be encouraged to criticize their articles, again fairly and accurately. Only then can both grow. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>