From: Bill Strom [william.strom@yale.edu]
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 3:31 AM
To: marxists.and.moderates@yale.edu
Subject: all the liblong week (come to lib dinner!!!)
all the liblong week
the *new* whipsheet of the liberal party of the yale political union
trois
week of: 16sept02

When one is faced with a blank whipsheet at 3:20 AM on a Monday morning, one is apt to turn to filler material in order to complete one’s whipsheet.  This is especially true when one has spent the vast majority of one’s weekend traipsing all over the Eastern Seaboard in the name of entertainment.

True, unless, of course, one is the secretary of the Liberal Party.  In this instanceand this instance onlyone may find it within one’s abilities to still report all the liblong week’s upcoming events in an orderly and accurate fashion.  Oh, yeah, and slam the POR, too.  The Liberal Party of the YPU: We Eat In Commons Lessbut please join us Mondays!--}:-{)

*undercard*
16sept02 1730: Lib Dinner, Commons Dining Hall
Please understand that this week’s undercard, Lib dinner, is underscored because it has been under-attended.  Meet us under the portrait of 41^st Underlord George H. W. Bush to find out why our party doesn’t have cryptic initials that stand for “Pile On Refuse” (as one would do by eating in commons more than once a week).

*steel cage match*
17sept02 1930-???: Meeting of the Yale Political Union, LC 101
The Yale Political Union (www.yale.edu/ypu) was formed in the 1930s in order to provide a forum for rollicking debate among its six member parties. Our Liberal Party is the oldest of these six. Each year, nationally and internationally recognized social and political leaders visit the union to speak about political philosophy, current events, and policy issues.

This week, the YPU welcomes Omar Ali of the United Independent Party. Oxymoronical, non?  Mr. Ali will speak in favor of the resolution, “The Two-Party System is Undemocratic.”  For more information about Mr. Ali, please see the link listed aboveit will direct you to a webpage where you can learn whom you ought to harass to update the YPU’s webpage.

*main event*
18sept02 1930-???: Debate, Davenport College Common Room
Tonight's resolution: Capitalism and democracy are incompatible.  Once again, we are hoping for rollicking debate on a subject that divides the left.  Are laissez-faire principles the bedrock of democratic values?  (Boob)  Or do socialized economies fit in better with our notion of the importance of the will of all?  (Buffoon)  Discuss.

*royal rumble*
20sept02: Liberal Party Party, Time and Location To Be Announced
In order to help you sufficiently enjoy the LGBT Co-Op’s Dance Party this Friday night, join the libidinous libation-bearers of the Liberal Party for some fun.  Details to follow.

*exit music*
Please find appended the wonderful op/ed piece I used to kick off last week’s intriguing debate:

Liberalism's Patriotic Vision

September 5, 2002
By TODD GITLIN

With the massacres of a year ago came righteous outrage,
bewilderment and a thirst for interpretations: What could
such colossal violence mean? What did mass murder require
of us? Who were we now? We needed a story.

The White House declared that the terrorists hated our
freedoms; after an interlude of coalition building, the
administration resumed its America-love-it-or-leave-it
attitude. Members of Congress became sullen cheerleaders,
cowed by the White House's willingess to question their
loyalty. Patriotism seemed to function not as a spur to
come to the aid of the country, but as a silencer.

Absolutists dominated the field - and eerily converged in
their penchant for going it alone. The terrorists took it
upon themselves to act in the name of all of Islam and all
Muslims, to settle all accounts and slaughter all enemies.
There could be no appeal or dissent; they expected their
allies to be as silent as their enemies. They openly
yearned to restore the eighth-century caliphate: a purist
theocracy and an empire if ever there was one.

Squandering much support from around the world, President
Bush soon showed he was ready to go it alone, keeping even
Congress at arm's length. He was not content with
self-defense. Countries that were not with us were against
us. We were launched upon a permanent war against anyone he
declared we were at war against; the administration
reserved the right to break treaties and to undertake
pre-emptive war.

The American left, too, had its version of unilateralism.
Responsibility for the attacks had, somehow, to lie with
American imperialism, because all responsibility has to lie
with American imperialism - a perfect echo of the right's
idea that all good powers are and should be somehow
American. Intellectuals and activists on the far left could
not be troubled much with compassion or defense.
Disconnected from Americans who reasonably felt their
patriotic selves attacked, they were uncomprehending.
Knowing little about Al Qaeda, they filed it under
Anti-Imperialism, and American attacks on the Taliban under
Vietnam Quagmire. For them, not flying the flag became an
urgent cause. In their go-it-alone attitude, they weirdly
paralleled the blustering right-wing approach to the world.

Long before Sept. 11, this naysaying left had seceded. When
Ralph Nader's Greens equated a Bush presidency with a Gore
presidency, they took leave of any practical connection to
America. Rightly demanding profound reforms but deluded
about their popularity, they withheld their energy from the
Democrats and squandered alliances that would have promoted
their ideals. They acted as though their cause had to be
lonely to be good.

Many liberals and social democrats saw through this hollow
negativity and posed necessary questions. What was a war
against terrorism? To what did it bind the nation? War
against whom, and for how long? Why should American foreign
policy be held hostage to oil? How should strong and
privileged America belong in the world? Was the United
States to be a one-nation tribunal of "regime change"
wherever it detected evil spinning on an axis?

Some good answers float in the air now. They have not yet
found political support, but they could. As the Bush
administration paints itself into a corner, we could be
headed toward a new liberal moment. Liberals need to step
up their promotion of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan and
elsewhere, helping to stifle terrorism. Even conservatives
no longer smirk about nation building or foreign aid.

Likewise, mainstream economists like Joseph Stiglitz (once
chief economist of the World Bank) and Jeffrey Sachs
(former free-market shock therapist) campaign to convince
rich countries to give more development aid.

Liberals should affirm that American power, working within
coalitions, can advance democratic values, as in Bosnia and
Kosovo - but they should oppose this administration's push
toward war in Iraq, which is unlikely to work out that way.
Against oil-based myopia, there are murmurs (they should be
clamors) that we should phase out the oil dependency that
overheats the earth and binds us to tyrants.
 
On the domestic front, corporate chiefs have lost their
new-economy charm - and the Bush administration's earlier
efforts on their behalf have lost whatever political
purchase they had. With the bursting of the stock market
bubble, deregulation no longer looks like a cure-all.

Whom do Americans admire now? Whom do we trust? Americans
did not take much reminding that when skyscrapers were on
fire, they needed firefighters and police officers, not
Arthur Andersen accountants. Yet we confront an
administration whose policies reflect the idea that
sacrifice - financial and otherwise - is meant for people
who wear blue collars.

A reform bloc in Congress, bolstered in November, could
start renewing the country. But we need much more than
legislation. One year after, surely many Americans are
primed for a patriotism of action, not of pledges. The era
that began Sept. 11 would be a superb time to crack the
jingoists' claim to a monopoly of patriotic virtue. Instead
of letting minions of corporate power run away with the
flag (while banking their tax credits offshore), we need to
remake the tools of our public life - our schools, social
services and transportation. Post-Vietnam liberals have an
opening now, freed of our 60's flag anxiety and our
reflexive negativity, to embrace a liberal patriotism that
is unapologetic and uncowed. It's time for the patriotism
of mutual aid, not just symbolic displays or
self-congratulation. It's time to close the gap between the
nation we love and the justice we also love.

Todd Gitlin, a former president of Students for a
Democratic Society, is author of "Media Unlimited: How the
Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives." He is a
professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia
University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/05/opinion/05GITL.html?ex=1032270240&ei=1&en=ace8da0bd23d09ba