The Spirit of '48

In the aftermath of Dub's reelection in 2004, Democrats have been studying their navels with great focus. Of all of the self-analysis I've seen, Kevin Mattson offers the most sensible plan of action for those who oppose Dub and the Forces of Darkness. If this is a (fair & balanced) examination of history, so be it.

[x The American Prospect]
Goodbye to All That
By Kevin Mattson

With conservatism dominant in every branch of government, it is clear that liberals are an opposition party. We have to think, act, and strategize like an opposition party. That means figuring out ways to articulate what we stand for while not alienating those who may disagree with us but can be persuaded to see things our way. That’s a difficult balancing act. Of course, the postwar left has been in opposition before, and that’s a historical fact that can be turned to advantage -- there’s a track record to examine and think through, and a set of political styles and strategies for change to reflect upon. Examining this history can mean recycling good ideas and tactics. But what if it means recycling bad ones?

No doubt, some progressives will be drawn to the protest movements of the 1960s to inspire opposition today. There are good reasons for this. The world that existed before the ’60s is one that no one wants to go back to. The decade witnessed enormous victories for African Americans, women, and the poor. The civil-rights movement -- with its pioneering use of nonviolent and grass-roots “direct action” -- prompted these advances. It also gave birth to a new form of politics that championed the energy of ordinary citizens and that carried on within the peace movement’s struggle against the Vietnam War. College students, through the teach-in movement, learned how to connect their learning to political engagement. The decade seemed a golden age of political idealism.

Remembering the ’60s as a time of heroic activism -- when ordinary citizens changed the terms of politics -- suggests we might be able to recycle those protest styles today. Younger activists are doing that as they march on Washington, against the Iraq War or in favor of abortion rights. The left is often identified, in the press and in popular imagination, as a series of marches. Protest has become an easy way to express dissent. It’s often highly visible and focused in terms of time and resources. When people mass in the streets -- as they were known to during the 1960s -- it appears something is wrong in the country that demands attention. And because protest activists are the most vocal element of the left, they attract the energy of young idealists yearning for a way to express their political disaffection. Take it from someone who’s marched a lot in his life: There’s an emotional appeal to massing with others you share solidarity with.

But there’s also a limit to protest. With its emphasis on criticizing rather than building, it nurtures a narrow conception of opposition. Of course we need to criticize, especially with this administration in power. But for the long term, it’s far more important at this historical moment that we build. The left needs to think about long-term and broader ideas of change. Protest doesn’t help here; it’s too fleeting and spasmodic.

To romanticize protest and the decade of the 1960s cuts us off from rethinking -- with a cold, analytical eye -- the decade’s lessons. The spirit of the ’60s has something to teach us, for sure, but it’s a mixed message, one that lives on in the activist wing of today’s left in troubling ways. We need to search out styles, dispositions, and ideas that can inform our present sense of being an opposition party -- and we need to widen what we choose from. We also need to recognize how the past’s influence precludes more productive strategies for the present, how what might have worked in a previous context no longer works today. To get a sense of this, we need to travel back to 1968, to a time when the decade’s meaning crystallized, a time that seems far gone at first but whose images and memories live on in disturbing ways today. Remembering the past critically allows us to be a more effective opposition in the present.

Protest and Confrontation as Politics

Both internationally and in the United States, 1968 remains one of the most evocative years in the history of the left. The spirit lives through images of protesters massing in the streets and Molotov cocktails zinging through the air. Protest and anger aren’t the only tendencies from the time, but they are certainly the most evocative. Mark Kurlansky, in his book 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, explains the allure: “People under twenty-five do not have much influence in the world. But it is amazing what they can do if they are ready to march.” Breaking from the limitations of the sidewalk into the streets now conjures a feeling of exhilaration and radical accomplishment.

No occasion in American history symbolizes this more than Chicago’s Democratic convention during the summer of 1968. Memories of Chicago come easy due to its highly charged political theater. Abbie Hoffman’s organization, the Youth International Party (Yippies), planned to protest the Democratic convention with a “Festival of Life” that would nominate a pig picked up from a local farm for president. Protesters were refused permits but insisted on marching, while Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago, did all he could to spark a fight. Chicago became a pressure cooker, a leading Yippie calling it “a revolutionary wet dream come true.” When the riots occurred and the police clubs started swinging, protesters chanted, infamously, “The whole world is watching.” Unfortunately for the protesters, America watched, all right -- and cheered for the working-class cops of Chicago, for the “man” sticking it to the longhairs in the streets. Protest, confrontation, and outrage didn’t elicit the intended sympathetic response. Anger killed strategy.

It may be easy to overstate the resonance of such tactics today, but a romanticism about them does exist among those who still believe in street protests. When Rick Perlstein interviewed organizers of the 2004 protests at the Republican convention, he found them championing direct action and confrontation as a tactic. Check out the A31 (August 31) Action Coalition, an organization based in Brooklyn that was angry at New York City’s permitting system that confined protesters to certain areas. A31’s leaders hoped to “transform the streets of NYC into stages of resistance ... .” They called for people to “sit down and refuse to move,” and to ignore the limitations of “protest pens” set up by police. To make the connection to 1968 crystal clear, they posted a recent op-ed by Tom Hayden on their Web site -- no surprise, as Hayden had argued in 1968 that Chicago symbolized a move toward “direct action and organization outside the parliamentary process,” language remarkably similar to that used by A31.

This was not the only organization that recycled protest styles of 1968. There was Dontjustvote.com and the old peace movement organization, The War Resisters’ League (WRL), both celebrating action in the streets, no matter the consequence. A leader of the WRL told Perlstein, “We need to do what we think is right to do, and not so much worry about, ah, ‘Well, what if this? What if that?’ I think we need to do what our conscience tells us is important to do … .” When Perlstein asked if this might alienate the wrong people, the organizers shrugged. These activists seemed in the clutches of 1968, transported back to Chicago and prepared for the worst. Fortunately, this time, the “whole world” wasn’t watching.

It’s remarkable how much these protesters live in another era. Over and over, they use Martin Luther King Jr.’s words to justify their actions. They especially like the following quote (seen on numerous Web sites) from “Letter from a Birmingham City Jail” (1963): “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create … a crisis and establish such creative tension so that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.” Plucked out of context, the quote suggests thoughtful political strategy. After all, these activists are appropriating America’s best political thinker on nonviolence and democratic change.

But in plucking the quote, these activists ignore its context. Go to the rest of the document and you find much more. King was explaining how a minority, African Americans, could struggle to make a moral appeal to a majority. He believed black Americans had to highlight “the best in the American dream” in order to be heard. And civil-rights protesters had to rule out other options before embracing the challenging ethic of nonviolent direct action. You had to have moral merit on your side -- what Reinhold Niebuhr called a “spiritual discipline against resentment” -- before rushing into the streets.

Today’s protesters ignore King’s reflections on his own historical context. Consider that John F. Kennedy was president when King wrote his letter, and that King was one of Kennedy’s most astute critics. King believed in 1960 that candidate Kennedy “had the intelligence and the skill and the moral fervor to give the leadership” the civil-rights movement had “been waiting for.” Soon, though, King realized Kennedy had “the political skill” but not “the moral passion.” Nonviolent direct action, with its intention of creating conflict to expose tension, was precisely the tool to jump-start that moral passion. King saw an opening that the movement could prod, and this got him the legislation he desired: the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The year 1963 was its own time, distinct from 1968 and certainly 2004. George W. Bush is no John F. Kennedy, and today’s Republican leadership in Congress is a far cry from the Congress of 1963–64. The chance that Bush and congressional Republicans would be prodded into some kind of action by such protests is zero (unless, indeed, protest moves them to act more forcefully in the other direction). The protesters at the Republican convention of 2004 might have imagined themselves as working in the tradition of King. But the context had shifted so drastically that their actions fell on -- quite literally -- deaf ears. It wasn’t even clear what they hoped to accomplish. And when the goals aren’t clear, protest means little more than expressing rage. That’s why it often takes the form of political theater, which too often encapsulates those who make it in their own hermetic world; it replaces explanation of political ideas and policies with in-jokes and references that confirm pre-existing opinions. If you know a pig stands for a white guy with power, you get it; if not, you don’t.

There’s a recent, evocative documentary, The Yes Men, that focuses on two activists inspired by the French Situationists (intellectual forerunners to 1968 France) and the Diggers (politically minded hippies before Hoffman). They pose as representatives of the World Trade Organization and attend business gatherings exhibiting a television monitor that polices workers and pops up like a phallus in a blow-up suit. They get applause in rooms of 30 people, although it’s not clear why. The movie winds up showing these “activists” as all-knowing lefties snickering at their opposition. The climactic scene involves their presentation to a college classroom, where students protest their idea of turning human feces into McDonald’s hamburgers sold to citizens of the Third World.

Unlike political humor that entertains, political theater has a pretense of changing public life. The Yes Men think of themselves as activists, but the tendency to laugh at their opposition rather than engage it betrays their project’s limitation. Asked about the “mind-set of the corporate man” who might resist their jokes, these activists call them “ready to goosestep.” Generally, people are “easy prey for the ideas of the corporate decision-makers.” The Yes Men characterize their opposition as “dumb asses” who wouldn’t “listen anyhow.” “Criticizing those in power with a smile and a middle finger” is what they intend. Expression trumps strategy.

Expressive Anti-Politics

Indeed, guerilla theater and protest as outrage suggest another legacy of 1968: expressive anti-politics. This element of political style draws from pop existentialism and participatory democracy. Once again, it crystallized in Chicago, and specifically in Tom Hayden. By 1968, Hayden was disenchanted with electoral politics and supported urban riots and Third World guerilla fighters. Chicago ratified his break from electoral politics, especially when Eugene McCarthy’s supporters spilled out of the convention and into the streets. The left had literally split -- those inside the hotel symbolizing electoral politics (the fogies), and those outside practicing direct democracy in the streets (the youth). Here can be found the essence of expressive anti-politics and its long legacy of liberal powerlessness.

The impulsive nature of direct action -- its immediacy -- is precisely its major appeal for today’s activist left. L.A. Kauffman, an organizer involved with United for Peace and Justice (a leading anti-war organization that formed in the last few years), explains, “Direct actionists devote little if any energy to lobbying or passing legislation; if they interact with the government, it’s almost always by raising a ruckus.” Here’s a curious embrace of protest over power -- the bizarre idea that a presence in the streets can substitute for a presence in the halls of government, or that reacting to government action is morally superior to initiating it. The sentiment is echoed in the ideas of Dontjustvote.com, an organization that was created for protests at the Republican convention of 2004 and a clear inheritor of the spirit of ’68. As its Web site explains, the organization embraces “the power of direct action” and “direct democracy as a viable alternative to representation.” This is the political theory of street action or, put more positively, “participatory democracy.”

The idea’s salience arises from its respectable lineage in American political thought, which stretches back to Thomas Jefferson and John Dewey. Dewey believed democracy required a home in the local neighborhood where discussion and association took place. When members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) gathered in Michigan in 1962 to write the famous “Port Huron Statement,” they outlined the demands of participatory democracy and invoked Dewey’s ideals. But they also invoked a jargon of authenticity taken from existentialist philosophy. While embracing “a democracy of individual participation,” they hoped to find “a meaning in life that is personally authentic.”

But there’s a problem with proclaiming both of those as goals: Authenticity of the self and actually living in a democratic community with other citizens who hold varying opinions are two very different -- if not, in fact, irreconcilable -- demands. In Chicago, the two ideals clashed, and authenticity won out. Protesters pitted themselves against the inauthentic masses -- the police, those who believed in the Vietnam War, the “pigs.” When this occurred, participatory democracy no longer supplemented representative democracy but replaced it; authenticity displaced the challenge of deliberating with other citizens who might disagree. To be authentic meant to give direct expression to desire rather than to work through a longer process of changing representative institutions. It focused on what George Cotkin, the historian of American existentialism, called “catharsis.”

Critics noticed the dangers at the time. As Christopher Lasch wrote soon after the Chicago convention, “The search for personal integrity could lead only to a politics in which ‘authenticity’ was equated with the degree of one’s alienation, the degree of one’s willingness to undertake existential acts of defiance.” Bayard Rustin agreed, arguing that the participatory ethic of protest threatened the importance of doing actual politics, which required coalition-building and compromise, and wound up pitting leftists against liberals in a dangerous internecine warfare and mutual alienation. But clear as this might have been to some back then, the idea’s appeal lives on in the activist left’s disposition to political action combined with a lack of realism -- a disposition apparent today when expression trumps effectiveness. Go back and read the statements of Naderites in 2000, or the shriller ones from 2004. You can hear moral fervor trumping political responsibility -- the idea that voting is about expressing conscience rather than influencing policy. When The Progressive interviewed the few remaining Naderites working in the swing state of Wisconsin in 2004, the publication confronted purist sentiment. Supporters explained that they were “principled” while those supporting the Democrats were “muted.” One went so far as to say, “It’s not important who’s sitting in the White House, it’s who’s sitting in.”

This is the ugly legacy of 1968: the authenticity of conscience pitted against the requirements of a pluralistic and conflicted society, the ethic of expression winning out against all other aims, including practicality. “Direct nonviolent action” no longer means what King believed it meant; it now means remaining pure by turning “Your Back on Bush,” as recent protesters did at the inauguration, even if the result wasn’t anything more than making them feel better. Expressive anti-politics is the last refuge of the powerless. Impulsive, it bursts like a flame and then burns out, to be felt only in the heart of the participant while the ruling class, unperturbed, goes on its merry way.

The Right(’s) Lessons from the ’60s

Burnout is a constant theme of 1968. We’ve heard the refrain about “tired radicals,” and the one about Yippies turning into yuppies. Even while appreciating the social movements from this time, Paul Berman (who was a part of it all) admits, “The uprisings proved amazingly unproductive in regard to conventional political or economic change.” The historian Alan Brinkley comments, “The new radicals” of 1968 “never developed the organizational or institutional skills necessary for building an enduring movement.”

Meanwhile, of course, an enduring movement was being built during the ’60s -- but it was on the right. Historians of the decade used to focus on left-wing organizations, writing books about sds, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, typically culminating in the tumult of 1968 and thus telling a story of factionalism and decline. Today, however, historians are growing more interested in documenting the right and telling a tale not of decline but of ascendance. James Miller, who wrote a marvelous book about sds, explained to the magazine Lingua Franca a few years back that “in terms of the political history of this country, the New Left just isn’t an important story.” Focusing on the left, he explained with a certain irony about his own historical work, evades “the extraordinary success of the forces that first supported [Barry] Goldwater, then [Ronald] Reagan as governor of California, and then [George] Wallace. I can’t help but see that absence in the historiography as integral to the mythologization of the Sixties.” Miller echoes the argument of M. Stanton Evans, a leading conservative intellectual and popular writer, who wrote, “Historians may well record the decade of the 1960s as the era in which conservatism, as a viable political force, finally came into its own.”

When Evans wrote that line he was discussing an organization that still grabs the attention of young historians today: Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). YAF’s membership was always more stable and often larger than SDS’s, but more importantly, the group created a longer-lasting infrastructure. It engaged young people philosophically, through a ringing endorsement of liberty and individualism; but it also engaged them with well-organized chapters on campuses that cultivated long-lasting skills for activists (Richard Viguerie, for instance, pioneered his direct-mail tactics through YAF). YAF worked with the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists to coordinate lectures of right-wing thinkers and circulate conservative books to students. It linked up with Goldwater and Reagan, supplying an army of young volunteers for their campaigns. Did it engage in protest? Certainly not. During its “heyday in the early ’60s,” Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin point out, YAF members went to “the lectern and the party caucus more than into the streets.”

The networks of YAF were replicated for adults in places like Orange County, California. Here, there were chapters of the John Birch Society that supported local school-board candidates and institutions like the Orange County School of Anti-Communism, where conservatives could fraternize, learn about boycotts of corporations selling products to communist countries, and hear Reagan speak before he even considered a run for governor. There were also barbecues, coffee klatches, and discussion groups that congealed a conservative animosity toward the federal government and liberalism. Churches and right-wing bookstores helped provide “movement centers,” and the infrastructure was especially impressive considering the decentralized, suburban setting.

These networks explain the passion and long-lasting influence behind Goldwater’s run for the presidency in 1964. Traditionally, the campaign was seen as a right-wing disaster. Goldwater’s convention speech in favor of “extremism” still sounds scary. But now, more remarkable is the infrastructure that stood behind Goldwater. A strong network of activists worked hard to push the Republican Party toward the right, away from centrists like Nelson Rockefeller. It wasn’t enough to win the presidency in 1964, but that same infrastructure -- YAF, John Birch Society chapters, and general right-wing networks -- helped Reagan become governor of California in 1966. As Isserman and Kazin explain, conservatives “sustained morale and kept expanding their numbers for years after the young radicals had splintered in various directions.”

We can link this scholarship about conservative grass-roots activism to something already well-known: that throughout the 1960s, the right was developing ideas that would come to fruition much later. Leading this initiative was the well-known (now at least) American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Though founded in 1943, it changed form during the 1960s. Its leader, William Baroody, believed it should not just reflect the right’s primary “special interest” -- corporations -- but develop bigger ideas. Baroody “understood,” as Sidney Blumenthal explained in The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, “that without conservative theory there could be no conservative movement.” Baroody forged alliances with the Goldwater campaign quietly, behind the scenes. He focused on long-term goals so that, when the excesses of the ’60s erupted, there was a place neoconservative intellectuals could go to develop their ideas during the ’70s. The AEI articulated both particular public policies and a broader philosophy of the free market -- something that undergirds conservative political action today. And, of course, it provided a model for other conservative think tanks during the ’70s.

The power of YAF, grass-roots networks, and think tanks like the AEI show that the right focused its energy on infrastructure and ideas during a time when the left focused on protest. The right’s tactics weren’t loud or theatrical. Its activists operated under the radar to lay the groundwork. They worked almost entirely within the system, changing the Republican Party from moderate to conservative precinct by precinct. And their story challenges the left-wing narrative of idealism during the decade. That’s precisely why it should inform the way liberals think about the future. To win real power, liberals need to think about infrastructure, institutions, and ideas. And they’re not going to get these if they look to the late ’60s for inspiration.

The Spirit of 1948: New Ideas in the Old

This is especially true for ideas. Who now reads left-wing books from 1968? Just try Hoffman’s Revolution for the Hell of It or Woodstock Nation. Or try Theodore Roszak’s The Making of a Counter Culture, a puff piece about the “non-intellective” exploration of “visionary splendor” and “human communion.” Or read the prognostication of “revolution” of “consciousness” in Charles Reich’s The Greening of America. Read even the otherwise smart Susan Sontag, who praises the worst elements of Third World revolutions in Styles of Radical Will (she later stood down from many of those positions). All of these books reflect a utopian hallucination not dissimilar from the style of protests on the streets of Chicago in 1968.

Younger thinkers today are going further back than the ’60s to rediscover good ideas. It’s been the Cold War liberalism of the ’40s and ’50s that has garnered the most interest. Books like Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s The Vital Center or Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History or John Kenneth Galbraith’s American Capitalism seem much more interesting than The Making of a Counter Culture. There’s good reason for this, because though we might feel closer to the ’60s chronologically, our own age is much more parallel to the ’40s. Then, as now, liberals faced an international enemy -- Niebuhr’s “children of darkness” -- willing to murder for salvation. Then, as now, liberals confronted conservatives who entertained dangerous ideas of launching preemptive wars abroad while slashing social programs at home. And, if we take the ’48ers up to 1952 and the election of JFK in 1960, then, as now, liberals were often an opposition party.

The ’48ers knew they had to articulate a public philosophy, the way conservatives would later. They sketched out broad principles that transcended liberal interest groups. Those principles grew out of their faith in the American nation as a community of citizens sharing mutual obligations to one another -- the sort that they saw during World War II and that they hoped could live on afterward. The ideas of national greatness and patriotism grounded their political thought. They upheld a public purpose that highlighted the weaknesses of the libertarian right and led them to criticize the “social imbalance” of a society enamored of consumerism and markets, and not America’s civic fabric. Politically, they supported the idea of a “pluralist” government with many voices participating, not just those of business and privilege. They wanted influence on the inside, not protest from the outside. In The Vital Center, Schlesinger wrote, “Our democratic tradition has been at its best an activist tradition. It has found its fulfillment, not in complaint or in escapism, but in responsibility and decision.”

The ’48ers, so far as I know, never marched against American actions abroad. What they did do was construct a framework for a liberal foreign policy, a robust alternative to conservative emphasis on military action and “rolling back” the enemy. The idea of containment was not simply a doctrine of realism but a moral disposition toward the demands of national power. America certainly had a strong role to play abroad, the ’48ers argued, but it had to do so with a sense of “humility.” So, for instance, Niebuhr, drawing upon Christian ethics (not yet the sole property of the right), argued against “preventive war.” Those who articulated such an idea “assume a prescience about the future which no man or nation possesses.” He went on to explain, “We would, I think, have a better chance of success in our struggle against a fanatical foe if we were less sure of our purity and virtue.” Learning this lesson required America to work with others to “reconstruct” poorer economies as much as engage with military power. This was to be a war of ideas as well as guns.

These thinkers didn’t just think; they put ideas into action. They attended international conferences of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, where they argued that America stood for more than a prosperous consumer economy. (Richard Nixon had made this assertion to Nikita Khrushchev in 1959, displaying a gleaming American kitchen to the Soviet leader at an exhibition fair; Galbraith chided Nixon’s equation of democracy with consumer triumph as a “simple-minded and mechanical view of man and his liberties.”) The ’48ers also befriended politicians. Unlike our own age, when politicians hire overpaid consultants with few ideas, during the ’50s, politicians turned to intellectuals. In 1953, Galbraith formed the Finletter Group, which collected papers on topics by scholars and writers, crafted speeches, and found ways to have ideas inform public debate. Most famously, Americans for Democratic Action became an organizational forum where intellectuals and politicians could formulate foreign and domestic policy together. In this and other ways, they found outlets for ideas that could become a source of opposition as well as inspiration.

These strengths shouldn’t allow us to ignore their limitations. These thinkers took things for granted, including their privileged status as white, highly educated men. They sometimes had a hard time accepting the activism of the ’60s, and they were slow to see how their own anti-communism, legitimate though it was, could descend ineluctably into the disaster of Vietnam. Their experience of the staid 1950s, when bureaucratic corporations accustomed themselves to the welfare state, made them take Keynesian policies for granted. In going back to these thinkers, we need not romanticize them. Indeed, one of their central weaknesses, taking the welfare state for granted, should inspire our thinking today.

The Past’s Lessons for the Future

This quick tour through postwar history gets us closer to what it means to be an opposition party today. First, we need to question the legacy of protest politics and political theater, which makes activists feel good but alienates and confuses others. We need to build a grass-roots infrastructure, like that developed by the right. We should also start reconstructing liberalism by going deeper into the past, while recognizing the limits any set of ideas from the past naturally have. These are some good first steps to take, but obviously they are just the beginning, and mostly about looking backward, not forward.

If we take these lessons seriously, our biggest challenge moving ahead is how to articulate our opposition to the right’s well-developed agenda while simultaneously developing a public philosophy like that of the ’48ers. The need for this became abundantly clear in the last presidential election. John Kerry lost because Americans didn’t understand what he stood for. They understood him as an opposition candidate but not as someone who had “values” that could be articulated and explained. This wasn’t just Kerry’s problem; it is the problem of liberalism generally. The public perceives liberalism negatively, due to the long war the right waged against it from the 1960s onward. Unlike the ’48ers, we cannot assume that our ideas resonate; we need to make them resonate.

To rearticulate liberal ideals while acting in opposition is not as hard as first appears. Take Social Security. Clearly, Bush is surprised by the backlash against privatization, as he scrambles around the country garnering support. This appears a dream come true for progressives, but it’s much more. It’s a challenge to articulate not just opposition but a public philosophy that can explain what liberals stand for. We shouldn’t defend a program inherited from the New Deal in a rearguard fashion but should reiterate the idea of a shared national purpose based on collective sacrifice.

Nor should we turn this into a demographic issue and bank on the elderly supporting Democrats; that’s interest-group politics, not a long-range public philosophy. We need to explain what Social Security teaches the nation about deeper principles. Why do Americans react against the term “privatize”? Because there is still a sense of shared obligation to one another, and it’s up to liberals to articulate that public philosophy while they oppose the president. We can show how the president’s proposal reflects the “social imbalance” the ’48ers perceived, the elevation of the self’s interest above the common good. None of this requires protest. It requires public argument. The time for protest may come, but it will undoubtedly rely on a change of leadership first and serious thinking about strategy later.

The same needs to be done on foreign policy. It’s not good enough to protest the Iraq War. Occasionally, Kerry articulated an alternative, albeit muted, to Bush’s foreign policy that embraced the ’48er idea of national humility and a critique of hubris. Today, we need to articulate this liberal foreign policy more forcefully. Its central message should be that American responsibility abroad shouldn’t rely on guns alone or a sense of superior moral virtue. Liberals should argue for nurturing civil society and democratic institutions throughout the world, envisioning an equivalent of the Marshall Plan for the Middle East and elsewhere. Liberals need to emphasize that the war against terrorism is a war of ideas as much as a war of military power and intelligence. Like the ’48ers, liberal intellectuals should define America abroad as more than just its well-known Hollywood films. We need not allow Bush to expropriate the rhetoric of democracy and freedom; we need to reshape these ideas in a more responsible and meaningful manner.

Liberals must also talk about shared sacrifice during wartime. This shouldn’t be about getting the military vote, even if that wouldn’t hurt. The tradition of national greatness expects shared sacrifice from all members of our society. As JFK quipped, “Ask what you can do for your country.” Only liberals will make it clear that the wealthiest elements of society should provide for the common good, so that we have enough to pay veterans’ benefits and provide other services. None of this will come from protest marches against the war, which to date have accomplished little more -- as unfair as this might seem -- than to permit the partisans of the right to raise questions about the left’s patriotism.

The problem with what I outline here is the lack of places to build articulate ideas and have them inform the thinking of Democratic politicians. Now is certainly the time for progressives to invest in building an infrastructure -- the only alternative to spasmodic protests in the streets. The term “progressive infrastructure” seems to spark interest among some funders today, especially considering how the quickie infrastructure built in 2004 -- notably America Coming Together -- didn’t quite do the trick. It’s time for institutions that can approximate what Americans for Democratic Action did during the Cold War -- provide a space where thinkers and politicians meet -- and build local networks. Of course, this requires that Democratic politicians stop relying so heavily on overpaid consultants, and that wealthier progressives pony up money for institutions without immediate impact.

This leaves open the question of how to relate to the “actually existing” protest left today. The ’48er spirit was recently invoked to call for a purge of the protest wing of the left today. Writing in The New Republic, Peter Beinart suggested that MoveOn should be pushed out of a more responsible left. While I think MoveOn deserves criticism for its pacifism and teaming up with hard-left dinosaurs like ANSWER, it doesn’t merit a purge (purge from what, exactly?). What MoveOn needs is an articulation of the principle of “responsibility” that Schlesinger set out against the spirit of alienated protest. There’s reason for hope on this front. After all, Mother Jones described MoveOn’s young leader, Eli Pariser, as a “scruffy indie-rock fan who not long ago was chanting anti-globalization slogans and confronting riot police at World Bank meetings.” At one anti–International Monetary Fund protest, though, he talked with police and, in his own words, “realized that the scripted confrontation of attacking and antagonizing them wasn’t going to get us anywhere. It changed the way I was thinking, tactically.” This idea of laying groundwork for an infrastructure also came out in MoveOn’s work during the last election; it didn’t succeed, but with a little help from a stronger intellectual infrastructure in the future, it might.

My tempered hope about this comes from a sense of urgency about the Bush administration. Such a sense threatens to degenerate into protest theatrics and expressive anti-politics. Instead of embracing those styles from the past, liberals should take their lessons from the right during the 1960s. Liberals will never be as powerful as the right. That’s not just because the right is richer but because the liberal faith is, by definition, weaker. Unlike evangelical Christianity, liberalism can never provide absolute zeal or commitment. We can draw some inspiration from the “fighting faith” of the ’48ers’ liberalism, but we also face challenges that they never faced, especially the infrastructure the right has built over the last few decades. With this said, liberals don’t need to be as weak as they are now. We need not recycle protest and alienation from the past. Liberals have been in the opposition before, and they’ve managed to win back political power. But it took care and precision and some serious thinking about strategy. That’s our charge today.

Kevin Mattson teaches American history at Ohio University and is the author, most recently, of When America Was Great: The Fighting Faith of Postwar Liberalism.

Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc.

The Kinkiest Platform In Texas History!

The Kinkster is not joking (for a change). The Lone Star State has had its share of clowns, idiots, and criminals in the Governor's Mansion. Scattered in the mix have been a few solid citizens. Richard (Kinky) Friedman is a breath of fresh air and is a solid citizen. If this is a (fair & balanced) tipping point, so be it.

How Hard Could It Be? 

THE STATE OF POLITICS
by Richard (Kinky) Friedman

Today, Texans have no choice for their leadership except paper or plastic. Political parties are for sale to the highest bidder, and lobbyists control the Texas Legislative agenda. "A fool and his money are soon elected. " - Kinky Friedman

Current Texas election laws make it nearly impossible for a non-party candidate to get on the ballot. Perhaps this explains why only 25 percent of eligible Texas voters participated in the last gubernatorial election. Texans need real representation, and they’re not getting it. "The career politicians are keeping the elevator at the penthouse floor and not sending it down for the rest of us." - Kinky Friedman

The two major parties spent $100 million in the last gubernatorial election for a job that pays $100,000. Do the math. Nope - it doesn’t add up. "I’m running this campaign on the coin of the spirit. I need your help." - Kinky Friedman

Texas was founded by independent, courageous, honorable citizens. The last great Independent elected governor of Texas was Sam Houston, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Texas needs a strong independent voice, if it is ever to regain its greatness. "If you elect me, I’ll be the first Governor in Texas history with a listed phone number." - Kinky Friedman

EDUCATION REFORM: Priority One
The young people of Texas are our future, and we must treat them as such. They are our number one resource for that future. The current government seems to prefer band-aids over solid planning for the next generations of Texas. A Texas revolution is needed in our school systems. "No teacher left behind" - Kinky Friedman

Texas is #1 in drop out rates and #48 in education spending. Our children deserve so much more. Texas is also 48th in per capita child protection expenditures, as well as 49th in general, 46th in mental health, 45th in public health, 49th in state arts agency, 44th in highway, and 49th in water quality expenditures. The Austin American-Statesman is correct: "It’s Texas vs. Mississippi in a race to the bottom."

Teachers are Kinky’s heroes, along with police, soldiers, firefighters, and cowboys. Each of us remembers a teacher who made an impact on and changed our lives for the better. Kinky intends to identify these special people and seek their advice in creating a vibrant, responsive and forward-looking education system for Texas. "Politicans appear to be more interested in French cuffs than solving our problems." - Kinky Friedman

TEXAS PEACE CORPS
Kinky will create an in-state volunteer agency, modeled after the Peace Corps, in which he served, to promote the arts and life skills in Texas schools. Musicians and artists, along with retired teachers, business executives, and police, will join us in teaching our kids how to act, play music, paint, write a check, keep accounts, and stay out of trouble. Kinky will ask his friends, including Laura Bush, Willie Nelson, Richard ‘Racehorse’ Haynes, and former UT Coach Darrell Royal, to lead this effort. "Never say **** in front of a c-h-i-l-d." - Kinky Friedman

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
Kinky is not anti-death penalty, just opposed to executing the wrong person! DNA has released dozens of improperly convicted people from death rows all over America. We’ve learned that juries and testimony are not infallible. There are cases in which the death penalty is warranted, but there is no disputing the obvious: Texas executes people who may be innocent. Taking a life is a grave responsibility - no pun intended. Two thousand years ago an innocent man named Jesus Christ, was executed; Kinky’s question is: "What have we learned in two thousand years?"

Texas law does not currently provide for a life without the possibility of parole. Judges and juries must either send someone to death row or risk having them eventually released due to good behavior or prison overcrowding. Kinky will change that with the stroke of a pen. Repeat and/or violent criminals deserve permanent homes, which Kinky will be happy to provide.

NEW ENERGY: Kinky To Make Texas #1 Again
For decades, Texas was #1 in US oil and gas exploration. It once even led the world! Texas can reclaim its role as world leader in new energy production with alternative solutions. Kinky is our ‘energizer’ candidate.

WILLIE AND KINKY: Bio-Diesel Buddies
Bio-diesel fuel powers Willie Nelson’s famous bus, the Honeysuckle Rose. Bio-diesel, eco-friendly and produced from agricultural products - even reclaimed frying grease - is a first step in the right direction. Willie will work with Kinky in promoting and developing bio-diesel and all of Texas’ vast, untapped, environmentally friendly resources. Currently, we’re using this fuel source for landfill. Surely, pulling a rutabaga out of the ground is more cost-effective than drilling a two-mile-deep hole in the sand. "How hard could it be?" - Kinky Friedman.

ABOLISH POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Political correctness must be abolished. Texans need to be told the truth. Texans do not need opaque, carefully scripted press releases.. "A man oughtta be able to light his cigar once in a while." - Kinky Friedman

DE-WUSSIFICATION
Our icons are being demeaned. Cowboys are no longer heroes for our children, but subject to derision. We are being laughed at instead of respected in the rest of the country. What has happened to our glorious heritage? This is the great state of Texas! We are not wusses, we are Texans. "We will beat back the wussification of Texas if we have to do it one wuss at a time." - Kinky Friedman.

IN SUMMARY
KINKY MAY BE THE ONLY PERSON IN TEXAS WHO CAN MAKE REAL CHANGES IN HOW TEXANS ARE GOVERNED, PROTECTED AND SUPPORTED BY THEIR LEADERS. TEXAS NEEDS HELP. WE NEED TO PUT A REAL GOVERNOR ON HER. VOTE KINKY. YOU’LL LIKE IT.

Copyright © 2005 The Kinky Friedman For Governor Campaign John McCall, Treasurer, P.O. Box 293910, Kerrville, TX 78029

$26K Per Kid?

The I-Man is taking heat for the Imus Ranch For Kids With Cancer. This philanthropy raises a lot of money. There is an embarrassment of riches here. On a per capita basis, the Imus Ranch spends $26 thou per kid. Deduct airfare (paid by the Imus charity) from that, and a week for a kid at the Imus Ranch rivals any resort in the world. This is supposedly a working ranch where the boys and girls learn to work cattle. Ironically, the I-Man and his wife (and presumably their son) are vegetarians. I don't know what the kids eat, but $20+K buys an awful lot of broccoli. If this is (fair & balanced) skepticism, so be it.

[x Wall Street Journal]
Don Imus' ranch for sick children draws scrutiny
by Robert Frank

Every weekday morning, listeners across the country tune in to radio host Don Imus to hear his trademark rants about politics, Hollywood, sports and Iraq.

Most days, they also hear about his favorite philanthropic cause: the Imus Ranch.

Mr. Imus and his wife, Deirdre, opened the 4,000-acre ranch, nestled in the mesa country of northern New Mexico, in 1999 to help sick children. Dubbed the "Cowboy Taj Mahal" by locals, the complex has a 14,000-square-foot adobe mansion, swimming pool, billiard hall, herds of longhorn cattle, buffalo and sheep, and a replica of an 1880s mining town. Its stated mission is to give "children with severe illnesses an opportunity to experience the life of an American cowboy."

The ranch has also burnished Imus's image. With his signature scowl, gruff voice, 10-gallon hats and tendency to refer to some public figures as "creeps," "thugs" and "fascists," Imus, 64 years old, has built a top-10 national radio show with 3.25 million listeners a week. It is also simulcast on MSNBC television. The ranch has helped shine a spotlight on his softer side, transforming Imus and his wife into two of the country's best-known philanthropists. They've donated more than $1 million to the ranch over the past four years and raised $20 million for its start-up and operations. Celebrity donors, including TV-news star Barbara Walters, former New York Stock Exchange Chief Richard Grasso and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, receive praise on Mr. Imus's show.

"Having grown up on a cattle ranch, what I liked about the experience was the sense of accomplishment, discipline, self-esteem and structure," says Imus, who was raised in Arizona.

Yet the charity's large budget, and the Imus family's personal stays at the ranch, are drawing scrutiny from tax officials and regulators. The ranch's expenses totaled $2.6 million last year, while it hosted only about 100 kids - an unusually high dollar-to-child ratio, charity experts say. The Imus family stays at the ranch all summer with the children, but they also visit for weeks at a time during holidays as well as dropping in for occasional weekends, Mr. Imus says.

The law says the charity is supposed to account for or be compensated for his use of the ranch, but it hasn't done so. The controversy highlights the blurred lines that can emerge when the wealthy combine their personal interests with their public charity work.

Earlier this year, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer questioned Imus about the ranch. While the focus and scope of the questions aren't known, people familiar with the matter say Spitzer's office asked about Mr. Imus's personal use of the ranch and the charity's financial controls. The review isn't an investigation, these people said, and the questions were prompted by the ranch's delayed filing of its financial statements.

The inquiry follows a ruling in 2000 by the San Miguel County, N.M., assessor's office that the ranch shouldn't be granted a full tax exemption from local property taxes. In its decision, the county said that since the ranch hosts kids for only part of the year, and portions of the ranch are used for personal housing, only 55 percent of the ranch is exempt from property taxes. Imus complied with the ruling. The ranch retains its federal tax-exempt status.

Imus's nemesis, radio jockey Howard Stern, repeatedly attacks the Imus Ranch on his show, saying it's a summer home for the Imus family and calling it a "big scam."

Imus calls claims that he uses the ranch as a vacation home "absurd." He says he and his wife manage the ranch as volunteers, working the entire time they're there. "I'm not getting anything out of this other than having fun helping the children," he says.

According to its latest tax filings, the ranch's expenses totaled $2.6 million in 2003 and $2.7 million in 2002. That works out to $27,000 per child, or just under $3,000 per night for their typical nine-day stays. For the same amount, a child could stay in a top suite at New York's Waldorf Astoria or secure a cabin on the Queen Mary 2.

By comparison, Camp Starfish, another well-known kids charity, hosts over 150 kids a summer on a budget of $360,000 a year, according to tax filings. Actor Paul Newman's charity, The Hole in the Wall Gang Fund, has a budget that's more than twice as large as the Imus Ranch but hosts 10 times as many kids at its summer camp, its filing says. It also sponsors year-round programs.

"Does it cost too much per kid? Maybe it does," Imus says, adding that "I would spend $2.6 million or $1.8 million per child if I thought it could change their lives."

Most of the ranch expenses go for annual overhead, including $709,000 in salaries for the ranch's 15 staffers, $770,000 for insurance, animal feed, repairs and other costs, and $106,000 to fly and transport the kids to the ranch, according to the ranch's 2003 tax filing.

The ranch hosts 10 sessions a year with about 10 kids attending each. The sessions run from June to September, with an additional session in March. The Imus family stays in the mansion with the children, but the family also visits during the off-season. The Imuses and their 6-year-old son, Wyatt, stay at the ranch for about a week around Thanksgiving and another one to three weeks around Christmas. Imus says he and the family also fly out for occasional weekends if there's work to do, such as training a new chef.

During their visits, the Imus family stays at the mansion, hikes on the land and uses the ranch facilities. The ranch chef, who's employed by the charity, often cooks for the family when they're visiting, current and former staff say.

Under the federal tax law governing charities, Imus would normally be required to pay the ranch for the value of any personal or family-related use on fair and reasonable terms. That would include the value of lodging, food and other expenses. Tax filings show that the ranch hasn't collected any rent or service payments during its four years in existence.

Imus says he isn't aware of such rules, and hasn't paid any rent or fees, but that he and his wife draw no salary as board members or ranch managers. He says he and his family pay their own way to and from the ranch, drive their own vehicles and ride their own horses when visiting. He adds that the ranch has to remain open year-round because of the animals, so his visits don't add to the costs. He said that when he's on the ranch, he and his wife do chores such as cleaning the horse stalls, caring for the animals or working with the staff on problems.

"I have a $30 million estate" in Westport, Conn., Imus says. "I don't need the ranch for a vacation."

Mr. Imus and his wife dreamed up the ranch in 1997, after learning about Mr. Newman's Hole in the Wall camp. Mr. Imus had planned to buy a personal ranch, and he and his wife hoped to start a charity for kids, so they merged the two ideas into the Imus Ranch.

The price tag for the ranch ballooned to more than $20 million. Deirdre Imus, 40, an artist and fitness buff who describes herself as "color aggressive," took charge of the design. The main mansion was done in bright red, orange and black, with Asian and American-Indian rugs, giant fireplaces and rustic chandeliers.

It has five bedrooms for the children, a library, dining hall and great room complete with a Steinway grand piano. The Imuses' master-bedroom suite, positioned according to Chinese feng shui principles, features a screened-in sleeping porch overlooking a mesa and an outdoor shower designed to look like Aztec ruins.

"We had fun," Deirdre Imus told Architectural Digest in a 2001 interview, "but I drove the plasterer crazy."

They also built an entire village in Old West style, with buildings designed to look like a general store, marshal's office and saloon. There are bunk houses for doctors, other medical staff and ranch hands. Don Imus also has a broadcasting studio on the site, so he can do his show - a production of WFAN radio, which is owned by Viacom Inc. - from the ranch. The charity paid for the building housing the studio but not the equipment.

Imus raised funds from listeners, friends and companies. Former Merrill Lynch CEO David Komansky donated more than $1.4 million, while Executive Jet Chief Executive Richard Santulli gave $1 million, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service. Nasdaq, American Express Co., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp., General Electric Co. and other companies are sponsors. There's an AFLAC Rodeo Arena and Hay Barn, and AT&T Horse Barn.

Donors could sponsor an acre of land for $5,000, while companies paid for the buildings and equipment. Deirdre Imus wrote a cookbook, "Cooking for Kids and Cowboys," which has sold nearly 100,000 copies, with the profit going to ranch. The ranch also gets proceeds from a line of food products, including Imus Ranch dressing.

The philosophy behind the ranch, the Imuses say, is to give children with cancer and other illnesses, as well as siblings of kids who have died from sudden infant death syndrome, more pride and confidence by learning how to be cowboys and cowgirls. Kids learn to ride horses, clean their stalls, rope steer and collect eggs from the chickens.

The sessions can be tough: Staff say that during the summer, children sometimes work in 100-degree heat pulling weeds and shoveling horse muck. There are no televisions, videogames or CD players for the kids, and their day starts with chores at 6 a.m.

Under Mrs. Imus's orders, the ranch is also strictly vegan and organic. They serve no meat or cheese. The ranch doesn't use pesticides or cleaning agents, since Deirdre Imus believes that environmental chemicals are a cause of cancer.

Grace Serrame, a single mom and restaurant hostess in Jersey City, N.J., sent her 16-year-old daughter, Athalia, to the ranch for two summers. Ms. Serrame said the ranch transformed Athalia - who has Ewing's Sarcoma - from a shy, reclusive girl into an active teenager.

"At the ranch, they treat the kids not like they're sick, but just like normal kids," Serrame says. "She did the chores and rode the horses, and no one treated her like she was special."

Mr. Imus says he prefers to oversee the ranch and kids himself, rather than hiring a manager to run it. But the close relationship has raised questions by regulators.

In February of 2000, the ranch filed for a property-tax exemption from the San Migel County Assessor's office. The office conducted an investigation in response to the request, visiting and inspecting the property. The assessor determined that while the primary use of the property is as a charity, "those services are not rendered and undertaken in their entirety, or 100 percent, of the year." The assessor also determined that "certain improvements on the property are utilized, in part, for personal housing or other purposes not directly related to the day-to-day basis (of) providing services for the children."

Mr. Imus declined to comment on the decision, but his attorney, John Silver, says the decision for the ranch to pay their share of the property taxes, which amounts to $17,000 a year, was a compromise with the county.

Charity attorneys not connected with the ranch say that because the taxes stem in part from his personal use of the ranch, Imus could face penalty taxes for failing to reimburse the ranch.

The personal-use issue flared up again in December and January, when Mr. Spitzer's office sent a list of questions to Imus. Spitzer oversees New York-based charities such as the Imus Ranch.

Spitzer's office asked Imus about his family's use of the ranch, how often they visited and how they accounted for or disclosed the Imus family's use of the ranch, Imus said. He said he explained to the attorney general's office that "we run the ranch when we're here. We're always working." He also said it would cost over $100,000 a year to hire a qualified manager to do the same job.

Yet according to tax law, the value of any benefits received by Imus and his family should be accounted for. Those benefits should also not exceed the value of any services he provides to the charity. Most charities avoid allowing directors and officers exclusive use of their facilities.

"Arrangements of this sort aren't customary, and an independent board would typically refrain from providing significant personal benefits to a volunteer director or his family," says John Sare, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler LLP and an expert in charity law.

Imus can offset the charges by working for the charity. But that too has to be expensed or accounted for by the charity board. Mr. Imus says the board doesn't see the need to do such accounting.

The board consists of Imus, his wife and his two personal accountants.

Ian McDonald contributed to this article.

Copyright © 2005 The Wall Street Journal

The Impossible Dream

This e-mail just arrived in my In Box. Richard (Kinky) Friedman is the first candidate for governor who has excited me in the nearly 40 years that I have spent in the Lone Star State. If this is (fair & balanced) fantasy, so be it.

Dear Fellow Texan, Thank you for signing up with my campaign! Today, Texans have no choice for their leadership except paper or plastic. Political parties are for sale to the highest bidder, and lobbyists control the Texas Legislative agenda. A fool and his money are soon elected. Please forward this email on to your friends and family and tell them that you're supporting my Independent Campaign for Governor. Ask them to sign up to restore real representation to the Texas Governor's office here: http://www.kinkyfriedman.com/volunteer.html Current Texas election laws make it nearly impossible for a non-party candidate to get on the ballot. Perhaps this explains why only 25 percent of eligible Texas voters participated in the last gubernatorial election. The career politicians are keeping the elevator at the penthouse floor and not sending it down for the rest of us. Texas was founded by independent, courageous, honorable citizens. The last great Independent elected governor of Texas was Sam Houston, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Texas needs a strong independent voice, if it is ever to regain its greatness. If you elect me, I’ll be the first Governor in Texas history with a listed phone number. Please spread the word, we're just getting started. Thank you, Kinky Friedman

Paid For By The Kinky Friedman For Governor Campaign
John McCall, Treasurer, P.O. Box 293910, Kerrville, TX 78029

Neo-McCarthyism

¡No mas! as Don Imus would put it. However, the I-Man should put a cork in his tedious soliloquy that has run since the Wall Street Journal accused Imus and his wife of abusing the public trust with their philanthropic effort — The Imus Ranch For Kids With Cancer — in Ribera, NM. What is worse than the I-Man's drone about the purity of his efforts on his ranch is the freak and geek show that dominates talking-head TV: a drooling Pope, a vegetable named Terri Schiavo, and the Michael Jackson trial. Frank Rich's most recent NYT column nails the hypocrisy of the God Racket. If this is (fair & balanced) disgust, so be it.

[x The New York Times]
The God Racket, From DeMille to DeLay
by Frank Rich

As Congress and the president scurried to play God in the lives of Terri Schiavo and her family last weekend, ABC kicked off Holy Week with its perennial ritual: a rebroadcast of the 1956 Hollywood blockbuster, "The Ten Commandments."

Cecil B. DeMille's epic is known for the parting of its Technicolor Red Sea, for the religiosity of its dialogue (Anne Baxter's Nefretiri to Charlton Heston's Moses: "You can worship any God you like as long as I can worship you.") and for a Golden Calf scene that DeMille himself described as "an orgy Sunday-school children can watch." But this year the lovable old war horse has a relevance that transcends camp. At a time when government, culture, science, medicine and the rule of law are all under threat from an emboldened religious minority out to remake America according to its dogma, the half-forgotten show business history of "The Ten Commandments" provides a telling back story.

As DeMille readied his costly Paramount production for release a half-century ago, he seized on an ingenious publicity scheme. In partnership with the Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nationwide association of civic-minded clubs founded by theater owners, he sponsored the construction of several thousand Ten Commandments monuments throughout the country to hype his product. The Pharaoh himself - that would be Yul Brynner - participated in the gala unveiling of the Milwaukee slab. Heston did the same in North Dakota. Bizarrely enough, all these years later, it is another of these DeMille-inspired granite monuments, on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin, that is a focus of the Ten Commandments case that the United States Supreme Court heard this month.

We must wait for the court's ruling on whether the relics of a Hollywood relic breach the separation of church and state. Either way, it's clear that one principle, so firmly upheld by DeMille, has remained inviolate no matter what the courts have to say: American moguls, snake-oil salesmen and politicians looking to score riches or power will stop at little if they feel it is in their interests to exploit God to achieve those ends. While sometimes God racketeers are guilty of the relatively minor sin of bad taste - witness the crucifixion-nail jewelry licensed by Mel Gibson - sometimes we get the demagoguery of Father Coughlin or the big-time cons of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker.

The religio-hucksterism surrounding the Schiavo case makes DeMille's Hollywood crusades look like amateur night. This circus is the latest and most egregious in a series of cultural shocks that have followed Election Day 2004, when a fateful exit poll question on "moral values" ignited a take-no-prisoners political grab by moral zealots. During the commercial interruptions on "The Ten Commandments" last weekend, viewers could surf over to the cable news networks and find a Bible-thumping show as only Washington could conceive it. Congress was floating such scenarios as staging a meeting in Ms. Schiavo's hospital room or, alternatively, subpoenaing her, her husband and her doctors to a hearing in Washington. All in the name of faith.

Like many Americans, I suspect, I tried to picture how I would have reacted if a bunch of smarmy, camera-seeking politicians came anywhere near a hospital room where my own relative was hooked up to life support. I imagined summoning the Clint Eastwood of "Dirty Harry," not "Million Dollar Baby." But before my fantasy could get very far, star politicians with the most to gain from playing the God card started hatching stunts whose extravagant shamelessness could upstage any humble reverie of my own.

Senator Bill Frist, the Harvard-educated heart surgeon with presidential aspirations, announced that watching videos of Ms. Schiavo had persuaded him that her doctors in Florida were mistaken about her vegetative state - a remarkable diagnosis given that he had not only failed to examine the patient ostensibly under his care but has no expertise in the medical specialty, neurology, relevant to her case. No less audacious was Tom DeLay, last seen on "60 Minutes" a few weeks ago deflecting Lesley Stahl's questions about his proximity to allegedly criminal fund-raising by saying he would talk only about children stranded by the tsunami. Those kids were quickly forgotten as he hitched his own political rehabilitation to a brain-damaged patient's feeding tube. Adopting a prayerful tone, the former exterminator from Sugar Land, Tex., took it upon himself to instruct "millions of people praying around the world this Palm Sunday weekend" to "not be afraid."

The president was not about to be outpreached by these saps. The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of 2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Within hours he turned Ms. Schiavo into a slick applause line at a Social Security rally. "It is wise to always err on the side of life," he said, wisdom that apparently had not occurred to him in 1999, when he mocked the failed pleas for clemency of Karla Faye Tucker, the born-again Texas death-row inmate, in a magazine interview with Tucker Carlson.

These theatrics were foretold. Culture is often a more reliable prophecy than religion of where the country is going, and our culture has been screaming its theocratic inclinations for months now. The anti-indecency campaign, already a roaring success, has just yielded a new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Kevin J. Martin, who had been endorsed by the Parents Television Council and other avatars of the religious right. The push for the sanctity of marriage (or all marriages except Terri and Michael Schiavo's) has led to the banishment of lesbian moms on public television. The Armageddon-fueled worldview of the "Left Behind" books extends its spell by the day, soon to surface in a new NBC prime-time mini-series, "Revelations," being sold with the slogan "The End is Near."

All this is happening while polls consistently show that at most a fifth of the country subscribes to the religious views of those in the Republican base whom even George Will, speaking last Sunday on ABC's "This Week," acknowledged may be considered "extremists." In that famous Election Day exit poll, "moral values" voters amounted to only 22 percent. Similarly, an ABC News survey last weekend found that only 27 percent of Americans thought it was "appropriate" for Congress to "get involved" in the Schiavo case and only 16 percent said it would want to be kept alive in her condition. But a majority of American colonists didn't believe in witches during the Salem trials either - any more than the Taliban reflected the views of a majority of Afghans. At a certain point - and we seem to be at that point - fear takes over, allowing a mob to bully the majority over the short term. (Of course, if you believe the end is near, there is no long term.)

That bullying, stoked by politicians in power, has become omnipresent, leading television stations to practice self-censorship and high school teachers to avoid mentioning "the E word," evolution, in their classrooms, lest they arouse fundamentalist rancor. The president is on record as saying that the jury is still out on evolution, so perhaps it's no surprise that The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a three-year-old "religious rights" unit in the Justice Department that investigated a biology professor at Texas Tech because he refused to write letters of recommendation for students who do not accept evolution as "the central, unifying principle of biology." Cornelia Dean of The New York Times broke the story last weekend that some Imax theaters, even those in science centers, are now refusing to show documentaries like "Galápagos" or "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" because their references to Darwin and the Big Bang theory might antagonize some audiences. Soon such films will disappear along with biology textbooks that don't give equal time to creationism.

James Cameron, producer of "Volcanoes" (and, more famously, the director of "Titanic"), called this development "obviously symptomatic of our shift away from empiricism in science to faith-based science." Faith-based science has in turn begat faith-based medicine that impedes stem-cell research, not to mention faith-based abstinence-only health policy that impedes the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and diseases like AIDS.

Faith-based news is not far behind. Ashley Smith, the 26-year-old woman who was held hostage by Brian Nichols, the accused Atlanta courthouse killer, has been canonized by virtually every American news organization as God's messenger because she inspired Mr. Nichols to surrender by talking about her faith and reading him a chapter from Rick Warren's best seller, "The Purpose-Driven Life." But if she's speaking for God, what does that make Dennis Rader, the church council president arrested in Wichita's B.T.K. serial killer case? Was God instructing Terry Ratzmann, the devoted member of the Living Church of God who this month murdered his pastor, an elderly man, two teenagers and two others before killing himself at a weekly church service in Wisconsin? The religious elements of these stories, including the role played by the end-of-times fatalism of Mr. Ratzmann's church, are left largely unexamined by the same news outlets that serve up Ashley Smith's tale as an inspirational parable for profit.

Next to what's happening now, official displays of DeMille's old Ten Commandments monuments seem an innocuous encroachment of religion into public life. It is a full-scale jihad that our government signed onto last weekend, and what's most scary about it is how little was heard from the political opposition. The Harvard Law School constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe pointed out this week that even Joe McCarthy did not go so far as this Congress and president did in conspiring to "try to undo the processes of a state court." But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain.

This is Frank Rich's (Associate Editor of the NYT) last Arts & Leisure column. Beginning on April 10, Mr. Rich's column will resume in Op-Ed and can be found on Sundays in the Editorials/Op-Ed section of the Web site.

Copyright — 2005 The New York Times Company

Leave Adam Smith Alone!

My recently completed economic history course in Geezer College (aka Senior University) has sensitized me to six great economists: Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Milton Friedman. I am always on the lookout for some good ol' revisionism. If this is (fair & balanced) contrarianism, so be it.

[x The Scotsman]
Let's re-examine what Adam Smith really said
by Gavin Kennedy

Will the real Adam Smith stand up, please? There certainly are plenty of phoney versions on parade whenever his name is mentioned.

Some on the Right brazenly saw in Smith’s name an authority against much of what he opposed on moral grounds. He was cited to oppose shorter working hours, to continue employing women and children in coal mines and dark satanic mills, even in defence of slavery. Smith allegedly advised against interference in the business of business.

The cries went up - Laissez faire! Leave the mine and mill owners alone! They know best. The invisible hand will come right in the end. It’s all in Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Interfere at your peril.

Some on the Left naively saw Smith as a compelling authority in favour of state intervention. Wilberforce quoted him against slavery, a practice Smith opposed on moral and economic grounds. Others quoted his support for the government to fund a school in every village so that each child would become literate and numerate. But they did not like his moral sentiments or his political economy.

The distortions of Smith’s views have conquered popular discourse. Libertarians on the Right vie with voices on the Left and sling quotations out of context - they long since gave up reading his books.

The distortions began shortly after Smith died in 1790. The bloody excesses of French Terror in 1793 rocked the British establishment. Ten years earlier, the Americans had forced Britain out of its 13 colonies. While the American Republic was far away, the French version was only a few miles from Dover.

A panicky state investigated Smith’s friends, searching for evidence that his books were likely to incite British mobs to follow the French example. For his friends it was too close for comfort. Leaders of mobs got 14 years’ transportation and there was no assurance Smith’s supporters would fair better, for social ostracism in their world was as serious as a voyage to Botany Bay.

Adam Smith was a moral philosopher who also wrote about political economy. Over the years economics has become a branch of applied mathematics. Smithian moral sentiments were dumped, along with his political economy. His Wealth of Nations adorns the shelves of academe, safely unread by those who should know better. Like his grave just off the High Street in Edinburgh, his legacy is neglected. Worse, it has been purloined.

Smith never wrote a word about "capitalism", yet he is hailed as the "high priest of capitalism". He is the "father of modern economics" though he would find much in today’s economics unrecognisable as his progeny . He is alleged to be an advocate of "Laissez Faire" though he never used these words and claims that he used English equivalents are tenuous. He did not believe it advisable to leave merchants and manufacturers alone, because they were likely to form monopolies, restrict supply and raise prices.

Smith took the long view of society’s development. He was never in favour of quick fixes. He considered stability in society more important than correcting even serious deficiencies too quickly. He took a historical view and his books are full of references to classical Greece and Rome and what they taught about government, moral conduct and economic growth, and the need for natural liberty and justice.

The "new" economy he discussed in Wealth of Nations was not new to him. He saw a growing commercial society as a revival of the commerce of western Europe that had been overrun by barbarian hordes. His inquiry into the wealth of nations was like a one-man Royal commission, a tour de force, drawing on evidence over the millennia since the fall of Rome and from contemporary evidence he analysed in painstaking detail.

Commerce was a revival, not a new revolution. From commerce, established on a prosperous and improved agricultural base, opulence would spread deep into society, itself poverty-stricken to a degree we cannot imagine today. Scotland was a backward, ignorant and fractious country; England was slightly better. But both would rise out of their stagnation if commerce was unburdened from the mercantile politics lasting since the Middle Ages.

Smith disapproved of colonies as expensive ways to buy what could be bought in markets. Unnecessary wars to revenge slights on the King’s ministers rather than matters of substance were on a scale of prodigality he railed against. He preferred investment and jobs in productive activity that increased wealth. Not that he was a pacifist. Defence was the "first duty of the government" to protect society from barbaric neighbours.

He saw society as becoming naturally harmonious through the intense dependence of each person on the labour of every other person and taught that the propensity to "truck, barter and exchange" led to people serving their own interests best by serving the interests of others from whom they needed daily necessities.

That is his true legacy, the melding of his moral sentiments with liberty, justice and his economics. It is time his legacy was claimed back.

Gavin Kennedy is a professor at Edinburgh Business School and author of Adam Smith’s Lost Legacy, published today by Palgrave Macmillan.

Copyright © 2005 The Scotsman

Hugo Is Right And Wrong!

I gave up the lecture pretty early in my so-called career at the Collegium Excellens. For one thing, saying the same damn thing over and over five times in a couple of days would cause someone to be institutionalized (or doped up on Thorazine) in any other context. For another, I found it boring. Most lecturers at the Collegium read — in essence — to their classes out of a different textbook. Dirty little secret: more than one textbook salesman told me that Thomas A. Bailey's The American Pageant was the lecturers' book of choice because Bailey included a lot of "humorous" anecdotes that made the "lecturer" appear witty. So, most "lecturers" in the history survey course read Bailey to their classes and assigned another non-Bailey text to their classes. Elsewhere in this blog, I proclaimed my affinity for the late Professor Lionel Basney who used the metaphor of the standup comedian for a college teacher. Improv is edgy. Improv is dangerous. Improv is addictive. Why did Lenny Bruce keep doing his act in the face of police persecution? In addition to heroin, Bruce was addicted to standing before an audience and saying whatever came to mind. I agree with Professor Schwyzer's indictment of ed-degrees. I disagree with his rejection of technology. At the Collegium, all of my fraudulent colleagues lectured out of Bailey and tried to pass his stories off as their own. I embraced technology; at the end, the final class schedule carrying my name showed all five of my sections of U.S. history as hybrid courses. That meant that the course was a combination of in-class and online material. No other teacher at the Collegium could claim that "distinction." If this is (fair & balanced) idiocyncrisy, so be it.

[x HNN]
CLIOPATRIA: A Group Blog
The Luddite within
by Hugo Schwyzer

Today, we had our monthly noon Social Sciences Division faculty meeting. As usual, I stayed quiet, though I perked up a bit during a brief discussion of the new Internet filters. (All of my colleagues are adamantly opposed.)

But then we launched into another discussion about creating "smart classrooms." This has nothing to do with real teaching, mind you. A "smart classroom" is one filled with all sorts of technological gizmos: DVD players, wireless Internet access, various modern projectors, and lots of something called Power Point. I am now convinced I am the only tenured professor in America under 40 who has no idea what Power Point is. To me, it sounds like a basketball term (wasn't Magic Johnson kind of a "power point" guard at 6'9"?). Anyhow, my colleagues all seem to be busy showing videos (or DVDs) and creating fancy Power Point projects for their classes. It all sounds dreadfully dull, and I'm just not interested.

I show -- maybe -- one or two videos a year. When I first started teaching, I showed a lot of them -- largely because I was afraid I wouldn't have enough to say. Now, God help me and my students, I have plenty to say. I know damn well that my students spend enough time interacting with technology outside school; the last thing they need is to sit mutely in front of a TV screen. I'm not saying that videos don't have their place -- in an art history class, I would imagine that they would be essential, but too often I think they (and all the other fancy-shmancy stuff) are just cover-ups for mediocre teaching.

I am sick and tired of having folks with doctorates in education (Lord help us) tell me that "lecturing is an outdated teaching style." Well, it's still a damned effective teaching style if it's done well. I put a lot of time and energy into crafting articulate, interesting, lectures, largely because I believe that for most students, it remains the most effective and memorable way to learn. I do invite discussion and debate in some of my classes, and I welcome questions -- but I cling tenaciously to the old-school notion that my job is to be an interesting, compelling, and provocative deliverer of information. (And along the way, raise up young feminists and pro-feminists.)

The content of the information varies: today, at 8:50AM, I lectured on the 20th century drop in age of menarche (from over 16 to under 12), and its impact on American girlhood. At 10:25, I lectured on the concept of arete and the relationship between Hector and Andromache. And at 1:00PM, it was time for Charles II, James II, and the Glorious Revolution. (Ya gotta love the community colleges with the breadth and diversity of the teaching loads!) Especially with the first topic, I invited questions and discussion. It's vital that mine not be the only voice heard in the classroom, especially in the gender studies courses. But though it was an interactive forum, mine was still the dominant voice. I'm not ashamed of that, though from the sort of exasperating edu-speak I hear from some of my well-meaning colleagues, I am apparently hopelessly out-of-date.

One thing that would improve college teaching immensely would be mandatory drama and speech classes for all new faculty. Forget the expensive technology. Teach them how to use their voices, how to modulate their tones, how to string together an exciting narrative without notes. Teach them to make the passion that is surely inside them manifest in their words and in their movements. Teach them the forgotten art of the genuinely engaging lecture. Twelve years of college teaching (and over 120 classes taught in that time), as well as thousands of student evaluations, have made it clear to me that students really prefer a professor who is willing to bring his passion and energy into the classroom.

This is not to say that good teachers can't be both great lecturers and skilled employers of the latest technology. I have a few colleagues -- a very few -- whom I know to be both. But I do know that the college culture is one where innovation and novelty tend to be prized more than the ability to teach effectively using the same methods used for centuries. No one writes grants to get money to teach professors how to tell good stories using their memories and their voices alone. I think that's a pity. I, as the son and grandson of teachers, delight in knowing that I use little or nothing that those who came before me would not have used. I take inordinate, perhaps excessive, pride in that.

I expect to spend another 25 years teaching, perhaps more. I am always interested in developing new classes and discussing new ideas. But I have yet to see the need to show many videos, or to have a smart classroom, or to put up Power Point whatevers for my students. Don't wire my classroom. Give me a cup of coffee, put chalk in my hand, put me in front of a blackboard, and let me do my damn job.

UPDATE: I'm not going to delete any of this rant (what else is a blog for if not ranting), but I do want to apologize to my readers who might have Ed.D degrees. I am sure there are many lovely, thoughtful, interesting people out there with those letters after their name -- I just have not had the good fortune to yet meet any.

Hugo Schwyzer, Ph.D. teaches history at Pasadena City College.

Copyright © 2005 History News Network

Truth? You Don't Want To Know The Truth!

I taught in two different Collegia: Pro Populo and Excellens. Neither institution would have known veritas if it had come up and bit the prexy on the ass. The prexy who hired me at the first Collegium was an alcoholic returned from a Board-enforced leave of absence. He was a total wacko. His return to the campus was short-lived and he resigned at the Board's resignation at the end of my first year there. At my final destination — over 32 years — I served under seven prexies and three interim prexies. All of them were proud possessors of Ed.D. or Ph.D. in Higher Education degrees from an array of diploma mills, er — Ed. programs hither and yon. The first prexy at the first Collegium held an ed-degree from Louisiana State University. After the Board forced him out, he ran a Texaco station somewhere in Louisiana. The last two prexies at my second Collegium both held Ph.D.s in Higher Education from Bossa Nova University in Fort Lauderdale University. The first of the Bossa Nova prexies is a consultant in retirement and served as the headhunter for the Board to produce the second Bossa Nova prexy. Now, isn't that a coincidence? Zoom eastward where poor President Lawrence Summers in catching hell from the Harvard faculty. Rising to the prexy's defense is the neocon historian at Harvard: Stephan Thernstrom. If this is (fair & balanced) Veritas, so be it.

[x History News Network]
In Defense of Academic Freedom at Havard
by Stephan Thernstrom

These comments were made at the March 15, 2005 meeting of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Science.

Many of the criticisms of President Summers involve his personality and management style. But I will focus exclusively on the issue raised by his remarks at the National Bureau of Economic Research in January. That is the issue I address because it raises crucial questions about something I thought we all cherished--academic freedom. Academic Freedom is on trial here, and a victory for President Summers's critics will be a deadly blow to academic freedom in American higher education. A previous speaker has claimed that the comments made by Professor Summers have set back the position of women at Harvard by forty years. I emphatically disagree, and suggest that a vote to censure him for his speech will set the university back by fifty years, back to the days of McCarthyism.

When I came to Harvard as a graduate student in 1956, most academics understood the vital importance of academic freedom; they had to when it was so obviously under attack. That period produced what is arguably still the best book on the subject: Richard Hofstadter and Walter Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States, published in 1955.

How quickly we forget. It is amazing to me that many of us here no longer seem to understand that the expression of controversial ideas and the freedom to debate them is at the heart of any greater institution of higher learning. The whole point of tenure, as I understand it, is to protect professors from the thought police. But now they are not just outside, on some congressional or state legislative committee. They are inside too, in our midst.

If the carefully qualified, speculative, deliberately provocative remarks made by President Summers at the National Bureau of Economic Research are grounds for removing him from the presidency, I don't see how we can stop with that action. Shouldn't he be fired from his teaching post, or at least formally censured? If it is a grave offense for college presidents speaking from the perspective of their discipline at a closed academic meeting to advance certain controversial views, why should such a professor be allowed to warp the minds of our students? Won't female students, for example, find his classroom a "hostile environment"? One previous speaker, astonishingly, repeatedly referred to women at Harvard--both students and faculty--as "vulnerable" creatures, as if they had to be sheltered from certain ideas that should never be advanced in the presence of a lady. Full equality for women evidently requires reverting to Victorian conceptions of the oh-so-delicate female constitution. If this perspective is that of a majority of this faculty, some day, another Hofstadter and Metzger will tell the story of academic freedom in the United States since the 1950s, and I fear that the discussion of this controversy make a very sorry chapter in our history.

Recall how this whole brouhaha began. Nancy Hopkins, a professor at MIT, attended an academic meeting closed to the public and the press precisely in order to insure an uninhibited discussion of a hot-button issue. She was so offended by the suggestions made by President Summers's remarks that she felt she would vomit unless she rushed from the room. So she did rush out, and proceeded to inform the Boston Globe that she was shocked, shocked that some unbearably provocative speech had been committed at an academic conference. If hearing ideas that she deeply disagrees with makes her physically ill, I suggest that Professor Hopkins's temperament is ill-suited for academic life, the lifeblood of which is free inquiry and unfettered debate. She evidently prefers to live safely behind some mental Maginot Line where she never encounters ideas that upset her tender stomach. Sadly, a previous speaker has claimed that most Harvard women feel the same way. I cannot believe it, and I pray it is not true.

At our last meeting devoted to discussion of this issue, one speaker glossed the term "provocative," used several times by President Summers in his offending comments at the NBER. She contended that the term was in fact quite sinister because to provoke is to provoke conflict, sometimes even violent conflict, and we certainly don't want that in the university "community." I, to the contrary, think that a provocative speech in the academy is intended to provoke thought and reasoned argument.

Equally questionable, in my view, are the repeated references that faculty members have made to the Harvard "community," which are intended to suggest that President Summers had given voice to outrageous ideas violating the norms of the community. Is Harvard University really a "community" that requires ideological conformity? The First Baptist Church of Peoria is a community in that sense, with a common conception of God and how best to worship Him. Possibly Bob Jones University is a community. But no great university can long remain great if it attempts to enforce the equivalent of a religious creed on its members. What really holds the members of the Harvard "community" together is much more limited. It is simply a common commitment to pursue the truth through disciplined scholarship, and a faith that freedom of inquiry is the best means to arrive at the truth. I find the "provocative" remarks made by President Summers entirely consistent with that community norm.

I do have to admit that it is somewhat difficult to defend the academic freedom of a man who seems to have surrendered it again and again, in his ever more abject apologies for his NBER remarks. Nevertheless, President Summers is not the sole owner of the right of academic freedom, and he thus cannot surrender it for all of us.

In sum, I think that the central issue at stake today is academic freedom. If the critics of President Summers have their way, it will be a terrible blow to that freedom. Given the visibility of this university, it will be a signal to higher education in general that research on certain sensitive subjects should only be undertaken by those who already know the answers and are prepared to suppress any discoveries that do not fit with the conventional wisdom. Today, the sensitive subject is gender disparities in the science, but the list of forbidden topics will undoubtedly expand over time. It is astonishing that this could happen at a great university whose motto is Veritas.

Stephan Thernstrom is Winthrop Professor of History at Harvard University.

Copyright © 2005 History News Network

Duh?

Wow! Why was I taking two antidepressants daily during my last stint at the Collegium Excellens? Why on earth did Professor John Bodnar include a lengthy quote from the Indiana University policy manual on student decorum in his course syllabus in 2003? Surely the IU students were models of propriety in the classroom. Bodnar must have been a paranoid professor. So was I. As we all know, violent behavior is unknown in U.S. educational settings. If this is (fair & balanced) depression, so be it.

[x The Independent]
Nearly half of teachers have suffered from mental illness
By Richard Garner

Nearly half of the country's secondary school teachers have suffered mental health problems due to worsening pupil behaviour, a survey has revealed.

The research, by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, on 300 secondary school teachers, showed that abuse at the hands of pupils had left 46 per cent taking antidepressants or facing long lay-offs from school through stress.

One teacher told researchers he had been assaulted 10 times during 18 years in the profession and had suffered two breakdowns. He said he had been on antidepressants for more than three years as a result.

The survey also revealed that 72 per cent of teachers had considered quitting their jobs because they were worn out by some pupils' persistent disruptive behaviour, such as threats, swearing, locking teachers out of classrooms, vandalising school property, letting down car tyres, stealing keys, throwing eggs at staff and spitting at them. One in seven (14 per cent) said they had suffered actually bodily harm from pupils.

However, in many of the cases, the school had turned a blind eye to abuse and failed to exclude the pupils involved.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the 160,000-strong union, will raise teachers' alarm over discipline with Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, when she addresses the ATL annual conference in Torquay today.

She said it was not enough to talk about "zero tolerance" for disruptive behaviour as Ms Kelly had done. "There needs to be a reflection about what zero tolerance means," she added.

"It should mean much better support for teachers and more pupil referral units - 'sin-bins'. These youngsters have to go somewhere. What we can't do as a society is leave them to roam the streets."

Yesterday the conference demanded a code of conduct to outline acceptable pupil behaviour and called for risk assessments to be prepared on all pupils with a history of aggression.

Doctor Bousted said: "Teaching is a highly intensive, highly stressful job. Teachers need to understand there are forms of help available to them and when they are feeling stressed they need to know this is not something that's shameful and they should seek help."

Meanwhile, delegates voted unanimously to urge the Government to abandon its plans to set up a network of 200 privately sponsored academies to replace struggling secondary schools in inner-city areas.

Phil Baker, from Swindon, claimed they were a "Trojan Horse", pioneering the way for privatisation of the entire education system. He said many of the sponsors - who included top independent schools - had little experience of tackling pupil disruption. "Top public schools could run them [the academies],'' he said. "The only experience they've had of managing challenging behaviour is dealing with Hooray Henrys."

Dr Bousted said many of the academies adopted a banding system - taking 20 per cent of its pupils from each of five different ability bands. "In some areas the academies cover, 20 per cent of the most able is hoovering up the vast majority of able pupils in that area," she said, adding that other schools suffered as a result.

Richard Garner is the Education Editor of The Independent.

© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd