Communitarian Letter #21
In this issue:
Question
Annapolis: A Speech Not Given
You need cartoons to read?
Community Composed of Different Cultures Comes Together
An Issue of Rhetoric
Worth a Read
Events
Question:
Print media is rapidly shrinking. People rely more and more on electronic media for news and analysis. At the current rate, there will be little printed news media left by 2020. However, compared to major print media – which has traditionally dedicated many resources to maintaining foreign correspondents as well as domestic ones – electronic media invests little to get news. Does this mean that the public will suffer from ever decreasing news? Or instead, will the public have to rely on publicly financed electronic media, such as the BBC and NPR, which allot sizable funds for correspondents? Do these media, in turn, have serious biases?
Annapolis: A Speech Not Given
Here follows an address that was not be delivered by President Bush at the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis, Maryland. After the proper tribute to the various dignitaries present and a reference to the importance of peace for the region and the world, the speech read as follows:
"A Palestinian state, long overdue, can be born before the sun sets on this day. It must be a state that will live in peace and security with Israel. To proceed, several essential compromises, which I list immediately, must be reached. None of them will please either side--the sure sign of compromise. However, if each side will continue to seek advantages, the road to peace will never be traveled. I hence call on all sides to bring an end to the bloodshed and suffering and to embrace the following set of peace and state- building measures. The measures must be accepted as one, and there is no room for haggling about their composition. The United States and its allies are committed to do all they can to ensure that the terms of the following suggestions will be honored.
Borders
The borders between Israel and the Palestinian state will follow roughly along what is known as the green line. Because of security concerns and developments that cannot be reversed, the final border according to the attached map varies by less then ten percent (in terms of the territories encompassed) from the green line. In some cases, it turns over to the Palestinian state some towns and villages that are west of the green line (mainly comprised of Israeli Palestinians); in some cases it turns over to Israel some towns and villages that are east of the green line (mainly comprised of Jewish settlers); in few cases, it creates bi-national parks on the border. All in all, it requires both sides to make concessions, albeit not totally equally ones. A small tilt to Israel in this part of the measures for peace will be more than offset when we turn to the status of Jerusalem.
The barrier that separates the two states will be repositioned in line with the said map, but from now on it will be fully recognized as legal. It should be noted that once the sides learn to live in peace with each other, the barrier can be very readily removed and replaced by normal border markers used by most nations. Also, even as we speak, it should be noted that the barrier already has 96 gates that can be opened at will to the flow of people and goods.
Jerusalem
Jerusalem will be the capital of both the state of Israel and of the Palestinian state. It will also ensure sovereign control of the holy sites to still other faiths. There are several neighborhoods in Jerusalem that Palestinians consider part of that city (such as the Shuafat refugee camp, Sawakhra, Walaje and other villages) but many in Israel --do not. These are parts in which many Palestinians live. These and some other areas, to be discussed, will be the location for the Palestinian capital. Sites that are holy to several religions will be granted a sovereign status, comparable to the Vatican in Rome. Their guardians--for instance Saudi Arabia for the Al Aqsa mosque, and the Greek Ortordox Church for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre--will watch over these places and neither the police nor the armies of the state of Israel nor the Palestinian state will enter these turfs unless clear evidence is presented to the international community that they are being used to harbor terrorists and weapons.
The right of return
All the Palestinians that have left Israel in 1948 have a right to return to their homes and lands or be properly compensated for their loss. No distinction will be made among those who left voluntarily, were chased out, and those who sought to return after the war and occupy their Jewish neighbors' house. However, these rights will be balanced by rights of Jews who left Arab countries, such as Iraq and Egypt, and other Muslim ones such as Iran. No distinctions will be made among those who left voluntarily, were chased out, or just sought to better their economic state. Hence the right to return will be enacted for the net numbers involved.
In closing
There are numerous details that must be worked out. Not least is how to ensure that the new Palestinian state will not allow a terrorist group such as Hezbollah to use its territories to accumulate heavy weapons and fighters bent on the destruction of Israel. However, for now I call on all sides to accept a compromise that will satisfy neither, but will allow the bloodshed and suffering of good people to end, for each to have a state of their own, and for them to learn to live together in peace and prosperity."
Written by Amitai Etzioni, originally posted on the Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/annapolis-a-speech-not-g_b_74142.html
You need cartoons to read?
Two serious publications have recently fallen to the trend of larger print, more colors, more illustrative drawings -- and less text. As of Christmas, the Economist, arguably the best English-language weekly (strong ideological bias notwithstanding), has joined most other publications in coming ever more to resemble an old-fashioned comic book. The Wall Street Journal, which used to serve its texts straight, now also seems to hold that, if I am to read an article about this year's wines then it must draw me a picture of a person drinking from a wine glass, and so on. At the rate we are going, by the year 2020 every newspaper page (assuming that there still be such a thing) will carry one word, six colors, and at least two cartoons. By the way, thanks Arianna, for keeping the Huffington Post relatively free from such infantilization.
I confess that I'm an old-fashioned guy when it comes to text (and old otherwise, having just turned 79). I would love to hear from younger readers: do they find such illustrated texts and larger print truly attractive or necessary? I try to empathize. I agree that if a text looks the way newspapers looked 100 years ago, with tiny, crowded print like the back of an airline ticket, I too shy away from reading them. Still there is a world a difference between a bit more spacing and somewhat larger fonts -- and a cacophony of flashing colors, cartoons that bleed into the text, and such merry making. Should there be no difference between the way we present an article on, say, recent developments in democratic theory and the art of cooking lasagna? Does not the way text is presented communicate a subtext about how seriously we should take the content?
Particularly annoying (at least to one reader) are the multi-layered headlines, which further cut into the space available for text, in newspapers whose pages have been trimmed and whose number of pages have been curtailed. Thus, a recent Wall Street Journal page tells me first--in a line that runs across the page -- that the section before me deals with "personal finance"; then it informs me in big letters -- and another full line -- that the subject is "Money and Investing"; another large heading indicates that a particular story is going to deal with "The Little Island That Could" before I get to read another heading which finally gives me what I need to know to decide whether I want to read the given story. (Still before I get to the text, I get to view a picture of Singapore and a map, is case I don't know what a city looks like or where the island is.) No wonder the report itself is breathless and short. It must leave room for the next multi-layered headings.
I would love to hear if other readers find these devices attractive and get them to read texts they otherwise would shun. Or, do they too prefer to be given the needed words, straight, and unadulterated?
Written by Amitai Etzioni, and originally posted on the Huffington Post, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitaietzioni/you-need-cartoons-to-read_b_80252.html
Community Composed of Different Cultures Comes Together
The communitarian spirit is manifesting itself in the small city of Decatur, Georgia, where a relatively new refugee community and the established locals are growing and learning together. At the International Community School, which teacher children from kindergarten to the sixth grade, children from over 40 countries, including children from the Decatur area, attend class together.
The school faces many difficulties – the school newsletter is printed in six languages, but there are still many parents who cannot read it – but it also provides opportunities for all the children attending that conventional schools do not: opportunities for exposure to a very wide range of cultures, a staff familiar with the refugee experience, and small class sizes.
Despite the language barrier, the students are working together and forming friendships. And through the interactions of their children, the parents are coming together as well. Shell Ramirez has a son at the International Community School, nine-year-old Dante. Through school, Dante has become friends with an 11-year-old Burmese refugee named Soung, and over time, both of their families have gotten to know one another. Ms. Ramirez drives Soung’s family to appointments and has had them over to bake cookies, and both families have exposed each other to their holidays.
The long-term prospects for the school are uncertain, but for now, the academic environment is strong. As the refugee population continues to grow, the school will hopefully continue to provide all the children who wish to attend the opportunity to learn from one another and to come together in unity.
The initial report appeared in the New York Times, Tuesday, December 25th.
An Issue of Rhetoric
In the latest Democratic primary race, the leading candidates have come to embrace one particular phrase – “common good” – as a new way to frame their vision of ever expanding opportunity and equality. The phrase first began to gain speed in 2003 and 2004, as increasing economic inequality and the Iraq invasion led to fear among religious progressives that America was facing a rising-ride of selfishness. Aware that the phrase “common good” would appeal to both the religious and the secular, the moderates and the liberals, democratic strategists saw it as an effective rallying cry for the Democratic Party.
Still, the three leading candidates do not use the phrase in the same in exactly the same manner. Barak Obama, one candidate with an expressed communitarian outlook, uses “common good” to convey his belief that Americans must unite as one country and work for a common purpose. John Edwards uses the phrase to refer to specific policies he believes would benefit all – universal health care, stronger unions, tax fairness, among others. Hilary Clinton, another expressed communitarian, uses the term in both previous senses. Certain progressives fear the lack of consistent use could undermine the moral effectiveness of the phrase – a negative, as the moral ground may be the Democrat’s, and the “common good’s,” greatest strength.
The initial report appeared in the Wall Street Journal on November 23, 2007.
For more discussion of communitarian candidates, see our recent post on the TPM Café at: http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/14/a_communitarian_ in_the_white_house
Nikolas Gvosdev Reviews 3 Books
FDR’s Children
by Nikolas Gvosdev
“NEARLY ALL of the 2008 presidential candidates—both Democrats and Republicans—have made some version of 'restoring America’s global leadership' a key foreign-policy priority. Dennis Ross, Amitai Etzioni, Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen have plenty of advice to offer—and their recommendations seem to parallel those often heard from 'Republican realists.' But aren’t these authors on the other side of the aisle? The Washington Post identifies Dennis Ross as a foreign-policy advisor for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama; Amitai Etzioni is a long-standing member of the progressive community (and served in the Carter White House); Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen were part of the Clinton foreign-policy apparatus (and Hachigian is now based at the Center for American Progress).”
Click here for the rest of the National Interest online article.
Worth a Read
The April 2006 issue of Polity included a masterful review essay titled “Environmental Democracy and the Green State,” written by Harlan Wilson, a professor of politics at Oberlin College. It is a communitarian delight, both rich and nurturing. We highly recommend it to all.
A revised version of Professor Robert Ackerman’s article “Taking Responsibility,” which won second place in the Communitarian Essay Contest last year, is going to be published in the Tennessee Journal of Law and Society. The publication will be available in February 2008. If you haven’t read it yet, be sure you do now!