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2 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1987 PLO strategy Dear editor, In the aftermath of a series of setbacks for the Palestinian liberation movement, partisans of that revolution have been assessing the PLO's strategy.

Unfortunately, Ralph Schoenman's article in the March Socialist Action does not appear to me to be a very positive contribution to this assessment process.

Schoenman concentrates his We welcome letters energy on assaulting key components of the PLO's strategy. For from our readers. example, he questions the validi- Please keep them brief. ty of the "two state" formula, Where necessary, they claiming it is "unrealistic"—i.e., it will never be accepted by any will be abridged. Zionist faction.

Yet he fails to apply this same criteria of "realism" to his signifying that liberation of the substitute formula of OT would not mean a reversion "democratic and secular"

to Egyptian or Jordanian control Palestine. If acceptance by but would remain in Palestinian Zionism is his "realistic" criteria, control. Far from an implied then neither formula will ever be "sell-out," the "two-state" actualized. formula correctly expressed the Worse yet, Schoenman claims immediate and concrete tasks the "two-state" formula will lead before a living movement. to a Palestinian Bantustan on the William Baker, Occupied Territories (OT). He San Francisco, Calif. fails to mention the PLO's position that a Palestinian state would have to enjoy the same U.S. labor legitimacy as any other in the world to be acceptable to it.

Unlike Bantustans in South Dear editor, Africa, Palestinians would enjoy the representation of their popular I think your May 1987 article leadership, the PLO. "Where did the labor movement The origin of the "two-state" go wrong?" by Genora Johnson formula was not a rejection of the Dollinger is one of the best long-term goal of a complete pieces of political writing I've liberation of historic Palestine. seen in too long a time! She has First, it was a recognition that a framework that few of us active the focus of the conflict had in the labor movement have, due shifted from Israel proper to the not only to her experience, but OT. Second, that the liberation of her perspective and her passion any part of historic Palestine for the victory of the working would be a victory. class.

Finally, it was a way of Particularly insightful for me was her criticism of the short-sightedness and parochialism of the U.S. labor movement for settling for health plans and pensions for unionists alone and not fighting to extend these benefits to the entire working class.

Hopefully Genora and other retired comrades will write articles regularly as part of the process of "a new regrouping of those who care about Americaand ALL its people."

I made copies of her article to share with my co-workers and I echo her sentiment that the "new upsurge will not come from the stagnant and incompetent leaders we have today"-both in the labor movement and those who attempt to sell out other movements as well!

Barry Boone, SEIU Local 790, Albany, Calif.

No analysis Dear editor, I must admit that I find Socialist Action one of the most refreshing breaths of air to come to the left in the U.S. in quite some time. But lately in reading your paper, I've been stunned by the lack of analysis and leadership apparent in the articles. It seems to me to be mere reporting and nothing more.

In your articles on Contragate, for example, you explained very well why there was a need for a cover-up to protect Reagan and Congress. But then you state what I believe to be an incorrect conclusion, when you say in the April issue of Socialist Action:

"The Tower report is a signal that the U.S. ruling class has set out to bring this affair to an end as speedily as they can get away

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pinosne SociAList Action nEBusiness Week they will somehow have to be put in detention.

But the editors of the Times, asserting that "detention camps would be a shrieking, departure from American tradition,' indicate that they do not reject this "solution" in principle. "That's a shocking idea," the editorial states, "but it's not foolish. Conceivably, it might one day be seen as brave.

This most authoritative mouthpiece for the ruling capitalists, unable to go beyond its well-reasoned opposition to "detention camp thinking," punctuates its criticism of the right-wingers' panic-mongering with a moral boost to their invidious logic.

"Manhattan Project" for AIDS!

The Times, along with the rest of the "responsible" capitalist rulers, cannot point the way to a real solution to the menace of AIDS—a crash program to find a cure, financed by the U.S. government. This is not a utopian dream, but a practical problem requiring only the mobilization of sufficient resources for the quickest solution.

The era of individual teams of scientists working in isolation to find medical and scientific solutions is long past. A new period was firmly established when American imperialism mobilized the country's physicists in a crash program to invent the