Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 05:47:04 -0800
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: Re: Cockburn?/child abuse


I append Bryan and Tim's exchange on state intervention into the problem of
child abuse and neglect.  It seems to me that the problem is one of what
the rational choice theorists (this will be loose) call segregration.  

That is, Tim has advocated those actions and solutions that have an
*immediate* impact on the situation; moreover, he takes the problem as it
has been framed:  whether the federal courts should take on its
responsibility as a protector of the weak against recalcitrant state
governments.    

Tim holds that opposition to immediate action by the federal courts is
inexcusably uncompassionate.  

First, let it be noted that there has been no demonstration of the
immediate benefits to be gained from such federal-level court supervision
of recalcitrant states.    

Second, Tim fails to consider the greater oppression that the  court system
has inflicted on children. 

 Here are two examples, drawn from William Darity, et. al The Black
Underclass:  Essays in Race and Unwantedness (Garland, 1994); the examples
are not specific to court treatment of African-Americans.  

A.  As the courts have targetted child support collection from low-income
fathers more in order to reduce the costs of the welfare system than to
sustain the security of mother and child, the effect has been obvious:
"Given the threat of imprisonment or wage assignment, fathers who are
unable to make regular payments have a greater incentive to flee, to
disappear, and to break off ties completely with their children and their
children's mothers.  It seems unlikely that judges honestly believe such
punitive sanctions will help families stay together; but what seems clear
is that wheatever chance there may be for separated parents to reunite or
for fathers of children born out of wedlock to marry and/or support those
children's mothers vanishes when the court adopts its punitive sanctions."
(214)

B. "The courts seek to establish paternity, ostensibly with an eye toward
having the father of the woman's child provide financial support.  But any
funds so obtained typically are merely transferred to state agencies to
reduce the expenses of the welfare system, rather than going directly to
mother and child." (215)    

I believe that Cockburn is attempting to prevent us from ensnaring
ourselves by our response to *a single problem as it has already been
framed* in what Bryan has called "the logic of exploitation and domination"
of the state.  

Far from being defenders of rights of the powerless, the courts are 
instruments for the regulation and oppression of the poor. 

 *The more that we value these courts as the only mechanism by which to
protect children from abuse, the more we will be unable to criticize them
for the much greater harm they do in creating the dissolution and
insecurity of families.*  

Only in this more global context can one evaluate the immediate action
called for by Tim and Hillary Clinton.   

Rakesh

>Setting aside your investigations into Cockburn's organs for the moment, 
>Tim - this is clearly a problem best solved by mutual aid societies.  
>There are some now, and they, not the putrescent state, deserve our 
>support.  Turning to the state is the short cut to liberalism.  If you 
>want to steal its resources without borrowing from its logic of 
>exploitation and domination (logics hardly apt for this problem, eh?), at 
>least have the consistency to cloak your argument in decent piratical 
>language.  

>
>On Sun, 17 Mar 1996 TimW333521-AT-AOL.COM wrote:
>
>> I willjust answer on the question of Hilliary Clinton and the role of the
>> state in relation to children.  I urge everyone check out Sunday's NY Time's
>> report that 21 states are under court supervision because of neglect of
>> children who are abused or neglected by their parents.  Now, if we are to
>> follow the logic of Cockburn, we should say "Great" the capitalist state has
>> properly kept not interevened to protect 2.9 million children.  This news
>> represents a victory for the working class!
>> 
>> I am suggesting that this kind of "radicalism" is irresponsible and places
>> the left in an objective alliance with the extreme right.
>> 
>> We have at the moment a capitalist state.  There is no other state available
>> to us.  Should we or should we not demand that this state act in defense of
>> children who are subject to sexual and physical abuse and neglect by their
>> parents?  If we do not so demand, what do we on the left propose as an
>> alternative way of protecting these children between now and the socialist
>> revolution?
>> 
>> I believe we should be in the forefront in demanding that the state fullfill
>> its obligations to children both in terms of financial aid as well as
>> protection against abuse.
>> 
>> Now if Hilliary Clinton  advocates such a course and Alexander Cockburn
>> opposes it, this makes Hillary more radical than Alexander. 
>> 
>> There is no socialism without humanity, without heart.  I have not detected
>> such an organ in Cockburn.



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