THE PEOPLE'S FORUM

THE PEOPLE'S FORUM 'The Crisis of Survival' Dear Sirs: Once again, The Progressive has performed a major service in devoting an issue to a problem of paramount importance. I refer to the April...

...Back in the 1950s President Eisenhower admitted that eighty per cent of the Vietnamese people would vote for Ho...
...We have to fashion a decent and respectable home for ourselves and our descendants here on Earth or else suffer inexorable reprisal from an affronted Nature...
...We couldn't tolerate the idea of Russian missiles next door to us in Cuba, but we had missiles next door to Russia in Turkey for years...
...Leon Arnold Muller Chicago, Illinois...
...And later on, Ky conceded to James Reston that the Vietcong were "closer to the peoples' yearning for social justice than my government...
...Yet the latter term is seldom if ever used...
...It has been going on since men started making clubs...
...In an Earth Day speech to the students at Idaho State University, I concluded by saying that "We Earthmen and Earth-women have nowhere else to settle except here on our small planet within its thin envelope of air...
...The essays, moreover, point the way towards the public and private action required to restore the quality of this environment...
...Senator Henry Jackson, Democrat, who has always been a prime example of being at peace with war, is now up for reelection...
...denying freedom to the press...
...backed by the big, exploitive landowners...
...Ammon and I were students at the University of Wisconsin in 1914-15...
...Now Jackson is trying to make political hay out of claiming to be an environmentalist...
...V. J. Dougherty Hannibal, Ohio Mayer's 'Stopgap' Decree Dear Sirs: Milton Mayer's "Emergency Decree of 1 March 1970," in the March issue, is, one hopes, merely a stopgap measure designed to give pause to offenders against the language until more systematic regulatory measures can be formulated...
...It is said that the state's prime military contractors send word to their subcontractors to buy the tickets—or else...
...The unrepresentative character of the SaigOn government is common knowledge: a puppet run by a ten per cent Catholic minority...
...running fake elections...
...If we want to think clearly, we must call things by their right names...
...Senator Washington, D.C...
...THE PEOPLE'S FORUM 'The Crisis of Survival' Dear Sirs: Once again, The Progressive has performed a major service in devoting an issue to a problem of paramount importance...
...Alice Franklin Bryant Seattle, Washington Liberals' Betrayal Dear Sirs: In response to William H. Fisher's impassioned argument in "The People's Forum" in the March issue, opposing a third party and criticizing those who saw "no difference" between Nixon and Humphrey in 1968: Let me comment that if the liberals he mentions are possessed of the intelligence he ascribes to them, they won't be duped by Hubert Humphrey and his ilk, who have made the very designation "liberal" a term of opprobrium...
...Mayer forget such subversive terms as "plug in" and, above all, "communicate...
...Yet he glories in war and war preparations, which are the greatest destroyers of the environment...
...The liberals who made common cause with the corrupt big-city tyrants, the Uncle Toms who abandoned the civil rights movement the moment they were assured that Roy Wilkins could register at the Beverly Hills Hilton, the racist, reactionary labor barons, and the Southern bigots cannot now disclaim the onus they so richly deserve...
...Any emission-free engine that results from anyone's research can never be an internal combustion engine, or indeed, any device depending on combustion...
...cordially hated by most of the peasant population...
...This year a respected black attorney, Carl Maxey (Rookery Building, Spokane), who has long been a leader in the civil rights movement, has declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination...
...The auto industry therefore vetoes the idea, and instead spends a token amount on "research" to reduce or eliminate the noxious emissions of the internal combustion engine...
...An inexpensive solar-powered automobile is definitely feasible given the present level of technology, but they wouldn't wear out as quickly, or need as many replacement parts...
...For one who is so morally indignant about Richard Nixon's "redbaiting," he is strangely silent and conveniently forgetful of the vicious campaign of vilification, the snide innuendoes, and the sadistic character assassination which Humphrey launched against all who dared to question the omniscience of his liege...
...Vietnamization might be achieved by a representative, coalition government in which Saigon and the NLF shared power with the Buddhist majority...
...cooperating with the American bombers in the indiscriminate killing of a million or more South Vietnamese...
...In short, Saigonization is a far cry from Vietnamization...
...Barry Schapiro St...
...The difference between dialogue as noun and dialogue as verb (viz., "to dialogue the issues") is as peccadillo to sin...
...If this mockery continues, we and the Russians may well achieve a real and lasting equality—our masses equally impoverished, our minorities equally in revolt, our resources equally drained, our environment equally polluted, our societies equally controlled by military dictators, and maybe that ultimate equality of all—the great leveling effect on both countries caused by nuclear war...
...I refer to the April issue, "The Crisis of Survival," whose articles were of uniformly high quality and contained useful insights into the philosophical dimensions of the environment problem...
...After World War II, the race has been between ourselves and the Russians in nuclear weapons...
...Here we have an ironclad guarantee of an unlimited arms race...
...We will be happy with nothing less than superiority...
...Somewhere in between lies the expression "meaningful dialogue," an offense which surely deserves penalties as severe as those given for four-letter words...
...Ralph Nader, as usual, put his finger on the crux of the problem of pollution by showing how the nation's industries aggravate the pollution problem in order to maintain and expand their level of profit...
...The outlook is thus essentially optimistic for we can—if we will—act now and begin to clear up the mess and plan for the America of future generations...
...The Russians understandably would be happy with nothing less than nuclear equality, but any approach to equality scares us into a frenzy of missile building...
...Senator Washington, D.C...
...What is assured is the tragedy that will come about unless we succeed...
...Certainly the essays in the April issue of The Progressive offer conclusive evidence that the destruction of our environment has reached truly alarming proportions...
...What minuscule difference does exist is in favor of Nixon...
...Dear Sirs: We do indeed face a "crisis of survival...
...imprisoning, torturing, and sometimes executing dissenters...
...When he was in Atlanta prison for draft resistance during World War I, I wrote him a letter congratulating him for his stand...
...Nixon is pushing for deployment of MIRVs next June, while he simultaneously calls for a breakthrough on strategic arms limitation talks...
...Bruce Stewart Department of Natural Sciences Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 'Saigonization' Dear Sirs: Suppose George Wallace and the segregationists, armed by a foreign power, should lead a military campaign to "Americanize" this nation...
...The Senator's campaigns have been lushly supported by $100-a-plate dinners, attended chiefly by Republicans...
...Tricky Dick rides again...
...Darlington Hoopes Reading, Pennsylvania Pollution Dear Sirs: In concord with the Earth Day movement to fight pollution, I think oil company executives ought to take the lead out of their gas...
...A big difference...
...Gerald Barnes Denver, Colorado Mourns Ammon Hennacy Dear Sirs: I was saddened to learn from "The Word from Washington," in your March issue, that Ammon Hennacy had died...
...The main thrust of my argument is that the liberals, as you so aptly pointed out in your March editorial, "Where Are the Liberals?," have cravenly betrayed all the shining principles they purportedly espoused, even as the labor autocrats, sated with power and mad with greed, have turned the labor movement into the most reactionary, racist element in our jungle...
...Which shall it be...
...Republicans have underwritten his campaign to the extent of $100,000 (which he doesn't need), according to a statement of the state Republican chairman...
...The outcome is by no means assured...
...And, incredible as it seems, Mr...
...Yet the Administration and many of the moderates keep talking about the Vietnamization of the war...
...Yet the decisions required are difficult and painful ones...
...Without a change of values in understanding man's relationship with the environment, without a recognition that an increase in population threatens to set back all our efforts, the present status of the environment is one crisis this nation shall not Survive...
...Bill Mauldin summed it up for me, and perhaps for the planet, in his cartoon which you reprinted on Page 11 of the April issue: "What will they do with their money when they run out of air and water...
...Any high school student knows that when gasoline or any fossil fuel is burned, there must be some waste product...
...In fact, if we had to choose between Saigon and an NLF-Communist government, the latter would be closer to Vietnamization than the former...
...Jackson was President Nixon's first choice for Secretary of Defense and he was also his champion in ramming the ABMs through Congress...
...The American-Soviet hangup has been over equality...
...Moreover, miracles are still possible—especially when a lot of people pitch in and work for them...
...Dear Sirs: I am in your debt for your contribution to the cause of eliminating environmental pollution...
...Frank Church U.S...
...Our society simply may not be willing to make the needed sacrifices...
...Although he was more anarchist than socialist, our paths frequently crossed, and I was always deeply impressed by his devoted loyalty to his convictions...
...Your April issue, "The Crisis of Survival," was one of the finest documents of its kind ever published in a national magazine...
...Louis, Missouri Opposes Senator Jackson Dear Sirs: I write to concur heartily with J. C. Finney's March letter on " 'Me Too' Democratic leaders" and the February editorial on "The Democrats: at Peace with the War"—and to point out that Washington's U.S...
...But President Nixon, calling Thieu one of the greatest statesmen of our age, shows little interest in a genuine representative government...
...Anyone under or over thirty who uses the word "communicate" should be sentenced to reading the collected speeches of Richard Nixon...
...Obviously what they mean is not Vietnamization but "Saigonization...
...I doubt that he ever received it because it was turned over to the Government, which sent an agent to interview me in Pennsylvania...
...officered mostly by generals and colonels who fought with the French against their own people...
...Joseph D. Tydings U.S...
...Yet Maxey has soul force and the power of righteousness on his side...
...Gregory A. Barnes Madison, Wisconsin Arms Race Mockery Dear Sirs: The arms race is an ancient and honored tradition...
...Now we are in a competition over ABMs...
...I have noted Amnion's activities over the years, but was never fortunate enough to meet him again...
...He needs help...
...His chances are not good...
...As it now stands, the decree omits a number of felonious abuses and fails to make certain fine distinctions of great importance...
...Somehow the Russians were not supposed to be bothered by this...
...We both claim that all men are equal, but Americans clearly believe that some men are more equal than others...
...We may cite, for example, "dialogue...
...While I concur heartily with the conclusion that the election of Nixon was a calamity, it was infinitely preferable to the other choices...
...It will be a poorer spring for all of us without him...
...And how could Mr...
...How many of us would swallow such nonsense...
...As one of the pariahs who said there was "no difference" between Humphrey and Nixon, I now retract that statement...

Vol. 34 • May 1970 • No. 5


 
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