LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LETTERS to the Editor Readers Respond to 'Cult of Personality' Your comments about Jesse Jackson's Presidential campaign ("Cult of Personality," Comment, April issue) were ridiculous and smack of...
...Douglas Campbell Columbus, Ohio Margarita Papandreou In Claudia Dreifus's interview (December issue), Margarita Papandreou provides no real insights into the situation in Greece...
...There is remarkably little friction...
...Except for Jesse Jackson, they all affirm "strong defense," American cultural imperialism, and the sacred profit motive...
...But it's also a rare day that we see as big a cop-out regarding the candidacy of Jesse Jackson, the one and only candidate we will support in 1988...
...Let's remember that the framers lived at a time when single-shot weapons required cumbersome reloading after each shot...
...David Steflik Provo, Utah Agent Orange Anthony L. Kimery's "VA Doctor Faults Agent Orange" (Datelines, February issue) reminds us that we have never paid medical reparations for the effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese people...
...No one's dignity can be restored by a man whose own dignity is dubious...
...Yannis A. Phillis Crete, Greece Plastic Pistol Packers Sure, it's important to know what the framers meant by the Second Amendment ("Plastic Pistol Packers," Letters, January issue), and I would agree that protecting an individual's right to bear arms was part of their intent...
...Paul Nossiter Wellfleet, Massachusetts Your editorial nicely articulates the ideological assumptions held by most Presidential candidates, whatever their party...
...No matter how similar our Presidential candidates might be from an ideal perspective, one candidate is still better than another...
...With enough participation and backing, the Rainbow Coalition could become just the type of movement you believe it's not—one that can outlive the Jackson campaign...
...How many people might eat and live better...
...most public hospitals lack intensive-care units, and patients are obliged to bring along relatives to look after them because nurses are few and badly trained...
...However, it does not follow that our votes make no difference, that all American Presidents are variations on the same theme...
...He's registered millions of new voters and mobilized blacks who otherwise would remain apolitical and unem-powered—a constituency that must bear a major part of any movement for change...
...West Melbourne, Florida Don't you wish Hubert Humphrey had been President instead of Richard Nixon, or Walter Mondale instead of Ronald Reagan...
...Even within our narrow political spectrum, we must vote for the most enlightened candidate who has a chance of winning...
...Sadly, it isn't...
...It is a serious national problem, and would be just as serious if it were Swiss money...
...Imagine the contortions Michael Dukakis and Albert Gore would go through to avoid letting the words "lesbian" or "gay" pass their sanctimonious lips...
...Despite her claims that Greek society treats people with dignity, under the regime of her husband, Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, a brutal bureaucracy deals with citizens rudely and arrogantly...
...If we are ever to popularize the ideals and goals of democratic socialism, it is essential that we run people who are openly democratic socialists...
...None is talking about abolishing nuclear weapons and the CIA...
...New York, New York It's a Bird...
...Moore calls this anti-Asian hate rhetoric...
...Let's be realistic...
...Greg Bylinsky New Haven, Connecticut Thanks for the astute analysis of the Presidential election process...
...Treasury pay in full the medical expenses of all Vietnamese damaged by Agent Orange...
...Construction aid was dropped for a while, then restored, while academic libraries were given additional funding, and recently new aid was authorized for high-tech and literacy efforts...
...the bulk of their funding has gone to "safe" series that ignore all but traditional views and formats...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...None is talking about a classless and ecological society...
...A group of physicians and scientists should file suit in the United States to have the U.S...
...Leadership stems from the untiring Washington office of the American Library Association, another of those fearsome "special interests" so decried by this Administration...
...Without a testing program, would any nuclear weapon constitute a viable threat...
...John Sarich Sacramento, California The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...True, every Reagan budget has proposed total elimination of existing Federal aid to libraries, but Congressional Republicans as well as Democrats have consistently rejected this proposal...
...Your editorial seems to imply that we should ignore the Presidential campaign and concentrate on protesting and organizing...
...They are making it here, all of them...
...The kinds of massacres we experience today were inconceivable 200 years ago...
...We assert that Jesse Jackson, for all his faults, has been at the forefront of what you call "the slow and tedious work of trying to build meaningful politics in America...
...Reagan has had a profound and destructive impact on the nation and the world...
...It's Plutonium The Progressive's concern over spilled plutonium ("It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Plutonium," by Robin Epstein, February issue) is legitimate...
...Public health-care has not improved during Papandreou's tenure...
...available at $24 for nine issues from FAIR, 666 Broadway, Suite 400, New York, NY 10012), we have put the heat on PBS and the rest of the mainstream media...
...Michael S. Milligan Troy, New York Scapegoats Again As a long-time San Francisco resident, I was appalled at Michael Moore's "Scapegoats Again" (February issue...
...Please cancel my subscription...
...And there are racist local jokes: The bus that runs through Chinatown is called "by everybody, including Chinese, the Orient Express...
...But you then accuse him of dem-agoguery, opportunism, and campaign by slogan...
...Moore says the Bay Area has historically demonstrated the most anti-Asian racism...
...If you believe in democratic socialism, you can vote for a democratic socialist...
...It will take more than demagoguery and self-congratulation to bring dignity to this country...
...Marilyn Webb Woodside, California Your editorial made some excellent points to support your theme that Presidential campaigns are no substitute for protest politics...
...Jackson is the only candidate advocating national health insurance, day-care for children of working mothers, and serious cuts in the military budget...
...Andrew Breslau Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting New York, New York Abuse at the Border After reading Jane Juffer's "Abuse at the Border" (April issue), I firmly support the death penalty for those who commit torture-murder, rape, and the sort of assault you describe...
...However, she erroneously states that "the most vocal interest group...
...Unless there's a buck to be made or a flag to be waved, count on indifference...
...That is an appallingly simplistic accusation, but to the extent that it's true, what of it...
...It is only when we begin to care for the Vietnamese that the Vietnam Memorial will be complete...
...But in recent years less and less funding has come from CPB for this kind of independent work...
...The universities have become instruments of the political parties, and corruption has penetrated all levels of higher education...
...Do not cancel our subscription...
...In the same issue, a total nuclear test ban is advocated as the way to end the nuclear arms race, partly because new designs of nuclear ordnance would not be verifiable ("Ban Nuclear Testing," Comment, February issue...
...Do we want a progressive President who isn't persuasive, aggressive, and able to turn an effective phrase...
...Sure there are graffiti, and concerns about Chinese drivers, and communications problems...
...Charles Rossman Austin, Texas Your comment on Jesse Jackson echoes the crap fed to us by the media—of course he's good, but he can't win because he's black...
...Justice is not being done...
...LETTERS to the Editor Readers Respond to 'Cult of Personality' Your comments about Jesse Jackson's Presidential campaign ("Cult of Personality," Comment, April issue) were ridiculous and smack of self-hating leftist purism...
...The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and its right-ward drift has been a concern of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) from our inception...
...it's true...
...Consider, for example, President Reagan's policies on military expenditures, on the judiciary, on access to information about governmental activities, on abortion and other women's issues, on policies toward the impoverished and aged, on taxes...
...He is the only one who dares to march with gay and lesbian activists and to endorse gay rights...
...If it means plastic pistols, does it also mean nuclear weapons...
...San Francisco has absorbed wave after wave of Asian immigration—from Hong Kong and Taiwan and mainland China, Thais, Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, and most recently Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Hmong refugees...
...Now you know why...
...Which is to say that none, including Jesse Jackson, is a democratic socialist...
...More recently, Noam Chomsky has argued that the Democratic and Republican parties are merely two faces of the same dominant ideology...
...You note correctly that Jackson "still comes closer than any other Democratic candidate to articulating an alternative program for America...
...None of the major-party candidates is talking about social ownership and workers' self-management of the economy...
...As president of the group she mentions, the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, I know that we have been trying to build nationwide support for Congressional reform of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB...
...The number of deformed fetuses and damaged children must be in the hundreds of thousands...
...Donald F. Busky Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 'Scientific' Charade As a scientist working on the regulation of hazardous substances, I shudder at your suggestion that the "informed public" can help determine the level of regulation ("EPA's 'Scientific' Charade," Comment, March issue...
...It may have to lay aside its incessant bickering for a while, but that would be no great loss...
...has yet to take a lead in seeking out" allies in the effort to change public television's priorities so that they more truly reflect the public interest...
...We share your opinion that Jackson hasn't a chance to win the Democratic nomination, much less the White House, but what is the harm of uniting behind a candidate who stands for things leftists have been advocating for decades...
...Still, library aid has barely kept pace with inflation, if that...
...It's a rare day when our freedom to choose not to vote for the absurd Presidential choices we're given is characterized as something besides apathy, which it definitely is not...
...The Japanese have bought up great chunks of Asia and the United States: 60 per cent of all California banks, three out of four American tire companies, nobody knows how much of Silicon Valley...
...Because a campaign like Jackson's can, at best, merely build liberalism...
...We bring to the public airwaves the newest, freshest, most innovative programming—and sometimes the most vital—when the funding is there...
...Rogers R. Kimball Jr...
...If we don't talk about democratic socialism, it will never come into being...
...Why not simply support the most left-wing of the liberal major-party candidates, say Jesse Jackson...
...In fact, she misrepresents reality...
...In the current fiscal year, public and college libraries alone will get $135 million, plus considerable support for medical libraries and other programs...
...January issue...
...But does that mean any arms...
...How can we expect an informed, coherent evaluation from a populace that elects and overwhelmingly supports Ronald Reagan, reveres Donald Trump, watches thirty-five hours of television a week, and would probably rather be shopping than doing anything else...
...Papandreou claims even today, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that he has kept all his promises to the Greek people...
...We are acting as America's shock absorber for the collision with Asia...
...Furthermore, why worry about even a hundred more nuclear explosives in the hands of "terrorists" when arch-terrorist Ronald Reagan has 30,000 at his disposal...
...In organized campaigns, in direct meetings with the PBS programming board, and in our newsletter, Extra...
...I think we might have enough time to mount a campaign to write in Jesse Jackson...
...In the current American climate, what other type of leader could be more effective...
...Jeff Mertens Berkeley, California Public Television Pat Aufderheide is to be congratulated on her insightful article, "What Makes Public TV Public...
...Theodor Schuchat Bellevue, Washington Chatter from the Right Jay Rosen's "Chatter from the Right" (March issue) provided useful information on the sorry state of public broadcasting's talk shows, but he did a disservice, by omission, to those of us who are trying to do something about it...
...This is true...
...While commercial 747s are about the least likely vehicles to lose their cargoes, it is unwise to play the odds—even excellent odds—when the stakes are so high...
...But I find your concern over misplaced plutonium finding its way into nuclear weapons to be unreasonably alarmist...
...You might have extended your list to include the sanctity of Israel, a suicidal disregard for the environment, the absurd "beat Japan" hysteria, and a dozen other aspects of our dominant ideology...
...In the 1980 fiscal year, the comparable total was $79.5 million...
...Moore quotes a commentator who said that "Japanese money is accomplishing what their military couldn't...
...But things have changed since World War II...
...May I suggest that it is possible to do this and engage in electoral politics...
...This country is never going to get a Eugene Debs or a Norman Thomas as President...
...Stephen Wohl Rockaway Beach, New York I'm not particularly enamored with the idea of a hawkish Democratic President, and I'm even less interested in having a former CIA director as President, but I'd take a chance on a protest vote...
...You object to Jackson's anti-Semitism—a charge based, no doubt, on the infamous "Hymietown" remark and his failure to repudiate Louis Farrakhan—and as far as it goes, we concur...
...It's an interesting piece of writing for a radical publication...
...Kaa Byington San Francisco, California Aid for Libraries t is incorrect to write that libraries have been "hit extremely hard by the Reagan Administration's elimination of most of their Federal aid" ("No Place for Children," Comment, April issue...
...And wouldn't you rather have any Democrat in 1988 than a former head of the CIA...
...I recall this argument from a quarter century ago, when Barry Goldwater's slogan was, "A choice, not an echo...
...We must vote for the better candidate (or, at least, against the worse), keeping in mind that Republicans generally believe the least government is best, while Democrats believe government must do for the people what they cannot do for themselves...
...How many people might be alive today if Jimmy Carter had been reelected...
...We hope that the groups she cited—environmental, labor, education, peace, civil liberties, etc.—will join in our struggle...
...They stand for political and economic democracy and for a classless, antiracist, feminist, nonmili-tarist society...
...So please don't throw up your hands in despair...
...And we can't construct a political platform based on personal pique...
...The ecological situation is bleak because of Papandreou and his government...
...The goals we share cannot be achieved without protest, but I also believe they cannot be achieved without electoral politics...
...And I did find an example of an anti-Japanese remark in Herb Caen's column: "Two Japanese tourists asked an elderly bag lady rooting around in a trash can in Union Square: 'Pardon, sorry, but where is the Fairmont Hotel?' Bag lady, still scavenging away: 'You found Pearl Harbor without me.' " I suppose Moore would miss the irony of that and call it a piece of hate being peddled by the press...
...Willa Kenoyer and Ron Ehrenreich are running for President and Vice President on the ticket of the Socialist Party, U.S.A...
...The Constitution was never intended to be a strait-jacket for a changing society...
...There may be pronounced ideological similarities among the candidates, but there are significant differences, too...
...The Progressive, Goldwater, and Chomsky make a strong case, but it is ultimately a version of adolescent angst...
...Robert Richter Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, Inc...
...When the first Asian immigrants, the Chinese, came here to work on the railroads, we treated them terribly...
...The Washington Times couldn't do better...
...By the way, we still love The Progressive...
...Gene Mitchell Maggie Potapchuk West Haven, Connecticut Jesse Jackson is the Establishment's means of giving working people and the Left the satisfying illusion of being heard while simultaneously foreclosing any possibility that the same working people and the Left will actually attain power in 1988 America...
...But what one hand giveth, the other taketh away...
...We also hope The Progressive's readers will write to their Senators and Representatives endorsing a separately funded National Independent Program Service that would directly fund smaller independent producers so that their work will have support and access on the public system...
...Only constant struggle on Capitol Hill and elsewhere keeps library doors open...
...Voting for them and working for their campaign are complementary to protest activity...
...The Left can wait around for another generation or it can grab this opportunity...
Vol. 52 • May 1988 • No. 5
