CORRESPONDENCE:
Kelly, James R. & DENNY, STEPHEN R. & FOREST, JIM & PALINCSAR, JOHN
CORRESPONDENCE
Saigon Regime
Salem, Ore.
To the Editors: It may be true that many people in South Vietnam who were members of the Third Force have been sympathetic to the NLF, but what about those...
...JAMES R. KELLYnation's more generous impulses...
...Nonetheless, we must choose the new morality...
...I speak of Thich Tri Quang, one of the architects of the Buddhist nonviolent movement that, for so many years, worked for a compromise solution between the warring groups...
...We probably could not feed the whole world now...
...The books weren't written only by Party hacks (not unlike many we've had in the Catholic fold who made a living writing nonsense about the church's history and its saints...
...26...
...We sprayed DDT everywhere, killing insects which ravaged crops or wreaked epidemics...
...With slower success, we began to distribute the loaves through the promise of modern agriculture...
...True...
...The government is carrying out massive programs of compulsory reeducation, from which a great many haven't returned, and some have returned dead...
...Morality need not teach narrow lessons...
...I was helping to clean an attic, swamped with the debris of decades, so that a pacifist couple could make it into a living place...
...Our alternative is not to shun responsibility for the dilemma we have made...
...This systematic approach simply puts morality in a cause-and-effect context so that the hard choices can be made properly...
...One would never imagine that- while the books were written and read -train-loads of human beings were each day en route to Siberia, or that thousands were being tortured and shot, and that Soviet legislators were being watched to make sure they applauded Comrade Stalin for the minimum number of minutes...
...Lifeboat ethics do not mandate that we forsake all others...
...Instead, America threw the world a lifesaver...
...What will be the fate of those individuals who do not accept the regimented thought patterns of the new government...
...There was one by a correspondent for Time and others by good-hearted observers who tried to see and think for themselves...
...The lifeboat choice is not divorced from a framework of human concern...
...The choice which promotes the greater good is the moral choice, not merely the rational one...
...STEPHEN R. DENNY Nyack, N.Y...
...We read, indeed even in "liberated" sources, of street executions: people caught stealing were summarily shot...
...But, true or false, one would do well to go very slowly in canonization procedures for the new state...
...Through innoculations and sulfa drugs we virtually raised the dead with the magic of modern medicine...
...All we have are a few brief UPI and AP reports in the world press and the confirmation of one Vietnamese correspondent of French citizenship...
...What I found was a great deal of stuff that few Marxists would readily admit was ever published: books celebrating the perfection of the Soviet Revolution and testifying to the advances being made each day despite every effort of popes, generals and capitalists to push back the workers' dawn...
...nor was it visited upon us by an angry god...
...The specter of the starving child makes Kelly's choice not so much "crackpot" as "cracked heart...
...Palincsar's tone suggests that the remedy for misguided altruism is guided altruism...
...It is merely academic to discuss whether we should have recognized what we were doing in 1945...
...Half-true...
...What is their fate...
...My own sketchy effort merely represented an effort to snatch the honored term of reason from a narrow usage which made reason incompatible with our own nation's more generous impulses...
...Journalists and tourists weren't taken to labor camps and executions...
...Even if we were to try we would simply and swiftly find our limit as population continued to soar through our efforts...
...We might prove more helpful to Vietnam were we to use with its present governments the same moral standards we applied to the previous Saigon government and to our own, recognizing good when it is there to be recognized, and opposing abuses of power however much we may admire or despise those responsible...
...John Palincsar's interpretation of lifeboat ethics and I agree that America can not continue to consume 30% of the world's resources with only 6% of its population...
...JIM forest Lifeboat Ethics Springfield, Ill...
...And a pity the good name of his agency should suffer for his double standard...
...such as the closing down of all newspapers on April 30 and the issuing of a 10-point program on the same day that included the dissolution of "all reactionary parties and other organizations serving imperialism and puppet regimes...
...instead, our actions are inextricably linked in chains of events with worldwide effect...
...Already we have reports that abuse of power hasn't passed from the human scene in Vietnam...
...One hopes this is but a rumor born of a difficult period in Vietnam's history...
...As a direct consequence of our actions, the world's population mushroomed, casting a cloud on the end of this century more fearsome than atomic plumes...
...A lie...
...America can not continue to consume 30% of the world's resources with only 6% of its population...
...To the Editors: It may be true that many people in South Vietnam who were members of the Third Force have been sympathetic to the NLF, but what about those members of the Third Force who were not only opposed to the Thieu regime, but also to the NLF and its allies...
...As part of our example we should not shun all aid to those who now suffer from our intended kindness...
...Modern morality, like modern science, must be systematic and comprehensive...
...Nor does he significantly deal with the repressive orders issued by the government that are clearly a violation of Article 11 of the Paris Peace Accords...
...In this shrinking world our actions do not float separate as vignettes for ethical testing...
...We should set the world an example as we readjust American values of consumption: We will have to readjust our consumption anyway...
...The author mentions some "third force" publications that were "quickly authorized by the new Military Management Committee," but how much freedom do they have to speak independently of the new ruling class...
...To be sure, as with my own essay the reader will want to know more about the specific policy implications of this sentiment...
...What they didn't see, they didn't see...
...26] made me recall an adventure from several summers back...
...JOHN PALINCSAR Attorney, Environmental Protection Agency, State of Illinois Reply I applaud Mr...
...Although he does not say so directly, Mr...
...I agree...
...JAMES R. KELLY...
...These questions are not answered in Paul Quinn-Judge's report on Saigon after the takeover [Sept...
...To the Editors: In Commonweal's September 12 issue, James R. Kelly established a dichotomy of approaches to the world's food/population crisis...
...Being one of those who can't walk by a bookstore (least of all a supply of free books), I dipped in to see whether there wasn't some justification for adding a little more to my library...
...To the Editors: Reading Paul Quinn-Judge's glowing account of "liberated" Saigon [Sept...
...In 1945 the world would have sunk into starvation and disease until disrupted nations could establish tran-quility...
...They merely dictate that the resources we do commit to helping the poor go only to those nations which have a reasonable chance of controlling population...
...We see photos of book burnings...
...It may prove to be no less human than any other human endeavors...
...CORRESPONDENCE Saigon Regime Salem, Ore...
...The world population problem did not just happen...
...We have created the problem through misguided altruism...
...while persons sharing Kelly's view, which may be expressed as "let's all go down with the ship," were credited with "comprehensive" rationality...
...Kelly should have reversed his terms...
...A pity...
...And we discover that one of the leaders of the Unified Buddhist Church has been arrested...
...For another example, the June 5 guidelines issued by the government that outlawed history, philosophy and civic books "written from the American or puppet point of view," history books about Vietnam that "lie about the revolution," and French, American, Chinese and Japanese literary publications that were antirevolutionary or of "existentialist, depraved nature...
...Today we are certain that the only consequence of feeding people without insisting on birth control would be to exacerbate the population crisis...
...Our motives were the highest and so one pales to hear our reasons called "crackpot...
...Persons espousing the "lifeboat" ethic of survival, according to Kelly, suffer from "crackpot" rationality...
...A comprehensive morality calls for firm action after brave decisions...
...It may not take so long before Paul Quinn-Judge's "report" finds it way to Commonweal's attic for those pieces that the editors later find embarrassing...
...If the United States were to adhere to Article 21 of the Paris Peace Accords, providing reconstruction aid to Vietnam, and if the other signing parties were to adhere to Article 9, 11 and 12, recognizing the fundamental freedoms and rights provided for the people of South Vietnam in (Continued on page 605) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued from page 581) Article 11 and allowing them to decide their political future through free and democratic elections as Articles 9 and 12 stipulate, the people of South Vietnam would be a lot better off...
...While like superstition clouding science, Kelly's approach elects a choice without hope in a double avoidance situation...
...It took a number of years before the evidence of corruption and paranoia at the highest levels of the Soviet Union could no longer be disputed except by those whose sanity required blindness...
...There were cartons of aging books stored away, among them quite a stash of Marxist literature from the '20s, '30s and '40s...
...They longed to see some current proof in history that might encourage hope, and indeed they saw a good deal that was genuinely inspiring...
...Nonetheless, 30 years of humanitarian actions have created an intolerable hell for a world majority which must struggle with incurable fear, filth and misery...
...But Paul Quinn-Judge, albeit under the revered auspices of the American Friends Service Committee, is clearly not interested in letting the same standards apply equally to all governments, whatever their ideological stripes...
...The smiling nun Paul Quinn-Judge saw handing out leaflets in Saigon may tomorrow be another prisoner...
Vol. 102 • December 1975 • No. 19
