Correspondence
Correspondence Gas tax attacks St. Louis, Mo. To the Editors: That an exorbitant tax at the gas pump could be made to trickle back to you-know-whom and thus make everything "even Steven" is pure...
...I mean really wrong...
...To the Editors: We are delighted to see that your editorial, "The Quality of Mercy" [Dec...
...As Americans, our role is not to change power structures in the third world...
...However, we must disagree with your conclusion that U.S...
...This is the message of our study Aid as Obstacle...
...What is more important is that Dorothy Day gave power to the archetype of the Renaissance Woman...
...In several conversations with Dorothy Day during the intense and violent summer of 1968,1 was struck by her use of the term, "Bowery Ambassadors," to describe the sick, hungry and pathetic men who lurched about New York's lower east side...
...Questions such as those above will not vanish if treated with benign neglect...
...Our fossil fuels will soon be gone, our essential metals are rapidly going: quite possibly we will be without cars and planes before the fuel for them runs out...
...Instead, we should stop most of our aid programs and concentrate our resources on...
...24th issue about the miserable conditions under which millions of people throughout the world are literally forced to live is very persuasive...
...helping those countries where a fundamental restructuring of decision-making power is already underway...
...They will continue to divide the church and cause it to be misrepresented in the eyes of non-Catholics despite the discreet representations of some bishops and Rome's policy of papering over difficulties in this matter with official documents...
...19], presented many of the findings of our new study of U.S...
...Whatever we do, we are but borrowing time...
...RUTH ERNST Advocate and Neomember Hoi Polloi New York, N.Y...
...aid-that we can work through elite-controlled governments to help the powerless poor-is dead wrong...
...When I first volunteered working in the Catholic Worker soupline I was appalled by the scattered, disorganized lack of planning and overall social effectiveness of the operation...
...To the Editors: That an exorbitant tax at the gas pump could be made to trickle back to you-know-whom and thus make everything "even Steven" is pure sophistry and abuse to the spirit of Commonweal [Editorial, Jan...
...Yet these programs-as well as miracle seeds, irrigation, credits, roads-strengthen the elites (who inevitably control government-sponsored aid programs) and actually worsen the lives of the poor and hungry...
...Teresa of Avila in the same breath as draft-card-burning and tax resistance...
...There might ensue a period of trial for us, but it need not last long...
...We are not social workers," Dorothy explained...
...I agree with David O'Brien's assessment of Dorothy Day [Dec...
...DAVID KINLEY Aid Education Project Inst...
...To the Editors: Your editorial "World Church in the Making" in the Oct...
...Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker people both intrigued and confused me...
...ROLAND LAIRD...
...Why deal with disgusting winos when you can send a check to the Crusade of Mercy...
...Our responsibility is also to make our society more democratic and self-reliant so that one day it can play a constructive role around the world...
...What you see here is very simple-we are helping the poor and feeding the hungry...
...CLAUDIA FLETCHER Renaissance woman Chicago, III...
...It cannot be pictured as an issue that has now become peripherally significant...
...Against such inflexibility the OPEC nations could not long maintain their present policy of roughly indexing their oil prices to the worldwide inflation they have done so much to create...
...aid recipients such as El Salvador, the Philippines, and South Korea all have "agrarian reform" programs...
...The basic premise of U.S...
...development aid, Aid as Obstacle...
...Does the widespread dissatisfaction result from American Catholic middle-class preoccupations or from a clearer insight into human nature...
...I eventually learned a powerful lesson in that the overall success and efficiency of a project is precisely where the spiritual values are often lost...
...But if we remember that it is not these things that constitute civilization, we need not despair of its surviving, while there are yet sun, water, and the human mind...
...What's wrong with rationing...
...16, you propose a higher tax on gasoline as the best way to reduce to manageable proportions our dangerous dependence upon foreign oil...
...To the Editors: The Catholic Worker movement currently occupies a unique position within the vanguard of American Catholicism...
...These are the broken men of American capitalism," she noted with an empathy totally lacking in bitterness or cynicism...
...19] in that her fame will grow even greater now that she is gone...
...To the Editors: In your lead editorial of Jan...
...Are contraception's opponents protecting something natural and essen-tial in human sexual expression or are they inhibiting an imporant aspect of marital love because of allegiance to tradition...
...aid to the third world (Continued on page 127) Correspondence(Continued from page 98) should be linked to agrarian reform and land-to-the-tiller programs...
...and in every hungry country people are working for change...
...A better way would be to impose a ban on the importation of oil at more than the 1979 price, such provocative pricing to assure an immediate OPEC reaction...
...It breeds a situation fraught with tension...
...A proper use by Washington of its power to allocate resources should assure that no one suffered more than the discomfort of reasonable restraint...
...1. It guarantees "Mission Accomplished...
...If high enough it should certainly do this, but such a tax would affect rich and poor very unequally, however government might try to reduce the inequality by redistributing it...
...ROBERT K. KING Get out of the way San Francisco, Calif...
...ROLAND LAIRDatter with official documents...
...We believe our energy would be misused in trying to improve our foreign aid program...
...Here was a lady discussing St...
...for Food and Development Policy Bedroom choice Hollis, N.Y...
...Discussions of her sainthood, secretly whispered even when she was alive, are perhaps still premature...
...But I fail to see how sidestepping the issue of contraception because it concerns merely "a bedroom choice" will make us more sensitive to our "global responsibility.'' This ''bedroom choice'' is something contemporary Catholics have backed into...
...That is a job for the people of each country...
...2. It's the only means by which the privileged may share the privilege even slightly of the terrible sacrifice you contemplate for the hoi polloi - to him who hasn't, none shall be taken from him...
...Our role is to get out of their way-to prevent our government and the corporations based here from acting as obstacles to change...
...and it would be more a matter of dislocation than of hardship: the oil we import is very much the oil we waste, not the oil we need to survive...
Vol. 108 • February 1981 • No. 4
