Correspondence
Greene, Graham & HOOKE, WALTER G. & BRUCE-BRIGGS, B. & HESS, TERRY A. & COMAS, ANDREW & HELLINGER, DANIEL & HOINACKI, LEE & Gibbons, Russell W.
Correspondence Ambition & Powers Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. To the Editors: Your Mr. Powers asks why superpowers are expansionist - such as the Soviets meddling in Angola [Feb. 11]. A member of the...
...The advertisement also suggests that you have peace on your lips and not in your hearts and something else in your pockets...
...LEE HOINACKI Church & Sandinistas Antibes To the Editors: There are certainly signs of controversy in Nicaragua between Archbishop Obando and the Sandinista government, but not between the Catholic church and the government-the church is not the hierarchy...
...As affluent intellectuals, we might express an individual preference for Mexico...
...The question to be asked is how not to dishonor them...
...In Meier and PiRoman's interview and in Cassidy's unabashedly critical article, La Prensa is described as an "independent" newspaper...
...A member of the Politburo might ask why Mr...
...We must be willing to wage peace with the intensity with which we have waged war...
...To the Editors: I read Commonweal because it is not just another liberal review of politics and the arts...
...Archbishop Obando played a courageous and honorable part during the civil war...
...But there is strong circumstantial evidence that the paper is being used by the United States as part of its extensively reported and documented campaign to destabilize the Sandinista government...
...For example he did not discourage the "miracle of the Virgin of Cuapa," a very dubious event which became part of a Marian campaign launched with political motives and aided by the opposition paper La Prensa...
...This advertisement promotes the training of our clergy, as well as our youth, in the art of killing, the art of dismantling God's creation...
...One wonders if he applauds those union members who would not let their elected officials speak at a membership meeting...
...Not so the Archbishop who visited the church and expressed his astonishment at handling the wet statuette...
...A pastoral letter legitimized the Sandinista's revolt, and he helped in arranging the exchange of hostages and prisoners after the seizure of the National Palace in 1977...
...David Bensman [Mar...
...However, the social democratic biases of Articles I and II are evident in the analyses...
...To the Editors: I was greatly upset at finding an advertisement for Air Corps chaplains in your magazine [Mar...
...The drops were gathered by pilgrims who placed cotton wool around the feet of the statuette...
...Were its politics best characterized by Meier's description of a "small party speaking in the name of 'the people'," the Cuban regime would have collapsed years ago...
...p. 328, Dennis Renault, Sacramento Bee...
...He makes no mention of the $520 million negotiated by the union from the companies which will help laid-off steel workers...
...The statuette had been put in water at night and then into a deep freeze so that it could weep during the day...
...free people make elections...
...The Cuban political system falls well short of democratic, socialist ideals, but it remains one that orients the economic and social development of the country to the interests of the people...
...After the fall of Somoza the relations between him and the new government soured...
...Copyright © 1983 Commonweal Publishing Co...
...Senate's investigation of how the "independent" El Mercurio was used to spread "disinformation" and to help bring down Chile' s Allende in 1973...
...But the editorial and articles on Central America [April 27] disappointed me...
...Tom is one voice as is Commonweal against the power of the military and it is the same in the U.S.A., the USSR and wherever it arises as it did in Japan, Germany, Italy, etc., before World War II...
...Israel is a likely next candidate...
...The government's apparent attitude of benign neglect of extra-state violence cannot be acceptable to socialists and democrats...
...To the Editors: As an expert in quitting jobs and careers let me suggest that Tom Powers take a leave of absence for a year and then make his decision...
...And Silone's novel strongly suggests the dimension which, I've always thought, was Commonweal's special claim to exist as a unique and identifiable voice in American journalism...
...25 issue...
...Without the right to elect those who run our banks, factories, colleges, corporations, etc., our national elections are rendered superficially democratic...
...That is reality...
...One can imagine with what scepticism the Vatican would have treated a similar "miracle" in Italy, as they treated the "breathing" statue of the Virgin in Assisi in the fifties...
...Saying La Prensa is "independent" is like saying that the Communist Party's Daily Worker is "independent...
...Its presence, at least for me, negates all the work you and your writers have done for peace, and peace education...
...One distinguished old monsignor to whom I spoke in Nicaragua believed the reason to be wounded vanity...
...The contemporary intellectual who wishes to say something about Central America might approach the task differently...
...Now if PiRoman means that the Sandinistas are resisting what he identifies as "pressure from the bottom to be more radical economically" because they are facing the reality of international finance, this is one thing...
...RUSSELL W. GIBBONS Communications Director United Steelworkers of America Pluralism 8c democracy St...
...Those who were there were involved in the bargaining process and were briefed by gen-(Continued on page 348) Correspondence (Continued from page 322) eral background sessions two and three times weekly...
...Referring to the Sandinista movement or regime as a "party" seems to me to be premature...
...But only among the decaying favored classes of northwest Europe and its settlements could such a question be asked...
...p. 342, Frank O'Connor, from Gandhi, a Pictorial Biography (Newmarket Press/Scribner's).Frank O'Connor, from Gandhi, a Pictorial Biography (Newmarket Press/Scribner's...
...father CLYDE F. crews chairs the department of theology at Bellarmine College...
...the half-page ad in the Mar...
...Naturally, some issues have been more informative and morally stimulating than others...
...In fact, Cassidy's discussion of the range of political viewpoint among the Sandinistas and the loyal opposition suggests more divergent ideological pluralism in Nicaragua than in the United States...
...Then one should pray for the grace to hear a peasant speak-they have wondrous tales to reveal...
...The Virgin was a small statuette in the church of Cuapa which gave off drops of what was first called perspiration and then tears...
...Unfortunately for him the miracle was exposed...
...Additionally, it is insulting to suggest that there is ' 'fine print'' in an agreement whose language was read line for line at a ratification conference, discussed and debated, then followed by a reconvening for more debate and a vote the following day...
...Illustrations: Cover, Len Boro, Phoenix Gazette...
...Michael GARVEY wrote State o' Chassis: An Earful of Ireland (Thomas More Press...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y...
...1, 1924, to current issues available through University Microfilm, 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mi...
...Indeed, there are many "ravaged steel towns whose future hung in the balance...
...48106 and on Microfiche from Bell & Howell, Micro-Photo Division, Old Mansfield Road, Wooster Ohio 44691...
...DANIEL HELUNGER Assistant Prof, of Political Science Webster University Elites & revolution Codden, 111...
...Powers troubles to scribble for a pittance...
...Bensman's pleasure...
...To "redirect corporate investment" means a public policy change, and the Steelworkers have been in the forefront of this very issue for the past decade...
...The tears were said to be for a sinful and revolutionary Nicaragua...
...I believe your magazine has stepped backwards morally in courting priests for the Air Force (of...
...A great deal of time in conversation with Bishop Paul Yamaguchi of Nagasaki softened the blow of those months but not sufficiently to cause me to remain a day longer than possible in the military...
...But in this case "responsible" seems to mean respecting the interests of capital over the aspirations of a majority of the population-something, by the way, that a "small party speaking in the name of the 'people' " is particularly well suited to do...
...If one wishes to discuss a "revolutionary" regime controlled by what Marx called "intellectuals," then some awareness of the problems outlined by Peter Berger (Pyramids of Sacrifice) would seem useful...
...I also prefer the relative tolerance of Mexico City to Havana when it comes to freedom of expression...
...To the Editors: I have been a regular reader of Commonweal for approximately nine years...
...One can only hope that the pope and his advisers will treat the evidence of tension between the government and Catholics more carefully than the Archbishop treated the miracle of Cuapa...
...He could begin by accompanying Berger to Cholula-it's not far from Mexico City...
...B. BRUCE-BRIGGS Powers & military Shaftsbury, Vt...
...GRAHAM GREENE Commonweal is indexed in Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, Catholic Periodical Index, Index of American Periodical Verse, Book Review Digest and Book Review Index...
...Microfilm from Vol...
...Those who suspect the Sandinistas of crying "wolf" might read the U.S...
...Deborah Meier and Rafael PiRoman (I) are more preoccupied with the formal trappings of pluralism than with the participatory requirements of democracy...
...Seven company-level meetings and dozens of subsidiary meetings were scheduled daily...
...Louis, Mo...
...The post-bomb life of the people of Nagasaki has never left me...
...If social democrats respond that calling for such elections in advanced capitalist society today would not correspond to our political culture, then perhaps they should also respect the secondary priority that the Sandinistas place on national elections while they build democracy in other sectors and levels of their society...
...That may be more of a commentary on Bensman's sources than on the process itself...
...but were we to find ourselves reincarnated thirty years hence as a Nicaraguan peasant or worker, we had better hope the Nicaraguan experience more closely approximates Cuba than Mexico...
...While PiRoman is more tolerant of other democratic traditions, I note that his notion of "responsible" democratic government includes faithful repayment of an international debt contracted by a dictatorship installed and maintained by the lenders...
...Your correspondent might have better transported himself to Pittsburgh to observe the process and the results: he talks of jobs lost and cost-of-living which will "almost certainly never be restored," statements which have no substance in fact...
...ANDREW COMAS CorJesu Community Steel & realities Pittsburgh, Pa...
...I beg of you to please rely on God's grace for your needs and put away any connections with these kinds of advertisements of those who are willing to kill the innocent in the name of justice...
...The realities are that steel is not a growth industry, and the union which in thirty years made American steelworkers the highest paid industrial workers in the world is seeking to save as many of those jobs as is possible...
...Until the system changes, there is no way to force a corporation to keep plants open...
...I can't imagine what or whom you are trying to reach or what kind of a moral stance you are taking...
...The answer to both questions is the same: the desire to make a mark on this world - ambition...
...One has the impression that he now takes any opportunity to embarrass the government of what is a very Catholic country...
...It may have the same substance as his reporting about local officials "waiting anxiously for information about the progress of the talks...
...But it is a rhetorical disservice and a malignment of individual convictions to suggest that the majority of steel local presidents who voted for the contract shared anything but the same concerns as those who voted against it...
...But I don't see what distinguishes the lead editorial from something I can read in the New York Times...
...I hope to see national elections soon in Nicaragua, but it is worth recalling Garry Wills's observation that elections do not make a people free...
...But Meier's complaint that "the general atmosphere blocks them (opponents) from putting forth their viewpoint more widely and trying to persuade other people" probably applies as much to Western parliamentary democracies every bit as much as it does to Nicaragua...
...Reporting that one local president's view was "widely shared" begs the question: apparently 63 of the 232 presidents who voted on the contract may have shared his displeasure, but a much larger number (169) approved it...
...p. 335, Hy Rosen, Albany Times-Union...
...25] takes issue with the recent contract between the United Steelworkers of America and the major steel producers by providing a forum for those who are unhappy with it, ignoring the reality that capacity utilization in the industry was down to almost one-third of its potential at one point last year...
...There are many realities which make those who work in steel in this country unhappy...
...The Archbishop was in the habit of appearing on television every Sunday celebrating the Mass...
...p. 329, Taylor, Albuquerque Tribune...
...james McKENNA is Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer and Antitrust Division of the state of Maine...
...The articles are also to be complimented for the balanced discussion of the issue of elections, although I note that considerably less space was devoted to Van Pulley's statement of the Sandinista case than to the other two perspectives...
...Tom should spend the next several months visiting the world's trouble spots, make notes and see what happens when he returns . . . WALTER G. HOOKE Military & priests Milwaukee, Wise...
...Social democrats who take socialism seriously might contemplate the role of elections in our own society before insisting that Nicaragua hold them immediately...
...Three months in Nagasaki at the end of World War II caused me to resign a Marine Corps commission...
...And if one presumes to write favorably of those "in need," it would be fitting to first experience what Pietro Spina heard (in Bread and Wine, by Ignacio Silone) a peasant actually expressing his view of the world about him...
...I did find the information of the role of the turbas disturbing...
...And that is how a union functions, whatever Mr...
...but more surprising is that they should feel "relieved" to hear a Sandinista leader speculate that the Mexican single-party outcome is more likely than the Cuban one...
...The Sandinistas represent the latest version of an elite phenomenon which has existed at least as long as historical records have been kept...
...Serials Data program No.: ISSN 0010-3330...
...To the Editors: The three articles grouped under "Perspectives on Nicaragua" [April 22] generally provided in their totality informed criticism and deserved praise...
...The government decided that the Mass should be celebrated on television in a different parish each Sunday-a decentralization of worship which the Archbishop refused to accept with the result that he lost his Sunday television audience...
...Finally, there are the dead...
...But anyone who visits Havana and Mexico City will grasp in a moment the contrast between the desperate poverty of people living in the latter's slums and the austere but adequate standard of living to which every Cuban is entitled...
...jean bethke elshtain's most recent book is Public Man, Private Woman (Princeton...
...I admit that there are people in the Air Force...
...But blessing their efforts with a priest's presence is either a contradiction in terms or a continuation of that part of history which saw church figures making the sign of cross over the troops as they marched away to war...
...To the Editors: Perception may be as important as reality when viewing national agreements with traditional manufacturing sectors...
...TERRY A. HESS Priests & killing New York, N.Y...
Vol. 110 • June 1983 • No. 11
