Editorials
I . . . . . . . Contents Volume CXI, Number 17 Correspondence 514 Editorials 515 Running scared: Robert H. Bell 517 Ambivalent heritage? John Garvey 518 Breaking through the...
...This is not to deny the sometimes fruitful discussion of church and state...
...The same study shows that voters are anxious to stop what they see as a present drift toward nuclear confrontation...
...Reagan can no doubt argue the case that his forcefulness serves the peace, both in the short run and over the long haul...
...Voter Options does more than report on voter sentiment...
...It means you look okay for somebody thirty-eight-years-old...
...And social forces are working both ways...
...can "win" the arms race in some decisive sense...
...Against this outlook, the Democrats are hardly peaceniks or military budget-slashers...
...it also clearly describes American strategic policy and gradations of expert opinion on arms and foreign policy...
...abortion is here and now...
...The overriding moral question for 1984, they 5 October 1984:515 from Commonweal f o r t y y e a r s t t g o : "A significant battle is being waged here in America today between two types of character, the bigoted and the democratic...
...You don't smoke, and you can't change your family history...
...that it should be left to the president and the experts...
...He was not run over...
...In this sense, the meetings of the president and the Soviet foreign minister are a response to a widely perceived need...
...For example, while agreeing with the bishops that fetal life is to be respected, hence, abortion is to be avoided, Mr...
...If consensus is so unlikely how is it, we wonder, that President Reagan has garnered such support...
...Although he may be sprinkled with verbal pieties in church and school, he never really learns (in his nerves and muscles) that the purpose of a democratic society is to aid the socially acceptable possibilities of all people to reach fruition...
...Reagan] prefer force as a first resort and taxes as a last resort...
...Too many Christians, Catholic bishops among them, have contributed to this massive evasion of responsibility...
...All Canadian and foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S...
...He waits...
...more powerful than a locomotive...
...foreign, $29...
...It is not the fact of Big Brother that looms over Our society but the threat of another kind of tyranny: that of nuclear war...
...nuclear superiority, the administration remains acutely sensitive to the marginal psychological advantage it believes either superpower can draw from the momentum of the arms race...
...as the Irish bishops pointed out succinctly, "A permanent and complacent reliance on deterrence would be insane...
...Canada, $47...
...dollars by International Money Order or by check on a U.S...
...When I casually mentioned that Jim Fixx had suddenly dropped dead yesterday and asked for a physical examination that afternoon, he told me not to worry...
...The issues of war and peace, especially of nuclear policy, have simply not been dealt with seriously in this campaign...
...He doesn't run...
...Clichds alone, however, do not create a bigot...
...the occasional mention of international economic interdependence with the accompanying problems of shifting jobs, catastrophic debt, and world hunger...
...Furthermore, the quest for consensus raises the problem of leadership...
...Governor Cuomo's central thesis is that even the mostagreed-upon moral principles can be translated into a variety of political strategies...
...So far, the 1984 election has displayed little of this intelligence, this reflection, this willingness...
...You're lookin' good...
...able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...
...doesn't mean "you're lookin' good...
...When is one to launch out and break the new ground of social morality...
...If the question, "Will the 1984 election be our last...
...Commonweal: 516 CHURCH & CUOMO Permit us to add our appreciation to Governor Mario Cuomo for his address, "Religious Belief and Public Morality: a Catholic Governor's Perception," delivered September 13 at the University of Notre Dame...
...military power: William Satire, a Reagan booster, put the difference cleverly when he wrote of Mondale, "He would raise taxes as a first resort and use force as a last resort at a time when most Americans [read, taking their cue from Mr...
...Even more important in diminishing the importance of the nuclear issue in the election campaign has been the behavior of the Soviets...
...state bans would mean inconsistent application of the law...
...Compiled jointly by the Public Agenda Foundation and the Center for Foreign Policy Development at Brown University (6 East 39th Street, New York, N.Y., 10016, $6, 91 pp...
...Look where it got him...
...He courageously risked what few politicians will in this age of TV clips -- complexity...
...is shocking, good...
...Such advantages certainly appear to outweigh, in administration eyes, the dangers of destabilization...
...No, our hope is rooted elsewhere: in the possibility that cautious and precise intelligence can guide us through the immediate dangers of nuclear confrontation in the short run, and that a deepening human reflection can provoke a willingness among the peoples of the earth to undertake a profound human change in the long run...
...10016...
...Talk of using force as a first resort or a last one should have some important resonance for Catholics who recall just-war doctrine...
...But is consensus as impossible as it seems to Mr...
...You're doing what you can...
...Do they suggest we postpone our debate and choices until the ten to twenty minutes while the missiles are flying...
...Cuomo...
...But Mr...
...Yearly subscriptions, U.S., $24...
...commonweal ] tH 'WILL THIS ELECTION BE OUR LAST?' T HROUGHOUT THIS CENTURY of dictatorships and wars, people in many lands have had to go the polls asking themselves "Will this election be our last...
...But simply put, the campaign has failed asyet to address the central question of our time, one which envelops even the abortion issue, the question of whether we will extinguish our civilization if not our species in nuclear conflagration...
...For all reassurances to the contrary, and this campaign has dealt too generously in them, we live in a house with foundations built on sand, the pilings of our fifty thousand nuclear weapons shakily poised to pull asunder...
...When reminded of the agonized attention that the bishops devoted over several years to the moral dangers of nuclear weaponry, these spokespersons reply that such dangers, like nuclear war, are only "potential...
...Special two-year rate: U.S., $43...
...Difficult but not impossible...
...When we were twenty-eight, nobody said that because "you're lookin' good...
...According to the latest medical research, it should last me the rest of my life...
...Okay, maybe not...
...abortion is not a failure of government, so its remedy should not be sought there...
...9 . . What people do not know is that fascism can come to this country under the, banner of 'democracy.' " --Gordon W. Aliport, "The Bigot in Our Midst" October 6, 1944 II have argued, is abortion...
...There are significant differences on nuclear arms policy between the parties contending for leadership in the U.S...
...Whadd'ya mean, don't worry...
...There is good evidence that the American people would have it otherwise...
...There is no surer path to that latter fate than to evade addressing the truth that faces us: we have in our hands the means for our entire civilization's, and perhaps for all humankind's, annihilation...
...By breaking off negotiations, by continuing their nuclear buildup, by the very obscurity in which they create and conduct their policy, the Soviet leaders have made it difficult for American citizens to judge what, if any, alternative policies for the United States could really lead to a viable, even-handed relaxation of an arms race that is on the brink of vast new expenditures and vast new dangers...
...The shame is that he hasn't really had to...
...Telephone: (212) MU 3-2042...
...Nor, we might add, from the moral components...
...Let eagles, whales, and fat cynics be the endangered species...
...People who have the character structure of the bigot embrace fascist principles and techniques to protect their prejudices...
...No, but I might give Up HMgen-Dazs vanilla swiss almond...
...Life is revealed to him not as an invitation to coOperation.., but as an arena of struggle where opponents must be annihilated...
...We recognize that the analogy is imperfect, but what hampers him from leading similarly on the issue of RUNNING SCARED R.I.P...
...We are told not to fear those who can kill the body but those who can kill the spirit as well...
...Being a Type-A person, the sudden death of Jim Fixx made me a little nervous...
...that's how I ended up a teacher...
...Nor is our hope predicated on greater numbers of weapons, on the belief entertained out of habit bysome Americans, even when they doubt it could withstand the light of examination, that the U.S...
...He might have died ten years ago if he hadn't been running...
...As a Catholic Cuomo upholds the moral teachings of the Catholic church, but on issues of policy, he uses his own prudential, political judgment...
...They will learn it only when candidates for office, religious leaders, reporters, and the organizers of television debates fulfill their responsibilities...
...foreign, $53...
...A lot of guys my age run...
...That question is now pertinent to Americans...
...At my age, Bill Russell and John Havlicek had retired...
...It demonstrates that the technical components of the nuclear arms issue cannot be neatly divided from the political components...
...Thomas M. Gannon, Jean-Yves Calvez, Shlomo Avineri, Norman Birnbaum 524 The end of Catholicism, Part III: The provisional path to mystery: Andrew M. Greeley 530 The end of Catholicism, Part III: To trust or to suspect: David Tracy 532 Screen: Tom O'Brien 534 Verse: Leo Luke MarceUo 535 Media: Deborah Meier 536 Books Reasons and Persons: Frederick FerrJ 538 Hilaire Belloc: Clyde F. Crews 539 Staff I . Editor: Peter Steinfels Assistant Editors: David Toolan, Karen Smith, Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Anne Robertson Poetry: Rosemary Deen, Marie Ponsot Columnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, Abigail McCarthy Staff: Karen F. Silva, Harriette Balsky Advertising Manager...
...I always liked doing well on tests...
...Nor is our hope to be found in more sophisticated technical weapons and anti-weapons systems, which as Leslie Gelb has pointed out, "fundamentally and irretrievably undermine even the notion of nuclear deterrence...
...We don't mind little jokes like: "Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it passes...
...John Garvey 518 Breaking through the stereotypes Sidney Callahan & Daniel Callahan 520 Are we entering a post-Marxist age...
...The distinction is only superficially accurate...
...They accept the Soviets as tough adversaries, but they desire a new phase in SovietAmerican relations...
...I needed something to boost my morale, and a stress test is part of a physical...
...With all the running I do, I figured I'd do pretty well on the stress test...
...The key to understanding how this judgment works is in the concept of consensus...
...it ignores an essential difference between the two moral questions_9 The only time that we can exercise our moral responsibility politically in regard to nuclear war is when it remains "potential...
...The only definite factors ard smoking and family history...
...He had a terrible family history...
...Yet there is hope - - while there is life...
...Don't worry so much...
...At my age, John Keats had been dead thirteen years...
...He has to learn also to regard the world as a perilous jungle, where beasts devour one another or are devoured...
...What are you going to do if we detect some slight blockage -- have triple coronary by-pass surgery...
...JIM FIX3( A T MY AGE, you start thinking about figures of speech like "alive and well" or "alive and kicking...
...bank...
...Ha-ha-ha...
...Jim Fixx wasn't worded...
...His grounds are pragmatic: lack of consensus in society would make enforcement a nightmare akin to Prohibition, even jeopardizing respect for law in general...
...We do not pose it as an introduction to some rhetorical denunciation of the Reaganites as latent fascists or the Democrats as dangerous collectivists, one or other of the parties, or both, leading us down the road to serfdom...
...He farms...
...But most American voters won't learn that from booklets...
...It's advice people often give me...
...shares some of the blame for our bad relations with Moscow...
...Suddenly Jim Fixx, the king of the road, the genius of jogging, the apostle of running died...
...The president's success suggests that Roe v. Wade is far from the center of gravity of public opinion...
...It's also possible that stress is a factor...
...and the agonizing, necessary debate on abortion...
...It is in relation to this truth that all other campaign i~sues must take their rightful and serious place...
...Single copy, $1.25...
...The Reagan administration has consistently displayed a distrustful attitude toward negotia_9 tions, an enthusiasm for new weapons, and a deliberate emphasis on the centrality of military force...
...If you are still playing a big league sport in your late thirties, like Tom Seaver, you're reminded how old you are every time you burp...
...The Democrats can be counted on to look longer and harder at all new strategic weapons systems, and to be more inhibited generally about the engagement of U.S...
...ROBERT BELL I 5 October 1984:517...
...They do believe that even minor gains in arms negotiations are positive - - the White House has tended to see them as contributing more to illusions than peace...
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...the important attempts to examine the promise and perils of our current economic upswing...
...We admire Governor Guomo's willingness to stand against consensus on the issue of capital punishment...
...Big Jim dropped dead of a heart attack while he was cruising along a quiet Vermont road feeling no pain, taking in the sights and s o u n d s . . . WHAMMO...
...Shrewd and emotionally-roUsed representatives are busy on both sides...
...My doctor is a real mellow guy...
...While disclaiming any desire to reestablish U.S...
...But at least alive and kicking...
...withholding funds (state or federal) for abortion would only burden the "already disadvantaged...
...Are there not some difficult circumstances upon which we might agree that it be permitted...
...Thirty-nine-year-old Tom Seaver blanked the Red Sox on three hits . . . . " At my age, friends you haven't seen in a while greet you, "Bob...
...More likely they invoke democratic symbols to justify their attacks...
...We put on our Nikes, put in sixty-miles-a-week on the asphalt -- and feel invincible...
...Ruth E. Taylor Publisher...
...But they seldom realize that they are doing it...
...He did not die of terminal hemorrhoids...
...According to a recent study, Voter Options on Nuclear Arms Policy, seventy-seven percent of the public reject the idea that "the subject of nuclear weapons is too complex for people like me to think about...
...Cuomo disagrees with the bishops' public support for legislation to prohibit abortion...
...Three out of four Americans believe the danger of nuclear war is not remote but urgent, and a similar number believe that the U.S...
...I decided I'd better have a physical exam...
...Edward S. Skillin Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly, except monthly Christmas-New Year's and July and August, by Commonweal Foundation, 232 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y...
...We figure on leading longer, healthier lives...
...Our civilization has relocated itself over the unsteady landfill of nuclear deterrence, a zone buffeted constantly by the forces of gee-political rivalries, erodedby the poverty of our neighbors downhill, and poisoned by an atmosphere of permanent distrust and collective heartsickness...
...This hope is not based on any deep confidence in the mechanism of deterrence...
...He takes things as they come...
...10016...
...Is there not some point, at least in the later development of fetal life, after which we as a society could agree that abortion is to be disallowed...
...Rigorously, candidly, and intelligently, the governor treated a highly controversial concern within both the Catholic church and the body politic: the relationship between specific moral principles and the public morality supported by policy and law...
...From now on, I'm not going to worry about my heart...
...I was completely calmed by this consultation with my doctor...
...Canada, $26...
Vol. 111 • October 1984 • No. 17
