Dear Editor
Dear Editor Inflation and Blacks Though I quite agree with Sidney Weintraub's assessment of the impact that Ronald Reagan's budget will have on blacks and other minorities ("Why Blacks Aren't...
...But this recommendation would be just only if blacks had their fair share of the economic pie, which we manifestly do not...
...His insinuation happens to re-enforce Soviet-Arab strategy: seeking to undermine the strong moral case on which Israel's survival depends...
...The intergenerational compact that I detailed in my article, and that I believe exists, is based upon the moral, political and economic promise which was made when individuals and employers were required to contribute specific earmarked taxes for the benefits set forth in the law...
...Second, Goodman juxtaposed Israel with vicious groups, implying a similarity in their ethics, although that would contradict his own criteria...
...But there is such a thing as giving an escapist entertainment a chance, and not judging it by inappropria'ely exacting standards...
...4> unwonted violence for publicity or intimidation...
...The ensuing radiation hazard could kill millions over the long run, and make a small city uninhabitable for a millenium...
...The fear that sobers the founding members of the nuclear club will not restrain such later arrivals from destroying their enemies the first chance they get...
...That clearly would be unfair to current taxpayers...
...Cohen also errs when he alleges that the proposal was hastily drawn up, with little consultation with key personnel in the Social Security Administration...
...Not thai Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are artists of Homeric stature...
...The reason for this depressing assertion is the hypothesis that "without the prudence induced by the certainty of total destruction, an armed conflict between the superpowers might well have broken out by now, escalating into a war more horrible than anything World War I and II might have prepared us for...
...Incidentally...
...Small wonder we are suffocating...
...John A. Svahn Commissioner of Social Security Wither J. Cohen replies: I completely agree with Commissioner Svahn that "bold decisive actions" are necessary to go to the root of the financial crisis facing Social Security...
...The overexpansions of the program over the years, combined with the reversal of the relationship between prices and wages, have caused the crisis both in financing and public confidence in the system...
...It is true that later on Goodman decries as "unacceptable" terrorist bombings that hit at innocent bystanders, as well as "random violence...
...The Aa^ninistration rejected proposals that provided only temporary relief, as well as those that placed additional tax burdens on America's workers...
...The Administration was quick to recognize that additional changes would be necessary in order to solve both the short-range and long-range problems...
...Weintraub goes on to urge everyone to moderate their income demands so as to discourage wage-push inflation—this is how I understood his tip proposals...
...It would only take a bazooka shell fired by a terrorist, say, to scatter a railroad car full of uranium tailings...
...On a recent trip to Egypt a friend of mine was nearly frightened to death when he stepped on a nest of vipers as he was being guided through a pyramid...
...Unfortunately, he added...
...had) between superpowers can hardly be a comfort to an Israel anxious about an Islamic bomb...
...Washington, D.C...
...Is it not better to preserve the basic retirement benefit protection by reducing benefits of a marginal nature than to let the program go under...
...The radioactive waste produced by the manufacture of warheads, or by commercial reactors for that matter, makes it unnecessary for an aggressor to actually have nuclear capability...
...Thus, new taxes of some form or other would have to be raised, or else the money would have to be printed, which would cause price inflation...
...They would have had more significance if related, for example, to a comparison of the use of violence by the PLO and Israel...
...there is no action Israel can take, retaliatory or pre-emptive, that will evoke a word of criticism from zealous Zionists...
...Nuclear Danger In reviewing Michael Mandelbaum's The Nuclear Revolution: International Politics Before and After Hiroshima, Barry Gewen approvingly cites the author's belief that the "peace of the Cold war is less shaky, not more, because of nuclear weapons" ("Living with the Bomb," NL, June 15...
...Asahina is just plain wrong when he mocks the notion that an Egyptian crypt could contain snakes as depicted in the film...
...Last September 10, while campaigning, candidate Reagan made a promise to the American people, too...
...In short, Weintraub joins the long list of liberals telling the underprivileged to hold their breaths until the economy improves...
...Miami Beach Carl Jerome...
...There are no painless or easy solutions...
...The initial budget proposals made by the Reagan Administration recognized the need for correcting the imbalance of the Trust Funds and called for changes in several benefit categories...
...This Administration recognized early on that something had to be done to keep the Social Security system from going broke as early as the fall of 1982, which it most certainly will do if no legislative changes are enacted...
...Israel should be cited for setting good examples...
...Israel limits its attacks to military targets...
...I do not agree, however, that the actions taken by Congress over the years, have resulted in an "overexpansion" of benefit, or that the benefits the Reagan Administration would cut are marginal to the millions of human beings who would be adversely affected...
...New York City CharlesCocen Pasl President, A merican Federation of Teachers Deadly Details With his criticism of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Robert Asahina joins the ranks of those two august nit-pickers, Momus and Zoilus, the ancient Greek rhetoricians who condemned The Iliad and The Odyssey for being un grammatical, implausible, poorly constructed, and devoid of uplifting ideas...
...Using general revenues, for example, was ruled out immediately, because such an option would require an income tax surcharge of 4.75 per cent over a five-year period or some other similar tax increase...
...That dedicated Zionist and head of the Israeli Labor Party, Shimon Peres, criticized Israel's bombing of Iraq's nuclear plant and the contemplated strikes against Syrian forces in Lebanon...
...When the players in the "game" are not only superpowers but nations like South Africa, Iraq, Libya, or Pakistan, the probability of nuclear war somewhere in the world sharply increases...
...Examples abound, because Zionists zealously safeguard their moral case...
...This, too, is quite different from the Zionist attitude as represented by Israel's government...
...But this tends to blind us to another nuclear danger that has been creeping up on us...
...And I still think that instead of reducing benefits—an immoral action—Svahn and President Reagan should take the bold action of financing part of the cost of Social Security out of Federal general revenues...
...Could blaming inflation on policies that help minorities simply be camouflage for the racist strain in American politics that is now re-emerging...
...Cohen naively proposes, as a "solution," injecting general revenues into the financing of the Social Security program, either directly or in a hidden indirect fashion...
...Cohen is in error when he states that a "compact" exists that benefit reductions should never be made...
...Actually, it was developed through intensive work over several months utilizing the actuarial staff of the Social Security Administration and other key personnel, at least one of whom had over 45 years of experience with the program...
...Los Angeles B. Hard man Social Security Instead of accusing the President of planning a badly executed assault on Social Security in his article, "The Threat to Social Security" (NL, June 1), Wilbur J. Cohen should recognize that only bold, decisive actions will go to the root of the financial crisis facing Social Security...
...Dear Editor Inflation and Blacks Though I quite agree with Sidney Weintraub's assessment of the impact that Ronald Reagan's budget will have on blacks and other minorities ("Why Blacks Aren't Reading Reagan Right," NL, June 29), I wonder whether the concern about government spending fueling inflation that he shows to be erroneous isn't just a pretext...
...Alas, intellectuals often think fairness means finding comparable fault with both sides in a dispute, no matter how evil the one and decent the other—as when they blame Israel for not making peace with fanatics who won't even acknowledge its existence...
...This approach is, at best, misleading and deceptive to the American public...
...3) attacks on unforeseen victims, as with time bombs in public places...
...The Administration's Social Security reform package was announced only after the system underwent the most intensive and exhaustive review ever taken...
...Unfortunately, the sad fact is that Mutually Assured Destruction (had) has become less relevant...
...2) attacks on noncombatants...
...There is further danger to the spread of nuclear weapons...
...Goodman would have been hard put to cite Israeli (Zionist) acts comparable to the PLO attacks in the Olympics, its shooting-up schoolchildren, and the like...
...That makes unfair game of us zealous Zionists, for two important reasons...
...This has been done many times—even as early as 1939...
...First, the statement is false...
...The integrity of the Social Security System," he said, "will be defended by my Administration____" He has misled the American people...
...I refer especially lo his opening paragraph, in which he seems to equate?at least by implication—the PLO and "realous Zionists...
...While the PLO murders children in school, and Syria kills and mutilates POWs, Israel dropped water for Egyptian troops fleeing from the Six Day War...
...New York City Richard H. Shulman Although Walter Goodman's article on terrorists conforms, in general, to his customary sagacity, he is not up to par in some of his specifics...
...He neatly differentiated legitimate struggle from "terrorism," defined as: (1) aggression against political opponents in a democracy...
...Furthermore, the PLO is proud of its dastardly deeds, and joins Arab countries in bragging about them...
...Let us grant Mandelbaum and Gewen that a dread of an atomic holocaust keeps the United States and Russia behaving themselves, and that a third World War fought with conventional weapons would be horrible beyond imagining...
...The only choices are to restrain the growth of benefits, increase payroll taxes, or turn to some other source of revenue...
...New York City Edgar Martin 'Zealous Zionists' In his "Fair Game" column, "Our Terrorists and Theirs" (NL, June 15), Walter Goodman counterpoised terrorists' mutual recriminations about their opponents' brutality...
...There is no surplus of general revenues available in the Treasury...
...They should oppose the cuts that he has recommended...
...But unfortunately these sound criteria for what constitutes unacceptable terrorism are mentioned in an ahistorical context...
...His predecessor, Levi Eshkol, was criticized by Zionists for retaliating in Jordan for Syrian depredation...
Vol. 64 • July 1981 • No. 14
