Dear Editor
Dear Editor Missing Marxism Barry Gewen raises a false issue when he claims "that the writings of Marx had little to do with the policies of China, Cuba, Ethiopia, or Angola" ("Innocence Abroad,"...
...Nonetheless, such nations as China (at least under Chairman Mao), Cuba, Ethiopia, and Angola—to say nothing of the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Rumania—do indeed follow a recognizable and coherent set of policies, which are hostile both to the United States and to liberty...
...Is this the sort of man we ought to be sending to the Senate at all, let alone for life...
...Dear Editor Missing Marxism Barry Gewen raises a false issue when he claims "that the writings of Marx had little to do with the policies of China, Cuba, Ethiopia, or Angola" ("Innocence Abroad," NL, September 3...
...They have in fact become the Presidential majority party, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future, however disagreeable that may be...
...During the Korean War, he wanted to spread radioactive dust along the Yalu River border between China and Korea...
...Senate ("Rebuilding the Great Engineer's Reputation," NL, August 20) strikes me as muddle-headed...
...Second, Parmet's plan would unbalance the Senate geographically, despite his claim that it would not...
...Republicans have won three out of the last four Presidential elections—those of 1968, 1972 and 1980—and seem to be well on their way to winning the present one...
...There really is such a thing as "Marxism," even in the Third World, though it has hardly anything to do with Marx himself...
...Mainly, it seems, "advantage could be taken of [their] previous primary responsibility for conducting foreign policy...
...This is a notable record of error, and Hoover sought to surpass it later on...
...His shopping list of revolutionary measures in the Communist Manifesto consists mostly of bourgeois commonplaces, like universal primary education...
...In the first place, the mandate of every Senator should be won by election, and only by election, and should be limited to a specified term of years...
...What kind of democratic legitimacy would our institutions have if one, two or three decades after a President entered the White House, he were still hanging on in the Senate, bereft of any popular sanction at all yet completely unremovable, no matter how detested he might eventually become...
...He denounced Lend-Lease as an idea dedicated "to making the world safe for Stalin"—Hoover's very words...
...He was "remarkably obtuse about Nazi Germany," supporting, for example, the Munich sellout...
...He foolishly supposed that if only the Western democracies would sit on their hands and do nothing, Hitler and Stalin "would be obliging enough to destroy each other...
...Third, the proposal would unbalance the Senate politically...
...The Democrats, by contrast, dominate politics at the state and local levels...
...Consider, though, Parmet's own description of Herbert Hoover's outlook on foreign affairs...
...The mere fact that Parmet hopes ex-Presidents would take a broad view of their senatorial responsibilities will not of itself make them do any such thing...
...The truth is that the writings of Marx have had precious little to do with the policies of any country, because Marx had little to say regarding the content of socialism, mocking speculations about it as futile attempts to "write the cookbooks of the future...
...He thought that Hitler's hatred of the Jews could be neutralized by creating a Jewish state in East Africa...
...And he backed General Douglas MacArthur's insubordination against our freely elected Commander-in-Chief, Harry Truman...
...Miami Edward Garcia Ex'Presidents Herbert Parmet's proposal to make ex-Presidents lifetime members of the U.S...
...Surely not...
...Finally, there is the matter of what benefit the country would reap from giving our departing Chief Executives a permanent Senate seat...
...The temporary appointment of Senators to vacant seats does not violate this principle...
...Philadelphia Robert Langdale...
...Parmet would have us nullify that strength...
...Even without formally representing any of our states, ex-Presidents would necessarily come from one or another of them, and might choose to promote its interests, or those of some different state, for that matter...
Vol. 67 • October 1984 • No. 18
