THE PEOPLE'S FORUM
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM War Is the Atrocity Dear Sirs: Such reports as we have received of the massacres of the civilians in Vietnam are indeed atrocious. But we should not allow them, or our...
...They want power over a docile press and citizenry...
...Two—the ethical question: If we knew that a massive nuclear attack was headed our way and knew that we could not escape, by what right could we retaliate and doom our opponents immediately...
...Many have acted as if this totalitarian rubbish deserved a serious reply...
...More important, 42,000 Americans might not have sacrificed their lives in defending a string of U.S.-sponsored despots whose only claim to power is the American dollar...
...C. W. Griffin, Jr...
...William K. Viertel Canton, New York Facts on Korea Dear Sirs: In your editorial, "Tanglefoot in Asia," in the November issue, you quote Clayton Fritchey as saying that the business in Korea was a Russian-sponsored aggression from North Korea...
...It i^ incredible that possession of this drug can be considered a felony while alcohol and cigarettes are legal...
...Joe McCarthy similarly jolted his victims off balance...
...Furthermore, the rationale that legalizing pot will lead "toward a better understanding of the younger generation" or "be the first real step toward bridging the generation gap" seems shallow and naive...
...This society needs to take a good long look at the hypocritical stand it has taken on marijuana...
...If that were true, the exception for punishment of crime by government would not have been necessary...
...Stephen Ambrose, professor of maritime history at the Naval War College, in his review of the book in the Baltimore Sun, September 14, states that Stone is weakest in examining the outbreak of the war, but that he has good circumstantial evidence for his case...
...Perhaps some of your readers might like to supplement this by reading "Military Technology and National Security," by Herbert F. York, a former Presidential science adviser, in the August 1969 issue of Scientific American...
...But smoking is only the mildest use of marijuana or hashish...
...The reason is simple: Alcoholic beverages, are enormously bulky compared to drugs of equivalent potency...
...Mrs...
...Stone's case appears in Hidden History of the Korean War, which has been republished by the Monthly Review Press...
...It is vitally important to prevent the immature individual from acquiring dependence on a chemical means of alleviating boredom and insecurity...
...In either case, the argument boils down to, "But, Daddy, it won't happen to me...
...I wonder if the author of that comment on "Selective Servitude" has ever read the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S...
...And being a male of draft age in good health is certainly not a crime...
...On November 3, the Richard Nixon of old endorsed Lyndon Johnson's policies in Vietnam, thereby making it his war...
...The only reason they seem more convincing is that we know more about the underlying physiology...
...On what basis does he find barbiturates "more dangerously addictive than heroin...
...No one in his right mind denies these causal relationships...
...Although too many physicians are irresponsible in their prescribing habits, barbiturates do require prescription for purchase...
...Denville, New Jersey ABM 'Colossal Blunder' Dear Sirs: Professor Louis Fisher's "Case Study in Deception," in the November issue of The Progressive, could not be improved upon, as far as it goes...
...The statistics are quite similar...
...The absolute futility of attempting to Americanize (colonialize) Southeast Asia, in defiance of nationalism and genuine self-determination, has been demonstrated time and again for more than a decade...
...I doubt that one should believe anything from the State Department even though it were engraved on stone by a thunderblast on Mt...
...Viewed in this light, the question of whether marijuana is physiologically habit-forming becomes secondary...
...Professor York examines the technical side of the matter as well as the political, but all in non-technical language...
...It is for this reason more than any other, that we should immediately end our murderous meddling in the affairs of the people of Vietnam, and without delay take all our troops out of their country...
...Not only are they legal...
...we are continually bombarded with ads urging us to buy and use them...
...It is a fact that both youth and adults are enjoying the drug scene, illegally and for the most part separately, but certainly there are other more suitable routes to mutual respect and honest conversation...
...If three marijuana "joints" can keep a fully grown person "high" for several hours, as shown by a nationally televised test, one "nickel-bag," making twenty "joints," is the equivalent of about a quart of pure alcohol...
...Instead of attacking that cowardly buffoon as an opportunistic liar, his victims whined and pleaded innocent to McCarthy's insane accusations, issuing ridiculous appeals to fair play...
...Witness the political scene, particularly since 1967, and the revolution in our educational and university systems...
...After enjoying a review of most of the pertinent commentaries as well as the informative studies on marijuana, I was surprised that he wandered into inaccuracies and non se-quiturs to support his views...
...To be intellectually honest, one must admit only two possible conclusions from the drug data: Either marijuana unquestionably makes some persons more susceptible to becoming heroin users, or marijuana smokers and non-smokers come from two radically different populations that cannot be compared statistically...
...We stand to lose, as a minimum, what may come to be known as "the pot-head generation...
...A close parallel can be drawn between the data relating copulation to pregnancy, or cigarette smoking to cancer, or excessive THE PEOPLE'S FORUM If drinking to fatal traffic accidents...
...Sarah Kline Madison, Wisconsin 'New Nixon' Naive Illusion Dear Sirs: Vice President Agnew's blatant attempt to silence television and newspaper critics of the Nixon Administration should dispel forever the perennially naive illusions about the "New Nixon...
...The war itself is the atrocity, and not just a mistake and a dreadful waste of lives and money...
...Sinai...
...Liberals should have learned from Joe McCarthy that the best defense against totalitarianism is a good offense...
...Pediatric Resident Johns Hopkins Hospital Baltimore, Maryland Dear Sirs: The article by Harvey Singer in The Progressive and similar remarks by Margaret Mead on the relationship of marijuana to the drug problem are evidence that influential "intellectuals" have adopted a new faith that Junior knows best...
...As James Reston so aptly put it, Agnew "has the courage of Nixon's convictions...
...Either can be steeped to greater potency in beverages for drinking, or refined to a quintessential compound many times more potent for hypodermic injection...
...I call your attention to the fact that I. F. Stone makes a good case for it being an aggression sponsored by the sainted Syngman Rhee and that the Americans knew much about it before it happened...
...The Progressive's criticism of the ugly and tragic war is vital now, more than ever...
...Some twenty years ago in France, drunkenness among adolescents and even pubescents became a problem, primarily because little attempt had ever been made to control the availability of alcoholic beverages to that age group...
...Thomas Minnerick, President Democratic Youth for Action Muskegon, Michigan Pot Dear Sirs: If parents tell their children the truth about marijuana they must say that the matter is still highly controversial, notwithstanding Harvey Singer's thesis, in the November Progressive, that pot is beautiful...
...F. P. McCormack Monte Vista, California Dear Sirs: What a disappointment on arriving at the final paragraphs of Harvey Singer's article, "Primer on Pot...
...Constitution, which states, "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States...
...But we should not allow them, or our justified sorrow and indignation, to blind us to the much more important fact that our whole conduct of this war has been atrocious, and indeed that there is no way to wage war against a whole people on their own soil that is not atrocious...
...Today, a junior high school student can carry in his pocket the equivalent of several gallons of hard liquor...
...Since we suffer from every conceivable sort of environmental pollution here— noise, lack of good zoning, litter—I especially enjoyed Senator Gaylord Nelson's presentation of problems and solutions in the same issue...
...Marijuana, on the other hand, is not addictive, does not affect one's driving ability, and has "possibilities for considerable medical applications...
...This is an extraordinary rejection of classical reasoning from statistical data...
...His conclusion is the same as Professor Fisher's—that the ABM is a colossal blunder in every way...
...Ernest T. Northrup Mableton, Georgia 44 THE PROGRESSIVE...
...The argument as stated by Singer is essentially the following: Although ninety per cent of all heroin users begin by smoking marijuana, no causal relationship between marijuana and heroin use can be drawn because the vast majority of marijuana users do not graduate to heroin...
...If only other publications with your vision had exposed our disastrous crusade for what it is ten years ago, we might not now be stuck in the morass of misadventure with a cold-warrior at the helm...
...George A. Fink Burlington, Iowa Marietta Miseries Dear Sirs: As a frustrated citizen of Cobb County, Georgia, a most afflicted and unaware community, I confirm Erwin Knoll and William McGaffin's analysis of the situation in "Making It in Marietta," in the November issue...
...Truman Griffin Virginia, Minnesota 'Selective Servitude' Dear Sirs: One of the "Notes in the News" in the November issue states that the Selective Service system is a "particularly vicious (and deadly) form of involuntary servitude...
...In the October 1969 issue of Scientific American, letters to the editor in regard to Professor York's article refer to two matters that need to be thought about: One—radioactive fallout: Once nuclear weapons are fired massively, the radioactive dust will cover the globe, and those not killed by the weapons directly will die of radiation sickness...
...Corrective action was possible because such control is relatively easy...
...I agree with him wholeheartedly that we need to treat this drug and its use more realistically and honestly...
...You cannot claim that this Amendment prohibits only private slavery, not government slavery...
...Alcohol and tobacco are both known to be addictive, both can be hazardous to health, and tobacco has been proven to be a killer...
...The answer to their brazen effort at intimidation is a renewed attack on their disastrous economic, racial, and international policies...
...Like McCarthy, Nixon and Agnew are not interested in fair play...
...The most alarming thing about this crude Nixon-Agnew attempt to intimidate journalistic critics is the insipid response of the victims...
...It becomes evident to all but the pure blind that marijuana is not just a harmless goody being denied our youth by the ignorant, hypocritical, drunken, mean old establishment...
...Stephen Barnett, M.D...
...To ignore these facts would be to allow the large-scale introduction of euphoric drugs to the youth population and the consequent drug-orientation of that population...
...Events such as Tonkin Bay have given more weight to Stone's evidence...
...A plentiful supply of the raw materials would make these uses commonplace and uncontrollable...
...John Holt Boston, Massachusetts Nixon's Bankrupt Policy Dear Sirs: Your timely critique, "A Peace to Be Proud of," in the November Progressive, is a brilliant description of President Nixon's bankrupt policy of military conquest by proxy of the rightist dictators in Saigon...
...Nixon remains the same old demagogue, the genteel Joe McCarthy who used Communist-style innuendo to smear his political foes...
...Conrad Schuerch Syracuse, New York Dear Sirs: Harvey Singer's article on marijuana certainly does much to dispel the fiction concerning this drug...
Vol. 34 • January 1970 • No. 1
