The People's Forum
THE PEOPLE'S FORUM Where Was Congress? Dear Sirs: Not all the blame for the secrecy and deceit practiced by the Presidents—as re- vealed in the Pentagon Papers—should be put on them alone....
...Where was it through all these years...
...Halleck must know that responsible representatives of our profession are mo- tivated only to help the patient to find himself and enable him to live as auton- omous and satisfactory a life as he wishes and is capable of, irrespective of his or her being a homosexual, a revolutionary, or a member of any minority or oppressed group...
...The long suffering Ameri- can people could tolerate domination, ex- ploitation, poverty, political and economic manipulation, and the many other inherent evils of full-blown capitalism, for them- selves, but the ruthless and wanton slaugh- ter of millions of innocent peasants at the hands of American imperialism and in the name of American democracy was the straw that broke the camel's back...
...Some of us have long been aware of this fact...
...Truer words were never spoken...
...Halleck's training and position one would hope that he would not find it necessary to write such a dis- torted and—to many present and future patients in psychotherapy and psycho- analysis—disturbing article...
...as a Jew had to return to Judengasse in Vien- na after the defeat of Hitler...
...It is no surprise to me that the gen- eration whose lives, fortunes, and sacred honor are involved have no faith in the ballot, when our Presidents have adopted a political philosophy which can be summed up in three expressions: "d'etat, e'est moi...
...The Vietnam war was our undoing...
...These are people kept in stor- age comparable to Hitler's irredenta of Austrian and Czechoslovakian German "refugees" who were trained in camps as terrorists, as the Austrian and Sudetenland Legion, to prepare the ground for the coming German invasion...
...They could then no longer claim to have been expelled from their homes...
...G. Winn New York, New York Disturbed by Dr...
...We have reached the point of no return, from which we can only go forward to a new and better America...
...Ernest A. Rappaport, M.D...
...I, too, am as concerned as Lens about the Middle East...
...In the 1968 primaries, the vote was so strongly against the war that Johnson de- cided to retire...
...Hans H. Cohn, M.D...
...I am also concerned with the failure of Lens and of the Arabs to point out that at the time of the establishment of Israel, an independent Palestinian state was set up on the west bank of the Jordan...
...True, some of our legislators did speak out, and they got very little support from the others...
...Per- haps the time has come to clean out the stables...
...Mayer sneers with pettiness, sheer meanness, and hatred towards half the human race...
...To my perception, the most revolutionary part of the Middle East is Israel...
...He was referring to the "political subver- sives" who would seek to change all of this: those "radical-liberals," no doubt, who would do away with the corrupting influences that have grown rank in our sys- tem of society, the malignancies represent- ing the real peril from within...
...In 1964, Goldwater's biggest issue was to escalate the war, which Johnson promised not to do...
...Nevertheless he accepted the invitation...
...No Zionist has ever explained that to my satisfaction," he points out with an air of righteousness...
...Poverty, eco- nomic royalism, militarism, power politics, racism, religious bigotry and hypocrisy, crime, hate, and fear are tearing our great nation apart...
...What about Congress...
...If the Israeli treatment of the Palestin- ian Arabs is wrong, then what does one say of the treatment of Jews in Morocco, in Iraq, in Egypt, and Libya...
...But does that hodge-podge of "revolutionaries" have no problems to solve other than Israel...
...William H. Fisher Professor of Education University of Montana Missoula, Montana Is Mayer Just Ordinary...
...It is ironic that our Cold War against the "Red peril" without should have trig- gered the radical demands for change that John Mitchell now refers to as the "peril from within...
...Goldwater was given a resounding de- feat, and Johnson promptly escalated the war...
...Chicago, Illinois No Faith in Ballot Dear Sirs: Your editorial statement on Page five of the June, 1971, issue that the war will end when Nixon and those who agree with him are turned out of office, seems overly optimistic...
...It is not a perfect state...
...Diverting the Arab revolution into a war against the Jews inevitably will trigger World War III in which the Jews will represent the smallest number of those to be exterminated...
...Rather, I was trying to em- phasize that there are factors inherent in the process of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment which can have unanticipated effects upon both patients and the public...
...My pur- pose is to try to help clarify the very real influence the psychiatrist has on either altering or changing the status quo even when his motivations are purely human- itarian and scientific...
...The Democrats, not be- ing democrats, nominated a man whose position was that Johnson had been right...
...the public be damned...
...He learned that the two student groups sponsoring the event considered themselves revolutionary...
...Considering Dr...
...Lens warns the Jews that the Middle Eastern revolution is as inexorable and as inevitable as the one in Southeast Asia and that "a Zionist Israel can hardly sur- vive by coming to the defense of the Hus- seins and the Faisals and the sheikhs...
...Focusing on Israel as the problem is not revolutionary...
...All power to the people...
...There can be no turning back now...
...He quotes Golda Meir's statement that the Jewish homeland could give refuge to millions of Jews from the pogromist neo-Stalinist Russia and wonders why Is- rael can't repatriate only one million Arabs...
...The sum total of the report on the Symposium is that two stan- dards exist in this world: one for Israel, one for everybody else...
...Seymour L. Halleck, M.D...
...For example, the majority of those present at the Symposium were opposed to the existence of Israel as a "Jewish" state...
...He empathizes with the six million Jews killed by Hitler, but he does not empathize with the two and a half million survivors who established a Jewish State which they call Zion and in which live Jews are wel- comed as citizens...
...Nonetheless, as editor, you are entitled to continue to believe that Mayer is one of the really great writers of our times—a point with which I am sure Mayer agrees...
...Frances French Baltimore, Maryland The Real Peril Within Dear Sirs: Attorney General John Mitchell says our nation faces "peril from within...
...Well, I think I can ex- plain it to him...
...I find his statement peculiarly myopic...
...Question: were they also opposed to the existence of Islamic states...
...He men- tions one Israeli "atrocity" without any qualifying circumstances, but ignores the hundreds of terroristic crimes by Arabs...
...I am concerned about social justice and social change...
...I share the views expressed by Hortense Miller...
...She wrote: "Mr...
...Dear Sirs: Not all the blame for the secrecy and deceit practiced by the Presidents—as re- vealed in the Pentagon Papers—should be put on them alone...
...Mayer is a master of one quality in writ- ing, however, and that's obfuscation...
...I am also concerned about the peculiar "revolutionary socialism" of the Middle East which—Lens did point out—sees in the destruction of Israel the solution of most Arab problems...
...Just as starters, when the Arab nations confront the Israeli government, with a woman as prime minister, shouldn't they wonder about the elimination of slavery and the emancipation of women in their own revolutionary, humanitarian, democratic states...
...It is a warped per- ception that equates the Jew with Hitler...
...it is the most blatant kind of reactionary scapegoating...
...Marine Corps Miami, Florida...
...But if it is compared to the mil- itaristic, totalitarian, monolithic structures around it—including the one-party sys- tems of Egypt and Libya—it comes out looking like a Utopian dream...
...Psychiatrists are part of a social system and whether they intend to or not, they have an impact upon that system...
...Once or twice before, he began slipping—when he referred to his wife and to women as "sex-objects"—but his latest tirade against women who ask for equal treatment with men completed my disillusionment...
...Myron Taube Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Dear Sirs: Sidney Lens, in his "Letter from Ku- wait," disqualifies himself as an objec- tive reporter in a number of instances— to mention only one will suffice...
...Professor of Psychiatry University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin Mayer No Liberal Dear Sirs: I am pleased that some of your women readers have caught up with Milton May- er—and have exposed him as not being a real liberal...
...Lens states that the "Palestinian Arab has as much right to come home...
...I fear his place on my pedestal will never again be so high up...
...why should a different standard be applied to Israel...
...Jean Wunderlich San Diego, California Dispute Lens on Middle East Dear Sirs: I found Sidney Lens' "Letter from Kuwait" in the June issue a sometimes myopic and often exasperating report of Middle Eastern life...
...I suggest that there is something astigmatic in a view that sees an improvement in the lives of eighty million poor through the alter- ation—however drastic—of one state with two million...
...Halleck Dear Sirs: I was rather saddened by the article by Dr...
...The making of a diagnosis is not always an easy task but for a well trained and experienced psychiatrist it does not present unsurmountable difficulties...
...Mayer used to be an ideal on a high, pedestal...
...S. Whitman Los Angeles, California Dear Sirs: Sidney Lens should not have wondered so much about the invitation to attend the anti-Zionist symposium in Kuwait with all expenses paid, as he obviously is known as an advocate of the policy of the Palestine Liberation Organization...
...Southeast Asia is a testing area for mod- ern weaponry as Spain was prior to World War II...
...no state is...
...Dear Sirs: In The People's Forum of a recent is- sue, Hortense Miller severely criticized Milton Mayer for his position on the role of women...
...Asleep at the switch...
...Unless I mis- read history, a state of war has existed be- tween the Arab states and Israel for the last twenty-three years...
...a country free of the corrupting influences dragging us down to- day...
...Reynolds Moody Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) U.S...
...Is he, after all, just an ordinary man with feet of clay...
...The voters bought that se- cret plan, whereupon Nixon invented a silent, nonvoting majority that wanted him to win, not end, the war...
...It is certainly not done in a slipshod manner except by irresponsible practitioners, whom we find in our profession, unfor- tunately, as well as in all others...
...Halleck Replies Dear Sirs: It was not my intention to impugn the motivations of the majority of practicing psychiatrists...
...Seymour Halleck, "A Psychiatrist Looks at the Uses of Abnormality," in the June issue of The Progressive...
...Islam is the official state religion of the Arab nations...
...But I don't think the Attor- ney General was referring to these perils...
...Suffern, New York Dr...
...Halleck and your readers that our profession is not out to label patients for label's sake, but it is our responsibility to make a proper diagnosis to enable ourselves to help the patient to resolve the problems which have brought him into our office in the first place...
...the Republican candidate had a plan to end the war...
...As a practicing psychoanalyst for more than thirty years I can assure Dr...
...These Palestinian Arabs have no desire to be repatriated...
...and "this is 1984...
...Every diagnosis, every type of psychiatric treat- ment, including psychotherapy, has an im- pact upon the distribution of power be- tween the patient and his family and be- tween the patient and his community...
...Everybody talks about Israel "expansionism" but it was the Jordanians who destroyed the pro- posed Palestinian state...
...On three occasions the voters have informed candidates for the Pres- idency that the war must end...
...He also must have known that the Nation- al Socialist German Workers' Party of Hit- ler (NSDAP), whose goal it was to liber- ate Germany and other lands including Palestine from the Jews, was also revolu- tionary...
...Neither psychiatrists nor the public have been sufficiently aware of the political im- pact of the psychiatrist's work...
Vol. 35 • August 1971 • No. 8
