Letters

...William H. Fisher Missoula, Montana...

...Joseph L. Ryan, S. J. Boston, Massachusetts The Poverty Line The Comment, "Speaking Out for Survival," in the September issue contains a gross statistical error: The Federal Government's poverty threshold for a non-farm family of four was $5,038 in 1974, certainly not $9,200 as reported...

...He, who knew his Sophocles and Euripides and Homer to the letter, took more liberties with their works than any great writer of my ken...

...Caspar D. Green Middlebury, Vermont Not Progressive Enough I regret to have to tell you that The Progressive is no longer progressive enough for me...

...Death Delayed" speaks of capital punishment as "state-induced murder...

...Since it was established in 1905 with Gif-ford Pinchot as its first chief, the Forest Service has been renowned among Federal agencies for the high character, dedication, and professionalism of its employes...

...Indeed, Christianity was founded by such a man...

...I suggest we have mistaken mere sentimentality for rationality...

...foreign policy in the Middle East is, for all intents and purposes, controlled by the government of Israel, the greater is the danger of confrontation between the two superpowers...

...The percentage of black families below the poverty threshold is still about four times that of white families (7 per cent...

...Administrations blame budget cutbacks or "university policy," but the pattern is the same — the progressive gets the axe...

...San Jose State University, where I attend school, has done just this in the economics department, firing five teachers and changing the curriculum so that students learn strictly a mathematical approach to economics...

...The entire subject of capital punishment needs to be exhaustively reexamined in the light of our newest knowledge of criminal conduct...

...It's time we looked toward the kind of sanity existing in Cuba today...

...However, I take exception to one portion of Larry Van Dyne's "Oil on the Campus...

...If that is really her view of what happened to me in 1972, it is clear that the Nixon campaign commercials got through to at least one viewer...

...2) Under the Emergency Defense Laws there has been massive expropriation of land from Israeli Arabs since 1948...

...When a teacher has tenure, the curriculum is changed to cut out controversial classes...

...A final point: Many of us who were pro-Zionist at the close of World War II no longer are...

...Alexis Parks replies: Granted, the Forest Service is directed to manage the forests for multiple use to meet national needs...

...Paine, Thoreau, Gandhi, the Berrigan brothers — does any great rebel of history come to mind who was the product of anything resembling the "free school" concept...

...However, none of the educational practices he describes includes the basic ingredient necessary for a good education — teaching that inspires and exemplifies the joy of learning...

...I do not mean to charge either Weber or Egerton with any such interpretation...

...If this one quality could be incorporated in every education program, children would be bound to learn...

...The proponents of capital punishment hold that position not because they "favor killing people," but because they reluctantly believe it necessary...

...Making a Generation Pay' Howard Wolfs comment, "Making a Generation Pay," in the September issue, was quite important...

...Timber production is one of the major purposes for which the National Forests were established...

...Most of the nation's remaining mineral reserves exist on National Forest lands...

...Bill DeGrove Jacksonville, Florida Fighting Ma Bell We are some people on a relatively poor, semi-developed island in Puget Sound who are seeking to achieve public ownership of our local telephpne company...

...Treasury for general use, not, as alleged, for the support of the Forest Service...

...Aside from this, I thought the article was generally perceptive and well worth reading...

...Such a confrontation, if brought to a critical point, could result in our whole planet being burned up in a mass of atomic smoke and fire...

...Most of them would prefer life imprisonment if they could be assured that such a sentence would really be for life...

...While he correctly criticizes our various deals with the Shah of Iran, some of us cannot go along with him when he is critical of newly developed arrangements between certain American universities and the government of Saudi Arabia...

...Now it's moved forward, but others may need you...

...It encompasses almost all of the designated wildernesses in the National Wilderness Preservation System...

...who, since they do not know why the subjects they teach are important, are unconcerned with their pupils' degree of mastery...

...Furthermore, wood products from the National Forests do not go exclusively to meet national needs: about 500 million cubic feet of wood are exported annually from private and Federal sources to Japan...

...Unlike the National Parks, which have been set aside for the single purpose of recreation, the National Forests were established and are managed for a multitude of uses...

...we have capable researchers, analysts, and political leaders among us...

...Expropriation continues...

...We need help in countering the massive public relations campaign which will be launched by powerful interests to defeat our effort...

...Last summer it was reported in the Israeli press that ten Jewish settlements were fined about $10,000 for illegally leasing land to Israeli Arabs...

...Staggering, isn't it, that in a state whose democratic character is so widely praised, some 500,000 citizens are legally denied access to some 90 per cent of state lands precisely because these citizens are not Jews...

...who allow pupils to pass along under the impression that their mastering or failing to master sixth-grade English, say, will make no difference in their lives...

...In that year, according to the Bureau of the Census, 31.4 per cent of black Americans were below this income level, and 27.8 per cent of black families...

...So we believe that a neutral stance for the United States in the Middle East should be the order of the day...

...If capital punishment is assumed to be no deterrent, how can we suppose that fines or imprisonment are...

...I assure you that there is no truth in these allegations...

...Omar Khayyam studied at the feet of a great but stern teacher, the Imam Mowaffak of Naishapur, mainly reading the Koran, and then wrote the delightfully irreverent Rubaiyat whose epigrammatic text reveals his own hedonism...

...In all those years, not once has pressure from any source deterred it from managing the National Forests "for the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run...

...Claire F. Hull Mastic, New York The notion, implicit in the argument of "free school" proponents, that structured basic education stifles free and independent thought seems curious when one considers how some of the rebels of history acquired their knowledge...

...As it stands, this statement can be read as offensively "intellectualist," implying that only intellectual accomplishment is really important and that other concerns are somehow less respectable — not only for schools, but in general...

...Mel Byers Portland, Oregon John Egerton quotes George Weber of the Council for Basic Education as saying, "We just believe that the purpose of schooling is primarily intellectual...

...Progressive and radical teachers across the nation are being fired one way or another...

...A related point, however, seems to be neglected in much of our present school practice...

...Are policemen and soldiers who kill in the line of duty also murderers...

...to improve and protect the forests and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States...

...However, of all Forest Service land classified as productive timberland — excluding desert, land above timber line, and areas legally unavailable for timber production — 87 per cent is managed for timber as its primary use...

...John R. McGuire Chief, Forest Service Washington, D.C...

...This is illustrated by the following excerpt from an internal memo from a Regional Forester to his Forest Supervisors: "I expect each of you to reexamine your draft timber management plan and make any needed changes to display the strategies, including funding requirements, which would enable you to increase the annual programmed allowable [timber] harvest from that anticipated in the Environmental Program for the Future to that which meets the Chiefs objective...

...I further postulate that those who have most effectively opposed the system knew all its rules and could operate within it...

...Sabri Jiryis, a Haifa lawyer, who spelled out the details in his book The Arabs in Israel (Monthly Review Press, 1976) estimates that about 65 per cent of the land of Palestinian Arabs within Israel has been taken away from them...

...The sidebar entitled "Saudis in Montana," by Henry Gordon, at least implicitly takes exception to the agreement now being expedited between our two Montana Universities and the Saudi Arabians...

...But the 187-million acre National Forest System also hosts seven million cattle, sheep* and horses each year for grazing...

...This does not become The Progressive...

...Much of the nation's municipal water supply comes from National Forests, and many of the nation's fish and wildlife habitats lie within those areas...

...Michael Nuwer San Jose, California 'Death Delayed' Your September Comment, "Death Delayed," contains several statements which place in question the honesty of the author...

...Mark Dworkin Committee for a Public Utility District Post Offke Box 204 Langley, Washington 98260 'Oil on the Campus' Congratulations on the four excellent articles in the September issue under the heading, "The Griefs of Academe...

...And last, but by no means least, the National Forests provide more than a quarter of the timber needed to supply the nation's wood needs...

...Receipts from the sale or use of National Forest resources, including timber, are returned to the U.S...

...Unfounded allegations such as those in "Forests of Two-by-Fours" do a great disservice to your readers and to the thousands of dedicated Forest Service career employes...

...We are looking for case studies of phone company abuses and careful analyses of the workings of utility monopolies...

...I'm surprised that the Council for Basic Education does not seem to include joy (not fun) in learning as one of its "basic" principles...

...kids should be getting the basic, fundamental skills and courses, and ail the nonintellectual stuff should either be put in after school or taken out altogether...

...George McGovern U.S...

...That's progress, and that's where it's at for me...

...It is likely that if the United States and its various internal institutions limited their contacts to that part of the world which is more or less following some kind of "constitutional model" similar to our own, we would probably be able to deal with (at the most) one-fourth of the nations and people of our planet...

...I could explain each one of the self-contradictions attributed to me, but no one of them is of sufficient substance to have made much difference to the republic even if they were all actually self-contradictions...

...Keep on truckin...

...This is not to say that free and inventive minds may not emerge from the "alternative school," but rather that they would have been so in any case...

...Milton, who must have been exposed to as structured and spartan schooling under as autocratic teachers as any man could be, remained a brilliant and impious free thinker...

...Furthermore, those of us who support non-military trade relations with the Saudis believe that if there is any chance of breaking down those unfortunate customs and mores (which exist in most parts of the world), just possibly a beginning may be made through the establishing of trade relations...

...The writer asserts, "The burden of proving that capital punishment is useful as a deterrent should be on those who favor killing people...

...However, it is imperative for us to understand that many teachers are speaking up against the system, but are getting their tongues cut off by administrators...

...only in the remaining 13 per cent are the other available uses given special emphasis...

...This is the role of intellectual honesty or, perhaps, intellectual seriousness...

...We make no such demand on advocates of fines or imprisonment...

...At the risk of excessive self-confidence, I have always felt that my record of constancy and principle on the great public issues that should decide Presidential elections has been dependable...

...As for resting the burden of proving the deterrent effect of such punishment on the shoulders of those who advocate it, why should they have to prove its deterrence any more than do advocates of other forms of punishment...

...This subtly suggests that those who favor capital punishment like "killing people...

...Senate Washington, D.C...

...My criticism was directed at the Forest Service's performance, not its ideals...

...Van Dyne makes the point that professors are "winking at the exclusion of Jews and segregation of women by Saudi Arabia, while they piously condemn that sort of behavior at home...

...Those Americans who have, in the past, unquestioningly supported Israel as a Jewish state need to face up to the fact that it is a bi-national state...

...Their killing is "state-induced," is it not...

...It is attempting to deceive pupils as to the nature of intellectual accomplishment and its processes and rewards...

...Students must fight to keep schools from censoring the teachers who really are helping us...

...I am pleased to say that I not only spoke for but voted for this agreement in the faculty senate...

...We must fight for an education that deals with our needs...

...Conner Reed Seattle, Washington 'Back to Basics' John Egerton's "Back to Basics" (September) was a fine article...

...If Martin Luther's teachers had had an inkling that their student would become the great heretic, they would have drowned him in holy water...

...The longer U.S...

...Recreation is indeed one of these and, in fact...

...the adventure of coming across facts and ideas which open doors to enjoyment...

...His Areopagitica was a defense of freedom of thought...

...I would expect better from a magazine founded by a man with the integrity of Bob LaFollette...

...Facts and figures and guidance are what we seek...

...Socrates might be considered a teacher in a "free school," but his most famous student was primarily a Boswell for Socrates...

...This estimate does not include the land of Arab refugees, nor of Arab deportees living within Israel, nor of the Bedouins...

...The system seems to accept and encourage teachers who do not know that the subjects they are teaching are important — that is, that they make a difference in the lives of their pupils...

...A system which tolerates this kind of attitude — which even, in some degree, forces it upon teachers — is doing several things: It is depriving pupils of their self-respect by asking them to spend their time in occupations to which their adult associates — their teachers — are indifferent...

...In the realm of moral and ethical considerations, we witness right and wrong on both sides of the Arab-Israeli argument...

...It is exposing pupils to dishonesty as an acceptable adult mode of life, and training them in its practice...

...Funds to operate the Forest Service are appropriated annually by Congress...

...Forests of Two-by-Fours' An article in the August issue, "Forests of Two-by-Fours" by Alexis Parks, asserts that the National Forests have become a public extension of the private lumber industry and that the Forest Service has become a land manager for profit rather than for public use...

...National Forests receive more recreation use annually than do the National Parks...

...My head was there once, too...

...K. E. Lee New York, New York 'Israel's Own Arabs' To Judith Miller's excellent exposition of why Israeli Arab discontent is a time bomb ticking away inside Israel ("Israel's Own Arabs," August), I might add two important factors: 1) Under an arrangement made in 1961 between the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Israeli government, regulations of the JNF which forbid the selling or leasing of land to non-Jews have been applied to all state lands...

...We welcome inquiries, suggestions, information, and donations...

...Schools, of course, are not set up to teach honesty or to be its special custodian, but, without basic intellectual honesty, schools — no matter what they teach — will not earn respect either from community or from pupils...

...Other departments at SJSU also have fired teachers for political reasons...

...Harvest levels from particular forests are predetermined in Washington, and local Forest Supervisors are merely given discretion to draft timber plans and environmental impact statements to rationalize the allocations...

...LETTERS McGovern on Sayre As a regular reader of The Progressive, I note that Nora Sayre ("The Democrats: Winning Is the Only Thing," September issue) says she "had always thought that he [McGovern] disarmed himself with his habit of self-contradiction...

...Reform is not enough, and social democracy ain't either...

...It is foisting upon pupils an unreal expectation that material rewards and personal satisfactions will follow upon years of school attendance rather than upon progress toward the mastery of specific material...