Letters
LETTERS to the Editor Ivory Tower To find "The Pentagon in the Ivory Tower" of our universities (June issue) should come as no surprise. Social critics have been telling us for more than twenty...
...He contracted cataracts before age thirty and suffered a stroke before he turned fifty, though he had always been a healthy man...
...Her emphasis on population growth ignores underlying Problems of unequal land and income distribution...
...The universities fit hand in glove...
...Patricia G. Setzer Sacramento, California 'Heaven's Gate' was surprised and disap-pointed by the superficial treatment given Heaven's Gate by Michael Seitz in your July issue...
...Indeed, it can be argued that the spread of capitalism and its confrontation with subsist-ence-oriented Systems is a pri-mary cause not only of phe-nomena such as deforestation, but also of the "population problem" itself...
...In Jeff Stein's "Word from Washington," Henry Catto should have been identified as Assistant Secretary of Defense, not State...
...My father, a young boy of eighteen, didn't even know what an atom bomb was...
...Sandra Popovich Mascio Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania That there are veterans left to be forgotten (Dateiines, August issue) is indeed a mira-cle after our Government gets through using them for experiments in atomic radiation, exposing them to Agent Orange, denying them disability benefits and medical care (see articles in the same issue...
...its im-pact is determined by the rela-tions within that formation...
...maybe it's just a matter of get-ting used to something new...
...Winston Churchill once sug-gested that the farther back we look in history, the farther ahead we can see...
...Indeed, generals occasionally do turn into university presidents and, for all I know, vice versa...
...Undoubtedly it has more eye-appeal, but it has less readability...
...Similarly, technological change without consideration of the underlying resource distribution inequalities may ac-tually exacerbate the initial problem of population growth and deforestation...
...Your comments make me wonder whether I've been innocently reading other revolting junk like this in The Progressive these past three decades...
...Our universities help fuel the arms race...
...JohnR...
...Cimino may have spent too much money, not paid enough attention to Script details, and taken too many liberties with history (which shouldn't have surprised anybody who saw The Deer Hunter), but his film has an urgent message for Ronald Reagan's America...
...Is this the American holocaust...
...It should not go unsaid that the University of California has managed the two weapons laboratories that have de-signed every nuclear weapon made in these United States...
...As Shuchman notes, the anti-rape movement was successful in its drive to secure Federal support, but failed in its attempt to see that support administered in a re-sponsive way...
...Had it done so, it might have heeded a Stern warning from Benjamin Franklin: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain...
...Marcia Danen Elvidge Atlanta, Georgia The author replies: Iam sorry that Marcia Elvidge feels my review of Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate was "superficial...
...Anwar Sadat wanted his nation to survive and live in peace, and made his journey to Jerusalem...
...Your magazine is like an island of sanity in a country and a world gone mad...
...In placing my emphasis on agroforestry, I was at-tempting to offer fresh Information on one small, real, and quite possibly futile effort to make life less difficult for sub-sistence farmers...
...Admittedly, Michael Cimino was guilty of both his-torical and production ex-cesses, but all the inconsisten-cies pointed out in Seitz's review could have been cir-cumvented by the simple expedient of changing names of individuals and places and bill-ing the story as "fiction loosely based on fact...
...That is why "The Pentagon in the Ivory Tower," although right in lamenting the wasted resources, is wrong to suppose that all our universities consti-tute a serious threat to the sur-vival of mankind...
...A.C...
...Obviously, we do more for the dead than we do for the living...
...Steven Somkin New York, New York approve of the new look, al-though I would read your magazine no matter what kind of layout or design you used...
...The University provides a pro-tective covering for the work at the labs...
...I agree with many of David McCloud's points...
...D?ring the colo-nial period (and sometimes earlier), traditional Systems were so altered as to render the term meaningless as a ref-erence to techniques which ex-isted in the precolonial past and allegedly continue today...
...It leads to the rather simplistic Statement that "instituting scientifically based agroforestry Systems would require a shift in policy for many Third World coun-tries...
...I understand that United Artists has tentative plans to send prints ofHeaven's Gate, perhaps the uncut Version, to its "classics" department, which means it may be Rinning in revival and "specialty" movie houses before long...
...It was the longest, most laboriously researched review which I have written for The Progressive...
...Captain Coletnan's conversion could have been told in one page, and no more than a Single sentence was needed to teil us that Time is still feeding establishment pap to its too loyal readership...
...In saying, "Traditional Systems for pro-ducing food and fuel have LETTERS to theEditor been strained to the breaking point by population growth," blame is focused on population growth while the "tradi-tional System" concept escapes unexplored...
...It is naive to believe that Heaven's Gate was "sup-pressed by the national news media...
...For you blithely to swipe at Israel with the reminder that it must come to terms with the fact that the Arab nations "are there to stay" completely ig-nores the history of the region...
...They camped in the destroyed city for months...
...As a result, I am left in some confusion over what she expects the impact of techno-logical change to be...
...However, the Shuchman story also illustrates still another dilemma—the dilemma of the lack of responsiveness of the Federal Government to grass-roots needs...
...The bomb has scarred his life as it did those of the Japanese...
...On the contrary, the universities provide a relatively benign outlet for military ex-penditure, and should be en-couraged to continue doing so...
...Shouldn't we first look at social and economic relations, and only then try to identify the problems and Solutions...
...The Progressive and Patrick JB Flynn are to be congratu-lated...
...America does not have a military establishment—it is one...
...There are, moreover, many films which have enjoyed great commercial success despite a thorough panning from the critics...
...Michael H. Seitz New York, New York All-Male Draft The Supreme Court decision upholding the all-male draft (Comment, August issue) was a bad one, primarily because of its outmoded con-cept of national defense...
...Even in France, where it was treated to some critical acclaim, Heaven's Gate was just as much a commercial failure as in the United States...
...You owe your readers an apology for Publishing such outrageous distor-tions...
...And then you refer to "hu-miliations that Israel has de-lighted in inflicting on its neighbors...
...In return for these lands, the land-grant railroads were required to give the Government a discount on everything it moved over these roads—a discount which lasted for a hundred years and repaid the Government many times over for the land...
...Too bad the Court did not look farther back for clearer vision and sounder advice in its draft case ruling...
...For ex-ample, in countries with indi-vidual land holdings, land con-solidation often results in less and less land available to a growingrural population...
...This kind of Suggestion masks criti-cal social, economic, and po-litical realities...
...Heaven 's Gate is rife with lines, carefully overlooked by reviewers, that virtually make it a Reaganesque nightmare...
...Fortunately— along with government at all levels, public education, private industry, and the church—the mijitary-academic complex has come to be dominated by an inflexible, bureaucratic, and top-heavy administration...
...Erwin L. Winter Northridge, California Corrections James David Besser's byline was inadvertently misspelled m the Dateiines section of the August issue...
...Marilyn K. Stoui Nofthridge, California Frank Browning is right when he speaks of the billions our Government has lavished on highways, airways, and waterways (in our best in-terests, of course...
...Carol Sloane James S. Bowers Washington, Maine You have made the print smaller and lighter—more difficult to read rather than easier...
...Vance Geier Los Angeles, California Vanishing Forests In "The Vanishing Forests of the Third World" (August issue), Carol Polsgrove suc-ceeds in revealing the Potential of scientific research in the agricultural development of the Third World, but she fails to identify clearly key factors in the process of deforesta-tion...
...I would add: Get competent small business to build new tracks for passenger trains and maintain the tracks...
...Hall Dallas, Texas Rape Victim Miriam Shuchman's article, "Victims ofRape: Where Can They Turn...
...And the Government was able to get the vast interior settled and provided with good transportation without having to spend tax money that it did not have...
...Mary Ann Largen National Coalition Against Sexual Assault Arlington, Virginia Peace Postponed Itoo was unhappy with the election results in Israel, but that could hardly justify the completely one-sided tenor of your remarks ("Peace Postponed," August issue...
...I liked his Solution: to take back the lands granted to the railroads...
...If we must give up our freedoms on occasion in the name of national security, what are we really defending...
...Shannon Del Mar, California Congratulations on yo?r new format...
...On opening to read, I noticed the less impressive bits of art...
...After a more thorough analysis, agroforestry might still be a viable Option, but we would have a much clearer conception of why deforestation takes place, and what constraints a technological ap-proach faces...
...They were not given any warnings or protection...
...It is particularly disturbing that Polsgrove joins many others in identifying population growth as the issue of pri-mary concern...
...Is Polsgrove suggesting that agroforestry, in the absence of basic socio-economic reform, will reduce deforestation...
...A more equal distribution of both resources and income might substantially alleviate the "population problem" as well as the pressure on the land...
...In the nuclear era, our national security rests not in military might but in the preservation of our civil liberties...
...Robert B. Shaw Association Camp, Colorado We like the smaller type in the body ofthe text,the tighter overall look, but we find the vertical lines between columns of type and the variety of type faces on a Single page to be distracting...
...On Memorial Day, the military cemeteries are decorated with flags...
...Forestry exports are touched on, but the article could examine in more detail the nexus between these exports and the political and economic structure of the countries where they are prev-alent...
...When I saw the re-edited Version (four times) I had the strong perception that this film, for all its faults, had virtually been suppressed by the national news media...
...The largest part of these lands were sold to finance the building of the road, often at low cost—and sometimes given—to settlers, for without people along the route there would be little need for a railroad...
...They were there solely to occupy...
...Many authors and moviemakers have gotten away with far worse...
...David E. McCloud Madison, Wisconsin The author replies: Idid not intend my article to be a sweeping analysis of deforestation in the Third World...
...You have reduced the type size...
...Technological change oper-ates within the boundaries of the social formation...
...It is difficult to stay in business when the competition does not have to pay rent...
...But the Court majority did not see it that way, ruling that Congress's right to raise ar-mies takes precedence over other Citizens' rights guaran-teed in the Constitution...
...It is a decided improvement...
...Carol Polsgrove Madison, Wisconsin Sunset liked Frank Browning's "Murder of the Sunset Limited: Who is Killing the Great Trains of America...
...The universities are part of the Propaganda machine of a violent world power...
...For your older subscribers, this one change is a disaster...
...In fact, I came away astonished that it had been allowed into national circulation at all...
...I guess you could say my father is the American Version of the Hibakusha ("August 1945: Memoirs of the Sur-vivors," August issue...
...Indeed, it is a wonder that we have any railroads left at all...
...Louis Colchamiro Glen Oaks, New York American Hibakusha On a September day in 1945, my father sailed into Nagasaki harbor as a member of one of the first divisions of Marines to land after the atom bomb was dropped...
...I don't think Heaven's Gate is a bad movie, but I'm con-vinced that it would be a mis-take to credit either Cimino or his film with significant politi-cal insight...
...All of the institutions listed on Page 29 of your June issue are mighty economic drains, to be sure, but with only two or three ex-ceptions they are quite incapa-ble of originating lethal new weaponry, or much of any-thing eise...
...The peo-ple of Israel have a right to determine their own destiny...
...That is the kind of nation we are...
...Julius S. Rothschild Southfield, Michigan Ididn't mind The Progressive^ old look and I don't mind its new look, but I wish you would strive for a higher relevance-to-volume ratio...
...It is difficult to know whether the universities are an extension of the military or the military an arm of the univer-sity...
...As one of those persons who believe the aeroplane is a demeaning form of travel for a human be-ing, I think the railway passenger equipment of the late 1940s was near to perfection in travel...
...That's not too much to ask from the Journal that Claims to be the spiritual de-scendant of Robert LaFol-lette...
...A word on all of those fertile lands the railways'have hoarded ever since they were given them right after the War Between the States: Only those roads which were building through the wilderness on the transcontinental railroad were given lands (a right of way plus alternate sections along the road...
...Perhaps the title was misleading...
...It was Israel that was invaded when the United Nations de-clared it a nation...
...In such a case the technological change could well in-crease deforestation...
...Ken Nightingale Oakland, California Like the pigs and men of George Orwell's Animal Farm, American generals and university presidents have al-ways been hard to teil apart...
...The rest of us can look else-where for knowledge and new ideas...
...What the railroad corpora-tions do is take all their money out of the railroads and invest in land development (much more lucrative and highly sub-sidized...
...But in design they are a lot better than anything a Government committee can build...
...1 urge The Progressive's readers to see and judge it for themselves when they get the chance...
...The University en-dorses the work at the labs and promotes one of the strongest lobbies for the arms race in the entire nation...
...July issue) brings welcome attention to the dilemma of rape crisis Centers nationwide, as under-funding forces them to cut back on rape victim Services...
...Few films have en-joyed such potentially profitable notoriety...
...It is up to the rest of the Arab world to do the same so some measure of stability and peace can come to the region and the world...
...We will reserve ultimate judg-ment until we see more issues...
...One must also be sensitive to cultural differences: Those who advocate agroforestry as-sume that mixing crops and trees is good...
...Apparently, the judicial practice of defer-ring to the military became firmly entrenched inl911...
...temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety...
...While it may be in some circumstances, some farmers see forests as har-borers of pests which damage crops...
...I, too, urge Progressive readers to see and judge for themselves...
...It is the Arabs—except recently for Egypt—who have refused to recognize the existence of Israel...
...Then let the railroad companies bid for the privi-lege of running their trains on our tracks...
...Con-gratulations...
...The subtitle, "There is a Way to Prevent Wastelands," Supports this interpretation...
...Harry Berns Indianapolis, Indiana IX is the height of arrogance on your part to blame Mena-chem Begin for the fact that the so-called radical Arab states refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist...
...Social critics have been telling us for more than twenty years that the American bureau-cratic technocracy is effec-tively totalitarian...
...It may be that most of your readers are younger people who have at least 20/20 Vision, but there are a few of us who are older and find the print not quite as vivid as it used to be...
...I will also grant that the cars that Amtrak inherited from the roads had not been well maintained in their last years of private service...
...Lee S. Parr Baltimore, Maryland New Look When I pulled the August issue out of my mailbox, I was Struck immediately by the impressive cover...
...There are, doubt-less, political lessons to be learned from the story of the Johnson County War, but by adulterating the historical record (in the interests of conv mercial viability), it is Cimino who ends up treating this interesting material super-ficially...
Vol. 45 • September 1981 • No. 9
