Letters
LETTERS to the Editor No Compromise How exhilarating to read Dave Foreman's article, "Earth First!" (October issue). I, too, have grown weary of compromising. It seems to have softened us. How...
...If passionate American letter-writers cannot consider the same fact, we are in deeper trouble than I had suspected...
...There is really no need to go into great detail...
...Frank Engelberg North Bergen, New Jersey would like to request cancellation of my subscription...
...Straube Fairbanks, Alaska Disinformation Your Editor's Memo, "Disinformation" (January issue), demands prompt response...
...While it is hoped that the recently reconvened arms negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union will result in some agreement, it should be remembered that action to control and limit arms will not destroy the war system, which feeds U.S...
...Any author familiar with his subject should be careful not to equate Menachem Begin with all Israelis...
...I live in eastern Washington, and haven't met the Susan Thurson quoted in the item, but I'll bet you five clams she spoke for the Pacific Northwest's Crabshell Alliance, not New England's Clamshell...
...Steif could not have better captured the individual hurt and willfulness bound up in the situation...
...If these terrorists are as benign as your most recent article on them represents, why should their Arab brothers wish to keep them at a comfortable distance...
...We are reminded that the arrogance and overbearing manner shown toward the Arab with the small blue birthmark is a part of our cultural heritage regardless of our political persuasion...
...Instead, we should seek an even-handed Middle East policy which might have some possibility of leading to a just peace—something our unqualified and undiscriminat-ing support of Israel can never do...
...I am disturbed by the extent to which America seems to be retreating from the admittedly too simple concept of selfdetermination for which we have stood throughout the Twentieth Century to the idea of simply autonomy...
...Fred Brauneck Fairfax, California Naming Names Since open societies of the sort that can put up with Freedom of Information Acts and ACLUs are at a disadvantage when it comes to operating an intelligence agency, Jeff Stein should name his undercover CIA agent only when he can expose one KGB agent ("Naming Names," December issue...
...corporate interests and enhances Russian political goals...
...That would have been an easy catch-word to avoid the black-white problem in the United States and is really almost another euphemism for the "separate but equal" doctrine which arrested social development in this country for so long...
...But as you pointed out, the issue is not Reagan, or Nixon, or Carter, or any other personality...
...Philip Levin New York, New York William Steif brings a clear head and an open mind to vital subjects so often distorted or ignored...
...I was especially moved by the closing vignette in his article...
...the issue is whether our present political-economic system provides people with equal access to such basic needs as food, clothing, and shelter...
...Ben Owen Columbus, Mississippi The Palestinians Ihave long been a devoted reader of The Progressive— when it was truly progressive—and although I am currently a government bureaucrat, I have spent my entire life in the American trade union movement, including service as president of both the New Jersey CIO Council and Industrial Union Council, AFL-CIO, and more recently as political action director for Region 9 of the United Automobile Workers in New Jersey...
...Government and corporations, deserve to be eaten...
...LETTERS to the Editor I am in agreement with your positions on most topics of import, and realize that you have made tremendous contributions to public awareness...
...and to purchase advertising time on radio and television at the lowest rate used by the station in selling advertising time...
...I believe the American media's cult of "objectivity" leads reporters and editors to look at world affairs as a gigantic football game, all black and white...
...This concept was preserved in the 1934 revision...
...Florence Daggett Youngstown, Ohio Cause and Cure As a subscriber to The Progressive for thirty-seven years and a worker for peace and freedom for more years than that, I am writing my first letter to your magazine...
...Forgive me for distrusting you...
...I want to express full agreement with your Comment, "Cause and Cure" (December issue...
...Everywhere Israel is under assault...
...I am now canceling my subscription because I have been nauseated by the reporting in the articles by Stephen Zunes ("Strange Bedfellows") and William Steif("The Palestinians") which appeared in your November issue...
...it would have been more meaningful if he had visited Israel, too, and spoken to Israelis...
...Please cancel my subscription to The Progressive...
...We are all parts of the human race—a fact I am sure the Syrian artillerymen who were shelling me on the Golan Heights during the Yom Kip-pur War didn't consider...
...Steif quotes Arabs with whom he has engaged in conversation...
...Actually, we are not advocating even "separate but equal" for the Palestinians...
...But it seemed important to me to visit Palestinian towns, to try to understand something of what the Palestinians have undergone in the last generation and a half...
...Anne C. O. Petersen Silver Spring, Maryland The author replies: After thirty-five years' experience as a journalist, I had little doubt that my piece about the Palestinians would arouse passions...
...Ah, yes, I know because I read it...
...Your approach was carefully considered and frankly, I got the message very plainly...
...Today people are controlled by many systems, but the most insidious of all is the war system, organized to destroy millions of defenseless people...
...However, they are just that—ambiguities...
...The act Stein is tempted to take could be taken in almost no other country in the world, and would merely demonstrate that he is willing to take unfair advantage of that fact...
...It is a sad commentary that, after a lapse of thirty-six years, Steif should feel that the murder of six million Jews and countless non-Jews has been lugged around too long...
...I join with every Jew who says "never again"—and I was at the Holocaust "reunion" in Israel last June...
...How about these bedfellows: Nixon-Reagan-Arafat and The Progressive...
...To think my tax money would pay for circulating the thoughts of Arnaud de Borchgrave and Jeremiah Denton makes me sick...
...In my trip to Israel, I discovered many socialists who spoke with great understanding of these problems...
...I believe it is the journalist's job to make this point...
...Let me wipe away that smear at once...
...You really aren't anti-Semitic, only anti-Zionist...
...I say this despite the fact that I do not always agree with Israel's policies...
...The question is not whether Reagan will give the people what they want, but whether we the people will take what we need...
...I further agree that we are in our present mess largely because of the socio-economic-political system which is based on profit-making at all costs at home and the reckless pursuit of American empire abroad...
...I find it impossible to ignore Arab cowards who bomb synagogues and schools, who shamelessly kill innocent women and children, and whose terrorist tyranny is a national compulsion...
...It is a tendency we must fight in order to see the world as it is...
...The late Casey Stengel used to say, "You could look it up...
...I feel uncomfortable about supporting a magazine that devotes cover articles to the Communist Party under Joseph McCarthy (although I opposed McCarthy in the 1950s) and to the Palestinians...
...Its being published by The Progressive is especially significant, I think, because the liberal and left community in this country has been preoccupied only with Irsael and not with the interrelationship of the Israelis and Palestinians, all of whom have their need for security and their right to human aspiration...
...Sylvia Day Woodstock, New York In the several years I have subscribed to The Progressive, I have become increasingly aware of what seemed to be a distinct anti-Israeli posture in your editorial outlook...
...But I would argue that such a position is unrealistic—first, because some sort of information-gathering system is essential, and second, because there isn't any chance of accomplishing such an objective...
...In 1924, LaFollette was denied radio access during his Presidential campaign by many broadcasters...
...The goal, it seems to me, must be to defeat the dangerous people and encourage the moderates: to rid the agency of the likes of Casey, rid the nation of the Administration that strives to lessen restrictions on the CIA, and work for a world in which the need for spying is reduced as speedily as possible...
...You aren't anti-Israel, only anti-Begin...
...James Schwoch Chicago, Illinois The Editor's Memo, "Disinformation," was most disturbing...
...I'm aware of all the political and ethical ambiguities that are built into the Israeli concept of nationalism...
...Presidents beginning with Harry Truman...
...Ed Taylor Webster Groves, Missouri Out of Our Depth Thank you for commenting on Washington state's "Win Against WHOOPS" (January issue), but I think • you have your alliances mixed up...
...I do not feel that Israel has explicitly supported a genocidal policy as a matter of course—some of the Palestinian groups do...
...William Steif fails to point out that the Palestinians have an obligation and responsibility to initiate a peace offensive by guaranteeing to recognize Israel's right to exist as a nation...
...Edward A. Lewin New York, New York Stephen Zunes quotes Jerry Falwell as saying, "God's word settles the question of whose land [Palestine is]: It is Israel's...
...Because of that length of time, it struck me that fewer and fewer Americans remember the Holocaust as a contemporary event...
...The time is long overdue for the American people to recognize the absurdity of Israel's "Biblical claim," and to treat it with appropriate scorn...
...or had seen the atrocities I saw in Belfast in 1974 and in El Salvador in 1980...
...Why doesn't Jordan permit the PLO in its country—or Egypt, or Syria, or Saudi Arabia...
...Nancy Faller Yakima, Washington Correction The title of a recent Merle Haggard album was inadvertently misprinted in Nat Hentoff s "Indigenous Music" column last month...
...William Steif Washington, D. C. Edible Ahearty hurrah to John D. Shepherd ("Letters," January issue) for voicing what he and many folk believe: that domesticated animals and produce, such as "sluggish barnyard cows...
...Let's stop apologizing for demanding justice...
...I can never expect people who have been removed from the experiences of the Holocaust to feel guilt...
...What do you expect it to do...
...May I suggest you kindly inform Arnaud de Borchgrave, Jeremiah Denton, James McClure, Carter Clews, the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism, the Senate Republican Conference, and other interested' parties of the following: 1. The Progressive was founded in 1909, eight years before the establishment of communism in what is now the Soviet Union...
...He has written one of the very best articles I have seen on the hazy subject of the Palestinians...
...I am truly saddened to have to drop your magazine...
...I dare say some of your detractors owe their political careers to this piece of legislation...
...and [hybrid] corn," because of their dependence on people, are meant to be eaten...
...But I can really cope with hot-air Holy Rollers...
...or had looked for "refuseniks" with me in Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev, and Odessa in late 1976...
...It should have been Songs for the Mama That Tried...
...Steif's warning that "Americans will not continue to lug their guilt around much longer" is hollow...
...After much soul-searching, I found that having a radical attitude keeps me sane...
...All of these, in one way or another, support the PLO, despite the fact that the PLO persists in its vow to drive Israel into the sea and has applauded the finger which pulled the trigger in the murder of Anwar Sadat...
...or in the Somali refugee camps I saw in 1975...
...I felt that the American media (with some exceptions) had done a poor job of explaining the Palestinian viewpoint and placing the Palestinians in perspective in the Arab world...
...Albert G. Watson Toronto, Ontario When I talk with liberal friends, all I hear is Reagan this, Reagan that...
...I noted that thirty-six years have elapsed since the end of World War II, thirty-three years since Israel's birth...
...I am now quite certain that I am not mistaken in this perception...
...I encourage the disinfor-mers to pull their faces out of the gutter long enough to read, "Founded in 1909 by Robert M. LaFollette Sr...
...When I read your frankly slanted articles on the PLO, I shudder...
...One point, especially, seems to have angered many letter-writers...
...It allows candidates to spend as much as they like, at any time of day they like, in any market they like...
...Thoughtful Israelis know they cannot go it alone, any more than Americans can go it alone...
...no opportunity to cast a stone at Israel is missed...
...Of course, if he believes we shouldn't maintain any sort of intelligence service, then anything done to weaken the CIA would, in his eyes, be beneficial...
...Let us remember that women didn't gain the right to vote by politely asking...
...GlendaJ...
...War, not Ronald Reagan or Leonid Brezhnev, is the real enemy, and there will be no peace until it is abolished...
...Abram V. Martin San Francisco, California I want to express my admira-I tion for William Steif's article on the Palestinians...
...Joel R. Jacobson Newark, New Jersey You trumpet that Mena-chem Begin and the Christian Right are "strange bedfellows...
...In my work as abstractor for various Government clearinghouses, I happened to read the policy statements of some of the Palestinian groups and fbund them explicitly genoci-dal and repellent...
...citizens, being as dependent and passive as sheep to the U.S...
...Hitler and the Nazis were black hats, the personification of evil, and when we belatedly discovered what we had allowed to happen to the Jews of Europe (not to mention the Poles and others), we compensated by wholeheartedly supporting the establishment of Israel...
...2. The Progressive's founder, Robert M. LaFol-lette Sr., is directly responsible for Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, which provides for political access to the broadcast media...
...In other words, the work of LaFollette made today's "media blitz" a reality...
...But the survival of Israel must be placed above most other considerations by any Jew who is sane, literate, and aware of the dreadful patterns of thousands of years of Jewish history...
...How embarrassing to remember how I stated (while running for public office) that "I'm not a foam-at-the-mouth radical...
...The reasons set out in his article surely explain why "the Government [must make] it illegal to reveal this woman's name," along with the names of other dedicated, hardworking Americans in the espionage service of their country...
...By your mode of reasoning, because I subscribe to The Progressive do I also subscribe to the views of Arafat...
...Perhaps living inland prevents your distinguishing a crab from a clam...
...There is no evidence that a single Arab nation is prepared to live peaceably with Israel...
...Robert H. Yoakum Lakeville, Connecticut Does Jeff Stein think the United States should indulge in espionage...
...That whole subject is so agonizing in terms of the human complexities for both the Palestinians and the Israelis and as it increasingly entangles so many others not only in the region but here and elsewhere...
...In the real world, there are few black hats and few white hats—most of the hats are shades of grey...
...I'm not a rabid Zionist...
...I agree that it is a mistake to place all the blame for our present predicament on U.S...
...The real world, unfortunately, is not so simple as the world of the sports pages or "Magnum, P.I...
...For all Israel's faults, it is surrounded by almost 100,000,000 enemies...
...If so, how does he think a regular, run-of-the-mill spy's duties should differ from the duties he projects for his "bright, attractive young woman...
...Don Sauer Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin Asa Jew, I believe it is very important for the world to know that Israelis are a compassionate people concerned with the plight of the Arab people...
...or had visited Afghan refugees with me in Pakistan in January 1980...
...The logic of this is that fewer and fewer Americans can feel the sense of guilt that so many of us who lived through the Holocaust years felt and feel...
...When the Radio Act of 1927 was drafted, it took account of the LaFollette experience by prohibiting the denial of broadcast time to any recognized candidate for any political office...
...I did—in your masthead...
...By dwelling on the negative side of every one of them without ever making constructive suggestions or even once confronting the true reason why world Jewry needs a permanent Jewish state, I feel you are, in fact, damaging my hopes of survival as a Jew, as well as contributing to instability in the Middle East...
...During and immediately after World War II, it was easy to be a white hat...
...Frederick G. Dutton Washington, D.C...
...I, too, detest Jerry Falwell and his immoral "moralists...
...That's right in line with what I've believed for years: That U.S...
...It was not Israel's intention to become a garrison state...
...I still think so, as I walk around Washington and observe official Government views filtered through 5,000 reporters to American newspapers, magazines, television, and radio...
...But I wish some of those who so fervently proclaim "never again" had been with me on the Cambodian border in October 1979...
...As I join in the fight for the survival of Israel, I have too often found that in the warmest of hearts, there can generally be found a cold spot for the Jew...
...No rational person could possibly accept this pronouncement as either ethical or legal grounds for possession...
Vol. 46 • February 1982 • No. 2
