Letters
LETTERS to the Editor Secret Agents Although I'm not a lawyer, it seems to me there will be an unintended consequence of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act ("Darker Cloaks, Longer...
...I happen to think McCullough is right while Russell and Luria are wrong, but I found their response to McCullough extremely helpful in clarifying the basic issue...
...A reasonable guess is that all in all, no more than 300 reactors are on line worldwide today, and no more than 400 will be on line by the end of this decade...
...Although not a panacea any more than suffrage, constitutional equality is the most basic element and elementary step for achieving a society in which women and men would be equals...
...Yes, it is true that many feminists have given other issues their first priority, but you have forgotten that most of these feminists live and work in the thirty-five states which ratified the ERA years ago...
...As a member of the international group of the Swedish Anti-Nuclear Campaign, I follow the nuclear industry and recently put together the latest information on deferred and cancelled reactors...
...Such letters would be much more effective in protecting children than the form provided...
...Sweden's Anti-Nuclear Campaign has protested to the Mexican government...
...I trust those readers of The Progressive who subscribe to Inquiry to make their own judgments on the magazine, without Browning's help...
...Frank Browning San Francisco, California ERA Requiem As a new subscriber to The Progressive, I was surprised and appalled by the Comment in your May issue entitled "Requiem for the ERA...
...it is happening everywhere except, perhaps, in France and Japan...
...In Nucleonics Week's generating statistics for April 1982, you find no more than 137 reactors in operation in seventeen non-communist countries...
...In 1982, one transaction may take place—a Mexican order for two reactors from the United States, France, Canada, West Germany, or Sweden...
...Perhaps he learned his economics as manager of the Libertarian Party's 1980 Presidential campaign, where the voters were few and the dollars endless...
...As for Stephen Chapman, I'm sure that he often differed with his warmongering former employer at The New Republic and that his current thinking deviates occasionally from the corporate line at the Chicago Tribune, where he now works...
...After the death of The Washington Star, I had no outlet in Washington until The Times picked it up...
...There is a growing anti-nuclear campaign in Mexico, which needs all possible support from activists in the reactor-exporting countries...
...Glenn W. Hawkes Montpelier, Vermont Inside Inquiry I suppose there is a certain logic to commissioning an article from a disgruntled former employee with an axe to grind, if you're looking for a hatchet job...
...He then lists these leftist authors, and includes among them Thomas Szasz, a libertarian, and Nicholas Von Hoffman, who endorsed the Libertarian Party's 1980 Presidential candidate, Ed Clark...
...If that struggle is not the first priority, then it is a foregone conclusion that with or without reindustrialization or any other investment alternative, workers will wind up the losers...
...2. It is naive, at best, to state, "We look to the government of the city of Detroit as the key source of the initiative and coordination necessary to rational reindustrialization...
...Accordingly, while the revolutionary-socialist viewpoint sees workers' control of production and the state as the essence of socialism, Russell and Luria go on to identify the principles of socialism as "social accounting," "bargained development," and "public planning...
...Or, as Susan B. Anthony so eloquently stated it, "There shall never be another season of silence until women have the same rights as men on this green Earth...
...Connie Harkness Detroit, Michigan Private Bodies JeanBethke Elshtain'scritique of the feminist case against pornography ("The Victim Syndrome," June issue) has hit upon a deep relationship between pornography and abortion: Both are based on a radically privatized view of an atomized self, cut off from social ties of respect and responsibility...
...But "disgruntled former employee...
...Marilyn Williams Jackson, Mississippi Arms for Turkey ohn Dinges states erroneously in "Reagan and Revo-ution" (May issue) that El Salvador is the third-largest U.S...
...I trust Loesch is not saying this, but the somewhat instrumentalist formulation concerning sexual organs and their use suggests something of the sort...
...As the record shows, it is not I who left the magazine disgruntled...
...This corporate pressure, he implies, led me to fire off a memo "denouncing the piece as 'inappropriate' for publication in the magazine...
...Here are just three mistakes: 1. Browning asserts that only the leftist writers who appeared in Inquiry's pages have made it worth reading, and that libertarian writers have contributed little of value other than eccentricity...
...The moratorium on nuclear power is more than a domestic U.S...
...How do any of us know our closest associates are not undercover intelligence agents who might be unmasked as a result of our testimony, which would then certainly be incriminating...
...Blaming ourselves for the defeat of the ERA and the result of "division in the ranks" is, of course, exactly what the New Right and, for that matter, the Old Right want...
...But the editors, summarizing in large type (Page 29), cite a literacy rate of "almost 54 per cent, up from about 13 per cent under Somoza...
...Or of what use are a man's spermproducing organs to him, selfishly considered...
...But that is not the issue at all...
...To see ourselves, our bodies, as social is to argue that our understanding of our own embodiment cannot be divorced from a complex world of shared social meanings...
...As a result, it is argued, the strategy of Rational Rein-dustrialization is bound to leave workers as largely passive spectators...
...What abortion advocates fail to recognize—and to state this is not to stake out a hard line against abortion but simply to require that pro-abortionists explore their covert commitments to a certain political philosophy— is that the formulation my body only makes sense within the abstract individualism of a political world constituted along Hobbesian lines—a world they repudiate when the issue turns to pornography...
...Steve Goldfield Oakland, California Nuclear Dilemmas Iagree wholeheartedly with Sidney Lens's assertion that "abolition of all nuclear weapons is the goal" ("How Deep a Freeze...
...McCullough's revolutionary-socialist position holds that workers' defense of their existing wages, conditions, rights, and organization is the essential first ingredient of a socialist strategy...
...The challenges for serious leftists today," your article states, "is to identify reforms which, though they may fall short of socialism, allow workers to confront the dynamism of capitalist development and demonstrate that another economic structure is possible...
...As a feminist activist for the past ten years, I have become accustomed to hearing the myth that our failures in the women's movement, particularly in regard to ratification efforts, are our own fault...
...And this is a wonder...
...While socialists of McCullough's persuasion and mine seek out reform struggles, and ways of building them, that strengthen workers' sense of their independent class power, Luria and Russell seek—quite correctly, based on their conception of socialism—to identify sectors of ruling-class opinion with which labor can create coalitions...
...Stephen Chapman ' Evanston, Illinois The author replies: There is a certain breed of libertarian, Edward Crane being one, whose "expertise" in the marketplace leads them to discontinue the product line just when sales are at their peak...
...David McCullough's criticism of Rational Reindustrial-ization was not that it is a reform program that "will dilute the evolving rage of the proletariat" but that it fails the first condition for a successful strategy: the defense of labor's rights and conditions here and now...
...Aside from their noxious ideology, he claims, his former employers have sold out to corporate interests...
...3. Browning claims that the libertarian movement is and will be unsuccessful...
...I, for one, find exciting his challenge to the rest of us to start planning for such possibilities as full employment without war...
...Worse yet, however, is The Progressive calling the ERA "only a symbol...
...2. Browning finds it ironic that Inquiry and other libertarian ventures have received donations from a wealthy libertarian who designs and produces pollution-control equipment because...
...Those years of effort have awakened and politicized women of diverse backgrounds and beliefs throughout this country...
...Indeed I remained a friend of Inquiry, writing for it, bringing in authors, and otherwise serving as a contributing editor...
...Of no use...
...Involving, as they do, the ripping off of women (or men), or the ripping out of children, they are as "private" as the robber barons' "private" enterprise...
...That didn't stop him from distorting his own opinions to get a job there (as he admits) or from dutifully cashing his paycheck for three long years...
...Never Again Silence" could indeed become their (our) new battle cry...
...If a clever subpoenaed witness puts the Act together with the Fifth Amendment, it should be impossible to force her or him to testify about anyone else...
...Warren O. Stiles Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina Ihave just read Harvey Was-serman's "The Industry that Couldn't" (The Last Word, April issue), a good article for anti-nuclear activists around the world...
...Asa Moberg Lima, Sweden Please Fasten Your Seatbelt It's perfectly clear to me why it is so damnably hard to get to Uralia (July issue...
...affair...
...David Finkel Detroit, Michigan Two aspects of Rational Reindustrialization strike me as totally unrealistic: 1. It is a huge omission in such a detailed document to call for the manufacture of cogenerators (among other kinds of energy hardware) without calling for publicly controlled cogeneration of energy in an industrial center the size of Detroit...
...Their spreading fallout is as limited as a limited nuclear war...
...In fact, there are elected libertarians holding office in New Jersey, Alaska, Texas, California, and other states, and 1982 may well see the first elected libertarian governor...
...Juli Loesch Erie, Pennsylvania The author replies: I uli Loesch correctly hits J upon the connection I draw "between the philosophic assumptions shared by abortion advocates who preach a vision of the body as property one "owns" and can "alienate" as one pleases, and certain defenders of pornography who refer to the absolute rights of possessive individualists...
...Wasserman mentions "some 400 others operating" outside your country, but I wonder if this can be correct...
...Then a different argument is involved—one that makes reference to a theory of the human person rejected in the case of abortion...
...Charles, Illinois, in April...
...I do not at all exclude the possibility that some elements of the Rational Reindustrialization proposal could be integrated into the kind of reform efforts that start from the daily economic struggles of workers today, rather than the kind which pose "structural change" as the alternative to those struggles...
...Reactors on line in the communist world are concentrated in the Soviet Union, but there couldn't be several hundred of them...
...All U.S...
...It is, in fact, fourth, surpassed also by Turkey...
...In "Voices from Nicaragua" (May issue) William Steif writes (Page 28), "The Sandinistas say illiteracy has fallen from 53.7 per cent of the population before the revolution to 12.9 per cent...
...The literacy rate should have been 87 per cent, up from 46 per cent—not as heroic a proportion, but almost double...
...The wisdom of providing Turkey with so much military aid is questionable, in view of the fact that there has been no progress toward a just solution on Cyprus, the withdrawal of Turkish troops, and an end to Turkey's violations of international laws and the 1960 Accords for Cypriot independence...
...I'm not sure that the PCI form is the best tool for initiating the question of the children...
...Jean Bethke Elshtain Princeton, New Jersey Corrections Iwrite in the interest of accuracy and to correct a misleading reference in Jeff Stein's article on The Washington Times ("Moon's Latest Phase," Datelines, July issue), which makes it appear that I have been hired by the paper to write a regular column exclusively for them...
...They did make a veiled threat of a suit to Inquiry's publisher, Chris Hocker, in an attempt to stop us from running the article...
...Takashi Yogi Felton, California The author replies: If the "Parental Consent and Information Form" leads people toward accepting the idea of nuclear war, it will have missed its mark dramatically...
...however, I do think that the rationale is solid...
...I urge adults everywhere to raise the question in creative and responsible ways...
...The main runway at Zvarsk International Airport (see map, Page 42) is only 4,000 feet long...
...I am currently seeking to get my state government to declare opposition to nuclear defense plans...
...In fact, the Field Newspaper Syndicate has handled my column for four years, and newspapers throughout the country can subscribe or not as they see fit...
...Bruce Hill Orangeburg, New York Frank Browning is revolted by the political views expressed in Inquiry, which he finds "stunted," "bizarre," LETTERS to the Editor and "medievalist...
...The question is, rather, how reform struggles are waged, by whom, with what goals, and what kind of organization and consciousness results from waging them...
...Suffice it to say that the article was chockfull of misinformation...
...And the unfortunate political fact is that these women (and men) could do little to change the political realities for the ERA in states like North Carolina, Florida, Utah, Virginia, Missouri, Arizona, etc...
...This law seems ludicrously unconstitutional, and I hope some brave magazine will challenge it right away...
...In good conscience, a law-abiding witness ought to refuse to testify about anything...
...Physicians for Social Responsibility has provided ample evidence that medical aid would be nil after a nuclear attack...
...Hocker said thanks for the advice and ran the piece...
...Since evacuation plans require the participation of states, counties, cities, transit districts, school boards, and local agencies, opposition to any plans at these levels would be appropriate...
...Work on that order has halted, since Romania's capacity to pay is in doubt...
...the Administration has requested $815 million ($465 million military, $350 million economic) for 1983...
...Anna M. Rice Great Falls, Virginia Industrial Revival As the editor of Changes, I would like to clarify one important point in the discussion of Rational Reindustrial-ization, by Jack Russell and Dan Luria, which appeared in our April and May issues...
...aid recipient in the world, surpassed only by Israel and Egypt...
...Last Epidemic Glenn Hawkes'ssincere concern for his children's future (The Last Word, June issue) would be more productive if he would seek to prevent nuclear war rather than prepare superficial treatment for the "last epidemic...
...But I had expected better from The Progressive...
...Current total aid for Turkey is $700 million ($400 million military, $300 million economic...
...As for Bruce Hill, yes, Thomas Szasz is a libertarian, albeit one whose essays in Inquiry concerned themselves with freedom of the mind rather more than matters of the marketplace...
...Browning being one, who would like to think that libertarians are apologists for the corporate establishment...
...But I assure you that the vast majority of feminists in the unratified states toiled diligently and even suffered for the past decade in their efforts to ratify the ERA...
...Of what use are my uterus or my ovaries to me, as an isolated individual...
...That possibility remains to be explored...
...Now, secure in the bosom of The Progressive, he at last finds the courage to express the deep reservations he felt all along...
...and Nick Von Hoffman did endorse the 1980 Libertarian Party candidate—just as he also worked with Saul Alinsky, and just as he recently completed a long Harper's essay denouncing Ronald Reagan and the "myriads of capitalist youth marching and chanting societies...
...Now there's a cause for disgruntle-ment, especially when his product was winning unprecedented favor in the marketplace...
...In every society on Earth, sexual uniting has united family to family, kindred to kindred, people to people...
...Cord Meyer Washington, D.C...
...Just as one can not build a house without a foundation, full equality can not be achieved without the ERA...
...There is something of a functionalist underpinning to these questions that I cannot fully share...
...But I wish, briefly, to ponder her questions concerning the "use" of one's uterus and ovaries, if one is a woman, or if one is a man, one's "sperm-producing organs...
...He is correct in his analysis that the nuclear dilemma will not likely be reversed until we can show positive progress on the alternatives to war...
...The memo to which Browning refers actually says about the article, "this might have been a good article as a column, I certainly don't think it's appropriate as the featured article in the magazine" (emphasis added...
...Leon Lukaszewski Walnut Creek, California...
...The corporate-statists in America would much prefer Browning's ideal of a nationalized economy to the rigors of the free market advocated by libertarians...
...But the inclusion of the ERA in the Constitution will yet become a reality, for your statement that "those years of effort will go down the drain on June 30" is incorrect...
...The most egregious distortion of the facts, however, deserves comment...
...For example, when we confront the question of stockpiling morphine, we also confront the harsh reality of why it might be convenient to have this strong painkilling medication on hand...
...To argue, as I do, that human beings are social is not covertly to sneak in the requirement that one's sexual organs must be put to explicit reproductive use if one is to share in the definition of full humanity...
...Some scandal...
...I suggest that concerned parents write letters to their school boards requesting that students be fully informed of the consequences of nuclear war and that parents be informed that school officials are incapable of ensuring the safety of students in the event of a nuclear attack...
...What in the world is to be done with tons of plutonium and other radioactive metals in nuclear weapons...
...And when a large number of adults on this planet are challenged by the issue of mercy-killing our own children, I think we will be well on our way toward ridding ourselves of the superstition that we can solve our problems with the weapons of mass destruction...
...If that be "left dogmatism," make the most of it...
...In the United States, the industry is down to an expected 143 reactors by the end of this decade...
...Clearly, I didn't object to the article itself, merely its placement in the magazine—precisely the kind of decision the editors of The Progressive make each month...
...I wonder if you would have the insensitiv-ity and callousness to call the Fourteenth Amendment a symbol...
...The Progressive's summary of that discussion ("Remaking the Motor City—and America," by Jeanie Wylie and Lawrence Walsh, July issue) tends to suggest that the central issue is whether the Left should or should not support reform efforts that fall short of socialism...
...The many women who have been victims of discriminatory state laws pertaining to every aspect of life, the Social Security system, discrimination in governmental jobs, etc., would hardly call the ERA a symbol...
...As a feminist in the Deep South, I would guess that your "casual and unscientific ERA poll" was conducted in ratified states...
...Not all pro-abortion and pro-pornography defenders are inconsistent in this way but many are, and that is precisely what I intended, in part, to point out...
...nuclear vendors expect to "go abroad," but only one reactor was ordered in 1981—a Candu from Canada to Romania...
...App Applegate Olga, Washington If I knew where to write, I would nominate Jonathan Schell for the Nobel Prize for the painstaking thoroughness and timing of The Fate of the Earth...
...In fact, Dow never contacted me...
...Reflections, May issue...
...Our bodies are private, surely, and yet those organs which are most private of all (some even call them "the privates") have, strictly speaking, no private meaning...
...Nick is not easily cornered...
...Incidentally, though it may have seemed like three long years to him, I only polluted his favorite magazine for eight months as a paid editor...
...BillHines Washington, D.C...
...In particular, we will never be silent at the polls on election days until we are in the position to ratify the ERA...
...In fact, libertarians believe in taking pollution control out of the hands of regulatory agencies and instead making laws that would treat pollution as a type of assault, punishable as an invasion of privacy and a violation of individual autonomy...
...It is my hunch that when we face squarely the question of what we might do to assist children in the awful event of nuclear war, we will become all the more committed to prevention...
...Frank Browning's sour-grapes article on Inquiry and the libertarian movement was so badly researched that it was hard to believe he was a contributor to Inquiry, The Progressive, or any other periodical...
...There is a certain breed of socialist...
...Latest news from Mexico is that political opposition to nuclear power is growing rapidly, and so are the economical difficulties that may lead to a cancellation of the whole deal...
...Socialism is not worker control," they conclude, "but a process of bargained outcomes played by a set of rules that includes more worker control...
...Seventy-seven are on line today, according to the monthly capacity-generating statistics in Nucleonics Week, and only sixty-six more are expected to come on line, according to figures from a conference on "Nuclear Commerce in the '80s" held in St...
...Browning asserts that Dow Chemical "leaned heavily on the magazine," in response to an article this spring which exposed the toxic effects of a chemical agent they produce...
...But there is a sticky, related problem: We have failed so far to formulate an acceptable plan for the disposal of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors...
...Pornography and abortion violate our ties of respect and loyalty to the other gender and the other generation...
...It is through this question that we may find our way through this dark time...
...Browning claims, libertarians believe in pollution...
...Russell and Luria consider this to be the "losing tradition of militancy in command of politics," and demand that it be replaced with "an assessment of the state as an arena of class struggle...
...LETTERS to the Editor Secret Agents Although I'm not a lawyer, it seems to me there will be an unintended consequence of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act ("Darker Cloaks, Longer Daggers," June issue...
...And regardless of The Progressive's motivation, that's the only way to describe Frank Browning's nasty little tantrum over the recent changes at Inquiry magazine ("Brave New Dogma," June issue...
...Surely Crane has presided too long in his star chamber...
...Edward H. Crane III Washington, D.C...
...Perhaps he is thinking of Inquiry's founding editor, Williamson Evers, whom he dismissed without notice, or Glenn Garvin, the most recently deposed editor, who was directed to move the magazine across the continent at considerable personal sacrifice and expense, only to have it snatched from beneath him three months later...
...These figures are more than double the $312 million total for El Salvador...
...Wishing doesn't make it so...
...Russell and Luria argue, in response, that the key to creating a dynamic reform struggle is to identify a long-term structural goal first, then to assemble the appropriate coalition of class forces to work toward that goal...
...At least I would hope so...
...And who knows more about selling out than Frank Browning...
...The leader of the Mexican anti-nuclear movement is Marco Martinez, Insurgentes Sur4411,9-404, Mexico DF, Mexico...
...The only person I know for sure isn't an agent is me, and after the Act has been around for a while, I may develop doubts about that, too...
Vol. 46 • August 1982 • No. 8
