Letters
LETTERS to the Editor Political Nit-Picking consider myself a center-leaning Democrat. I know that The Progressive's policies are somewhat to the left of my position. Nevertheless, I have been an...
...used to develop other means of economic activity in the affected areas, including retraining of all affected workers...
...Lens's major premise is that the shortcomings of the Soviet Union are due primarily to the fear of foreign invasion: "If the threat of war were not constantly poised over it...
...However, during the recent Presidential campaign I was deeply disturbed by your shabby treatment of Walter M?ndale and Geraldine Ferrara...
...The rate of Soviet industrial expansion dropped to 2.8 per cent in 1982...
...To give the appeal added authenticity, the ad features a large picture representing the working class—a woman as well as black and white workers...
...Paul L. Payne Cincinnati, Ohio Ienjoyed Sidney Lens's very perceptive article, but it reflects a couple of misconceptions about Soviet reality...
...Ignore for the moment the possibility that Soviet citizens might be so frightened or so thoroughly conditioned by repression that they lack the will to rebel...
...You say The Progressive is having a difficult time financially...
...You wrote, "What's that...
...It's not surprising that the ad is sponsored by a "Labor/Management Committee," one of the shrewder coopting devices of capital...
...Healy...
...You say you'd like to be able to vote for candidates who promise to spend less on weaponry and more on domestic welfare, who care more about preserving justice than about filling the jails...
...Bag Mozart, Crosby, Sinatra, and the whole lot...
...Certainly the Soviets have full employment...
...Instead of falling for these tactics, we should turn them around...
...How much did that intervention contribute to Soviet Russia's obvious siege mentality...
...I'm taking exception to Nat HentofFs column, Indigenous Music...
...Louvan Nolting Washington, D.C...
...He ends by laying the blame for Soviet shortcomings squarely at the feet of Western aggressors...
...I wonder how many other incidents of this kind happen every year but are never reported...
...Or are they merely better programmed in the mechanistic "basics...
...If you're going to bother running anything on modern, "progressive" music, get somebody else to write it...
...An example: The pressures generated by the peace movement, not the ballots cast on Election Day, ended the Vietnam war...
...One wonders whether in' the future The Progressive will carry ads advocating the need to build more nuclear missiles and power plants in the name of saving jobs...
...However, the ad does bring up a serious problem and some real contradictions...
...We still have recourse to vigils, marches, nonviolent demonstrations, civil disobedience, tax resistance, and other tactics...
...But reading HentofFs notions of "indigenous music" is no way to find out about it...
...What one must do is travel the same road until the opportune monient arrives to crowd the juggernaut into the ditch...
...When accidents like this happen, innocent citizens become unwilling victims...
...I've bitten my tongue a few times over the past year when reading Hentoff s comments on the music he hears...
...First, Lens unquestion-ingly accepts American official imputations concerning Soviet defense spending when he states that the Soviet defense burden is proportionately higher than the American...
...for the excellent article on "H-Bombs on Our Highways" (November issue...
...About three years ago, I met a truck driver in Olympia, Washington, who works for Tri-State...
...Is that what's troubling you, friends...
...In that piece, you accused Mondale/Ferraro of trying to beat Reagan by seeming to agree with him...
...defense effort...
...While Walter Mondale promised to suspend tests and initiate nuclear freeze talks, he was only the lesser of two evils...
...Day mentions that the largest NRC-licensed carrier of nuclear materials is Tri-State Motor Freight...
...defense corporations are not tolerated...
...You say you would like to continue to serve my political interests, but that you can't do so without contributions...
...When he called his superiors at Tri-State, they told him to "forget about it," and drive his truck as fast as he could to the U.S...
...Therefore, from Olympia to Bremerton—a distance of roughly sixty miles through some of the most densely populated areas in Washington state-he left a trail of radioactive material on the freeway...
...Apparently, you didn't realize that a juggernaut cannot be beaten through a frontal attack...
...If the leaders of the United States suffer from THE PROGRESSIVE / 7 greed, callousness, and a thirst for power, why cannot the Soviet leaders do the same...
...In the last months of the campaign, your nit-picking on the subject of M?ndale/ Ferrara increased markedly...
...Lens begins with the observation that "the [Soviet] government has overwhelming popular support...
...Ted Mahr Iowa City, Iowa As a member of the Agape community tracking trains that come and go from Pantex in Amarillo, Texas, I was most interested to learn specifics about the "safe-secure" trailers carrying destruction...
...involvement in whatever foreign land or condemning your editorial stance on something...
...The November Comment, "When the Going Gets Tough," was a case in point...
...He must have known, and then conveniently forgotten, that armed forces of the United States occupied Murmansk and Archangelsk in March 1918...
...Totalitarianism is as unacceptable in the Soviet Union as it is in Chile, Iran, Kampuchea, or the Philippines...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...This truck driver said it was a hot summer day, so that people driving behind him with their windows open probably breathed in some of the released radioactive material...
...Yet the use and abuse of their products claim far more casualties than do illegal drugs...
...Second, Lens's statement that the Soviet economy is growing at an ever slower pace is dated...
...In effect, the ad asked all of us to reconsider our attitude toward smoking and not overreact to such trifles as the threat of lung cancer...
...If you could find nothing good to say about M?ndale and Ferrara, the very least you could have done was to refrain from trying to discourage their potential supporters...
...Little did I know that they were carrying hot cargo...
...Jerry Nowalk Milwaukee, Wisconsin H-Bombs on Our Highways My thanks to Samuel H. Day Jr...
...You helped to deprive Mondale/Ferraro of their opportunity by eroding their support...
...But the November column on Frank Sinatra was too much...
...Sidney Lens has reminded us that what counts in America today is not what happens in an election, but what pressures are exerted outside the electoral process...
...As consumers, taxpayers, and workers we are exploited enough by the corporations and their Government...
...Not all "progressive" sounds are music, and not all old sounds are dated...
...And what of the Soviet school system...
...Do the tobacco workers believe we should all take up smoking and expose ourselves to the risk of lung cancer so that they can keep their jobs...
...Michael Scott Madison, Wisconsin The subtitle to Sidney Lens's piece, "The empire isn't evil, it's scared," reminded me of something I heard no less an authority than Zbigniew Brzezinski say: "We've never attacked them...
...Is that what's troubling you, friends...
...Let's let readers know about UB40, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Art Ensemble, Laurie Anderson, Mutabaruka, Jump Up—hell, the Clash has more relevant things to say...
...Lens's astute and sensible overview of the realities in that country is desperately needed for wide public dissemination...
...But to assert that they lie under constant threat of war while the West feels no threat in kind is patently absurd...
...the school system is superior to ours and children are better educated...
...Leon Obler Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 'Progressive' Music Enough...
...Anyone who traffics in and profits from this deadly drug—farmers, workers, executives, sellers, and even publications which take tobacco ads—has the blood of cancer victims on his hands...
...Or save the valuable space for more interesting articles...
...An ad from the UAW/Automobile Industry lobbying for passage of a bill for import quotas would be just as reactionary...
...No, this isn't a letter protesting U.S...
...I have been a smoker for more than thirty-five years, a tool and die maker for twenty-five, and a UAW member and activist for twenty-three...
...This issue has been used by the polluters and their friends to attempt to divide the progressive forces...
...You dig Bessie Smith, Mr...
...I doubt that it would have had the same leaders or gone through the same evolution...
...He first discovered the leaking radioactive canisters while at a truck stop just south of Olympia...
...Nancy Copeland-Cannata Greensburg, Kansas Fear But Not Loathing was greatly impressed by Sidney Lens's article about his visit to the Soviet Union last summer ("Fear But Not Loathing," December issue...
...If the only game in town is an industry that kills people in wholesale lots, is it our obligation as socially oriented activists to protect those jobs or to protect the society as a whole...
...But doesn't it matter if those jobs are assigned, not chosen...
...He goes on to describe its many accomplishments: "The government guarantees everyone a job...
...Jobs" are, in fact, used as an excuse to avoid correcting many environmental and work-hazard problems...
...You say you were hoping for a choice...
...When major polluters are forced to change their operations, workers sometimes suffer...
...in 1983 it rose to about 4 per cent, and it hovered between 4 and 4.5 per cent in 1984...
...William A. Elsasser El Cerrito, California Many peace activists sacrificed much personal time and did all in their power to defeat President Reagan, so it was only natural that the Reagan landslide depressed us almost to the point of losing hope...
...Smoke Bomb object to the advertisement "Sponsored by The Tobacco Industry Labor/Management Committee" that appeared on Page 39 of your December issue...
...Dave Silver Jamaica, New York My first reaction to the tobacco industry ad was to say "and the next ad will be from the workers who built and loaded the ovens at Bel-sen...
...Well, that's just tough...
...You say you need some help...
...I grant that the Soviets have suffered terribly in recent wars, and have every reason to fear another...
...Ray Knapp Greeley, Colorado t is ironic that the regressive ad to bolster tobacco industry profits (and presumably jobs) appeared in the same issue of The Progressive that contained a well-deserved critique of the health delivery system in the United States...
...witness this ad...
...True, your magazine-sorry, I can no longer say our magazine—did express some faint praise for my candidates once in a while...
...There is dissent within the ranks of Sovietologists on the size of Soviet expenditures...
...He did not offer a solution to the arms race...
...In 1980, while carrying radioactive material in a Tri-State truck, he discovered that the canisters in his truck were leaking radioactive liquid all over Interstate 5, a major freeway just south of Olympia...
...Donald R. Calvin Plymouth, Michigan Because of the use of tobacco, hundreds of thousands of Americans will die agonizing deaths...
...Tom Healy Indianapolis, Indiana The author replies: The aim of the column is to hear and report on the best of it all—from Mozart to Marsalis and beyond...
...But good taste should have dictated that, out of consideration for your loyal Democratic friends, you concentrate on criticism of the Reagan Administration...
...A publication that calls itself The Progressive has a responsibility to say, "Your ad does not fit in with the message we wish to convey...
...Lens's article contained no intimation of extensive current organizational reforms, the planning emphasis on some 170 "scientific and technical programs," and the serious economic experiments on decentralized decision making—all of which are evidently contribLETTERS to the Editor uting to the recovery in the rate of economic growth...
...Be assured that I will join in the watch and will contact folks here in Kansas about this deadly fleet...
...You say you want to see a difference...
...Those of us who constitute the Left cannot excuse the abuse of human rights in the name of the common good...
...Nevertheless, I have been an enthusiastic supporter of your magazine for many years...
...Kurt Dreifuss Dunedin, Florida Sidney Lens's apology for the Soviet Union strikes me as incredibly inconsistent...
...What's that...
...Even if their support were freely and thoughtfully given, would it justify the Soviet ARNOLD ROTH system any more than widespread support for the Reagan Administration justifies ours...
...The fact that a portion of the labor movement chooses to prostitute itself does not make it progressive...
...Vivian P. Archer Wilmette, Illinois To say I was shocked by the advertisement "Sponsored by The Tobacco Industry Labor/Management Committee" in your December issue would be an understatement...
...Can we now look forward to ads for the war materials and nuclear industries, coupled with endorsements from the unions that supposedly represent the interests of those workers...
...Are their graduates better trained in the disciplines of free and independent thought...
...They are all members of the Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers Local 203T...
...However, I cannot understand how The Progressive could prostitute itself for the self-serving interests of the tobacco industry...
...Certainly the Soviet Union is no "evil empire," but neither is it an innocent victim of Western aggression...
...Our actions, great or small, can still set off a chain of events that will cause all future generations to be forever grateful that we cared about humankind...
...What about the people who make nuclear weapons—should we risk nuclear war so they can keep their jobs...
...I grew up in Olympia, and would often see Tri-State trucks on the freeway...
...The goal of the Left is to make democracy work...
...People have always been forced by economic circumstances to work where they could...
...We should insist that tobacco subsidies continue—but that they only be...
...Lens repeatedly applies standards to the Soviet system that he would not use in judging ours...
...We cannot depend on governmental leaders to initiate the changes needed to achieve a world without war...
...Federal funds are spent to support activities such as tobacco-growing because of "jobs...
...It can serve as a strong counterforce against so much dangerous propaganda being fed to our people by some of our major communications media...
...Any other industry that has killed as many people as the tobacco industry would have been closed down decades ago...
...Well, that's just tough...
...It was part of a general intervention by the Allies of World War I, in response to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Bolsheviks and the Germans...
...Above all, the Soviet Union is free of the tremendous imperial cost of maintaining a dispersed overseas presence, which distinguishes the U.S...
...Nat Hentoff New York, New York The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...Except for a small career corps, the Soviet armed forces consist of conscripts who are paid only about six rubles a month, much less than in Western countries having conscript armies...
...But Gandhi, King, Lech Walesa, and other leaders did not give up their battles because they lost a campaign...
...The tobacco and alcohol industries enjoy an undeserved tolerance in America because they are so well entrenched and wield enormous economic and political power...
...Soviet weaponry is generally more simply designed and more cheaply manufactured than American, and the high profit rates of U.S...
...Navy's shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, the final destination of the hot cargo...
...Since the death of Leonid Brezhnev, the rate of economic growth has picked up again, even if not to the pre-1975 level...
...If we should be concerned about the loss of jobs of tobacco workers, should we not be equally concerned about the jobs of dealers, growers, and workers in marijuana, cocaine, and heroin...
...I am saddened to see The Progressive accept such an advertisement...
...This should establish my views on unions and on personal use of tobacco...
Vol. 49 • January 1985 • No. 1
