Letters

...Readers are bound to wonder why...

...Retaining the old prices shows how much the costs of weapons have increased...

...neoliberalism...

...Need I say more...

...Readers of Morrison's review would never suspect the book also contains the prices and quantities of weapons produced in 1985...

...So let's hear about the serious basis for treating Salvadoran refugees as deserving of immigration status as political refugees, and let's not hear about the silly attempts to justify the "sanctuary" principle...

...The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...

...Morrison dismisses one new section of the book which deals with nuclear weapons as "an ambitious attempt...

...We have complete faith in your readers to discern manipulative propaganda from rational discourse...

...We do not challenge your right to run such an ad...

...If the MOVE house had been next door to yours, I strongly suspect your reaction would have been different...

...I hope other readers will do the same...

...With the move to the new location at 13 East 16th Street (near Union Square), we have tripled our shelf space and more than doubled our sales, and we are carrying out a major fund-raising and expansion campaign to add a broad selection of thousands of important and timely new books and periodicals in many languages...

...Church activists have become leaders of progressive movements mainly because they seem to be the only ones around with any moral fervor, moral consistency, and the tolerance to listen to differing points of view...

...One can only imagine the slick Nestle ads for infant formula that the magazine could have found itself running as a regular feature or the commemorative South African Krug-errand series it could promote...

...Rational Discourse In March 1985, the director of the Funding Exchange, June Makela, wrote to The Progressive, expressing our dismay at the repeated appearance of an advertisement portraying an unborn fetus and carrying a heading which read, "This Little Girl Deserves Protection...

...We strongly challenge your assertion that our deci- , sion not to advocate for funding for any organization outside our guidelines constitutes an attempt at censorship or an attack on free speech...

...The Network sponsors a hotline which people can call to report incidents of FBI harassment...

...People in the MOVE house were in violation of law...

...Unfortunately, this is incorrect...

...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...

...The problem was the traditional Left...

...battleship, the New Jersey, also cruised off the Nicaraguan coast in 1983 before going to support the U.S...

...These provocations are clearly dress rehearsals for possible direct U.S...

...Our letter indicated we were shocked at the apparent lack of any advertising policy in relation to such a critical issue and felt that since none existed, we could no longer look for funding on behalf of the magazine...

...I have sent copies to members of Congress, and have written to them demanding a Congressional hearing...

...2. Advertising, especially advertising of this sensational nature, is based on the psychology of manipulation and propaganda...

...It is only by ignoring another new section of the book, and all of the other new data most of its standard sections provide, that he is able to call the section on nuclear weapons "the only improvement" over the previous volume in the Arsenal series...

...We don't think this is free speech, nor an appropriate application of the First Amendment principle, and we are hard-pressed to understand how it furthers "rational discourse...

...Keep up the courageous publishing...

...Both battleships were recommissioned precisely to provide artillery support for U.S...

...Readers are "bound to wonder why" he has chosen this approach, as well as why he feels the need to suggest murky, fifth-columnist motivations on my part for pointing out its shortcomings...

...Paid speech is not free speech and this policy enables only those with views dissenting from your magazine who can afford to pay to talk to the readers...

...Morrison complains of the book's "anachronisms" and "outdated data," but neglects to mention that the only anachronism he cites, as well as any data from previous volumes, have been intentionally retained...

...Today, women's rights and reproductive freedom are still vehemently opposed and attacked by the radical Right and, in fact, by the President of the United LETTERS to the Editor States, among others, and only limply defended and superficially understood by liberal and leftist men...

...Unfortunately, I think most readers only scratched the surface in discussing the hypocrisy and rigidity of thinking that characterizes the American Left in 1985...

...Would we approve of the "sanctuary principle" if some church were trying to shield Nazi war criminals from immigration investigators...

...As a recent issue of Radical America on punk and youth culture pointed out, the hard-core punks have been relatively successful in accomplishing what they promised to do: form an effective subculture divorced from corporate America with independent distribution networks for disseminating records and literature...

...they did have the opportunity to surrender and to evacuate their children...

...Since my experience as a draftee in Vietnam, I have come to see clearly the amazing hypocrisy of the United States...

...The facts you omitted were significant...

...So Does Her Mother...

...The truth is that the MOVE members killed themselves and their children and they should not be made into martyrs by misguided members of the Left...

...Amicus Most Los Angeles, California Revolution on the Move Under the heading "Photo Finish" and over a caption that read "A sign of the times...

...The Arsenal series will continue this practice...

...I accuse you of having the classic "liberal" disease...

...Until our "law-enforcement" agencies are limited to law enforcement, no First Amendment activity in this country will be safe from the political police...

...Richard Sharvy Eugene, Oregon In his excellent article regarding government infiltration of the sanctuary movement, "Snoops in the Pews" (August issue), Nat Hentoff states, "It was the first time any government agency in this country had admitted to planting undercover agents in a church...

...There is every reason for activists in both the antinu-clear movement and the anti-intervention movement to join hands in the campaign to keep the Iowa out of New York and Central America...

...troops who landed in Lebanon...

...The remainder of the Left is in sad shape...

...Punks and church activists had few problems working together...

...The site of the museum was misiden-tified in a caption in the August issue...

...I have many left-wing ideas but am embarrassed to be associated with the so-called American Left of 1985...

...Jim Kempf Little Chute, Wisconsin Correction Bock's Car, the B-29 that dropped the Bomb on Nagasaki, is on display at the Air Force Museum, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dayton, Ohio...

...military action against Nicaragua...

...fascism that requires widespread publicity and action...

...Since this was the avowed goal of the 1960s counterculture, one might assume the leftovers of the New Left would support these networks, right...

...Thank God The Progressive has the integrity to avoid falling into the stinking rut of most of your former allies...

...Your editors apparently believe that citizens have a right to shoot at police without expecting deadly fire in return...

...Hence, it does not surprise us that the banner of free speech has been disingenuously raised in this instance...

...Another U.S...

...war games held in Honduras...

...Not on your life...

...The best way to test a principle is to ask ourselves what we would say if it were invoked by people we don't like...

...Paul J. Hopstock Alexandria, Virginia The Iowa's Mission Tom DeLuca's otherwise excellent article on the proposed Navy base in New York Harbor (Datelines, July issue) failed to point out the role that the battleship Iowa and its support ships are playing in the Reagan Administration's campaign against Nicaragua...

...The Marxist faction often engaged in hostility and factionalism (see John Trinkl's article on NBAU in The Guardian), while the yuppie Mother Jones clique argued the relative merits of neoconserva-tism vs...

...Paul Bernstein New York, New York Arsenal of Democracy David C. Morrison's review of Arsenal of Democracy III ("Military Might," Books, June issue) gives so little indication of its true contents that it seems designed to conceal them...

...The magazine's response was to accuse us of supporting censorship, of intellectual intolerance, and of lacking confidence in the readers of the magazine...

...The Mayor's decision may or may not have been correct, but in no way did the police action constitute "murder...

...With only a few minor exceptions, the entries have not been updated and are, as I indicated in my review, rife with such anachronisms as "initial deliveries are expected in 1979...

...David Lerner Center for Constitutional Rights New York, New York Fan Mail Your Comment, "Terrorism Begins at Home" (August issue), poignantly summed up my feelings...

...The Chicago Police Department has released reports from its subversive unit files prepared by its undercover agents describing a class in Judaism at a Chicago-area synagogue as well as meetings of the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church...

...Since returning to service, the Iowa's main mission has been engaging in naval maneuvers off the coast of Nicaragua, in conjunction with U.S...

...Jonathan Brown Revolution Books New York, New York Harassment by the FBI Iwas pleased to see your Comment, "The FBI in Peace and War" (July issue), describing the FBI's harassment of Central America activists, but was a little surprised that you failed to mention the role of the Movement Support Network in bringing this issue to the attention of the public, the press, and Congress...

...I submit once again that, by reissuing a reference work such as this without revamping it, Gervasi not only shortchanges his readers, but also himself and the value of what, in the past, I and others have found to be a valuable resource...

...The Progressive published a picture of the boarded-up front of our bookstore's old location (Datelines, July issue...

...Our perception of ourselves as a "peace-loving, Christian nation" is absurd...

...What the section of Arsenal III which Morrison wholly ignores points out is that it has only been by lying about the balance of power that the Reagan Administration has been able to justify its swollen defense budgets, its inequitable arms control proposals, and its refusal to seek a nuclear freeze...

...military forces intervening overseas...

...LETTERS to the Editor Assault on Sanctuary Iapplaud the efforts of the sanctuary movement to help Salvadoran refugees ("Assault on Sanctuary," August issue), but I cannot endorse the concept of sanctuary itself...

...Tom Gervasi New York, New York The author replies: The heart of Tom Gerva-si's book is the catalog of military hardware running from pages 118 through 309, well over half of its length...

...Loring Wirbel Palo Alto, California The Take-Charge Gang Keenen Peck's article about the Federal Emergency Management Agency ("The Take-Charge Gang," May issue) presents a frightening picture—a pattern for U.S...

...No and no...

...This Feminists for Life ad greatly offended us in its manipulation and inaccurate and misleading information...

...We do, however, strongly disagree with your decision to run it, and have acted in accordance with our own principles and funding policies...

...Ronald Reagan's remark about the Marines guarding heaven has to be one of the most idiotic, blasphemous statements I've yet heard from anyone...

...On the other hand, many of us definitely would support the right of free speech even for Nazis...

...If that is the case, your indiscriminate advertising policy is also bad business and cannot be justified, as some of the supporters of your policy would have us believe, as a case of a poor magazine just struggling to support itself...

...this is not the point, however...

...By never revealing that the book takes up these issues, Morrison perfectly serves the Administration's interests, though he does not serve the public interest...

...Not only did this result in litigation on behalf of free-lance journalist Ed Haase, but it also formed the basis for the Congressional hearing in which FBI Director William Webster admitted that the FBI had questioned about 100 travelers to Nicaragua...

...It rarely furthers discourse or provides a basis for thoughtful, sound opinions on an issue...

...The hotline can be reached by calling (212) 477-5652...

...We hope readers understand that Revolution Books has not closed down but has relocated and expanded...

...Members of the traditional Left have become wimps of the highest order, bending over backward to support lukewarm electoral campaigns, handing over Washington managerial posts to business-management specialists rather than to the ideologically committed, and choosing tactics of duplicity and hypocrisy rather than having the guts to challenge Reaganism head-on...

...The Network, which was set up by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, was established precisely to monitor, analyze, and, where necessary, litigate instances of FBI abuse of political activists...

...As members of the Funding Exchange Board, we would like to elaborate further why we think your indiscriminate advertising policy is an imprudent use of the institution at your disposal: 1. You indicated that your editors maintained control over their editorial and features pages while allowing conflicting points of view to make use of advertising space within the magazine, purportedly serving the interest of rational discourse...

...Judy Austermiller, Marsha Bonner, TobyD'Oench, Pat Maker, Kemba Maish, Ellen Marshall, Beth Rosales, Midge Taylor The Funding Exchange New York, New York It was certainly heartening to see so many readers advocate free exchange of ideas in your Letters column (July issue) now that canceling subscriptions to The Progressive has become the "politically correct" thing to do...

...Last spring's anti-apartheid, anti-intervention, and No Business As Usual (NBAU) actions had a strong punk contingent and a high percentage of teenage-young adult involvement...

...As we see it then, your advertising policy and the decision to run the offending ad have nothing to do either with the revenue base of your magazine nor with the right of free speech...

...Do we approve of the "Christian principles" defense when it is invoked by bombers of abortion clinics...

...David C. Morrison Washington, D.C...

...Arsenal III contains comparative estimates of the balance of conventional power between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, comparative estimates of the speed, range, accuracy, power, and numbers of every strategic weapon now in Soviet and American arsenals, and comparative estimates of the balance of nuclear warheads deployed by the superpowers from 1945 through 1984, with notes showing where every fact it assembles was found...

...they did fire weapons at police...

...Richard M. Gutman Chicago, Illinois The Goode and the Bad Your Comment on Mayor Wilson Goode's handling of the Philadelphia MOVE situation ("The Goode, the Bad, and the Ugly," July issue), shocked and saddened me...

...3. You claim that your policy and resultant decision to run both the Feminists for Life and tobacco industry ads have cost you more in lost subscription income than they have produced in revenues...

...Rather, it reflects, we think, an attitude of neutrality in the name of free speech which refuses to stand firmly against sexism and other attitudes and practices which just as surely undermine collective efforts to achieve human dignity and self-determination for all as does censorship...