Letters

...Not long ago, a Shanghai newspaper broke the longstanding ban on recognizable caricatures of officials by running cartoons of Deng Hsiaoping and Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang, with the comment: "They are ordinary people, not gods who are remote and beyond reach...

...If all the time, money, and energy that has been spent on fighting the effects had been devoted, instead, to fighting the cause, we might have a movement today that could rally the American working class...

...Yet all your writers seem to deal with treating the effects rather than rooting out the cause...

...It's true that the Schroeder Bill was compromised away before the Iceland summit, but last winter no one gave it a chance of getting out of committee...

...Michael S. McDonough Madison, Wisconsin Fan Mail Ihave read The Progressive for many years—hundreds of articles dealing with the social diseases that afflict society...

...Sam Brandon Riverdale, New York Iam a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Gabon, a small former French colony straddling the Equator...

...Please do not publish my name or even my initials...

...I see nothing wrong with acknowledging the help of all those who contributed...

...Coca-Cola did withdraw from bottling and selling, but it still provides South Africa with its secret-formula recipe, which is its truly lucrative asset...

...For Uhl to categorize as "pulpy pseudo-literary baggage" a preface by Mayor Koch, who was instrumental in establishing the Commission, a foreword by William Broyles Jr., a Vietnam veteran and key member of the Commission, and an introduction by Bernard Edel-man, whose selection of letters Uhl elsewhere calls "deft," is insulting...

...We must organize to establish a sane social system...

...I have confidence in the innate good sense of the American people...

...Less than one-third of the 2,600 Chinese-Western joint-venture agreements have been implemented...

...How long can we fanatically foster exponential growth in population along with an exponential diminution of the means for human and animal existence...

...The "limited freedoms," however, have whetted the public appetite...

...Electing Democratic, progressive, or liberal politicians is not the answer...

...Gordon maintains that the peace movement did not respond to the Soviet moratorium with the vigor that might have been expected...

...It is morally selfish to ignore the screams of thousands of innocent human beings because they aren't the screams of your neighbors...

...Glenn B. Meagher Fairfax, California Iwas dismayed by John B. Judis's assertion that "short of war or depression," the Right is likely to remain in power...

...Rather than give up or merely attack the Right, we should develop a positive vision of America that will rally the nation to our cause...

...In recent weeks I have collected a number of articles from newspapers and magazines with such titles as "No Democracy, No Modernizations," "Debate of Political Issues Encouraged," "Why the Political System Needs Further Reform," "Criticism: Key to Flourishing Culture," "Democracy and Science Vital to Good Policy Making...

...There is "a significantly wider (if still limited...

...The Heritage Foundation does, indeed, function in an $ 11 million edifice...

...It was a collaboration in the truest sense: Dear America had not one but 125 authors, whose 208 letters comprise the book...

...Terrible misjudgments led us into two costly and futile wars on China's borders...

...Dear America also involved three editors, the advice and support of members of the Commission and LETTERS to the Editor other Vietnam veterans, the good will of private and corporate organizations, the efforts of the staffs of the hardcover publisher, W.W...

...But I perceive some portents of disaster for the Mean Society...

...S. Colman Detroit, Michigan The impressive list of assets assigned to the Right by John B. Judis contains one item that may, in fact, turn out to be a liability...

...Once right-wing think tanks began developing a positive alternative to liberalism, the Right soared to power...

...John A. Glusman New York, New York The reviewer replies: Ishudder to imagine how John Glusman might have reacted if I had panned Dear America...

...The new small entrepreneurs, most of whom were formerly unemployed or underemployed, are dismissed as "street peddlers and noodle vendors," and the special economic zones, where wages are the highest in the country, are characterized as "more naked forms of exploiting Chinese labor...

...Norton & Co., and the paperback publisher, Pocket Books, and the encouragement of friends...

...China is struggling to break out of a long period of political, economic, and social stagnation...

...In the wake of many concrete Soviet peace initiatives, it is inexcusable that these fence-straddlers in the peace movement continue their hackneyed plague-on-both-your-houses approach to disarmament...

...There's more at stake here, of course, than literary taste...

...There have been earlier attempts, but I believe this effort shows the most promise...

...circulated by most office-seekers when referring in their campaign speeches to the 'sacrifices' of veterans...

...Can we expect Americans to face the cold reality of a world in which they have no hope of becoming rich, no mythical enemy on whom to focus their anger, no easy road to happiness...

...Despite their desire for modern foreign technology, the Chinese have proven to be extremely hard bargainers...

...They will reject a Heritaged Republican Party, if not in 1986 then certainly in 1988...

...I could go on, citing the substitution of elitism for opportunity, the calloused disregard for the poor, ill, and disadvantaged, the systematic erosion of human rights...

...Steven Post Ohio Nuclear Freeze Columbus, Ohio Suzanne Gordon's article on the failure of many American peace groups to respond energetically to the unilateral Soviet test moratorium was right on the mark...

...David C. Williams Bethesda, Maryland A Normal Childhood Iresent Bonnie Urfer's "Memoirs of a Normal Childhood" (The Last Word, October issue...

...If we do nothing about it, that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy...

...How long dare we allow the greedy to loot the vanishing public domain...

...They were generously donated by Vietnam veterans from around the country, and by the families of those unfortunately no longer with us...

...Kathy King Wouk Teaneck, New Jersey Letters Home from Vietnam Iwas delighted to see The Progressive review Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, edited by Bernard Edelman (Books, September issue...

...Can we expect Americans to follow leaders who expose those myths as false...

...The signs were distributed at the Nuclear Freeze conference in Chicago and used, we later learned, in demonstrations across the country...

...We are living in a fool's paradise, conjuring up a "prosperity" as phony as a three-dollar bill...

...Today the need to understand this ancient society is as great as ever...

...Sharing the humiliation, terror, guilt, and subsequent feeling of low self-esteem by talking about it is an important and expedient way of lessening the power these early traumatic sexual experiences hold for their victims...

...As long as the Right merely attacked the welfare state, give-away foreign-aid programs, and other liberal policies, it made little progress...

...How many are aware that torture is routinely used on thousands of men, women, and children in more than sixty countries...

...I've read about war, unemployment, pollution, homelessness, the arms race, undeclared wars, political corruption, givebacks, plant closings, slums, poverty, starvation, racism, family breakup, and dozens of other social problems...

...In discussing China's "opening-to-the-West" policy, which could just as well be called "learning from the West," Meisner somehow misconstrues it as a modern version of the exploitative Open Door policy of the semicolonial past...

...It built an attractive fantasy of America from a collection of popular myths...

...Our purpose in featuring such endorsements was to call first the booksellers' and then the public's attention to the importance of Dear America and to its uniqueness as a historical document...

...Such pessimism only encourages passivity and resignation among Americans of conscience...

...How long can even the emerging police state contain and sustain all this...

...Fortunately, there are principled leftist peace groups that have steadfastly refused to pander to Cold War politics—groups that truly represent the American peace majority and that have the greatest potential for leading a progressive, mass-based fight against the Pentagon's drive for first-strike nuclear superiority...

...Historically, despite the long debate, our perception of China has been faulty...

...After analyzing the Right—and a beautiful analysis it was—Judis should have punched some holes in the Right's armor...

...Charles Dunaway Jersey City, New Jersey John B. Judis's article concludes, "There will be a Right after Reagan...

...But if our response to the Soviet moratorium was not massive, consistent, and creative enough, this has more to do with the inherent difficulties of organizing a peace movement with hundreds of independent groups than with the reasons suggested by Gordon...

...The Right is on top because it has a clear vision of America and a coherent plan for realizing its vision...

...How many students at any grade level know about the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina...

...Meisner does note a few scattered beams of sunshine: "Hundreds of thousands" of political prisoners have been freed, "many of the more repressive and obscurantist orthodoxies in cultural and intellectual life have been denounced...

...That's a swell principle, but Newsweek] If I hadn't had the foresight to keep my subscription to The Progressive, I'd really be hurting for a magazine with ideas...

...freedom for artistic and intellectual expression...

...Dear America was a collaborative effort that originated with the New York ¦ Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Commission, established by Mayor Edward Koch in the fall of 1982...

...I believe political theory, important as it is for comprehension, can at times obscure reality...

...John W. Powell San Francisco, California Study War No More It was heartening to read Colman McCarthy's article about his peace courses, "Study War No More" (November issue...

...If her experiences were actual, one must have sympathy and compassion...

...But we did respond with enough vigor to win House passage of the Schroeder Bill cutting off funding for nuclear testing...

...The signs of inevitable disaster are clear and numerous...

...Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

...This dilly-dallying by middle-class liberal and social-democratic "peace" forces is rooted in their deep anti-communism and anti-Soviet-ism, as well as in their failure to locate the source of the arms race in the dynamics of U.S...

...Jacket blurbs are naturally meant to be neutered, but the other introductory baggage which I found offensive depoliticizes the war and, in effect, even justifies American aggression in Vietnam...

...It is difficult to determine exactly what Meisner wants China to do, but he is clearly opposed to most of the policies of the post-Mao leadership, which he sees as simultaneously opening the country to Western exploitation and moving the state toward Stalinism...

...I did object to the book's silly presentation, which I characterized (in a line that was, unfortunately, cut from the review) as "mawkish breast-beating of the type...

...I, too, was verbally and sexually abused, and I am finally beginning to tell the truth about my "normal" childhood...

...To put yourself into the heart of someone you'll never meet is one of the ways of peacemaking...

...I wonder whether Gordon did too much of her research in Washington...

...How long can we squander human and natural resources on a "product" we dare not use...

...And he could have concluded with something like this: "There will be a Right after Reagan if we are dumb enough, or apathetic enough, to permit it...

...To be a voice for those who have been silenced, to work to rescue them from prison cells and detention centers, is to play a vital role in the survival of humanity...

...Here are a few of the more obvious: How long can we bear the monstrous imbalance of trade...

...The efforts to professionalize the bureaucracy and reform the universities are seen as destroying the old egalitarian-ism and promoting elitism...

...Meisner's concern about individual freedom is certainly justified...

...Karon Mac Smith Nixon, Texas The Right After Reagan John B. Judis's forebodings of a long and firm continuation of the reactionary grip on our society should not be lightly dismissed ("The Right: Is There Life After Reagan?," October issue...

...imperialism...

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

...I had praise for the editor, Bernard Edelman—his selection and ordering of the material, his commentary throughout, and the book's value as an authentic documentary of the Vietnam war...

...But the position papers it churns out four or five times a week reflect the views of the crackpot wing of the Republican Party, and the people it places in the Administration are often crackpots in their own right...

...Until recently, I could not even bring myself to use the word "incest," thinking my situation wasn't serious enough because I was molested but not raped by my brother and father...

...The only negative note I struck was in reference to the book's packaging, which, as a Vietnam vet, I found "pretentious, ill-informed, and gratuitous...

...I want to thank you for your magazine...

...How many can describe the provisions of the U.N...

...I understand this gratuitous subscription is made available because Federal law stipulates that Government employees working overseas should have access to an un-censored (more or less) media outlet...

...Judging from the mood of the American people—as accurately as I can perceive it from my home in Central Africa—they could use a magazine with ideas, too...

...Donald E. Ash Lake Elsinore, California Iwas deeply moved by Bonnie Urfer's candid article...

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

...So, too, is his dismissal of endorsements from David Halberstam, Kurt Vonnegut, Pulitzer Prize-winner Peter Arnett, Sydney Schanberg, General Bruce Palmer Jr., and Joe Klein...

...All of these are effects of a social system that has outlived its usefulness...

...The Nineteenth Century Meiji Restoration ended feudalism in Japan and laid the basis of its emergence as a modern power...

...I hope you get an outpouring of testimony from those who had what I believe to be the truly normal experience of living amid loving and caring family members...

...When I first arrived here almost a year ago, I learned that I was entitled to receive—free of charge, mind you—Newsweek magazine...

...Michael Uhl Brooklyn, New York More Anti-Red Than Thou My first reaction on reading Suzanne Gordon's article "More Anti-Red Than Thou" (November issue) was, "That's not the peace movement I know...

...In Ohio, after the initial Soviet announcement, we had thousands of signs made up which read, Russia Stopped Testing, Why Don't We...

...It seems to be reduced to maintaining a defensive posture, attacking the programs and policies of the Right without offering palatable alternatives...

...But if we were all to believe this is the usual thing, even the slightest sign of affection or love for a child would become suspect...

...If China succeeds— and I suspect present-day Japan is closer to being a role model than either the West or the Soviet Union—it will profoundly affect our world...

...Name withheld New York, New York China's Wrong March With his article "The Wrong March: China Chooses Stalin's Way" (October issue), Maurice Meis-ner joins what is possibly the Western world's oldest single-subject debating society, whose beginnings go back at least to the time of Father Mateo Ricci, the Italian Jesuit who began his China mission in 1583...

...I agree with Gordon that the peace movement needs to find a reasonable way to address our country's blind anti-Sovietism...

...How many even know what the term "human rights" means...

...A reading of the complaints of Western businessmen would allay worries about resurgent foreign exploitation...

...Why should anyone choose this path when the mythical alternatives are so inviting...

...Every one of the problems I have mentioned can be traced to the outworn capitalist profit system...

...We owe it to our children and to ourselves to teach them that violence of any kind must never be tolerated...

...But to suggest that most children, particularly girls, have similar experiences is simply hyperbole...

...The Left has a legacy of failed programs, confused goals, and constant arguments over method...

...As a human-rights activist, I would like to suggest another area of study for his classes—an area not only compatible with peace studies but an integral part of them...

...I have found the best way to do this is through a women's talk group, led by a licensed social worker, called an "incest-survivors' group" (for that is what we are—survivors...

...That area is human rights...

...Please don't misunder^ stand me: I don't question that some children have had experiences like those she describes...

...But as the former paperback editor of the book, I found reviewer Michael Uhl's comments about Dear America's packaging condescending, ill-informed, and gratuitous...

...It seems more logical to examine the results of a policy before rushing to approve or disapprove on the basis of its presumed conformance with Maoist, Leninist, Stalinist, capitalist, or some other preferred ideology...