LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

...moves for parole hearings have already started...

...But what is most frightening is Gitlin's powerful insistence that the space-age future depicted in commercials is "postnature...

...While I do not doubt Kathy Ruben's predicament, Hart's superficial treatment, incorrect focus, and lack of global analysis have produced a result that I doubt you intended...

...I can strongly confirm the general tenor of Steven Donziger's report and congratulate him on it...

...There are several serious problems with Hart's article: First, she expresses no concern for the fact that millions of people—adults, adolescents, and young children, in New Jersey (which has the highest per-capita cancer rate in the United States) and many other areas—are continuously exposed to high levels of dangerous chemicals produced with the corrupt sanction of such Federal agencies as the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency...

...Blacks must be responsible for uplifting themselves, bootstraps or no, because no one else will do it—or even can do it—for them...

...They have access to books, magazines, radio, and television...

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

...And William Perrin, whom Donziger quotes as defending Peter Tonti's arrangement, was country director for the Peace Corps when Tonti's assignment was worked out...

...I don't believe that he pirates television signals...

...The Schneller argument comes too close to endorsing the conservative perspective on black group-advancement...

...Is the education the volunteers receive during their service— the only obvious and important result of their experience—worth the money, or could it be acquired more economically and more sensibly...

...The Lovin-goods, who succeeded Perrin, should not be blamed for that particular folly...

...But certainly The New York Times (Tom Wicker especially), The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post (Lou Cannon especially), The St...

...The Progressive becomes an unwitting partner of the formula industry when it publishes articles like "Is Mother's Milk Safe...

...That's pretty deep Green ecology for The Progressive...

...Though the problem of environmental contamination continues to worsen nationwide, there are many communities in which a mother can produce safe breast milk containing no trace of dioxin and acceptably low levels of other contaminants...

...I'm already having nightmares about it...

...The Left's job is not merely to take over the industrial infrastructure and run it on egalitarian principles...

...The Left has, of course, long been antagonistic toward advertising, mindless consumerism, and industry in its capitalist formation...

...When black South Africans take up arms, they are not merely issuing a cry for liberty...

...Anaya claimed that those of us who support the death penalty "have lowered ourselves...

...It seems to me that an eminently pragmatic and credible response to the crises in the black community is to expect blacks to "do it" themselves...

...As anyone who has actually spent any time in Britain knows, the British view their imperial past (and their current relationship to their superpower ally) through a complex of ambivalent emotions, but "guilt" does not figure noticeably among them...

...To ask generations of blacks to wait, perhaps entirely in vain, for the Rainbow (or any other) Coalition to realize its agenda is to condemn these generations to the miserable poverty and discrimination we see today...

...Edward P. Morgan McLean, Virginia Transcending Nature Todd Gitlin's "The Lone Driver Rides Again" (February issue) is an exceptionally provocative essay on how advertising aligns a product "with a going ideological trend" and crystallizes a "pattern out of the soup of popular moods and dispositions...

...March issue) totally missed the true nature of the problem...

...I don't expect everyone to agree that national service is a good idea, but I do expect the Left to accept the proposition that each of us owes something to our nation— that is, to each other...

...Anaya's Justice is based on cowardice and a callous disregard for the safety of New Mexicans other than his precious death-row inmates...

...standards, Arthur Hoare does not live like a wealthy man...

...Supplying such excuses aids the forces of racism, whether or not it is intended to do so...

...I doubt that many of us would choose to stand on that ground...

...Carolyn E. Campbell Tucson, Arizona The author replies: It is comforting to imagine that beyond New Jersey's borders the rivers are pristine and mothers' milk is free from environmental contaminants...

...The events of 1956 (Suez) and 1982 (Falklands) certainly don't suggest guilt, and the more recent panic of British elites over the disarmament proposals sounded at Reykjavik indicates that though Britain may be the junior partner in the postwar alliance, it is an enthusiastic and willing one...

...Citizens planning to breastfeed could simply vote with their feet and flock to these chemical-free states...

...I suggest that centuries of racial and economic injustice and decades of apartheid have corroded the spirit, blinding the eyes and deafening the ears to the suffering of the oppressors...

...She could easily have opened her article by saying, "Our environment has become so polluted that mothers have to worry about transmitting pollutants to their infants in their breast milk," and then proceeded to blame industry and government for allowing our environment to become so dangerous...

...Anaya's Justice is based on lies, starting with a "promise" to New Mexicans that these killers "will never set foot in our society again...

...To regain the offensive, to resolve "the crisis of black politics," he prescribes "the development of multiclass, multiracial, progressive political structures"—in short, the line of the American Left since who knows when...

...Most major U.S...

...Thompson ("Let's Call It Quits," December issue), Thompson claims that though the British once had imperialist attitudes, this is something they have overcome and now "feel guilty about," in contrast to the nasty Americans who are attempting, unaccountably, to impose neo-colonialist policies on an enlightened but weakened Britain...

...He equates our moral standing with that of the murderers and murder-rapists on death row...

...Do all volunteers have to invent their jobs...

...Trace chemicals in breast milk do not kill infants in developing countries...

...A range of social problems—including illiteracy, teen-age pregnancy, and black-on-black crime-can be constructively addressed by nongovernmental organizations...

...The worst sins, I am ashamed to say, are committed by radio and television, where critical commentaries have virtually vanished...

...Douglas J. Schneller White Plains, New York The author replies: Douglas Schneller misses the central point of my article...

...Even death-row inmates get food, shelter, and periodic fresh air, sunshine, and exercise...

...We do not bury prisoners, even death-row prisoners, in dark holes...

...What Gitlin's article makes clear is that the hightech professional-managerial class wants to transcend nature: "Their ambitions are as unbounded, indeed celestial, as they are abstract: the earth and its well-trafficked roads are too mundane to hold them...

...Would you expect any victim of the Holocaust to cry because of the suffering of the Nazis or their supporters...

...Is the Belize situation representative of what happens when an overripe bureaucracy is in charge...

...We should let the public know when those exceptions are notable...

...The industry has been trying to make an issue of toxins in breast milk to increase formula sales...

...Timothy Noah Washington, D.C...

...If Knoll had written these words before I wrote my Washington Monthly article endorsing compulsory national service, I would have used them to illustrate the horribly selfish view of society that too many people hold today...

...Frederick Dolan Paris, France Is Mother's Milk Safe...

...But it may provide them with an excuse for failure: "No one expects anything better from you...

...While I find Marable's aims most desirable, his means strike me as problematic and, indeed, frightfully typical of the Left generally...

...To say to blacks, "You're being oppressed and discriminated against," is meaningless...

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

...It's heartening to see in "Washing the Rhine" (Comment, February issue) that the editors of The Progressive are clearly aware of the Left's responsibility: "Only when people begin to assess and debate the benefits and the costs of high-risk technology, only when they begin to evaluate the notions of perpetual growth, will we be able to make rational and humane decisions...

...When I suggested that he pirate "Sesame Street," he replied that he could not because of an agreement ("treaty," he said) with the United States...

...Louis Post-Dispatch, and several others have winged him...

...Any campaign that thoughtlessly induces mothers in these countries to formula-feed must take at least some responsibility for the consequences...

...Heaven knows—and I, for one, have said so repeatedly in my "In the Public Interest" radio commentaries—that we are not critical enough of Ronald Reagan...

...But should we substitute such self-improvement projects for political protest strategies designed to increase black power...

...they are engaging in self-defense...

...Michael P. Mehr Marshfield, Wisconsin Afew years ago, I spent some months in Belize as a Peace Corps volunteer...

...Personally, I am as worried about Kathy Ruben, her family, and the rest of her community as I am about her baby...

...chemical manufacturers (including the producer of Agent Orange and dioxin) are in New Jersey, and these corporations have made the state a near-disaster area...

...Toney Anaya's Justice The Progressive may support former Governor Toney Anaya in his decision to commute the death sentences of every convict on New Mexico's death row ("Score One for Life," Comment, February issue), but for many of us in New Mexico who are now stuck with these creatures, "Anaya's Justice" has become a term that will be a curse for years to come...

...mode...

...Hell is where these killers should be, but Anaya certainly did not send them there...

...As progressives, we must realize that the Government's failure to assume responsibility for the welfare of its citizens should in no way diminish the citizens' responsibility for their own welfare...

...Is that an insult to us, or is he exalting the killers...

...Do Third World governments always lie to the volunteers...

...It is not "conservative" to suggest that the individual accept responsibility for his life and do all in his power to improve his own lot as well as society's...

...He points to the progress the country has made with the Peace Corps...

...Such an opening and analysis would have focused the issue properly...

...Do they always use volunteers to avoid paying their citizens an appropriate salary...

...No one can doubt the necessity and viability of self-help programs within the black community...

...A couple of minor corrections: By U.S...

...The idea that America simply imposes neo-imperi-alistic policies on an unwilling, "postcolonial" Europe is hypnotically repeated (though perhaps not really believed) by many European leftists whose rhetoric, as in Thompson's case, is increasingly indistinguishable from simple nationalism, but it remains, largely, a self-serving and convenient rationalization for their own political weaknesses and failures...

...Unfortunately, unless the Federal regulatory agencies, the medical community, and promoters of breastfeeding like Carolyn Campbell acknowledge this problem, the health risks to our entire population posed by the chemical industry will continue unchecked...

...Claiming the authority of God just in time for Thanksgiving and just after the elections, Anaya rammed his religious fanaticism down the throat of New Mexico jurisprudence...

...Until there are political, social, and economic structures to promote and attain a progressive agenda of peace, cooperation, and compassion, no one else but the individual can give himself a chance...

...The argument about breast-milk toxins is similar to the rationale promoted by the infant-formula industry, which contends that malnourished women should not endure the metabolic cost of breastfeeding but should resort to feeding their infants with formula...

...While the news media need constant prodding by pointed and responsible criticism, the exceptions should not be tarred by the same brush...

...Hart's article implies that only infants are at risk...

...Kathleen Hart Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Matches and Necklaces Your editorial on the resistance to apartheid in South Africa ("Matches and Necklaces," Comment, March issue) concludes that "taking up arms corrodes the spirit, blinding the eyes and deafening the ears to the suffering of others...

...Kathleen Hart's "Is Mother's Milk Safe...

...It is his prescription for how to end the crisis that fails...

...diarrhea and its consequences, malnutrition and dehydration, caused by unhygieni-cally prepared formula and an unsanitary environment, are responsible for most of the infant and young-child mortality in the Third World...

...I wish your Comment had made that distinction...

...Some questions still haunt me: Is the Peace Corps in the same mess everywhere...

...The reality is that toxic chemicals now pervade not only the lakes, rivers, and soil...

...Now that the developed world, the World Health Organization, and other international institutions are promoting breastfeeding, the message is increasingly being received by health institutions and mothers in the Third World...

...The Progressive's authority and legitimacy will be used by the formula industry...

...The Left now faces the more demanding task of coming to grips with nature, and of figuring out how to conduct human economic activity without wrecking common culture...

...While prison is unpleasant, it is not Hell or anything close to it...

...Joel S. Davis Albuquerque, New Mexico Black Politics in Crisis Manning Marable's "Black Politics in Crisis" (January issue) did an excellent job of summarizing what has happened in the civil-rights movement over the last twenty years...

...Manning Marable West Lafayette, Indiana Peace Corps Follies What is Steven Donzi-ger's complaint about the Peace Corps in Belize ("Peace Corps Follies," March issue...

...He knew this was a lie...

...It is merely pragmatic...

...He knew this was also a lie...

...I hear they even have video games...

...to the very rabble we seek to rid ourselves of...

...they are in us—in our tissues, our organs, our bloodstream...

...Marable states that "unless the black freedom movement quickly regains its capacity to take the offensive against the Right, the entire American Left may be isolated in the political wilderness for a generation...

...Marable goes so far as to disparage Jesse Jackson's belief that "black Americans must begin to accept a larger share of responsibility for their lives" as a "Tuskegee-like response to racism...

...One hopes to see a lot more of it...

...Over the past fifteen years, the vast array of immunological, metabolic, and psychological advantages of breastfeeding have been elucidated...

...Why aren't former volunteers assigned as country directors...

...Paul Gilk Merrill, Wisconsin The Essence of Fascism Iwas stunned to see Erwin Knoll describe John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country" as "the essence of fascism" (Editor's Memo, January issue...

...Do all country directors live in the air-conditioned U.S...

...Always we are told that until structural changes occur in society (and often in the Democratic Party as well), progress is all but impossible...

...It seems to me that Belize offers an example of excellent adjustment by the Peace Corps to a country's needs rather than to Donziger's narrow notions...

...Anaya tried to defend his action by claiming that these criminals would be "in Hell" for the rest of their lives, that they would never see the light of day again...

...Pacifists must make a case for enduring— endlessly—the suffering and slaughter of one's family, friends, and nation...

...With respect to environmental toxins, New Jersey is the extreme case and is not representative of the entire United States...

...Anaya was too cowardly even to ask for permanent denial of parole in his commutation order...

...LETTERS to the Editor The Media and the Scandal Your editorial on the Iran/ contra arms scandal ("Sifting the Debris," Comment, February issue) treats the news media, of which you and I are a part, too roughly...

...But only recently, and still reluctantly, has the Left begun to appreciate nature in a manner distinguishable from capitalism and its technocratic science...

...So what if there was only a handful of television sets in Belize in 1979 and now half the households have them...

...After lies and cowardice, the third leg supporting Anaya's Justice is moral blindness...

...Nursing mothers are unwittingly and unwillingly passing on unknown amounts of dioxin, PCBs, and pesticides to our young...

...So what if the number of Peace Corps volunteers per capita is very high...

...However, it is better for both mother and infant to supplement a lac-tating mother with cheap, locally produced food than to promote a mode of feeding that is economically prohibitive to many of the Third World's poor and conducive to infantile diarrhea...

...There is no provision in New Mexico law for life imprisonment without parole and, contrary to your editorial, parole is not impossible or even necessarily far off...

...Does the Peace Corps always misrepresent itself...

...So what if Prime Minister Manuel Esquivel won the 1984 election by a wide margin...

...Second, Hart's analysis will persuade many women to formula-feed their babies when they can safely breastfeed them...

...he was more afraid of a legal challenge to the order than of the danger to the citizens he is sworn to protect when these killers hit the streets again...

...they already know it and live it every day...

...John Owen Salem, New York The Guilt of the British In Constance Matthiessen's interview with E.P...

...They enjoy fame, notoriety, and interviews with reporters...