LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LETTERS to the Editor No Tears of Grief John Egerton's piece (October issue) on Girard, Kansas, where Appeal to Reason was published by Julius Wayland, paid appropriate tribute to that giant of...
...Should we sit out the election, give the White House to a Reagan clone, and suffer the nightmare of another Republican Administration...
...Betrayed itself is a betrayal of the people of rural America...
...You should be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys by the way the Far Right reacts to them...
...There is a difference, unless you believe that a depression is inevitable and that the Right deserves to have to handle it...
...We could vote for Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party or Eric Hass and the Socialist Labor Party or Barry Commoner and the Citizens Party...
...Edmund V. Bobrowicz Green Bay, Wisconsin Draft Horses and Mules Maybe Marty Strange and the Center for Rural Affairs are thinking boldly about farm technologies ("Getting Control of the Farm," September issue), but I was left with no hint that they are willing to cross the line into dangerous territory...
...There is such a thing as good media, and if you pick your reading material carefully you can learn a surprising amount...
...Jim Chojnacki West Hamlin, West Virginia Betrayed by Costa-Gavras Fascism and racism in the rural heartland of the United States are subjects far too serious and complex to have gotten the Hollywood treatment they received at the hands of Constantin Costa-Gavras in Betrayed...
...One such company has been the target of organized resistance by neighbors of its El Paso plant...
...And for the sake of brevity and dramatic impact, one can excuse even the distortions of the facts surrounding the actual events upon which the film's plot revolved...
...In the past we had other choices...
...What cannot be excused, however, is the overall misrepresentation of rural people that pervades the film...
...To his credit, Costa-Gavras set out to make a film that would inform a broad audience about the ultraright extremist groups that have become more active and visible in the heartland during the hard times of the Reagan years...
...As long as companies continue to generate toxic wastes, there will be a market for unsafe but cheap disposal methods...
...Ron Kroese Land Stewardship Project Stillwater, Minnesota Good Media and Bad Homayoon Moossavi did a good job of putting the reader inside his skin in "Teheran Calling" (The Last Word, August issue...
...Without exception, the rural characters are portrayed either as sugar-coated psychopaths—polite and charming country-folk during the day, vicious racists at night— or as cowards afraid to stand up to the intolerance and wickedness lurking just beneath the surface of their community...
...Bob Silk New York, New York The Hollow Men After studying your editorial, "The Hollow Men" (Comment, September issue), I am undecided about whether to support Harold Stassen, George Wallace, or Eugene V. Debs...
...I wish he had said "mainstream media" or "most media," because LA Weekly made the story of that tragic death its cover story...
...When the fascist protagonists in the film aren't out robbing and killing, they appear to have it pretty good...
...R. Jay Allain Northampton, Massachusetts In Massachusetts, we know most of the warts on Michael Dukakis, and as a Texan I know much about Lloyd Bentsen...
...LETTERS to the Editor No Tears of Grief John Egerton's piece (October issue) on Girard, Kansas, where Appeal to Reason was published by Julius Wayland, paid appropriate tribute to that giant of his times...
...My candidate on Election Day will be a write-in...
...For that to occur, the Left will have to step up its educating and agitating...
...In addition to the situation described in the article, we've also seen new companies spring up on the U.S...
...Absent from Betrayed is any mention of the brave rural citizens who have actively opposed racist hatemongers, at times imperiling their own lives in the process...
...One of the messages Costa-Gavras purportedly wanted moviegoers to take with them from Betrayed is that there is a small but dangerous bunch of violent fascists in this country that we must recognize and guard against...
...Who and what party offers us a choice today...
...Dukakis is a moderate liberal of high intelligence and integrity, and he is definitely superior to George Bush...
...toxics in the Third World...
...Nor is there any analysis of the economic policies that brought on the bleak times in farm country and made it a target for radical-right hate groups...
...Lloyd Bentsen, the Democratic candidate for Vice President, will not...
...The basis of modern (i.e., destructive) agriculture is the tractor, and it is taboo to suggest replacing this petroleum-based technology with a solar one, namely draft horses and mules, and go "back" to a technology that many present-day farmers find quite acceptable...
...I take issue with only one remark: He said that when an Iranian burned himself to death in Los Angeles, "the media paid little attention...
...But in our bashing of the candidate, we would do well to consider the alternative as well as the low level of political debate on the critical issues facing us...
...Hervey M. Richardson St...
...In past general elections, I always voted for the lesser of two evils—the Democrat...
...Though he lacks the dangerous but appealing charisma of Ronald Reagan, he is more intelligent...
...Another is that each of us should be aware of the light and dark sides of our own natures and our own vulnerabilities to hate-mongers, especially in times of economic stress...
...He is not my ideal candidate...
...All I'm trying to do is keep the world from getting worse than it is—and still I'm losing...
...All right, the man is terribly centrist in many ways...
...No American filmmaker had bothered, or had the nerve, to tackle the subject...
...My vote will not be wasted that way again...
...The story under the headline quotes Bentsen: "Not only has the maquiladora industry put some 300,000 persons to work in Mexico, it has caused creation of 18,000 new jobs on the U.S...
...companies in Mexico to bring their toxics back to this country...
...border...
...I voted for Jesse Jackson in the Illinois primary because he was the only candidate who came close to articulating a vision of America that I could support...
...If we cannot have cream, we must settle for milk...
...Will Collette Citizen's Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes, Inc...
...She simply said, "We shed no tears of grief...
...Obviously, George Bush is unpalatable...
...Diana Claitor Austin, Texas The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...Thomas Lamberty Villa Park, Illinois Dump at the Border Jane Juffer's "Dump at the Border" (October issue) is an excellent expose of a little-known problem closely related to the emerging scandal of U.S...
...When asked by residents why they chose to operate such a dangerous facility right in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood, officials of the company accused residents of being ignorant because they failed to read a legal notice in the local newspaper, and dismissed the risks...
...There are many publications which attempt to do more than follow the herd, and they deserve acknowledgment...
...Cold War thinking, foreign interventions (albeit on a more selective basis), and a continuing slide into an entrenched two-tier economy pitting the haves against the have-nots would probably anchor a Dukakis Administration...
...Paul Deats West Newton, Massachusetts Iagree with most of your criticism of Michael Dukakis, but the question remains: What do we do on Election Day...
...However, neither my ideal candidate nor yours could carry a single state in this year's Presidential election...
...We disagree on many issues...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...Unfortunately, the message that comes through loudest in Betrayed is that rural people are bigoted Bible-thumpers— violent, misguided, stupid, and cowardly...
...Claudia Dreifus (like most of the critics whose reviews I've read) ignored the film's glaring flaws in her interview with Costa-Gavras (September issue...
...A headline in the San Diego Union announces, Bentsen States Support for -Maquiladoras...
...Arlington, Virginia Jane Juffer's article about toxic dumping by maquila-doras will help the good fight...
...For example, the fascists who murdered radio talk show host Alan Berg were not, in fact, disenfranchised farmers...
...side of the Mexican border to cash in on the 1987 treaty that requires U.S...
...It is to hold aloft a standard of perfection that offers no guidance in the daily choices we have to make between evil and less evil...
...One can only imagine how much stronger the film would have been, for example, had Costa-Gavras chosen to weave in the true story of the Idaho minister who led his community in peaceful opposition to the hate groups and had his house torched by the rightist terrorists as a result...
...But to equate Dukakis and Bentsen to George Bush and J. Dan-forth Quayle is absurd...
...I have reached the point in my life where I am no longer trying to save the world...
...As we conduct our critique of Dukakis, let's recognize that competence and a respect for law are genuine qualities, even though they are, in themselves, unlikely to transform the country...
...Typically, they set up shop in low-income Chicano neighborhoods and "process" these wastes, usually without the knowledge and consent of their neighbors...
...In my state, I know that if the Richmond Times-Dispatch comes out against a candidate, that is the one I should vote for...
...The only sensible answer is a broad policy of waste reduction, if not elimination...
...Do we sit on our hands and let the Far Right continue to rule for the next quarter of a century...
...The film also fails to give a real picture of the poverty and despair the farm crisis has generated in much of rural America...
...grief is for the naked lives of those who have made the world no better...
...His former guidance of the CIA and his murky role in the Iran-contra debacle signal a candidate who could, if elected, shred the last vestiges of democracy...
...George E. Delaney Chelsea, Massachusetts Once again, "None of the Above" is not a choice on the ballot...
...The most fitting epitaph on Wayland's death, as recorded in Ray Ginger's biography of Eugene V. Debs, The Bending Cross, was pronounced by Kate Richards O'Hare in a telegram to Wayland's son...
...Harold Flincker Cumberland, Virginia I must take exception to your harsh condemnation of Michael Dukakis...
...Dukakis is and will be better on health insurance, labor, Central America, and defense, to say nothing of court appointees...
...Besides, what other choice do liberals and progressives have...
...Most of us would not vote for the Communist Party or the Socialist Workers Party even if they weren't dying political anachronisms...
...While Costa-Gavras draws on actual events in recent history for verisimilitude, he overlooks significant events that would have presented a more accurate picture of rural America's response to the hate groups and probably would have made for a more believable and exciting movie, too...
...Paul, Minnesota Your editorial, "The Hollow Men," shares an important perspective on Michael Dukakis's lack of visionary zeal...
...Dukakis has had a liberal record as governor of Massachusetts, and the opposition regards him as a liberal...
Vol. 52 • November 1988 • No. 11
