LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
LETTERS to the Editor Against Gun Control The Progressive's September issue contained several items about gun control, including two articles in the Datelines section and a reference in Comment to...
...This is what everything else depends on if we are to restore our sick society to good health...
...The correct figure is $300 million...
...Come off it...
...They maintained a high state of alert for what were described as "threats of terrorism" from North Korea and from "radical students...
...I believe people should be free to defend themselves in whatever manner they choose, including with handguns...
...Look at the fantasy-purveying rock- and movie-star-worshipping mags and scandal sheets on the checkout stand of your local supermarket (Elvis's Statue on Mars...
...This country has an inordinately high proportion of boobs...
...You cleared the air with the kind of articulate passion I've always admired in The Progressive...
...LETTERS to the Editor Against Gun Control The Progressive's September issue contained several items about gun control, including two articles in the Datelines section and a reference in Comment to Lloyd Bentsen's opposition to gun-control legislation...
...How about the growing number of believers in astrology and so-called creationism...
...Consider the millions of our fellow citizens who shower big bucks on rabid television evangelists—all of this during the waning years of our enlightened Twentieth Century...
...Robert B. Hall Lakewood, Colorado The Deep Ecologists I am compelled to respond to one of the assertions in "The New Environmentalists," by Robert Gottlieb and Helen Ingram (Reflections, August issue...
...They most decidedly do not deal "exclusively with nature...
...Want evidence...
...You shouldn't be...
...They are told by their bosses that their sacrifices will pay off some day in the form of an easier and better material existence for themselves and their families...
...I have been working in the deep ecology movements now for a number of years, both in Japan and in the United States...
...Want more evidence...
...This is, essentially, what British and American workers were told in the Nineteenth Century, and what Soviet workers were told during the first Five-Year Plan of the early 1930s...
...Haven't you figured it out yet...
...The fact that most people are unarmed makes the police much more likely to harass people than they would be if they knew people had the means to defend themselves...
...Should anyone wonder at the success of flag-wavers, pro-gun superpatriots, and sanctimonious hypocrites...
...The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...The authors write critically of Earth First...
...Many people, including individualists and anarchists like me, oppose both gun control and the right-wing politicians who may also oppose gun control...
...All of these items were critical of gun-control opponents, even going so far as to compare Bentsen's stand on gun-control to his support for the MX missile...
...It is Earth First...
...This is totally mistaken...
...They claim that these groups "have reinforced the notion of environ-mentalism as a movement that deals exclusively with nature, not with problems of industrialization and urbanization...
...It is unwise to rely on the police instead of oneself...
...and various other advocates of "deep ecology" or "bio-regionalism...
...Seoul turned into an armed camp during the games...
...Trade unionism and political democracy take a back seat during this "temporary" process of primitive capital-accumulation...
...According to news reports, perhaps as many as 120,000 heavily armed and highly trained police and security guards ringed the Olympic site...
...and the other advocates of deep ecology and bioregionalism who have been most critical of industrialization and urbanization, as well as exploitation and overpopulation...
...Although I oppose Bentsen and many other authoritarians who happen to oppose gun control, I am equally opposed to authoritarian efforts to ban handguns...
...It is unwise to imply, as The Progressive does, that all opponents of gun prohibition are right-wingers and dupes of the National Rifle Association...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...I would feel much safer with a handgun to defend myself than I would with more police on the streets...
...The South Korean army tries to keep the lid of repression clamped down tightly until such time as a "mature" capitalism will allow it to be released...
...Look at the top-rated television shows—sitcoms, cops-and-robbers shoot-'em-ups, game shows, and other noxious cacti flourishing in the vast wasteland...
...David Anderson Decorah, Iowa You folks seem a little bemused by the success of George Bush's flag-waving, liberal-bashing campaign...
...Industrialization and urbanization, wherever and whenever they occur, appear to produce situations of great suffering for the workers...
...People would be much less likely to commit rape, robbery, murder, or other violent acts if they knew their intended victims were likely to be armed...
...Frank W. Goheen Camas, Washington Correction Because of an editing error in Nancy Knickerbocker's article, "Canada Settles an Old Debt" (November issue), the compensation paid by the Canadian government to Japanese-Canadians who were interned during and after World War II was misre-ported as $3 million (Canadian...
...Some of these 'deep ecologists,' moreover, totally divorce their concern about nature from any interest in easing the effects of human exploitation...
...Korean workers are being pushed mercilessly at very low wages to produce a great deal for export...
...Joe Peacott Boston, Massachusetts The Election of 1988 Many thanks for your editorial, "The Election of 1988" (Comment, November issue...
...The longer I live, the more I recognize the vital importance of civil liberties— to me and to all of us...
...And defending oneself against assault is much more efficient than relying on others, especially the police...
...Rick Davis Kofu, Japan Repression in South Korea South Korea put on an awesome display of police-state power during the recent Olympic Games in Seoul ("The South Korea Behind the Olympic Glitz," by William K. Tabb, November issue...
...The South Koreans are undergoing a process known as "primitive accumulation...
...The police have repeatedly demonstrated that they are unable and unwilling to defend individuals...
...In fact, armed police are responsible for much of the killing in this country (and around the world...
Vol. 52 • December 1988 • No. 12
