LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

...Only as we regain our own power and humanity will we be able to forge a truly livable society...

...Tom Tschumper Houston, Minnesota Molly Ivins is living proof that in this nation of somber, muddled and befuddled, dull, long-winded columnists, there still can be heard a voice of wit, whimsy, insight, guts, clairvoyance, imagination, and genius...

...It is argued, for example, that this amendment really applies only to the National Guard and police...

...The Second Amendment is clear, short, and to the point, and is thus rarely quoted by gun-control advocates...

...After giving birth, the mother is immobilized in an "iron maiden" to keep her from rolling over and crushing the suckling pigs in the small space allotted to them...

...I suspect that most NRA members neither own nor desire to own plastic guns (nor machine guns, nor teflon-coated bullets...

...The process begins when the sow is impregnated on what the "farmers" jokingly call a "rape rack...

...Research should be oriented toward finding mental patients who can be rehabilitated as psychiatrists, social workers, or researchers...

...Even in Charles Isenhart's enlightening article about plans to build a pork processing plant near Manchester, Iowa ("Hog Heaven or Hell," Datelines, October issue), one fundamental question was not asked: What about the animals...

...Joel S. Davis Albuquerque, New Mexico What About the Animals...

...Are we not all complicit in the recent growth of the prison population, since we have failed to challenge the "Lock 'em Up" mentality...

...The deficit, it seems, is not so much in the funding as in the research, which is based on the presumption that psychiatrists and psy-chotics are separate and distinct, as if the doctor were automatically immune from the disease—a fallacy that can cause serious problems for psychiatrists as well as for their patients...

...You are wrong when you say that the place for peace activism is outside the Capitol and outside the White House...

...Bravo...

...This is the way pigs are treated wherever they are "produced" on a mass scale...

...Every new gun-control or pornography-control law makes more control—less freedom—easier and easier to legislate...

...The newspapers did establish a policy—long before the mining issue ever surfaced in the county—which limits any letter to the editor once a political candidate has officially declared his or her candidacy or once an issue has become an official referendum item...

...Beyond front-page opinion pieces, the editorial page repeatedly denounced the moratorium, and in the effort to shift focus from the issue to personalities, even stooped to questioning the honesty of moratorium leaders...

...And the Seaton Publishing newspapers repeatedly conveyed without challenge the false industry line that the moratorium, which addressed only surface mining, was aimed at stopping all mining...

...It says "the people," period...

...Glenn Meagher Fairfax, California Plastic Pistol Packers You call the National Rifle Association a "flack" for weapon makers and suggest that the NRA's "reasonable argument" against the Metz-enbaum bill banning plastic guns is the $70 million available to the NRA political-action committee ("Plastic Pistol Packers," Comment, December issue...

...Since inmates are marginalized individuals who have little say about how they are treated, those of us who have more access to power should speak up...

...It was one of the best commentaries I have seen in the non-gay, nonlesbian press about the death of a person with AIDS...

...Gerald X. Fitzgerald El Paso, Texas Open Secret Iwas moved by Wendy Schwartz's "The Secret that Could Not Be Kept" (The Last Word, October issue...

...Kenneth J. Epstein Chicago, Illinois Vile Beyond Words Inotice that in your remarks on the execution of Willie Watson ("Death Before Breakfast," Comment, November issue) you said nothing about the crime he committed...

...However, gains must be made whenever the opportunity arises...

...They stand on constitutional principle because, when it comes to the Bill of Rights, any of those liberties can be whittled away all too easily, and always starting with their least popular exercise...

...That fallacy is casually, though definitely, made apparent in the penultimate paragraph of Laurie Udes-ky's incisive article: "It's time that lawmakers in California and elsewhere create a voluntary job-training program and jobs to go with it...

...In an editor's note, my story was attacked as "extremely biased and factually incorrect...

...Leslie Deering Anderson Spearfish, South Dakota Iam writing to point out a gross error in Jerry W. Wilson's "More Precious Than Gold" (Datelines, November issue), in which he mournfully depicts the plight of a handful of individuals deeply embattled against an onslaught of corporate "land-raping" gold-mining companies...

...Individuals with acute psychological problems can hardly be expected to improve within the prison setting, as Wax points out, but what about the mental-health needs of the nonpsychotic prison population...

...I urge the overzealous antimining groups to post bonds to support the families who will be left destitute if the moratorium should pass...

...So is the suggestion that people who read the Second Amendment and seek to hold the Government to it are simply "flacks" for weapon makers...

...Mike Friedman Champaign, Illinois Before We Cheer Samuel H. Day Jr...

...Paul L. Payne Cincinnati, Ohio Poisons from the Pentagon Back in my graduate-school days, I would have been happy to receive funding from the Government, and possibly I might have been tempted by the Pentagon...

...We do, because of this trust, make a strong effort to present all the facts all the time on each side of every issue...

...In brief, it seems to be stretching that Amendment a long way to argue that the words "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" somehow give the Government a mandate to infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms...

...He goes on to say the newspapers have even "stopped publishing letters from readers opposed to surface mining...

...Why would vast sums of money be shifted from civilian control to control by the Pentagon unless it were for military purposes...

...And it is an emotional issue—one that will be decided by the voters of Lawrence County through our traditional democratic process in the voting booth...

...Acruel hoax lies at the base of "workfare" and all the job and retraining programs about which we hear so much ("Workfare: It Isn't Fair and It Doesn't Work," December issue...

...Could it be that there is a deep-seated, subtle form of homophobia at work here...

...I've never seen an anti-gay story in The Progressive in all the years I've been reading it, but gay and lesbian issues certainly don't seem to be paid more than lip service in the nongay, nonlesbian left press...

...An issue as socially and environmentally important as open-pit mining and heap-leaching deserves balanced coverage and broad public debate...

...I am not a member of the NRA or any other organization that lobbies for firearm ownership, nor do I own a firearm, but it is clear to me that the NRA has made its arguments so many times that there is little basis for your implied accusation...

...But where has the coverage of AIDS issues been in the pages of your magazine, not to mention other issues of concern to gay and lesbian people...

...willingly surrender principle and power" ("A Peace of the Action," Comment, November issue...

...In These Times and The Nation seem to have the same problem...

...Knowing this, gun-control advocates would like to join with Congress and the Supreme Court to maintain a fiction: to pretend (with the steel-fisted force of law) that the words of the Second Amendment say something they obviously do not...

...is correct when he points out that the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty covers only a small portion of our nuclear missiles, but they are still the most important missiles to get rid of ("Before We Cheer," Reflections, November issue...

...Then, through organization and creativity (and perhaps even a bit of humility), we can succeed...

...Those opposed to mining have sidestepped the issue of massive unemployment and instant poverty that would be foisted on families here should the moratorium pass...

...Did you ever hear of a librarians' union...

...It is up to the peace community and the progressive community in general to ensure that the INF talks serve as a foundation for further agreements...

...It's refreshing to read articles that truly face the problems other publications sidestep...

...Mining in the Black Hills of South Dakota is not only the backbone of our economic lives locally, but also serves to provide economic support for the entire state...

...We all start nervously at our own shadows...

...no qualifiers...

...LETTERS to the Editor Terrified Librarians As a retired librarian, I am compelled to add pusillanimous collectors and guardians of the book to your list of those who lack the guts to resist the police state ("Scoundrel Time Again," Editor's Memo, December issue...

...The great bulk of the nation's librarians live in mortal terror of controversy and will quietly, if not gladly, step aside at the flash of a badge...

...Seaton Publishing Company does own the three major newspapers in Lawrence County, and because of this must guard carefully its position of trust and respect of all local residents...

...Good jobs, bad jobs, any kind of jobs just aren't there...

...H. William Eisnaugle Lindenwold, New Jersey Ibelieve The Progressive is grossly mistaken when it asserts that peace groups working to ensure completion of an INF treaty will, "in exchange for the slenderest piece of the action...

...The money earned from Homestake and other mining companies feeds, clothes, and houses us...

...That is certainly a challenging proposition, but we must not shrink from the challenge simply because we might not succeed...

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

...Such arguments fail on two counts...

...R. Jay Allain Northampton, Massachusetts lack Wax suggests that the J criminal treatment of mentally ill jail inmates can be corrected by transferring them to hospitals, but unfortunately it's not necessarily so...

...Thomas R. Lehker Ann Arbor, Michigan Where Are the Jobs...

...The Pershing II missiles are probably the most destabilizing in our arsenal...

...Good treatment depends on good research, which is plagued by lack of funds and yet never improved by any amount of funding...

...What we have, instead, is a difference in point of view...

...Until ex-patients take over the mental-health system, the patients will remain in the hospitals, the jails, or the gutters, because they will never get good treatment from elite doctors who look down on them as inferiors...

...Since August 26, 1987, when surface-mining moratorium referendum petitions were filed with the Lawrence County Commission, we have not published letters from any person or organization, pro or con, regarding an issue which is now officially up to the voters of Lawrence County...

...The inherent fallacy is the assumption that there are real jobs out there in our real world...

...Bryan Wright Areata, California More Precious Than Gold Iam compelled to respond to Jerry Wilson's article, "More Precious Than Gold" (Datelines, November issue...

...muddies water...

...While the INF treaty doesn't go very far, it is more than a step in the right direction...

...Government police and armed forces have never needed constitutional protection to bear firearms...

...This is not just a problem with The Progressive, much of the left press in this country seems to find it quite convenient to ignore gay and lesbian issues...

...Emphasis added...

...I think I'm smart enough to detect the difference...

...The NRA has always defended unpopular firearms issues such as plastic guns for the same reason that national press associations defend the right of seedy publishers to print pornography...

...I have a suggestion for those opposed to open-pit mining in the Black Hills: The mining companies are, under law, compelled to post bonds to assure reclamation of the land upon completion of a mining job...

...Even the phony official statistics refute the comfortable rationale that all that's needed is for the bums to shape up one way or another...

...Second, even if the "militia" connection is accepted, militia does not mean the National Guard or police...

...Though the meaning would seem to be quite clear, there's plenty of controversy...

...I must protest—loudly...

...Since they are so fast and so close to the Soviet Union, they put the Soviets under pressure to adopt a "launch on warning" policy...

...I'm not sure I could have swallowed the idea that research that could be converted to warfare was really basic research to advance human welfare...

...If we're going to eliminate 3 or 4 per cent of the nuclear weapons in the world, why not eliminate the worst first...

...The pigs spend their existence almost entirely indoors, seeing daylight only when they are transported for slaughter...

...The place for peace activism is every place...

...The researchers quoted by Seth Shulman ("Poisons from the Pentagon," November issue) are trying either to kid themselves or to kid the public...

...Larry A. Weiers Managing Editor Seaton Publishing Company Lead, South Dakota The author replies: On election morning, October 20, Seaton Publishing Company's Lawrence County newspapers published Larry Weiers's letter to The Progressive under the headline Leftist 'rag' confuses issue...

...Suggesting that the only reason in the NRA arguments is the money the organization offers is mighty low...

...To add insult to injury— not to mention the possibility of slander and libel—Wilson wrongly describes the "county's three major newspapers, all owned by Seaton Publishing Company," as "covering the issues strictly from the [mining] industry's point of view...

...Especially in near-monopoly situations like that enjoyed by the Seaton newspapers in Lawrence County, isn't there a responsibility to let the rest of the public have a voice...

...The INF treaty will not be an end-all cure for the arms race...

...But in a lengthy meeting with Weiers and Publisher Jim Stephens three days later, they failed to specify a single factual inaccuracy...

...The ground-based cruise missile is clearly a first-strike weapon and, in combination with the Pershing II, constitutes a powerful threat to the Soviets...

...Obviously, the author was shaken and saddened by the hopelessness and homophobia that forced her friend to lie about his personal life...

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

...Many Lawrence County families are supported by the mining industry...

...It reads: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed...

...Jerry W. Wilson Vermillion, South Dakota Criminal Treatment iack Wax's revealing article about the incarceration of le mentally ill ("Criminal Treatment," October issue) brings an underpublicized dilemma to popular scrutiny...

...The dictionary defines militia as a citizen army, as distinct from professional soldiers, and as the armed citizenry, as distinct from the regular army...

...As a resident of Lawrence County and wife of a Home-stake employee, I take issue with this one-sided anti-mining diatribe...

...Older dictionaries are even more definite: militia refers to armed bodies of ordinary citizens...

...It is, in fact, a hard question...

...only ordinary citizens do...

...We can make the INF treaty a platform on which to stand for further agreements, regardless of what the Reagan Administration plans...

...Over the last two centuries, the Second Amendment has stood as it was written, without change or repeal, and enough support to change it is nowhere in sight, despite challenges based on machine guns, hand guns (plastic and otherwise), teflon bullets, and the like...

...Wouldn't many inmates benefit from some counseling, or at least more frequent human contact...

...Malcolm McQuarrie Oakland, California Fan Mail The Progressive is to be commended,for its straightforwardness and clarity...

...For the information of your readers, a majority of our area residents are, in fact, very much in favor of allowing mining ventures to begin production...

...Those of us employed by mining are fighting for our survival...

...The defeat of the surface-mining moratorium on October 20 was to no small degree the result of Seaton's editorial opposition and biased news coverage and to the 7-to-1 spending ratio the mining companies held over public-interest groups...

...Finally, Seaton Publishing Company's letters-to-the-edi-tors policy severely restricts public debate by leaving only two voices in the community—the newspapers' voice and the voice of those who have the money to buy advertising space...

...The conditions that prevail in our penal institutions—and the societal attitudes that cast so many people into them—are intolerable...

...Prior to that date, the newspapers gladly published all letters concerning the issue...

...Without minimizing the scope of the problem, I would like to raise some related issues...

...Many large corporations involved in factory farming put their "product" through agonizing torture from birth to death...

...Running an eight-part series of non-news stories presenting the unquestioned views of mining officials and other moratorium opponents is not good reporting...

...Was this because it was "vile beyond words...

...First, the amendment doesn't specify people who are members of government-sponsored armed forces...