LETTERS
LETTERS to the Editor June Jordan Isn't Alone June Jordan's crusade ("Just Inside the Door," February issue) clearly deserves the warm support of people of good will everywhere. The Progressive...
...I have not seen them work on pay equity, domestic violence, the Equal Rights Amendment, or any other feminist issue...
...To be anti-choice is to deny women the protection of the Thirteenth Amendment, making them slaves of the State and of the fetus...
...It's an atrocious oxymoron...
...E.R...
...First, U.S...
...Downs notes that such UAW breakthroughs as cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) and pensions set the pace for the U.S...
...However, Jordan is not the only black woman holding down "a regular political column in a national publication," as she was quoted saying in the Editor's Memo...
...Robert Becker Baltimore, Maryland Union Blues In "Union Blues" (January issue), Peter Downs portrays the United Auto Workers under the leadership of the late Walter Reuther as a "proud example of union democracy...
...Conventions were often free-for-alls at which delegates vigorously debated—and sometimes rejected—the recommendations of President Walter Reuther and the union's International Executive Board...
...Since Howard Zinn has a voice and a vote in the United States, he should limit his conjectures to subjects in which he has both knowledge and a smattering of influence...
...Sadly, this is the kind of "falsification of history" for which Downs criticizes the current leadership of the UAW...
...there is no such thing as an anti-choice feminist...
...Eugene Werntz Friday Harbor, Washington Massacre in Mozambique In "Massacre in Mozambique" (December issue), Steve Askin reports that the Reagan Administration's State Department has taken "an unambiguous anti-RENAMO position...
...I saw much petty bureaucracy, as I do at home...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...The Progressive recognizes its acquisition of this classically moving and powerful writer as a first-class coup, and that's as it should be...
...Second, and more insidiously, the State Department's show of compassion for RENAMO's victims is an utterly cynical attempt to legitimize the war crimes the Government sponsors on a grand scale in furtherance of "U.S...
...I have seen them show up at conventions of the National Organization for Women and tell the assembly that we're all murderers— and then repeat their act for the cameras inevitably waiting outside...
...But there is a crucial connection between internal democracy and contractual gains...
...I found it neither a socialist paradise nor a hellhole...
...The censorship of Searchlight has been kept secret, as has, even more so, the fearless battle of rank-and-file members in Flint against union officials who would not respect local autonomy...
...I saw a shortage of consumer goods (not famine), which can be attributed mainly to the Cold War...
...Gloria Watkins, with her bimonthly column, "Sisters of the Yam," in Zeta magazine...
...Lisa Small Franklin Park, Illinois Bashing the Soviets I take deep umbrage at Howard Zinn's Soviet-bashing ("A Murderous Word," Reflections, February issue...
...I give you Bell Hooks, a.k.a...
...Power to 'em...
...In 1950, the International Executive Board ordered the editors of Searchlight to curtail their criticism, which was labeled "anti-union practices...
...This is not hard to understand, and has little to do with RENA-MO's atrocities, which are no worse than the ones in Central America and elsewhere that are eagerly supported by the U.S...
...Jordan's call for "a properly raucous, a finally democratic multitude" speaks to the great need of our time for a solidified Left—a newly invented, responsible opposition and implacable foe of that soggy, "bipartisan" elite known so well to readers of Noam Chomsky as the Business Party...
...I have, in fact, seen persons who call themselves "pro-life feminists," but the only thing I have seen them do is disrupt gatherings of genuine feminists...
...The one thing that was clearly evident was the fact that the people were well clothed, well housed, and apparently well fed...
...The Board insisted that union decisions were to be made behind closed doors, not in open debate...
...Ronda Hauben Dearborn, Michigan Pro-Life Feminists I must object to Danny Duncan Collum's careless use of the term "pro-life feminist" in his article, "Doing the Lord's Work" (February issue...
...Moork Seattle, Washington The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...interests...
...He writes, "Members took an active role in union affairs...
...To take us back to the "democracy" of the Reuther years is only to help stifle rank-and-file dissent...
...Once Reuther consolidated his control over the International Executive Board in 1947, he set out to curtail local union democracy and autonomy by censoring the local union press, particularly Searchlight, the newspaper of the Chevrolet Flint sit-down strikers...
...I saw a nation that, in seventy short years, has elevated itself from a backward agrarian economy to one of the world's leading industrial countries...
...According to her Zeta biography, Hooks teaches Afro-American studies at Oberlin College and is the author of three books—Ain 't I a Woman, Feminist Theory from Margin to Center, and, just off the press, Talking Back, all published by South End Press...
...In papers like Searchlight, rank-and-file members criticized Reuther's opposition to COLA in 1947-1948, and they ridiculed the inadequacy of the first pension plan Reuther negotiated at Ford...
...So, for June, here is a sister, Bell...
...I have traveled to the Soviet Union twice...
...Then he adds that the UAW "also seemed to be a proud example of union democracy...
...labor movement...
...policymakers are slowly learning to reconcile themselves to the fact that there are limits beyond which the empire's tentacles cannot feasibly be extended...
...On the other hand, I saw demonstrations in the cause of world peace...
...Government...
...I am sure that the capitalist system can produce enough of this tripe for our consumption...
...Because of such criticism, the UAW leadership was forced to press for gains it otherwise wouldn't even have sought...
...All right...
Vol. 53 • March 1989 • No. 3
