Letters

...I admire Nat Hentoff s courage in writing and speaking out so forcefully in defense of such liberal ideas as free speech and academic freedom, and I commend the consistency of The Progressive in this matter...

...There is no such thing as, 'I've learned my lesson, you're safe from me, I can go home now.'" I coped with prison by hoping humanity would mutate to a higher form, and emerged afraid of ever returning...

...After all, we are still human beings and should be treated as such...

...This societal, constitutional, and legal principle of tolerance for the thoughts that majorities or other powers find repugnant squares perfectly with the psychotherapeutic principle that guides therapists to try to understand and appreciate what patients say, no matter how repugnant a particular statement might be...

...Ken Scholl Ionia, Michigan Thanks for not ignoring the cruelties inflicted "for the American people...

...Perhaps Scott Nearing put it best when he told Ammon Hennacy that once is enough for most people...

...Moreover, the fourteen Puerto Ricans and the Ohio 7 have all been convicted of violent crimes including bombings, planned bombings, and planned armed prison escapes...

...Our tax system—fuels and vehicle taxes, income taxes and residence deductions-might be revised to provide deterrents against the prevailing patterns that inflate energy requirements...

...I can testify to this because I am incarcerated by the Michigan Department of Corrections...

...If enough concerned individuals can be reached with the facts, perhaps these immoral practices can be stopped some day...

...Having then failed at armed prison breakouts, they are using First Amendment arguments to bust out of jail...

...Government and were captured and imprisoned...

...Before being sentenced to the prison camp at Oxford, Wisconsin, I spent part of my initial jail time at the Cass County Jail, where Bonnie's time and mine overlapped...

...Bonnie is no milktoast...

...Arthur Grey Seattle, Washington It's Honey that Matters Those who were appalled and dismayed, as I was, by the picture of electoral politics painted by Ed Garvey ("It's Money that Matters," March issue) should know there is an opportunity to act constructively for reform...

...Was Bobby Sands...

...A Staff Member Manas Box 32112 El Sereno Station Los Angeles, California 90032 Thank you for your generous praise of Labor...

...Too much thought control exists in this world, and it is tragic when much of it is found on the campuses...

...David A. Levin Hong Kong The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...

...By depicting the seditious conspiracy prosecutions of the FALN and Ohio 7 bombers as attacks on everyone's political thought, the National Campaign for Amnesty and Human Rights for Political Prisoners and The Progressive serve only to blur the central distinction upon which our civil liberties depend...

...Oscar Lopez Rivera Marion, Illinois The practices discussed in your May issue are found not only in the Federal institutions but at the state level, too...

...Some such prisoners abandon criminal attitudes and adopt progressive ones—and then repression is visited upon them...

...It is rare for any publication to devote so much space, time, effort, and thoughtfulness to the plight of prisoners—a plight that grows worse and worse while the number of imprisoned men and women escalates at an alarming rate...

...T.J...

...in Soviet history), and my outlook have made it difficult to find work...

...I remain very proud of my time in prison, but one does pay a price and there are other paths just as useful...

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

...provide for increased public financing, particularly for challengers' campaigns against incumbents, and ban the "soft money" practices George Bush and Michael Dukakis used illegally to raise funds for their Presidential campaigns...

...Too bad they also favor lower marginal income-tax rates which make such inducements less effective...

...In no country in the world is it lawful to engage in such activities...

...Irene Mock Nelson, British Columbia Murder Host Foul Beyond the problems mentioned in your editorial on capital punishment ("Murder Most Foul," Comment, May issue), another should be considered: The death penalty carries the unavoidable baggage of telling everyone that under certain circumstances, intentional killing is okay...

...Is Nelson Mandela a political prisoner...

...The U.S...

...Alternative-energy technology has been a subject of massive indifference and hostility at the White House for more than eight years...

...And transportation is the largest contributor to the build-up of greenhouse gases...

...Traffic congestion throughout urban areas in the United States, and increasingly in other countries, is symptomatic...

...Anthony Von der Muhll San Francisco, California War-Tax Resistance Thank you for publishing Andrea Ayvazian's article on war-tax resistance ("No Payment Enclosed," April issue...

...Perhaps, if people could listen to the convicts themselves tell their own stories, we could at last deal with the root causes of crime in this savage society...

...Sanctioned killing, with its cold, mechanical planning and enactment, is far worse than the possibly forgivable killing that stems from thoughtless emotion or psychosis...

...Isn't it ironic that many "liberals" are the unwitting allies of the forces of racism and reaction...

...Thomas A. Caffrey New York, New York I was saddened by Nat Hen-toffs account of the humiliation of Professor Murray Dolfman by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School...

...Thank you for publishing the article...

...Two bills now before Congress, HR 14 and SI37, would place limits on campaign spending...

...Louis Worth Jones San Mateo, California Nat Hentoff wrote a courageous article...

...Joshua Dressier Huntington Woods, Michigan Cruel Confinement Congratulations on the May issue of The Progressive, which contains four well-written and accurate accounts of conditions found in American confinement...

...Box 601, Station E, Victoria, BC V8W 2P3...

...This could be largely eliminated if the actual nature of the problem were acknowledged and we encouraged appropriate shifting of activities within metropolitan areas...

...John Jonik Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Deaths in the Family Thank you for your thoughtful comment on the end of Manas ("Deaths in the Family," Editor's Memo, March issue...

...Though the content of some notions that universities impose may be "correct," the more powerful covert message that the schools teach by imposing them is that the individual's rights are secondary in importance to the abstractions emanating from the university...

...Many people are imprisoned in the United States on charges similar to those for which they were put behind bars...

...This is too bad...

...Organizing, writing, litigating, distributing information are all punishable offenses, although they are allegedly protected rights...

...It is more tragic still that some persons on the Left are accessories to the crime or remain silent when it occurs...

...But not all of us can do as she does...

...Eve Shapiro Chicago, Illinois Of course there are political prisoners in the United States...

...My father, Ruben Levin, joined Labor in 1939 and was the editor from 1953 until he died in 1981...

...I don't know Bonnie Urfer, but I have offered to be her parole person...

...I've been virtually politically inactive since...

...Ross Marquis Rushville, Indiana Behavior Modification Your observations on the Alaska oil spill (" 'Human Error' Off Alaska," Comment, May issue) give surprising credence to a technological cure-all: "For the price we will all have to pay for clean-up and damage control, we could have moved a long way toward deployment of safe, sound, efficient energy alternatives...

...Some day, when I get out, I hope to work with others to address and eradicate the terrible injustice that goes on behind prison walls...

...Without the necessary support, the integration of prison into one's life and career plans, and strong spiritual beliefs and commitment to nonviolence, it could prove more damaging than worthwhile...

...It requires, at a minimum, participation in an actual plan to violently overthrow the Government...

...May issue), Nat Hentoff cites Oliver Wendell Holmes's attachment to "the principle of free thought—not free only for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate...

...They may be subjected to worse conditions of confinement, may have their sentences extended administratively, or may be given more time through the courts...

...For twelve years I have been a school janitor, the last in a long line of menial jobs...

...Jerry Zawada Oxford, Wisconsin Twenty years ago, I served a thirteen-month prison term for draft resistance at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary...

...Her endurance and outreach to other prisoners have inspired me to want to do likewise...

...Prison is a good place for us to be at this time...

...Tax inducements instead of regulation is a special pet of free-market economists...

...Urfer caught the soul-destroying essence of prison perfectly in her words, "Violence directed at prisoners...

...What's worse is that there is no leadership critical of the way we use energy...

...often exceeds the violence they may have inflicted on themselves or on others...

...There is also a supply of bound volumes from 1969 to 1988, priced at $8 each...

...Henry Geiger died on February 15...

...Bonnie Urfer has my deepest respect for her Plowshares action and for her article...

...They have argued that peaceful political dissent leads to political violence and, therefore, warrants Government surveillance...

...The behavioral issue is this: Few people live near where they work, so millions burn up fossil fuels in travel they find unpleasant...

...she's strong and generous amid great suffering...

...That attempt will fail...

...Rolan Ruoss Kodiak, Alaska I too am a war-tax resister, in Canada...

...My transport there by car with Federal marshals was of the same order, but far less horrendous, than the treatment of current prisoners described by Bonnie Urfer and Matthew Rothschild...

...Someone should inform Hentoff of Articles 19 and 29 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which state that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, but only with "respect for the rights and freedoms of others" and subject to the requirements of "morality, public order, and the general welfare in a democratic society...

...I would add that he was always a great admirer of The Progressive...

...Amnesty International seems peculiarly inclined to defer to the U.S...

...in the upper atmosphere...

...Unfortunately, this injustice and the failure of the "liberal" faculty and students to speak out against it are precisely what many Americans perceive as contemporary "liberalism...

...The FALN and the Ohio 7 engaged in armed struggle against the U.S...

...This injustice coincides with the threats of nuclear war and environmental destruction, with promotion of "low-intensity wars" and insidious meddling with the destinies of other nations, with our disregard for the homeless and poor and hungry...

...Lloyd K. Dennis El Verano, California Matthew Rothschild would have us believe that the fourteen Puerto Ricans convicted of seditious conspiracy and the Ohio 7 charged with that offense have been "prosecuted strictly for political 'thought crimes.'" Seditious conspiracy is not a "thought crime...

...Bill Dunne Marion, Illinois Thank you for the courage you showed by running the articles about prison life...

...He worked up to the end...

...So when she wrote that life at Lexington was almost unbearable for her, I knew she was telling the truth...

...Government will not prematurely release those convicted of violent crimes just because FALN and Ohio 7 supporters and some naive civil libertarians charge "political prisoners" and "thought crimes...

...Your acknowledgment of her efforts is gratefully received by the thousands who support her work...

...People of conscience will continue to go to prison, and some—like Helen Woodson— will become legendary, for they truly act and live free in jail...

...Garvey's article showed how badly these reforms are needed, even if they are only a first step toward salvaging what's left of our electoral system...

...Philip Brasfield Angleton, Texas Bonnie Urfer is both a friend and co-defendant of mine...

...put a cap on the amount of money a candidate can raise from political action committees...

...Perhaps when capitalism has completed the creation of a two-class system, when there are only haves and have-nots, and when the have-nots decide, "We ain't taking any more of this shit," things will change...

...Government...

...Furthermore, that effort will weaken our civil liberties...

...His devotion to Labor was an extension of his deep commitment to progressive causes...

...repression and control, negligence and mistreatment depend upon concealment...

...Some of the imprisoned pacifists and antinuclear demonstrators only inexplicably "do not fall within [their] guidelines as prisoners of conscience...

...Matthew Rothschild's article omitted one category of political prisoners: those who were incarcerated for an act that was not overtly political but who have been radicalized in prison...

...We appreciate your mention of the back issues still available...

...The existence of such prisoners needs to be recognized...

...If schools or organizations like the NAACP were to arrange field trips to county lockups or nearby state and Federal penitentiaries, people might be able to develop a more rational attitude toward crime and punishment...

...Canadians can obtain information and support for war-tax resistance from Conscience Canada, P.O...

...Paul Goldschmidt Johnson City, New York Let's hope that those who read The Progressive's articles on the plight of prisoners become more concerned about the abuses endured by people who are practically defenseless...

...Just as a therapist's empa-thetic understanding serves to bind therapeutic partnerships and thereby promote individual patients' progress, so the First Amendment serves, paradoxically, to bind our democratic society together and thereby promote the welfare of many individuals...

...Garvey's' key contribution was his observation that civil rights, peace, community, environmental, labor, women's, gay/lesbian, and other groups will con© brad holland tinue to suffer setbacks as long as we fail to deal with the crisis of our electoral system...

...Landon Hendersonville, Tennessee Nat Hentoff continues to parrot the monstrous absurdity that free speech encompasses the right to harass, taunt, slur, insult, and frighten certain of one's fellow Americans, often using anonymous, denigrative, and defamatory racist and sexist terms...

...For years, the American political spying agencies have been attempting to obscure the distinction between lawful political dissent and unlawful political violence...

...I can state without reservation that the conditions of confinement described by Bonnie Urfer, Linda Rocawich, and Matthew Rothschild exist not only in the Federal system but in every state, county, and town one might care to visit (though few on-site visits to local or county lockups would be welcomed or tolerated by the keepers of the keys...

...Hentoff is for freedom of ideas—aren't we all?—but acknowledges no difference between responsible utterances and those that are savagely irresponsible...

...From other inmates as well as from some guards, I learned that her adjustment there had been remarkable...

...The problem is more behavioral than technological...

...Unfortunately, the plight of prisoners and their families will remain unchanged— or grow worse—until we adopt radical alternatives to the law'n'order routine of locking 'em up and throwing away the keys...

...He is unable to distinguish between civil discourse and outrageous conduct subject to penalties in every orderly society...

...It can only strengthen our resolve to fight oppression on all fronts...

...In the early 1980s, when draft registration was reintroduced, I told potential resisters that going to jail should not be seen as the greatest good one could do...

...Though I have never served a day behind bars in the Federal prison system, my tenure behind the concertina wire and gun towers in Texas now elongates into its twelfth year...

...My felony, my "overeducation" (I have an M.A...

...Bob Jones Washington, D.C...