NEEDLEPOINT
Colescott, Warrington
NEEDLEPOINT* Warrington Colescott Goodbye and Godspeed Having lost three friends in the April 19 bombing of our Federal Building, I am deeply offended by public voices hinting that violence is a...
...It is particularly important to me that voices for progressive social change and environmental sustainability model the principles of nonviolence, and avoid vulgar "or-we-will-kill-you" messages...
...Nathaniel Batchelder Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Class Ceiling In "Portraits of a Life's Work" (Holly Metz, July issue), we are shown the evocative photography of Milton Rogovin...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...Rogovin shows us quaint, human, moody pictures of Americans at work and at home...
...NEEDLEPOINT* Warrington Colescott Goodbye and Godspeed Having lost three friends in the April 19 bombing of our Federal Building, I am deeply offended by public voices hinting that violence is a solution...
...Let's give the Post Office a real workout...
...We see the unposed visages of the steelworker, the miner, the grandparents with a baby...
...If he were truly capturing the more fundamental and technically more elusive images of care and pride and self, we would see it in the rich, middle, and poor...
...Colescott's July cartoon likewise stupidly imagines the source of all evil in "the other" by depicting as ugly idiots everyone engaged in military life...
...Steven Clark Washougal, Washington Clinton Cave t appears that President Clinton has all but abandoned any hopes of being reelected as a real Democrat (Comment, August issue), so it's about time for liberals to bombard the White House with letters objecting to his cave-ins...
...Something, however, is missing with all these pictures...
...Ray Nardin Franklin Park, Illinois The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...There are no white-collar workers, only blue...
...Among the worst are the tough-guy radio rant-ings of Limbaugh, North, and Liddy, who advised citizens to shoot federal agents in the head rather than the body, to avoid wasting shots on their protective vests...
...Derf's cartoon in the July issue of The Progressive crosses the line...
...It is something else entirely...
...Rogovin's work is strong and compelling and skillfully executed...
...A faithful reader of The Progressive since Sam Day and Erwin Knoll published "The Secret of the H-bomb," and a professional peace activist myself since 1985,1 say goodbye with sadness to a magazine I am convinced intends the highest good, yet cannot refrain from publishing messages counter-productive to its mission...
...This theme that "ugly violent images for a good cause are justified" is unfortunately consistent in The Progressive, never more disturbing than in Warrington Colescott's "cartoon" depicting enraged jack-booted dykes cutting off Rush Limbaugh's penis...
...Later, however, I noticed a second strain of thought creeping into my awareness...
...I'm afraid that Rogovin's success lies in the fact that he has photographed class...
...By publishing this cartoon, The Progressive joins him in the toilet...
...Godspeed to the good folks at The Progressive...
...If we are moved by seeing the accurate portrayal of the life and emotions of Americans, could we not see the same duty, self, care, and lack of pretension in the upper economic stratum of America...
...Certainly those emotions are held and displayed by all classes...
...There are no upper economic classes portrayed, only the middle or lower economic classes...
...But let's not get seduced into thinking that what we are admiring is America in general...
...By "humorously" showing a pregnant welfare mother blowing away "White Middle Class Suburban Man" with an automatic weapon, Derf witlessly exposes his own Liddy-level mentality...
...We glimpse in these images duty, self, care, and the absence of pretension, and something in us swells with pride or familiarity...
...He has captured the beauty and the romance of the working class...
...Specifically, the working class...
...Not by snarling and blaming will we achieve the better world we seek...
...Initially my response to his work was one of fascinated enjoyment...
Vol. 59 • September 1995 • No. 9
