LETTERS
LETTERS to the Editor Send Up a Flare Iam a career female (Heaven help me!) with two college degrees, women's wages, and a second job to supplement my inadequate pay. I am proud to say that both...
...Then she had a second child out of wedlock and moved to a locality where she was assured of not finding work with her degree...
...Whenever I try to conjure up images of the fascistic nightmare that is contemporary American culture—from its violent, authoritarian, and competitive love affairs, to its malevolent greed and the sheer venality of its pursuits— some of the best candidates that come to mind are in the sports world...
...Good sort...
...One person not only received a B.F.A...
...Rothschild, maybe you should define and con-textualize what "tribalism" means for those non-scholarly, underclass-like, indigenous types...
...I'm tired of reading and rereading the same tired criticisms—that Bill Clinton is "consigning a million poor children to poverty" and that welfare reform will cause suffering...
...We actually have a Labor Party to argue about...
...not the handout it has become...
...Last summer's Olympics inaugurated "a new day for women's sports," Ruth Con-niff believes ("Further Comment," September issue...
...It's not just that organized sports have nothing to offer us in the way of progressive politics or liberation...
...Caldicott...
...You said Haydon responded with "tribal blindness," and that his "uncritical support for the state of Israel" is "falling into tribalism of the worst sort...
...Is your magazine only for nontribal peoples...
...Shortly after divorcing the father of my child...
...I've known other welfare recipients who have made a career of studying state welfare systems, moving to localities because they could receive greater assistance...
...Contrary to what Conniff believes, organized women's sports will steal our progress right out from underneath us...
...Is there a tribalism of the bad sort...
...Of course, there are many different kinds of people in society, but not everybody is going to be convinced about gay and lesbian rights, labor rights, and so on...
...I relied on AFDC...
...Organized sports are worse...
...I am in the process of joining the new Labor Party for obvious reasons...
...Mary Cal Hollis, Presidential candidate, Socialist Party Boulder, Colorado Words and Tribes Mr...
...I was grateful for the assistance I was given in getting a start at being financially independent...
...However, this is nitpicking...
...True, some folks need assistance...
...We are ambitiously trying to get matching federal funds...
...just to prolong a life of ease and unemployment as a part-time student...
...You say, "Tribalism is behind many of the crises roiling the Earth," and then you go on to name in very general terms the culprits...
...What thrilled me the most about reading the two articles you ran is that I was able to read two articles about a Labor Party in this country...
...In your "Editor's Note" (August issue), misleadingly named "Tribal Hatreds," you inject the word "tribalism" for what should naturally be called colonialism, neo-colo-nialism, post-colonialism, imperialism, or some defining word more suited to the root cause of the fragmentation of the indigenous/tribal peoples...
...Has everyone forgotten the wisdom of "if you give a man a fish, you've given him a meal, but teach a man to fish and you've fed him for life...
...But it wouldn't be a role that any progressive woman ought to play...
...You're correct about Western-educated fools like Martin Haydon...
...That it was initiated by President Clinton could prove to be a boon...
...Could you explain what tribalism means to us...
...Bobby Cooper Tallahassee, Florida No-Win Situation Iwas slightly exasperated by the article written by Suzanne Pharr ("Match Made in Heaven," August issue) about meeting a "Promise Keeper" during an airplane ride...
...I received the technical training to qualify for a license to pursue a career in cosmetology...
...Eugene Cade Olympia, Washington As a long-time member of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), I feel compelled to correct some of the distortions in Samuel H. Day's review of Helen Caldicott's new book, A Desperate Passion...
...Today, though no longer in the field of cosmetology...
...Second, while most of the pre-Caldicott PSR members were men, they were anything but "conservative," as Day describes them...
...All letters may he edited for clarity and conciseness...
...Let's continue to address the actual concerns, both social and ideological, that a lot of people have, and let the religious right have its own soul-searching discussions and meetings...
...Another individual was receiving AFDC while managing a housing complex and running a day-care center in her home...
...On the contrary, founders of PSR such as H. Jack Geiger, Bernard Lown, and Victor Sidel were and continue to be major figures in progressive causes, such as human rights, the abolition of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and available and affordable health care throughout the world...
...government has to give the Socialist Party $100,000, the left will begin to become visible again...
...When the U.S...
...Enough already...
...I've been a devout liberal/socialist all my adult life...
...Much worse...
...Not once do you define what tribalism might mean to a working-class Sioux, or a nonassimilated, traditional Navajo, or to the majority of less educated poor folk who might be reading your "progressive" magazine...
...Allan J. Mui Seminole, Oklahoma Caldicott Fallout Ihave not had an opportunity to read Helen Caldicott's book, A Desperate Passion (reviewed by Samuel H. Day Jr., September issue...
...Her dedication and emotional openness are a great personal inspiration to me...
...For more information, readers may call 1-800-8584501, or check out http.//sun-site.unc.ed/spc/prez...
...The next thing you know, a woman will win the White House...
...At last, the only First-World country without a Labor Party has got one together...
...That role, too, would represent something of an alternative to the oppressive passivity and self-consciousness of life as a First Lady or a cheerleader...
...But with respect to your statement about Helen's retirement: According to the copy of her talk last year in Portland, Oregon, that I ordered from Alternative Radio, entitled "Technology, Spirituality, and the Future of the Planet," I'd say you are definitely mistaken...
...Voting for the lesser of two evils has been my unfortunate plight, but I do vote...
...Norman J. Sisman, M.D...
...Thanks also for references to "a revitalized Socialist Party...
...I am proud to say that both of my jobs are at union shops, and that during my fifty-five-hour workweek I support two labor unions...
...I began work a day after I received my license...
...I also feel it would be best to run at least local and statewide candidates as soon as possible...
...Welfare was intended as a hand up...
...From a tribal/cultural/non-Western perspective, it's sometimes hard to see who's right or left...
...Let's send up a flare, and keep publicizing it...
...Any help would be appreciated, especially regional organizing...
...What's the best sort of tribalism...
...I had to find a position with no assistance, and all associated support was cut off the day I received mv first paycheck...
...In this respect, what do women profit if we gain the entire sports world but lose our souls...
...But why use a word that has the potential for misunderstanding...
...Sadly, I think I was the exception to the rule...
...It is true that she invigorated and greatly increased its membership, recognition, and influence, but PSR was far more than a "study group" before Dr...
...Princeton, New Jersey What a Sport...
...But the time for change is here at last, and I'm one tax-paying citizen who says hallelujah...
...I also heard an interview with her on Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now last spring that confirms this...
...I have been steadily employed for the past eighteen years and have made the final mortgage payment on my own home...
...Welfare reform was an inevitability...
...Then there are the welfare recipients who collect under several aliases or in several locations...
...They continue to be strong voices and important influences for the achievement of a comprehensive test-ban treaty, the end of nuclear-weapons production, the safe elimination of nuclear stockpiles, the proper cleanup of nuclear-weapons facilities, and a host of other critical issues, such as the prevention of violence and the protection of the environment...
...Not-so-bad sort...
...The Christian right is just not the ideal group to try and "win over," except in one's spare time, which most people don't have a lot of these days...
...Debra Meeker Chicago, Illinois End Welfare, Hallelujah...
...In my eyes, organized sports—as opposed to play, which comes to us naturally and is a far more spontaneous expression of human freedom—aren't just a dead end...
...I read with great interest the two articles in your August issue on the Labor Party ("Building Solidarity," by Adolph Reed Jr., and "Party Hardly," by John Nichols), and I agree that the Constitution as it was hammered out is not quite perfect...
...It certainly was an impressive testimonial to her human sympathy, but at the same time suggests some conclusions that could railroad political activism into irrelevancy...
...Someday I would like to meet her in person...
...Carol Hoglboom Duluth, Minnesota Ambitious Socialism Thank you for your mention of the Socialist Party USA's Presidential candidacy ("Party Hardly," August issue...
...and 3) to build an electrified fence between the United States and the rest of the hemisphere...
...The American Dream can be realized by anyone and everyone...
...Finally, PSR and groups allied with it, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Federation of American Scientists, have never "longed for a quick solution" and are certainly not in oblivion now...
...Lily Diament Hastings-on-Hudson, New York The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters thai comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...And her first three executive actions will be: 1) to nuke the "rogue" states: 2) to double the federal budget for prison construction...
...Now is the time to keep your hopes up and to keep your work up...
...At the time she joined, the organization had been in existence for more than a decade...
...The same high-fiving women athletes who increasingly fill up the courts and diamonds and beaches and sports pages and ads for everything from upscale sneakers to ladies' douches look distressingly like the high-fiving cavemen whose behavior, interests, and enterprises we have nothing to gain by aping...
...This talk, a chapter extracted from her tome, is both outrageously wonderful and wonderfully outrageous...
...in Madison, Wisconsin, but returned for an M.A...
...She is still going strong and has not given up...
...First, Helen Caldicott did not found PSR in 1978...
Vol. 60 • October 1996 • No. 10
