LETTERS
LETTERS to the Editor Give Bill a Break Your expected weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth concerning the President's signing of the welfare-reform bill (Comment, "Who Needs Proof?" September...
...Who profits...
...The former intends to destroy welfare in America...
...Nuclear security today requires more than a commitment on a piece of paper...
...Certainly $6 billion, maybe $8 billion in debt forgiveness to Egypt from a bankrupt nation for that U.N...
...I think a more apt label for Caliria's political stance would be fundamentalist...
...The welfare system in the United States has failed...
...To encourage cooperation with the United Nations is nothing short of hilarious...
...Though the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is a needed step toward nuclear security, it is only a piece of paper and not enough to provide the guarantees responsible nations seek from nuclear vulnerability...
...action, treated this nation to Bush and Baker racing around the world to buy U.N...
...This is our savior...
...Fundamentalists are people who ask no questions: biblical fundamentalists defending the "truth" of the Bible, constitutional fundamentalists defending the right to carry assault weapons...
...Jack Williamson Clackamas, Oregon Eat Your Treaties Regarding "Bombs Away" (Comment, November issue...
...AH letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...As technology has become more accessible, more countries have initiated their own nuclear-development programs or have enhanced their existing capability with both land- and sea-based delivery systems...
...True sex radicals want sexual liberation for all people, along with a free choice in jobs, decent working conditions, safe homes, and safe streets...
...I have always appreciated The Progressive for covering lesbian and gay liberation as part of systemic change in the United States and the world...
...Stephen Shalom ('"Rectifying Policies...
...Last time I checked, two wrongs still didn't make a right...
...indeed, my fundamentalist relatives do much to work with homeless youth in their neighborhoods...
...relations with all nations...
...It is these members of the world community that limit the degree to which such a treaty can be effective in reducing the nuclear threat...
...Who has a voice in this system...
...Globally prostitution is a system of slavery far more often than liberation...
...To be effective, it will require the efforts of each nation and the entire world community...
...Treaty or not, nuclear vulnerability continues to exist because there are those who argue that a nuclear capability is vital to their national security and feel disadvantaged because of the restrictions a treaty would place upon them...
...Korea, for one, is destined to become our original cheap-labor market, with U.N...
...What does the United Nations have to say about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and civilians we torture and starve with an oil embargo and a destroyed infrastructure...
...The reality, however, is that there are members of the world community whose political intentions remain questionable...
...assistance...
...Nathaniel S. Lehrman Roslyn, New York I was confused by Pat Carina's I identification as a "sex radical...
...The sorry spectacle of the Persian Gulf war, another U.N...
...And, of course, the status of prostitutes in many other countries is far worse than here...
...Stephen Shalom is worried that racial discrimination in employment would get worse without race-based affirmative action...
...pornography...
...votes...
...So much for "international collaboration and a realistic, constructive approach to U.S...
...Race-based affirmative action may sound great in theory, but in practice it merely substitutes one form of favoritism for another...
...vote...
...Has libertinism become the essence of liberalism, and anarchism the heart of leftism...
...However, a person's good deeds in no way mitigate reactionary political stances...
...Vietnam will be next, with fourteen million casualties inflicted on that nation while to this day we still bleat about 53,000 dead and hundreds of chimeric prisoners of war...
...the average prostitute starts working at the age of fourteen in the United States...
...Radicals ask questions about power: Who has it...
...and hints at additional defects in referring to 'inappropriate or foolish application of affirmative action...
...I think of radicals as those who question systems of power...
...I do not, however, want to ignore the multi-million dollar pornography industry in the United States, just because I like my own style of pornography...
...That august and costly farce is the very international body we rely upon to wreak "freedom and democracy" upon a defenseless Third World...
...The core of such families is the faithful, passionate sexual love of husband and wife that creates children and provides the framework within which those youngsters are raised to responsible adulthood...
...It is no longer governed by the concepts of Mutually Assured Destruction and balance of power, or by treaties such as SALT and START...
...And $500 million in tariff-tax breaks to Turkey for theirs...
...There may be women like a personal friend of mine, who chose prostitution as adults and feel empowered by their choice...
...I also question how violent male pornography feeds into overwhelming violence against women and children...
...September issue) was an overreaction, a testimony to a lack of understanding, and a refusal to face reality...
...Because of this, it is clear that treaties are not enough to guarantee nuclear security and must be supplemented with the appropriate defensive measures needed to provide a nation with a proper level of protection...
...Are the wages fair...
...I personally like my pornography nonviolent, made by lesbians and made for lesbians...
...prostitutes are not so lucky...
...but exploited, frequently brutalized kids looking for a job...
...Klare makes no mention of the American military complex, that "great Satan," which has undeniably killed and maimed more of the world's population than any other nation since World War II...
...But there needs to be a solution that does not involve telling the son of a white truck driver that he has to sacrifice a college admission, a job, or a promotion to make room for the son of a black dentist, or...
...The true costs of such murderous profiting endeavors and brazen butchery are neatly hidden from the American public...
...The reasons the Republicans and the religious right sponsored the welfare-reform bill, and the reasons the President signed it, are fundamentally different...
...I question how much sex workers are paid and what their working conditions are like...
...If, as Shalom says, the black poor would still lose out to poor whites because of educational disadvantages, that is an argument for equalizing educational opportunity, not for discriminating against poor whites...
...but he never pursues these issues or suggests an)' ways to resolve them...
...I do question who profits from the vast majority of U.S...
...My fundamentalist relatives will vote Republican every time, and Califia's defense of systems of prostitution and pornography leaves her defending corporate businesses more interested in profit than empowerment...
...I question sexual violence in much heterosexual pornography, as well as the racist portrayals of women of color and the idiotic portrayals of lesbians in male pornography...
...In no way is lesbian liberation furthered by fundamentalist support for violent economic systems that harm mostly poor women and children...
...The repressive Christian Coalition's support for sexual fidelity over sexual "freedom" (also called promiscuity) does not automatically make it wrong...
...I ask the same questions about prostitution...
...This was not the case with the lily-white construction union locals or fire departments, where race-based remedies were clearly warranted...
...Their roofs do not leak, and they get three squares a day...
...Unfortunately, the majority of U.S...
...for that matter, the son of a black truck driver who has fewer qualifications...
...A fundamentalist label in no way ignores Cali-fia's important work helping lesbians and gays in her communities...
...Class-based affirmative action is indeed the only sane solution now that the most extreme cases of racial discrimination have been eliminated...
...Nuclear security today is much different from that of the Cold War era...
...More concretely, radicals also ask questions about money: Who gets paid...
...Califia's view of sex solely as sport, and particularly as defiant sport, anarchistically destroys all moral (not just sexual) values—love especially...
...Good for the Yankee lunch bucket and corporate megaprofits, tough on those lacking white skins...
...November issue) admits the second half of my argument when he says that "sometimes affirmative-action policies have placed too much of the burden on individual whites...
...Bennett Muraskin Morns Plains, New Jersey The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...Throwing additional funding at this broken system, while continuing the development of a welfare class, is not acceptable to a majority of the citizens of the United States, regardless of their status and/or political persuasion...
...Tell me who can match our record of slaughter around this globe from Korea to Vietnam, Chile, Granada, the Persian Gulf, much of Africa, East Timor, ad nauseum...
...He is probably right...
...the latter intends to revise and save it...
...I hope this support for such causes does not become unquestioning, however...
...John F. Stampfli Mission Viejo, California Libertinism, No...
...The creation and maintenance of stable families has long been recognized as vital for societal progress...
...This is a crazy concept because it makes no pretense of showing that its recipients actually suffered discrimination or that its victims actually benefited from discrimination...
...There is simply no denying that class is a much more reliable indicator of economic status than race, and that racial minorities would benefit from this type of affirmative action more than whites because they tend to be poorer...
...Who is helped in a given system of power, and who is harmed...
...Will truthful accusations of perversion against the left, which The Progressive's touting of "sex radical" Pat Califia ("Profile of a Sex Radical," October issue) would justify, replace the false accusations of subversion it has endured for so long...
...Claudia Neely Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Two Wrongs What affirmative action often means is that less qualified people receive preference over more qualified people in areas of education, employment, and government contracts because the less qualified people belong to a group that has historically suffered discrimination...
...Typically poorer and less-educated, often homeless, these young adults are not empowered sex "'radicals...
...Most-favored-nation trading status to China by the same American gang of thieves...
...William B Kash Westport, Connecticut Great Satan Is Us Itching For A Fight," by Michael Klare (September issue), waffles on the real "terrorist" in the world today: the United States...
Vol. 60 • December 1996 • No. 12
