LETTERS
LETTERS to the Editor Progressives for Buchanan Let's see here. Ralph Nader, we are told, is being "coy" about a Presidential run ("Buchanan Fodder," April issue). Jesse Jackson is nowhere to be...
...Rita Mendelsohn Evanston, Illinois Kathi Wolfe's critique of Lonny Shavelson's A Chosen Death is based on several false assumptions and leaps of logic that do a disservice to the "right-to-die" or "death-with-dignity" movements...
...Unnamed Lover Besmirched This is not a very sophisticated response, but after reading the poem by Kenny Fries about the unnamed lover of Mark Doty ("To the Poet Whose Lover Has Died of AIDS," March issue), I just want to say, "No, no, that's not it...
...As a biologist, I think I understand at least some of the reasons why people express differing sexual orientations...
...Willis Ratzlaff Grove City, Pennsylvania Chomsky Off the Deep End You don't have to like Massachusetts Governor William Weld or others of his ilk to be incredulous when Noam Chomsky says of this "liberal, moderate, educated side" that it's not just "proto-fascist," but the embodiment of "real fascism" ("You Say You Want a Devolution," March issue...
...And he continues to support punitive provisions in welfare "reform...
...So, in November, I will vote for Ralph Nader whether he runs or not...
...The buzzword from the Democratic leadership these days is unity behind Clinton...
...Kathi Wolfe cites someone from the book named Sarah who was identified as a "Hemlock volunteer" and who allegedly assisted in a suicide...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness...
...David Isenberg Center for Defense Information Washington, D.C...
...Lamar W.Hanm, Evanston, Illnoise Public-Sector Mercenaries William Hartung ("Mercenaries, Inc.," April issue) is correct in pointing out that the United States is once again covertly implementing foreign policy by using a contractor like the Vinnell Corporation to train the Saudi Arabian national guard...
...I believe our military is stupid in discriminating against homosexuals as well as against those who are colorblind or who have other physiological and physical traits...
...But if Sarah did so, she acted entirely on her own...
...Of all people, Chomsky, the linguist, should understand the power of language...
...Nurses in the emergency rooms, paramedics in ambulances at disaster scenes, and coordinators in medical clinics make value judgments every hour of every day, usually under great pressure, usually without the luxury of time to consider alternatives...
...He has supported unconstitutional provisions in the antiterrorism bill and in the telecommunications bill...
...If Chomsky can't discern the difference between a brew of bellicose and racist nationalism and the terror of fascists and their regimes, then you have to wonder if memory has entirely forsaken him...
...Army security-assistance command...
...We need to let the Democrats know that the progressive vote is not automatic...
...The bombing in Riyadh last November took place at the Headquarters of the Program Manager, Saudi Arabian National Guard Modernization, which is a division of the U.S...
...But Wally, for a much longer time, was one of those beautiful and uncommonly kind men who, after only a short time in a room, would find everyone gravitating toward him...
...If people cannot vote for someone they honestly agree with, at least a majority of the time, why call it democracy...
...Its policies specifically prohibit its chapters and staff from participating in any illegal activity...
...You can slam Buchanan all you want, but at least he's out there taking on the power structure and enduring the wrath of the media...
...As a member of our military forces during World War II, I served with homosexuals and had no problem with them as long as they were not aggressive toward me in a sexual manner...
...That command is responsible for selling weapons and other military articles and services to eligible foreign governments...
...It is unethical to do harm to the reputation of an organization by attributing the wrongdoing of one of its members tf the entire organization...
...But the book is about both terminally ill people and disabled people...
...In the end, all I had to do was look at Clinton's record...
...Justin S. Beach Lawrence, Kansas Your Time's Up Kathi Wolfe's review of A Chosen Death ("Obligation to Die," March issue), interested me most for a quote she chose in order to show how callous the thinking is...
...I thought the interview with Urvashi Vaid (March issue) showed a depth of inanity unbecoming to The Progressive...
...Progressives want to give them a paint job first...
...I read The Progressive for its insights into policies that have profound effects on all of us...
...That doesn't mean the candidate I'm voting for is taking my vote away from Clinton...
...And if we say in 1996, "Let's support Clinton so the Republicans don't win," what is to stop us in 2000 and 2004 and 2008 from making the same kind of empty endorsement...
...Or should we all vote for the man who bombed Baghdad, gave us NAFTA and GATT, botched universal health care, and put our soldiers at risk in Bosnia...
...But people should know that in the case of Saudi Arabia, the U.S...
...He botched health care by pushing a plan that strengthened large insurance companies while offering high prices and mediocre care...
...How much worse could Bob Dole do without triggering a backlash of historical proportions...
...We need to openly discuss what criteria we can agree on: Eighty-four years old and senile...
...Without those jobs, most everyone will suffer...
...Chip DeNure La Crosse, Wisconsin Another Clinton Voter Lost A few weeks ago I resigned from my local Democratic central committee because I could not, in good conscience, support Bill Clinton...
...He occasionally mentions campaign-finance reform, but he has no specific ideas...
...He has nearly ignored antitrust laws...
...Bill Clinton took my vote away from Bill Clinton...
...Ironically perhaps, I was delighted to see a physician acknowledge in the public press that he believes, as I do, "that not all individuals' remaining lives have equal value...
...Murray Gruber Chicago, 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...
...We need to decide whether an eighty-five-year-old senile person who suffers a stroke should be on life support...
...So I feel I must comment on John Nichols's "California Dreamin' " (March issue...
...Jesse Jackson is nowhere to be found...
...Substitute Pat Buchanan's "immigrants" for Noam Chomsky's "fascists," and the symmetry of simplifications is stunning...
...Such an omission is worthy of the mainstream and ought to give your readers pause...
...I debated with myself for months about the 1996 Presidential election...
...Fine, let them be unified without me...
...The pressure instead should be on all of us to help make these decisions in advance, after open discussion in our community...
...Instead he keeps asking Newt Gingrich to help, which is a little like asking Oliver North to oversee the Freedom of Information Act...
...And people like Ronnie Dugger and Jim Hightower are mouthing platitudes on the need to get "cracking" and work from the bottom up...
...He has failed to attempt any serious cuts in military spending or corporate welfare...
...Eighty-eight years old and permanently bedridden...
...Lives] should be assessed on how their survival enriches or drains their family and community...
...Incidentally, I found it significant that nowhere in Matthew Rothschild's "Editor's Note" or in the piece by John Nichols was there any mention of Buchanan's opposition to the Persian Gulf War or our current adventure in the Balkans...
...Marianne Milton Brockport, New York Depths of Inanity Ihave no strong interest in the sexual practices of consenting adults behind closed doors, but I protest the public espousal of any such sexual practice—be it homosexual or heterosexual...
...How pathetic...
...This is worse than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic...
...He was so much more than this...
...The Pentagon has a staff of ninety-five military and 179 Army civilians, as well as more than 1,000 contractor representatives, as part of the National Guard Modernization in Saudi Arabia...
...Left ideologue, meet right ideologue...
...In the end, the argument that voting for someone other than Bill Clinton is the same as supporting Dole is false and undemocratic...
...He was silent on affirmative action for a long time before finally announcing that he was on everyone's side in that debate...
...He pushed NAFTA and GATT...
...Look, time is pressing and the situation grave...
...But why should I have a relatively insignificant (biologically) behavior thrust at me with the suggestion that it is superior to heterosexualism...
...All of the organized efforts I am aware of in the United States to decriminalize assisted suicide have involved only mentally competent, terminally ill people who very much want to end the indignity and suffering of their illness...
...He did try to restore some progressivity to the tax codes, but he apologized for that...
...From the beginning, the issues are confused since the book title suggests that we are reading a discussion about people who have a terminal illness and wish to end their suffering and loss of dignity by committing suicide with another's help...
...Wally Roberts, for an extended moment, may have been a man incapacitated by AIDS who wet himself at a reading of Mark's and left in pain, humiliation, tiredness, and retreat...
...In his State of the Union, he called for a further escalation of the drug war and put a military general in charge of it...
...In fact, this is the only type of assisted suicide that the Hemlock Society is involved with...
...The Democrats seem to assume that the progressive vote is theirs automatically because we have nowhere else to go...
...He supported governments that brutalized their own populations in Mexico, Russia, and China...
...Hemlock does not condone or accept or encourage its members (I am one) to assist any person in committing suicide...
...I will not vote for Bill Clinton...
...public sector has hardly given up its role...
...It just breaks my heart having that image alone stand in for him...
...For all his faults, he's the lesser of the evils...
...We simply cannot afford the continued loss of good jobs that would occur in a Clinton or Dole Administration...
...Eighty-two years old with terminal cancer...
...Since we do not have limitless funds, we must adopt standards by consensus after thoughtful debate...
Vol. 60 • May 1996 • No. 5
