Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor No Props for Dean In the June interview, Howard Dean stated, "This is one election where a vote for Ralph Nader is essentially a vote for Bush." At best, this statement is...
...Aristide continues to enjoy the support of the great majority of Haitians, and his supporters are again subject to organized murder by death squads...
...Letters may be e-mailed to: editorial@progressive.org Please include your city and state...
...Jenny Morgan Milwaukee, Wisconsin The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive...
...Jeremie Dexter Logansport, Indiana And No Props for Chomsky Let me get this straight...
...She adds little to the understanding of the Gospel of Thomas...
...All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness, and may appear either in the magazine or on its web page...
...Liberalism," Edward Kennedy, who trails Kerry with ninety...
...But take a closer look...
...Have we had enough yet...
...Nader's sin in The Progressive's eye...
...The ADA score is based upon votes on twenty key bills...
...Please join with us in solidarity to make that happen...
...I am especially proud when an exquisite writer like Molly Ivins pays tribute to the ninety-fifth anniversary of this fine magazine...
...What does this teach us...
...On the contrary, a closer examination of the ADA scores discloses an outstanding liberal voting record...
...To not get behind the current minority party of the military/industrial/academic complex, i.e., the Democrats...
...There must be hundreds of names listed in the ADA lifetime Senate scores...
...John Kerry puts his stamp of approval on Sharon's policy of assassination in the West Bank and Gaza...
...How nice of DiNovella to be so kind about it...
...Nor does Kerry make the ADAs lifetime top-ten list of Senate liberals, headed by the late Paul Wellstone at number one...
...So, too, the score of "Mr...
...John Mehring San Francisco, California Kerry Is Still a Liberal In her article, "When Kerry Was Liberal" (May issue), Ruth Conniff joins the throng of "progressives" apparently determined to cripple the candidacy of Bush's opponent...
...Conniff is correct about Kerry's ranking in 2003...
...The ADA lifetime scores are for both present and former Senators...
...There is one thing I would like to offer Progressive readers who consider themselves progressive...
...As we all know, Kerry spent much of 2003 away from the Senate and on the campaign trail...
...We rightly denounce the Bush-Cheney Administration for unilateralism...
...Michael Rice Delmar, New York Friends Like These The editorials contained in recent issues of The Progressive are but a microcosm of why the liberal-left movement in this nation is morally dead...
...Paradoxically, they, themselves, are outside the Roman Church...
...Aristide became Haiti's first-ever democratically elected head of state in December 1990, with 67 percent of the vote in a field of twelve candidates...
...Don Kliese Madison, Wisconsin Election Strategy Now that the 2004 general election is on the horizon, I look forward to reading letters from your readers, like those that appeared in your June issue...
...I do not think those of us involved in the peace and social justice movements throughout the world can survive having many more "friends" such as the editors of The Progressive...
...Pagels's book Beyond Belief has had such fulsome praise, I've wondered if the reviewers read the book at all, or even the same book I did...
...however, they must not be mine...
...For that reason, I do not comprehend others who say there are none...
...Now here is Kerry's tally on those twenty votes: seventeen "ADA correct," and three absent...
...I'm not sure what their criteria are for that assessment...
...John Kerry tells Tim Russert that he agrees completely with the Bush-Sharon plan to steal more land on the West Bank...
...In short, Conniff's statistical cherry-picking has given us a spin that Karl Rove might envy...
...has persistently supported opposition parties...
...Then, in the Comment of the May issue ("Unheeded Warnings"), The Progressive chooses to fawn over "counterterrorism czar" Richard A. Clarke, an acolyte of the established order whose way of addressing worldwide resistance to the United States Imperium could be summed up in the phrase "bomb early and often...
...It is beyond belief-literally so...
...How many, I don't know, though I find listings for long-departed Senators such as Hubert Humphrey and Jacob Javits...
...Ernest Partridge Cedarpines Park, California Doubting Pagels Elizabeth DiNovella, in "The Gibson God" (May issue), reviews Elaine Pagels's Beyond Belief and two books by Mel Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson...
...My thanks and admiration to all the staff, past and present...
...Instead of cutting this fledgling democracy some slack and some forgiveness of loans incurred by the preceding dictatorships, the U.S...
...I am one of those progressive voters who will vote for John Kerry because I do not want more damage done to me or my country by the Bush-Cheney Administration...
...Pagels has written a turgid, academically questionable, wonderfully dry book...
...Ted Kennedy ranked number five...
...In addition, the ADA scores an absence as a minus-the same as an ADA "wrong" vote...
...She writes: "The liberal group Americans for Democratic Action put Kerry at number twenty-five among Senate liberals in 2003...
...His score of eighty-ive is twenty-fifth among Senate Democrats...
...If the ADA had instead based its tally on votes cast, Kerry would have scored 100...
...Among these hundreds, Kerry's outstanding lifetime ADA score of ninety-two somehow fails to rank in the top ten...
...Moreover, Conniff failed to mention that Kerry scored a ninety-five in 1999 and 2001...
...First, in the April issue, the editors savage Ralph Nader, an individual who has tirelessly worked his entire life for a more humane, just, and compassionate society (Comment, "Nader's Wrong Turn...
...Father Andrew L. J. James Grand Rapids, Michigan Happy Birthday As a reader and subscriber off and on since the early seventies, I must say how proud I am to be in that number of people who read The Progressive...
...I will not give up my portion of the fight as long as there are bastions of truth like Molly Ivins writing in this magazine...
...It condoned (or assisted in) a coup during Aristide's first year, and again this past February...
...Why has she taken so much trouble to falsely prove otherwise...
...Because I am a labor organizer and a single, gay man, I see and experience differences between the Republicans and the Democrats every waking hour of my life...
...What she does say is as stale as yesterday's lunch...
...Contrary to the thesis of Conniff's title, Kerry is still a liberal...
...I hope our citizens won't let your efforts go for naught...
...Therefore, before you vote for Ralph Nader or some other third party or independent candidate, practice multilateralism, and think about the millions of ordinary Americans who honestly say "My life and my country are better off with a Democratic Administration...
...It's time for America to come to its senses and realize there are more than two choices for President...
...Russell Mokhiber Berkeley Springs, West Virginia Hatchet Job on Haiti Readers who may have been as confused as I by Steven Dudley's hatchet job on Haiti's President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ("Chronicle of a Coup," May issue) would gain some historical perspective by reading Paul Farmer...
...As a lifelong resident of Wisconsin, it makes me extra proud to know The Progressive is a home-grown masterpiece, in the positive tradition of Fightin' Bob...
...At worst, it's damaging for the Green Party's potential to get the 5 percent vote it needs for campaign funding from the government...
...And Noam Chomsky endorses John Kerry for President (Interview with Noam Chomsky, by David Barsamian, May issue...
...As I am likely the only Orthodox priest who subscribes to The Progressive, and among the few who have actually read Beyond Belief, permit me these observations: Hutton Gibson-and his son Mel-condemn everyone to Hell who is outside the Roman Church...
...At best, this statement is laughable, especially if you live in a Republican state like I do...
Vol. 68 • July 2004 • No. 7
