Correspondence
Correspondence JEFFERSONIAN AMERICA I n “The Death of Jeffersonian America?” (Aug. 26), Andrew Peyton Thomas contrasts the moral oversight of small-town America with the alleged “moral...
...Maybe now we can understand the fi ghts between Republicans and Democrats...
...Dole, no one has cited a single occasion on which he has proposed to reduce the size of government...
...True...
...PEER REVIEW MATTERS As a peer reviewer for several journals, I agree with Neal B. Freeman (“Peer Review and Its Discontents,” Aug...
...Whether or not the Republicans lose the election in 1996, the future is unstoppable...
...foreign policy seemed to be undergoing its greatest defeat since Vietnam...
...I did conduct an interview...
...The proliferation of such journals aggravates the problem of quality...
...It is the small-town fi shbowl model that is amoral...
...And it was for the ears of Ivy League brats waving North Vietnamese fl ags that the Ramones shouted “Hooray for the USA...
...The Democrat/liberal philosophy will be a thing of the past...
...BETH HOMICZ WASHINGTON, DC Andrew Peyton Thomas raises the question of whether Information Age Technology will corrupt us...
...Apparently neither Thomas nor your editors bothered to note that the statue of Jefferson is made of bronze...
...Instead you told Dole to say, “If you think the current level of taxation and the current size and scope of government are about right, vote for Clinton...
...The signifi cant sentence in this article, a chummy interview with San dinista vice president Sergio Ra mirez, is as follows: “I said to the Vice President that with these [Guatemala peace ] accords . . . U.S...
...ALEXANDER R. NYILAS WADING RIVER, NY KEEP IT LIBERTARIAN Your editorial “Keep It Simple, Senator” (Aug...
...It was with Luis Humberto Guzm?n, who in those days was the leader of the left wing of Nicaragua’s Social Christian movement—and more recently has become the famously successful president of Nicaragua’s National Assembly...
...It is also based on preserving the natural balance among individuals and social institutions...
...IVAN G. OSORIO GAINESVILLE, FL A s a fellow graduate of the CBGBOMFUG, I’ll raise my glass to Daniel Wattenberg...
...They were really nihilists who hated everyone equally...
...Andrew Ferguson, in “Battle of the Network Dolts” (Aug...
...Rearranging the tax burden of a $1.6 trillion government doesn’t cause the government to spend less...
...The wish is father to the thought...
...And true...
...Today’s cities represent the failure of the industrial age and centralization...
...What better way to rebel than to listen to bands such as Murphy’s Law singing “Ronnie Reagan, he’s our man/If he can’t do it, no one can...
...26) that the peer-review process of medical journals needs to be clearly explained to their readers...
...DUNN NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ While Wattenberg deserves credit for highlighting a usually overlooked aspect of the punk movement, I wonder if his explanation unnecessarily complicates a fairly straightforward phenomenon...
...Since Thomas refers to “young couples escaping the libertarian created problems” of urbanized areas, I can only assume that he is using a defi nition of “libertarian” that encompasses welfare statism, leniency toward violent criminals, etc...
...This may sound sick, but that wretched group embodied everything that punk rock was a rebellion against—the pollution of music by leftist politics and the drug-induced belief that rock music had transcended the confi nes of the primitive two-and-ahalfminute pop song...
...That there were elections in which Guzm?n could parti cipate is the result of Reagan’s policy, al though Guzm?n, like Berman himself, is no doubt still in denial on this point...
...Since academic success is frequently measured by the quantity, and not necessarily the quality, of publications, it will be diffi cult to check the ever-swelling number of journals...
...PAUL BERMAN NEW YORK, NY PETER COLLIER RESPONDS: I too interviewed Guzm?n, one of those sallow, self-absorbed socialists, who, according to someone Berman quotes, was himself “a bit of a Sandinista...
...In all the hype about Sen...
...This comparison stands truth on its head...
...In a way the executives were correct: The public is not interested in “network coverage...
...And I did witness the reopening of La Prensa...
...This misconception was impressed upon me when I came across a book that purported to be a history of punk...
...Its sanctions reinforce whatever local standards exist, be they the ideals seen in “Mayberry, RFD” or the soul rot of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County...
...Never Trust a Hippie...
...When academic institutions scrutinize content more closely, secondtier journals will fall out of favor, and so will some of the problems associated with peer review...
...was one of their battle cries...
...I guess network executives thought the American public wasn’t interested...
...Hardly a sectarian...
...26), correctly describes why America has turned off TV network news...
...One cannot overemphasize the link between the anti-establishment sentiment of the punk scene and its “right-wing” strains...
...Libertarianism, on the other hand, is based on a clear delineation of spheres for individuals, society, and the state...
...The Democrats, the party of big government and centralization, do not want to change or they will lose power...
...Watching the immortal Handsome Dick Manitoba roar out the lyrics to “America the Beautiful,” performed without a sliver of irony, was an experience not easily matched...
...I watched the convention on C-SPAN, which had gavel-to-gavel coverage and no commercials...
...We will have more freedom—so the trend of people moving out of cities makes sense...
...HARRY BROWNE LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT WASHINGTON, DC A TALE OF TWO INTERVIEWS In a review of my book A Tale of Two Utopias, your reviewer, Peter Collier, tells a garbled story about seeing me in Managua in 1987, when I was a reporter for the Village Voice (“Rehabilitating the 60s,” Aug...
...Ber man did show up at La Prensa, late and on the periphery, but for him there seemed to be no there there...
...Is linguistic history repeating itself...
...Information Age technology will not corrupt us, it will strengthen us...
...The prevailing leftist socio political power structure just happened to be their most convenient target...
...MIKE PROTO HASBROUCK, NJ FOR CONSERVATIVE PUNK Iw o uld like to thank Daniel Wattenberg (“Was Punk Rock RightWing...
...I was amazed that the networks were going to show the convention for only an hour each night...
...KEVIN BLAKE WASHINGTON, DC NETWORKS, GO HOME...
...Johnny Rotten decried Britain's stratospheric income tax rates under Labour in a radio interview...
...During the early 1980s, I was an active participant in the New York subculture Wattenberg describes...
...Perhaps history will regard the CBGBs of the late 1970s and early 1980s as it does the City College of the 1940s and 1950s—an ironic nesting ground for young conservatives...
...Rather, like the majority of my friends—teenagers growing up in New York City—I mostly wanted to annoy my left-wing parents...
...Actually it was a Labour government that was in power at the time...
...I can assure you that I knew nothing of “pop formalism,” “liberal white guilt,” or even suburban life...
...All of which I described at length in my reports to the Village Voice—as anyone can see by looking up the back issues...
...It was towards the Grateful Dead and their fans that Jonathan Richman expressed the natural revulsion Wattenberg mentions...
...If you think that we should pay less in the way of taxes and the government should spend less, vote for Dole...
...This sounds like the philosophy of the Republican party, and it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it...
...I would say no and cite Alvin Toffl er’s words in Powershift: “Knowledge is the most democratic source of power...
...MILWAUKEE, WI...
...The major networks still don’t get it...
...26), Andrew Peyton Thomas contrasts the moral oversight of small-town America with the alleged “moral relativism” of libertarianism...
...Punk rock was a political and musical reaction...
...5) and for raising a manifesto for rightist punk-rock afi cionados everywhere...
...Margaret Thatcher wasn’t elected until 1979— one year after the Sex Pistols broke up...
...But how did Wattenberg ever forget the Dictators...
...J.R...
...The term “liberal” once meant “believer in personal liberty,” until it was co-opted and shifted to its present meaning...
...Left-leaning parents, family therapy, and Quaker schools represented the establishment in our eyes...
...The fi rst article he wrote upon returning from Nicaragua mentioned La Prensa only in a couple of throwaway lines...
...Neither do unspecifi ed spending cuts or slowing the rate of growth of government programs...
...C-SPAN provided the most accurate coverage and let the viewer reach his own conclusions...
...The author asserted that the Sex Pistols and similar bands were reacting to the oppression of Thatcher’s Britain...
...STEPHEN BRINICH ARLINGTON, VA Andrew Peyton Thomas refers to “the stone-carved lips of Jefferson’s statue by the Potomac...
...In truth the Sex Pistols were reacting partly against the awful stagnation wrought by Labour’s policies and partly against, as Wattenberg says, hippie New Leftism...
...But it would be wrong to say that the Pistols were right-wing to any meaningful extent...
...According to Collier, I passed up the opportunity to witness the historic reopening of the anti-Sandinista newspaper La Prensa in favor of conducting an interview with someone described as “the leader of some small socialist sect...
...LAWRENCE F. KAPLAN WASHINGTON, DC As a Brit who was an ardent fan of punk rock when it exploded on the scene in the mid-1970s, I can confi rm that Daniel Wattenberg is exactly right when he points out that most of the early punks were rebelling against entrenched leftism, not “right-wing authoritarianism...
...Thomas hits on some of the themes of decentralization...
...RALPH M. SCHAPIRA, M.D...
...19) would have done Bob Dole more good if you had entitled it “Make Government Smaller, Senator...
...26) for two things: for refuting Diana West’s ridiculous contention that good conservatives must be as much fun as a Sunday school teacher (“Against Conservative Cool,” Aug...
...Or “Just Say Now, Senator, Not in 7 Years...
...For example, the passing of Jerry Garcia was an occasion of extreme rejoicing in punkdom...
...Maybe you feel you must support Bob Dole to get rid of Bill Clinton...
...You then label this “simple...
...Jimmy Carter and disco not withstanding, the counterrevolution had begun...
...You would do a service to your readers by letting them know that the Libertarian presidential candidate, who will be on the ballot in all 50 states, does intend to reduce government to the absolute minimum possible—and do it immediately...
Vol. 1 • September 1996 • No. 50
