Letters
Letters The Good Guys Sound Off Michelle Cottle’s reDort of dis- sension and disputes within the cam- paign finance reform community (“Where Are the Good Guys When We Need...
...parochialism...
...And, no matter how far we rise, there is a suspicion that we should have risen further...
...Unsuccessful at amending the Constitution to suit his diagnosis of the “strain in our governing processes,” Cutler now counsels leaving well enough alone...
...While the groups sometimes disagree on specific, shortterm legislative goals (as do affected groups on just about every issue facing Congress), all of us agree on the need to overhaul the cu:rrent corrupt campaign finance system and on the importance of energizing citizens outside the Beltway i:o demand reform from their e1ecte:d representatives...
...and none ever caught the attention of the public...
...Lemann writes about “a decent basic education” but doesn’t spell out what it should be...
...If Public Campaign is “in everyone’s crosshairs,” why is every group but one that is mentioned in her article formally endorsdng our work...
...DANIEL BORREGARD Pitman, NJ What is missing from Nicholas Lemann’s comments on meritocracy is an acknowledgment that the American version provides second and third chances, more than is true of any other country, especially Michael Young’s England...
...Summers is correct that “constant vigilance against threats to ‘good military order and discipline’ is always wise.’’ But I don’t believe further liberalization (eg., doing away with the proscription against adultery) would destroy order and discipline any more than has allowing servicemembers to live off base destroyed it...
...most work is indeed judged on its merits...
...They need us and we need them...
...Letters The Good Guys Sound Off Michelle Cottle’s reDort of dissension and disputes within the campaign finance reform community (“Where Are the Good Guys When We Need Them...
...We will never have equal educational opportunity in this country until the education establishment embraces the notion that each child should learn the aforementioned basics before he/she is required to learn academic subject matter...
...DOROTHY FRISBIE Allentown, PA More on Merit I am delighted with Nicholas Lemann’s “The SAT Meritocracy” (Sept...
...In response, rather than holding fast to the policies that fostered “good order and discipline,” treating everyone fairly, and getting rid of those who either couldn’t or wouldn’t exercise self-restraint and enforce discipline, the leaders often seemed to the rest of us to be coddling the troublemakers...
...In a word, this is the curse of states’ rights politics...
...giving the House a role in the ratification of treaties...
...And every national reform group will be at the table together when that happens...
...1997) because of its direct hit on the presumption that by offering everyone an education at public expense we provide everyone an equal educational opportunity...
...Disunited in conflict, America is still blessed with wiggle room if only we dare to overcome our adversaries who curse us...
...In The New Federalist Papers, the authors’ advice to eschew most of the constitutional amendments currently on the table may well have merit...
...And, once on the job, the school you went to is important only insofar as contacts are useful for advancement...
...Only a decade ago, Cutler joined Sen...
...Maybe not...
...The current reality is that a consensus about a new strategy and a new proposal is emerging that every organization mentioned in Cottle’s story is working on together in the states...
...We also get, as he implies, another subculture “consigned to life at the bottom...
...permitting members of Congress to serve in the cabinet...
...Strangely, none of Ms...
...But I think he failed to make his case overall...
...Does this transformation represent a change in Cutler’s understanding of American politics, or is it just sour grapes...
...However, it is not advice I’d have expected Lloyd Cutler to embrace so warmly in his review (“If It Ain’t Broke . . . ,” Sept...
...But in a meritocracy, the option to rise becomes a commandment to rise...
...1997) is an old and tired retread...
...Millions of us are now disenfranchised by unbalanced, unreasonable legislators confirmed in predatory agenda singlemindedness: hard-sell con artists masquerading as representatives from our bailiwicks, elected by and for the people...
...Much as an animal can sense fear, troublemakers in the military exploited their leaders’ uncertainty and vacillation...
...Democracy “allows” us this freedom, that’s “why...
...We’ve known for decades that people learn at different rates, yet we totally ignore this fact by placing illiterate students in academic classes they have no business being in-no matter how filtered or watered-down the course content may be...
...Ms...
...As a result of the mandarin tendencies that Lemann deplores, a mere bachelor’s degree is insufficient as a ticket of entry to the mandarin professions, so attending an Ivy League college is less important than where you get your advanced degree...
...most never received a serious hearing in Congress...
...Maybe...
...The heat generated there will be felt in Washington in due course...
...You ask: “Why do we allow [this]?’’ (“Tilting at Windmills,” JulyIAug...
...Long ago as a white protester I escaped from Jim Crow environments...
...In a caste society, where one’s position in life is predetermined, an inability to rise above one’s caste is no cause for shame...
...1997...
...Lemann reports, when success in society is based primarily on academic success, and society gears its public education system to that end, we get a small but very influential subculture of “mandarins” who care more about themselves and their status than about society as a whole...
...ANDREW WEBB San Diego, CA...
...Unfortunately, our organizations don’t enjoy the unlimited corporate coffers that allow special interests to run slick ad campaigns and phony “astroturf” phone banks to promote their agendas...
...Failure to do so is regarded as a personal defect...
...If he means nothing more than having learned to read, write, think, understand basic arithmetic concepts, and grasp the responsibilities of citizenship, I agree...
...Clean Money Campaign Reform” has captured the imagination of citizen activists throughout the country...
...The real reason people hate the meritocratic elite is that they are the winners the rest of us could have been...
...Nancy Kassebaum and C. Douglas Dillion as co-chair of the Committee on the Constitutional System...
...FRANK CLEMLENTE, DIRECTOR Public Citizen’s Congress Watch Washington, DC Too bad Michelle Cottle and her unnamed source(s) were so hellbent on telling a tale of dissension in the campaign finance reform movement that she didn’t bother to check on current reality...
...Rather the problem stemmed from a combination of societal and internal factors: attitudes about the Vietnam war itself, as well as other upheavals society was undergoing with respect to drugs, sex, institutional authority, and the like...
...It’s as much the manner in which policies are implemented, as the policies themselves, that preserves order and discipline...
...In order to survive with a ray of hope, the rest of us support as best we can individuals in Congress who, regardless of their home base, represent our broader viewpoints of democracy...
...and relaxing the requirements for treaty ratification...
...And I can’t see how the “permissive” or “liberal” policies initiated starting in the ’70s (beer in the barracks, more relaxed hair styles, and so on) caused the breakdown in discipline and basic morality epitomized by My Lai...
...The provincial majority...
...Instead, they seemed unable to size up the situation, vacillating about what to do, then acting in a panic mode-almost impulsively, caving in to the anarchy visible on the news every night...
...It seemed to those of us at the bottom of the military hierarchy that our leaders were acting not as they would in battle-calmly but quickly, evaluating the situation and likely outcomes, then giving orders based on their evaluations...
...This is beginning to happen, but many citizens are riightly cynical about prospects for success...
...Yet no committee recommendation was ever implemented...
...Harry Summers’ article (‘An Officer and a Gentleman,” Sept...
...As Mr...
...Col...
...Cottle’s sources have come to us with information on how to fund the kind of national campaign that all of us would like to run...
...1997) Do you have any experience with provincialism...
...If he means something more, I disagree...
...Sept...
...Cottle and her armchair critics act as if their prescription for forcing Congress to act- “coordinated operations in all 50 states, with activists holding individual members of Congress accountable”--is easily achieved if only the groups would listen to their abstract strategies offered from the sidelines...
...MARK P. PETRACCA Irvine, CA The Big Picture So 42 percent of contributions to senators come from out of state and 56 percent out of district for the House...
...I entered one of the service academies in 1971 and left the military in 1980...
...Cutler and others spent a number of years trying to energize support for this agenda...
...The committee’s recommendations includ - ed multiple amendments such as fouryear terms for House members...
...WILLIAM A. BAKER Bloomfield, NJ Trouble at the Top Col...
...In the meantime, the fault for the failure of campaign finance reform lies not with the public interest organizations but with the elite coterie of elected officials and their powerful backers who thus far have blocked any meaningful action...
...As important, however, were the ways military leaders instituted the new “liberalizing” policies...
...ELLEN S. MILLER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Public Campaign Washington, DC Change of Heart...
...eightyear terms for senators...
...1997) made some good points...
Vol. 29 • November 1997 • No. 11
