Love, Sam: On the Letters of Samuel Beckett Love, Sam: On the Letters of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett wants you to have a less bad day.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
Letters Letters
They Speak Bornholmsk, Don’t They? Vancouver In his review of Norman Davies’s Vanished Kingdoms [“Shelf Life,” April 30], Thomas Meaney referred to the “island of Bornholm off the Danish coast, where the Burgundians may have established an early kingdom.” Actually, Bornholm is a Danish island off the Swedish coast, and it’s closer to the Polish and German coasts than to the Danish coast. ROBERT RENGER Abolitionists: First Human Rights Activists? Ypsilanti, Mich. In “Of Deserts & Promised Lands” [March 19], Samuel Moyn asserts that “abolitionists almost never used the idea of rights, activated as they were by Christianity, humanitarianism or other ideologies.” Moyn needs to read the American abolitionists to see how wrong this is. David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) faults Jefferson for denying rights to slaves that he proclaimed for others. Walker, one of the most influential black abolitionists, also embraced Christianity, but his faith was not in conflict with his demand for full rights for the enslaved. Claiming equal rights was central to Walker. A few years after Walker’s Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison, the most influential white abolitionist, wrote the Declaration of Sentiments for the 1833 founding meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society. It said, “The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable” and “Every man has a right to his own body—to the products of his own labor—to the protection of law—and to the common advantages of society.” The abolitionist movement was based on demanding equal rights. Abolitionists claimed equal rights for blacks and defined slavery as inherently a violation of rights. The abolitionists deserve credit for helping to create the very idea of universal human rights, even if their century lacked a system of international law in which to make their case. MARK D. HIGBEE Moyn Replies New York City It is well-known—and people are turning up more evidence today—that the language of rights was sometimes used by American abolitionists, especially during a brief period in the 1830s. The phrase “human rights” even served as the title of an abolitionist magazine. That doesn’t mean, of course, that it was the dominant framework for abolitionism, then or ever. And not only was the American story complex; it was just part of the vast story of the agitation against global slavery (in the British sphere, rights talk had less traction). In any event, as Mark Higbee correctly points out, the international law of the era never conferred rights, let alone “human rights,” on Africans, including in the episode Jenny Martinez recounts in her interesting book. SAMUEL MOYN Getting on the Good Side New York City In “Faces out of the Crowd,” his March 26 review of the Renaissance portrait show at the Met, Barry Schwabsky wonders why left-facing profiles are much more common than right-facing ones and calls it a “mystery” that this goes “unmentioned.” Would that the critic would try it himself! Had he done so, he might have noticed what most draftsmen know—and what the Renaissance art historian David Rosand observes in Drawing Acts about a group of profile drawings by the (left-handed) master Leonardo da Vinci: “All the heads face to the right, as we might expect of a left-handed draftsman: the natural way to draw a profile is from within, the hand moving inside the head, internally generating the curving contour outward, from the wrist.” More artists—more people—are right-handed; thus, they begin the contour from upper right, which results in a left-facing profile. DEBORAH ROSENTHAL
May 15, 2012 / Our Readers and Samuel Moyn
Letters Letters
Bruce Springsteen, Death of a Salesman, Barbara Ehrenreich, Iran
May 9, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
Feedback on the April 23 issue: praise for Elizabeth Warren, Jonathan Schell and Katniss Everdeen, and an Italian lesson for Barry Schwabsky.
May 1, 2012 / Our Readers and Barry Schwabsky
Letters Letters
Response to Tom Hayden’s “Participatory Democracy,” with Hayden’s reply, and to Linda Darling-Hammond’s “Redlining Our Schools.” Plus a co...
Apr 25, 2012 / Our Readers and Tom Hayden
Letters Letters
Feedback on the April 9 issue: trusting government (“again?”), Katha Pollitt’s plea to affluent pro-choicers and Burt Neuborne's open letter to the ACLU
Apr 17, 2012 / Our Readers and Burt Neuborne
Letters Letters
Feedback on the April 2 Occupy USA issue and Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Rediscovering Poverty.”
Apr 10, 2012 / Our Readers and Barbara Ehrenreich
Letters Letters
Let There Be Light Grand Junction, Colo. I was confused, confounded and perplexed. Why on earth would the GOP be against Planned Parenthood? After all, the best abortion prevention is birth control. Thanks to Elizabeth Mitchell's insightful "The Genius of Cecile Richards" [March 26], I understand. The GOP uses fear as a tool. Now they're getting a dose. Planned Parenthood can mobilize a powerful voter bloc. Richards's picture in a light bulb was perfect! My light bulb certainly came on. VICKI MADDOX Memphis I've dog-eared the March 26 Nation reading and re-reading the Cecile Richards article. I adored and respected her mother, Texas Governor Ann Richards. I've subscribed to The Nation when I could afford to since the 1950s. Now I have to donate first to Planned Parenthood, after mortgage and food, as I have a daughter, two granddaughters and countless women friends, relatives and strangers to think of. Maybe I can get my insignificant other to pay for it. Thank God, or somebody, for PP (and Medicare and Social Security—I labored fifty-three years to get that). MIRIAM RACHELS The Affordable Care Act Goes to Court Hugo, Minn. Understanding the "necessary and proper" clause, the interstate commerce clause and our government's power to tax for the general welfare can be challenging. Thanks to David Cole for making it easier ["Defending Healthcare," March 26]. NEIL FAGERHAUGH Reston, Va. No one has mentioned the initial paragraph of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which states: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...throughout the United States." An impost is not a tax; it is something "put upon" the people to provide for the "common defense and general welfare." Two examples: the draft has provided for the common defense; and the safety requirements for automobiles, such as seat belts, air bags, etc., increase the general welfare. These imposts were paid for by the people, some by giving their lives, some by paying out of their pockets; but neither was considered a tax. The Affordable Care Act is clearly something imposed on the people. What the government has to prove is that the ACA increases the general welfare. With some 51 million people without healthcare and an estimated 45,000 premature deaths every year because of that, I consider it "settled law." WILLIAM C. SCHILLLIG You Decide Leonia, N.J. In the preamble to my March 26 article, "The Foxification Effect: You Decide," the editors claim, "We can report that Kitman apparently suffered no permanent damage from his ordeal" of watching Fox News for two weeks. If only that were true. In the scale of things I'd rather be doing, I looked forward to root canal more than watching Fox. But in the interest of science, I agreed to participate in the experiment. Little did I know the damage it would do. One night after the experiment began, during a family dinner, out of nowhere I began saying, "Tax cuts for the wealthy will create millions of jobs." Startled, my teenage grandchildren looked around at their grandmother. "Social Security is a Ponzi scheme," I apparently went on. "Obamacare must be scrapped and insurance companies given back the reins. Eric Cantor is the voice of the people." Had Zayde jumped the shark? Could this craziness have anything to do with watching Fox News? my wife asked, trying to calm the grandchildren. What was she talking about? I argued. There wasn't anything wrong with me. I had simply reached a higher level of intelligence, called Foxification. It's all Dodd Frank's fault, whoever he is. I suffered domestic abuse working on the piece. "The next thing you'll be doing," I was told, "you'll be watching NASCAR races." Every so often now, I open the window and yell at my neighbors, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" So to say "no permanent damage" is not quite accurate. The doctors say that soon I'll be able to return to my craft as a media commentator. The medication is working wonders. I think you should also know that I am suing your scuzzy left-wing rag (i.e., The Nation), under the Workmen's Compensation Act, for injuries connected with the workplace. I just want to set the record straight before I go back to watching Fox News every night. But only from 5 to 11. MARVIN KITMAN The Editors Reply As a great statesman once said, "A mind is a terrible thing to lose." However, it is obvious that in today's America, becoming a right-wing-nut is not prima facie evidence of mental damage or loss of reputation. Indeed, people who share Mr. Kitman's alleged views are now campaigning for the highest office in the land and the leadership of the Free World. We suspect that Mr. Kitman, whose letter outs him as a kindred political opportunist, is using The Nation's Letters page to angle for a job in the Santorum administration. We heartily recommend him for Secretary of Unplanned Parenthood. Furthermore, with the help of WikiLeaks we have obtained a letter from Kitman's lawyer commenting on the holes in his case, which we here reproduce: Attorney-Client Privileged Communication Marvin (aka Aggrieved Party): The assignment does appear to have been "cruel and unusual punishment," as you suggest. However, by accepting it you probably forfeited your right to sue. As for filing a claim before the Worker's (the PC name) Compensation Board, I see two impediments (a mediator's term) to your proposed suit. 1. Worker's Compensation Board claims are usually made by employees of their employers. The assignment probably was made to you as an "independent contractor" rather than "employee." 2. If your "suit" is properly venued (New Jersey or wherever The Nation is sited) you would have to be able to prove: A. you had a "mind"; B. it was lost; C. the loss was caused by The Nation, its editors, agents, employees, etc.; D. the value of said "mind" (1) before you lost it, and (2) after you lost it (I presume some of it is left to give us a residual value). (My presumption is based upon the coherent and logical interaction we are having in these communications.) From your reference to the editor of being "guilty" in giving you the assignment, I infer you may be thinking it was a criminal action. If so, maybe your claim should be made to the Crime Victims Compensation Board? However, that has problems. You probably never filed a police report, which may be a requirement. (Disclaimer: I have no knowledge in this area, get advice elsewhere.) As a matter of fact, I have no knowledge in any of the areas referenced above. I would conclude that my mind is as lost as yours. If and when you find yours, please look for mine. Your loyal Consigliare, Gene Ginsberg, Esq. We rest our case. —The Editors Let's Hear It for the Windy City In Alisa Solomon's April 16 "Mike Check," a copy-editing error caused This American Life to be identified as a National Public Radio show. It is produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International.
Apr 3, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
Go Greek Johnstown, N.Y. If you really want to help the Greeks—poignantly portrayed by Maria Margaronis in "Greece in Meltdown" and in your lead editorial, "The Failure of Austerity" [March 19]—take a vacation there, book an island cruise, spread some money in the birthplace of Western civilization. And when you see the tragedy of austerity, imagine it as a possible coming attraction for the United States. DAVID CHILDS Manifesto Destiny Ottawa Victor Navasky's comments on Il Manifesto are right on target ["Noted," March 19]. Il Manifesto is not only an excellent journal of opinion; it is probably the best daily newspaper in Italy, published six times a week, with remarkable coverage of national and world events. JORDAN BISHOP Our Pals to the South Los Angeles In "Genocide on Trial" [March 19], Laura Carlsen aptly summarizes the perfidy of US-backed regimes in Central America. Gen. Rios Montt is also a graduate of the infamous US Army School of the Americas (long ago renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation). Guatemala's current president, Otto Perez Molina—another SOA graduate, a former chief of G2 and a CIA asset—was implicated in the assassination, in 1994, of Judge Edgar Ramirez Elías Ogaldez. W.E. GUTMAN Killing the Planet Softly Gig Harbor, Wash. Hooray for Michael Klare's March 19 "The New Fossil Fuel Fever," which explains so clearly the dangers, costs and limits of fossil fuels. The conclusion is obvious: we need an immediate, huge investment in clean energy. BILL NERIN Seattle Two of Michael Klare's excellent points need more emphasis. The first is that the economic benefits of unconventional oil (tar sands) and natural gas (hydrofracking) are less than supposed. If the true long-term environmental cost were charged, plus a depletion tax for using up a nonrenewable resource, the profit would disappear and alternative energy would look better. The second point is the "energy trap," as physics professor Tom Murphy calls it. Just when you need lots of surplus energy to build a renewable energy economy, it's not there. That is, if delayed, investment in a postcarbon economy may never occur. We'll simply live with less, as vested interests fight to keep their share of a shrinking pie. DICK BURKHART Wabasha, Minn. Michael Klare rightly focuses on the notion of a fossil fuel bridge to real alternatives, noting that a bridge with no alternatives is a bridge to nowhere. One of the bridge pieces he left out is the link between gas sand-frack drilling and the silica-sand mining used in the process. The upper Mississippi River Valley from Wisconsin and Minnesota south to Iowa and Illinois contains silica sand used in fracking. The mining companies have rapaciously descended, buying property from farmers for too-good-to-refuse prices and enlarging existing aggregate mines promising jobs and a boost to the local economy. All without thought for the environment or the people who live in and around the mines. But citizens are beginning to organize. They note that mining has altered lives and grossly affected the environment—relentless strings of diesel semi trucks are hauling tons of sand twenty-four hours a day. With the help of regulatory agencies, citizens have raised immediate and longer-term concerns with some successes: moratorium periods to research and discuss the issues, and the creation of conditional use permits. The problem is not singular: deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico or off the coast of Brazil, sand-frack drilling in Pennsylvania or Wyoming, or a silica-sand mine next door. It's all connected. TOM WILKINSON Impunity In-and Outside Haiti Windsor, Ontario, Canada In "Duvalier and Haiti's Triple Threat" [March 19], Amy Wilentz doesn't consider that a series of US presidents should be in the dock for what they have done to Haiti. Yet she pontificates to Haitians that "impunity is no good for democracy." A US-backed coup in 2004 led to two years of dictatorship under Gerard Latortue—whom Wilentz didn't mention—which led to at least 4,000 political murders, according to a scientific study published in The Lancet. It was also a US-backed coup that led to thousands of murders between 1991 and 1994, the first time Aristide was overthrown. Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton ensured that the perpetrators escaped justice and also infiltrated Haiti's security forces. Thanks to WikiLeaks we know the Bush Jr. administration did the same thing, ensuring that paramilitary thugs were absorbed into the Haitian police. Martelly owes his presidency to US bullying. The overwhelming majority of Haitian voters shunned the US-imposed electoral farce. Even if Haitians succeed in once again electing a president like Aristide, who tries to prioritize their interests, the paramilitary killers are well positioned to strike again. None of this raises concern about US "impunity" for Wilentz. It is astounding how liberals like Wilentz internalize imperial assumptions. No matter how high the corpses pile up around the world as a result of US policy, "impunity" is always someone else's problem. JOE EMERSBERGER Wilentz Replies Los Angeles Joe Emersberger says more should be made of US complicity in Haiti's plight. I was operating under the expectation that in The Nation, America's viselike grip on all aspects of Haitian governance is a given. Who doesn't know of the nineteen-year US occupation of Haiti? Who doesn't know that we colluded for years with the shocking Duvalier regimes? Is there a Nation reader who is unaware of US collaboration, or worse, in Aristide's destruction? I have written here about OAS meddling and manipulation in the balloting that led to Michel Martelly's election last April. My piece this time was a speculative examination of the inner workings of presidential maneuverings as they go down in Haiti, with a focus on how impunity in the highest places works to undermine Haiti's future. It was not a piece on the sick American history with Haiti, although as Emersberger says, the two are closely related. I will ignore Emersberger's knee-jerk remarks about the evils of US foreign policy around the globe, except to say, duh—and that all reflexive leftists, when confronted with any argument, discussion or policy suggestion that doesn't exactly follow the narrative line they love to hear, resort to this larger-picture diatribe. AMY WILENTZ
Mar 27, 2012 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
They Bleed; You Read Ann Arbor, Mich. This letter is a prayer and a thank-you—a prayer for the safety of brave reporters everywhere who bring us extraordinarily important news we would otherwise not receive and a thank-you for their courage and intelligence. Specifically, I am thinking of Jeremy Scahill [“Target: Yemen,” March 5/12], with whom I shared a table on the Nation cruise in December. I also send a prayer and a thank-you for the anxieties his family must endure. JANE MYERS It Was 50 Years Ago Today West Palm Beach, Fla. Re Calvin Trillin’s March 5/12 deadline poem, “We Pick Rick” (sung to the tune of “I Like Ike”): Oh boy, a reference to a 1956 political song nobody my age or younger knows! And I’m approaching 50! It’s OK, though, Mr. Trillin. I found the song on YouTube and was able to sing along. PAM WIENER Thankful Fir That Huntington Woods, Mich. Although Michiganians have lost the right to vote in cities taken over by a private manager [Chris Savage, “State of Emergency,” March 5/12], we have consoled ourselves with the knowledge that our trees are the right height. SIDNEY KARDON Wislawa Szymborska’s Translators Wellesley, Mass. I’m a great admirer of Katha Pollitt, and I took great pleasure in her moving eulogy for Wislawa Szymborska [“Subject to Debate,” March 5/12]. But my pleasure was diminished by the fact that Pollitt didn’t name the translator or translators she is quoting. By their work they have made possible the experience she has had of Szymborska’s poetry, and then our experience of Pollitt’s beautiful tribute. LARRY ROSENWALD Fitzwilliam, N.H. I am pleased that Katha Pollitt, with whom I am so often in agreement, mourns with the rest of us the death of Wislawa Szymborska. She purports to quote Szymborska’s words, however, as if the Polish poet had written her poems in fluent English. It would perhaps have been more generous—to say nothing of legal—had she acknowledged the accomplished translators, Stanisłav Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh, who made Szymborska’s poetry accessible to her. J. KATES Pollitt Replies New York City I’m so sorry that the translators’ names were dropped in the relentless space crunch that is a 1,000-word column. They are indeed Stanisłav Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. KATHA POLLITT Brecht and Hitler Madison, Wis. I was pleasantly surprised to see Paula Findlen’s “Galileo’s Credo” [March 5/12], a review of two new biographies of Galileo. As a student finishing my doctoral dissertation on Bertolt Brecht, I am familiar with Galileo within the context of Brecht’s work, and was writing a paper on his play The Life of Galileo. Findlen’s review is very informative and well written, and she handled the intricacies of Galileo’s life and contributions to science with great care. However, I stumbled when I read that Brecht had lived in “Nazi Germany.” Hitler’s rise to power at the end of Weimar Germany was gradual, and he had been in coalition governments since 1932, but Brecht and his family did not actually live under Nazi rule, although they certainly lived with its consequences. They pre-emptively fled Germany—Brecht being a Marxist and his wife, Helene Weigel, being Jewish—in February 1933, just before Hitler consolidated his power. He was sworn in as chancellor in March 1933. (Of course, Brecht and other left-leaning intellectuals saw the oncoming storm in the early ’30s.) This factual “hiccup” notwithstanding, Findlen’s engaging review gave me much to think about for my own work on Brecht’s Galileo. Thank you! KRISTOPHER IMBRIGOTTA Dayton, Ohio Paula Findlen got part of the story about Brecht’s Life of Galileo right; but he didn’t write the first version of it in Nazi Germany, or he’d have been deader than a doornail, as Brecht was very high on Hitler’s hit list. Brecht left Germany the morning after Hitler’s Brownshirts set fire to the Reichstag. He began work on Life of the Physicist Galileo in 1937, completing his first draft in 1938, in exile in Denmark. After fleeing Europe to America in 1939, Brecht worked on an English translation, hoping that Hollywood would make it into a film. He finally collaborated with Charles Laughton on the first English production, which premiered at the Coronet Theatre in Beverly Hills in July 1947. At one point Orson Welles was interested in directing it with his Mercury Theatre in New York, but that wasn’t to be. STUART McDOWELL Birth Control for the Working Class Glen Ridge, N.J. Michelle Goldberg, in “Awakenings” [Feb. 27], wants to defend Planned Parenthood and its founder, Margaret Sanger, against charges of racism. She acknowledges that “in her single-minded devotion to birth control, Sanger was willing to work with deeply illiberal people, and some of their ideas became her own”—especially eugenics. Still, “eugenics was an elitist philosophy but not necessarily a racist one.” Goldberg concludes that “it’s unfair to condemn people in the past for failing to meet the moral standards of the present.” But what about failing to meet the standard of Sanger’s own past? From 1912 to 1914, she was not single-minded about birth control but saw it instead as one resource for the working class to live better and become more powerful. Sanger’s original associates were not illiberal but radical. In Lawrence and in The Woman Rebel, both of which Goldberg mentions, but especially in Paterson in 1913, Sanger advocated working-class revolution. She spoke with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn at Paterson to mass meetings of women only, urging them to limit their family size as part of their struggle for justice. She went to jail in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, fighting to extend the Paterson silk strike to the Pennsylvania mills. She saw birth control as part of the class struggle, which she embraced. Later she embraced the class struggle in reverse. Birth control became associated with elitism. Divorced from the movement for workers’ control, birth control was sold as a means of controlling the working class. It takes nothing away from the heroic work of Planned Parenthood to acknowledge that both Sanger and working-class women lost a lot in this sad transformation. STEVE GOLIN, author, The Fragile Bridge: Paterson Silk Strike, 1913
Mar 21, 2012 / Our Readers and Katha Pollitt