Letters Letters
W(h)ither Medicare New York City Contrary to your editorial “A Serious Man” [April 25], those of us over 55 would also be affected by Ryancare. Paul Ryan’s scheme to destroy Medicare is a prescription for intergenerational warfare. Americans under 55 and not eligible for Medicare will become resentful of Medicare beneficiaries. As those of us over 55 die off, the voting bloc for Medicare will become smaller and smaller, Medicare funding will decrease, services will be reduced and fewer doctors will accept Medicare payments. Newt Gingrich will have achieved his goal of having Medicare “wither on the vine.” I am 65. If I live to be 85, I doubt Medicare will be there for me, either. REBA SHIMANSKY Boise, Idaho The Medicare issue seems a smoke screen. What should really have citizens concerned is Paul Ryan’s proposal to lower the highest individual tax rate from 33 to 25 percent. Perhaps we should raise that rate from 33 to 50 percent (Reagan-era rates). Now that would be “serious.” ROBERT RYCHERT Plymouth, Mass. Paul Ryan’s plan for Medicare in three sentences: (1) eliminate Medicare for those under 55; (2) shift the cost of Medicare to future seniors by issuing vouchers that don’t keep up with healthcare inflation; (3) hope that today’s seniors are stupid/greedy/selfish enough to go along with this. Ryan’s plan follows the standard right-wing playbook—pit one group against another (private vs. public sector workers, nonunion vs. union, rich vs. poor, young vs. old) and privatize everything in sight. It’s a simple strategy—divide and conquer. Congressional Democrats, President Obama, progressive TV and radio talk-show hosts need to be out there with simple charts (à la Ross Perot) to explain this. We don’t have a minute to waste, because Medicare isn’t the only program in jeopardy. CYNTHIA CURRY Fundamentalist ‘Paleologic’ Narberth, Pa. In “Axis of Fundamentalism: Gainesville to Mazar-i-Sharif” [April 25] Patricia J. Williams shows us what can happen when words are infused with unreflective self-righteousness and wielded as weapons in confused and overheated rhetoric. Too often they become metaphors that fundamentalists hate, kill and die by. Psychiatrist Silvano Arieti wrote about aspects of the thinking of adult schizophrenics, also typically found in children 1 to 4, characterized by a primitive form of logic that Arieti called “paleologic.” Misconceptions based on it in the child may confuse him and amuse his parents, while those of the psychotic may be bizarre and idiosyncratic. But paleologic inspired by fundamentalist fervor in otherwise normal adults can be lethal. STEPHEN E. LEVICK Just Another Word for Nothin’ Left to Lose Los Angeles Corey Robin, in “Reclaiming the Politics of Freedom” [April 25], is right in seeing conservative ideology as successfully identifying freedom with the market and depicting government as the source of constraint. Of course, we need to reverse this falsehood by showing how the market enslaves while the government can enhance freedom. But he is dead wrong when he talks about “the age-old suspicions on the left that freedom is…inherently antagonistic to equality.” Since the origins of the terms “left” and “right” in 1789, the left has conjoined liberty with equality. Karl Mannheim’s classic Ideology and Utopia makes it clear that it is the rightists (ideologists) who see freedom as requiring inequality; the leftists (utopians) have consistently viewed equality as a requirement of liberty—as did, incidentally, the ancient Athenian democrats. ROGER CARASSO Schaumburg, Ill. I agree with Corey Robin’s argument about the need to “reclaim the politics of freedom,” but only to a point. The GOP—since Reagan, I think—has been adept at connecting “freedom” to a deep love of country, responsibility and order, despite advocating a radical agenda that diminishes those things. Democrats don’t need to talk more about “freedom”; they need to talk about doing what is right, as a matter of faith, patriotism and just plain human decency. Rather than “freedom” they should find religion—not a church but the source of their own deeply held convictions—and connect through that. And if there are no deeply held convictions, then there are more problems than just what terms we employ in our rhetoric. GENE GIANNOTTA Carrboro, N.C. Corey Robin argues for the left to adopt “the politics of freedom.” But “freedom” has little to say to our day-to-day concerns. Here in Carrboro we prefer “stewardship, caring and community.” These values have sustained a thirty-two-year-old farmers’ market, helped us join just four other Eastern cities as a silver-level bike community and led to ready acceptance of a growing immigrant population. A former mayor is now the most progressive member of the State Senate. Another was the state’s first openly gay elected mayor. We have five coffee shops, none of them chains, and a locally owned newspaper. We are the smallest town in the Southeast to receive stimulus funding for energy retrofits. Our citizens embrace advocacy on a host of issues from climate change to human rights to war and peace. In 2003 we declared Buy French month in response to the “freedom fries” nonsense in Washington. Stewardship, caring and community have served the left well because they truly speak to the experience of the people. DAN COLEMAN Buying the Wiesenthal Book New Smyrna Beach, Fla. D.D. Guttenplan has made a sale for Tom Segev [“On the Case,” April 25]: I will buy Segev’s book about Simon Wiesenthal because he approaches the man’s life with compassion. Yes, Wiesenthal often made inconsistent claims. Yes, Wiesenthal was vain, etc. But without his lifelong dedication to truth and justice the world would be less informed about Austria’s gleeful attachment to the Nazis. More important, many Nazi war criminals would have gone to their graves never having to publicly acknowledge their crimes against humanity. SAMUEL MCILRATH You Say Spartacist, I Say Sparticus Chicago In his April 25 letter Tom Tilitz states, “[Clara] Zetkin was a leader of the revolutionary wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany…. Her opposition to World War I led her, along with her close friend Rosa Luxemburg, to split from that party and help found the German Spartacist League.” The party of Luxemburg, Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht was the Spartakusbund, or Spartacus League. The Spartacist League is a Trotskyist party founded in the United States in the 1960s. In German, Spartacist League would be Bund der Spartakisten.
May 5, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
Too Pig to Bail Bluff Point, N.Y. William Greider’s message in “Put the Banksters on Trial” [April 18] is right on the money! If a citizen robs a bank, he will go to jail. Why should corrupt bankers walk free when they’ve robbed an entire nation? And why is President Obama so afraid to let Elizabeth Warren off her leash? I say cut her loose, and let’s watch all the creepy Madoff wannabes pay for their crimes! MARK D. SMYTH Not So Smart, ALEC Eugene, Ore. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s aggressive pursuit of the e-mail records of university professors who have dared to offer some insight into ALEC’s considerable behind-the-scenes influence in crafting anti–public worker legislation is ripe with ironic hypocrisy [“Noted,” April 18]. As revealed by The Nation’s investigative reporting on the anti-immigration legislation passed in Arizona, ALEC is a central player in shadowy antidemocratic efforts to move a highly conservative and destructive agenda through statehouses across the country. Its carbon-copy legislative proposals have cropped up in legislatures across the country, complete with the same misspellings and typos. While ALEC is a private organization and therefore exempt from FOIA, it seems to me that there should be a greater effort made to investigate and expose the members of this cabal, given their obvious effort to influence legislation while avoiding responsibility for the consequences of their efforts. CLAIRE SYRETT Tax the Rich—Please! Prescott, Wisc. So, New York’s new Democratic governor wants to let the “millionaire’s tax” lapse [Katha Pollitt, “Women Under the Budget Knife,” April 18]. Perhaps rephrasing the rallying cry of our founding fathers would be appropriate: No representation without taxation. WILLIAM KRUBSACK Kudos to Melissa Boca Raton, Fla. Re “Are We All Black Americans Now?” [April 18]: Whenever I finish listening to Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC or when I finish one of her Nation columns, I always feel like my consciousness has been raised about the human condition and, more specifically, the black experience in America. This essay was carefully prepared, building step by step from the foundation up, with historical truth and insight in a breathtaking series of historical analogies between life for the African-American community and events taking place since the November elections. Bravo to Harris-Perry for seeing things that many of us miss and for the thought-provoking analysis in each of her wonderful columns. BOB WAXMAN Olney, Md. I admire and greatly appreciate Melissa Harris-Perry’s intelligence, mind and creative expressions. In an April 18 Nation Associates ad she says, “For a progressive political nerd like me, being asked to write a column for The Nation was equivalent to being drafted by the NBA (although admittedly with a much smaller salary).” Melissa, think bigger! You are much more valuable than any NBA player! MARY A. ALLMAN Stirling, N.J. Bravo! Melissa Harris-Perry hits the bull’s-eye again. We are all very pleased in my family that she is on board what my granddaughter calls Grampa’s favorite “grown-up magazine with no pictures.” Marriage must agree with her, since she seems smarter with every issue. But this is absolutely the last iteration of her periodically reinvented name I will tolerate—unless, of course, she marries me. L.E. ALBA Palestinians & Israelis Together Motza Ilit, Israel Joseph Dana and Noam Sheizaf, in “The New Israeli Left” [March 28], mention Combatants for Peace. Some Israelis are actively opposing the occupation and the settlements—they are literally destroying our country—and assisting Palestinians because we feel, as Jews, it is our moral obligation. We are a small minority, but that minority is doing great things. The Combatants for Peace movement was started jointly by Palestinians and Israelis who had taken part in violence: Israelis as soldiers and Palestinians in the struggle against the occupation, mainly during the second intifada. Until then we had seen one another only through gun sights and at detention centers. Now we have put weapons aside and fight for peace. We recognize that this is the only way to put an end to the violence and bloodshed and the oppression of the Palestinian people. We act only nonviolently and see dialogue and reconciliation as the only way to end the occupation and to halt the settlements. I recently spoke with a fellow who heads the Jerusalem–Bethlehem branch of the organization. He commanded “shock” forces (his term) in the Bethlehem area during the second intifada, and I don’t even want to think of the violence he’s been responsible for. He spent seven years in jail and was released as part of the Oslo Accords. He had never met an Israeli who was not in uniform until he participated in demonstrations at Bil’in. Here he encountered Israelis in the thick of things, opposing the path of the wall and the expropriation of land. It did not take long before he became active in Combatants for Peace. I volunteer in Humans Without Borders, an organization of about 200 members devoted to helping Palestinian families whose children require medical treatment available only in Israeli hospitals. Each week volunteers drive about fifty children and their families to and from hospitals in Israel, where we visit and comfort the children—especially the ones being treated for cancer. I drive children from the Bethlehem–Jerusalem border crossing to a hospital in West Jerusalem to undergo dialysis three times a week. Humans Without Borders also organizes summer camps for the kids; we bring whole families to the sea and zoos for fun days, and we do so much more. Ilan Shtayer is a remarkable man who almost single-handedly arranges for the weekly distribution of vegetables from Wadi Fukhin, a small Palestinian village being strangled by the ultra-Orthodox city-settlement of Betar Ilit. The village is famous for its organic agricultural produce—they raise the most amazing vegetables. But until Ilan and others took the marketing in hand, the villagers had no way to sell their vegetables. Each week he trucks the goods into Jerusalem and distributes large boxes of wonderfully fresh organic seasonal produce—we never know what the boxes will contain. The 150 families in Wadi Fukhin survive because Ilan and his friends distribute that produce. Anarchists Against the Wall, Combatants for Peace, Humans Without Borders and others desperately need funding. LARRY LESTER
Apr 27, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Libya? Visalia, Calif. In “The Libya Intervention” [April 11] you compare the NATO activity in Libya with the Iraq War. But the Iraq War was entered on a whim of the Dubya Dimwit administration, which justified its actions with a suite of blatant lies. A more appropriate comparison would be with the 1991 Gulf War, where we used military force to halt mass atrocities by armies of criminals acting out the petulant rage of a self-obsessed dictator. I don’t question our intervening in Libya, but I do question our competence. I fear we will be less successful in dealing with Qaddafi than with Saddam. DENNIS ANTHONY New York City I objected strongly to the Iraq invasion, but I felt proud to hear my president say that America had chosen to intervene in Libya because of who we are. I call that restoring our moral standing. ANNA THEOFILOPOULOU Tulsa, Okla. When I read the Wall Street Journal I know I will find soundly researched, reasonably objective news stories, but if I turn to the editorial pages (which I never do) reason and objectivity will be replaced by an ideology worthy of the Middle Ages. Sadly, I find The Nation to be equally praiseworthy, and guilty—with the opposite ideology. An example is your stance on Libya. Not all military interventions are equal. Kosovo cannot be equated with Iraq. BRAD BYERS Be Sure Green Is Green Beverly, Mass. Amen to Mark Hertsgaard’s final comment in “Obama ♥ Nukes” [April 11]: “Let’s make sure that [alternative energy] is truly green.” There are a lot of wolves in sheep’s clothing out there. Something green must return more energy than went into building, maintaining and decommissioning it at the end of its life. This is known as energy balance. A wind farm or solar panel in the wrong place can fail this criterion if a large infrastructure is required to distribute the energy, or if geographic considerations result in the need for heroic civil engineering. Where are energy balance studies? JOHN BELL The Lies of Old Men Beaverton, Ore. William Mitchell, in “Beyond Austerity” [April 4], debunks neoliberal economic myths used to justify destructive government policies. It is courageous for a professional economist to do so. He writes, “The analogy between national and household budgets is false—government can spend more than its revenue because it creates currency.” Mitchell concludes, however, that government budget deficits are needed to fund “increased public spending to directly target job creation.” If the government can “print” all the “currency” it needs, why should there be a budget deficit? When the government prints and directly spends legal tender, it competes with private banks, which also create money. Banks charge interest on their new money, which vanishes when the loan is repaid. Newly printed and spent government money is free of debt and permanently increases the money supply. When “targeted jobs” build interstates and bridges, or a high-speed rail system, they do not compete for resources with home builders or automobile manufacturers. Infrastructure construction and maintenance is uniquely a government responsibility, and paying for it with debt-free new “currency” will promote private investment and economic growth. Dennis Kucinich will reintroduce the National Employment Emergency Defense Act, which authorizes debt-free money creation and spending by the government (see kucinich.house.gov/UploadedFiles/NEED_ACT.pdf). ROBERT W. ZIMMERER Zacatecas, Mexico William Mitchell claims that progressive economists “with some well-known exceptions (Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman and William Greider)” now advocate “fiscal constraint” rather than increasing overall deficit spending. Stiglitz and Krugman are impeccable neoclassical economists who apparently believe in the “special case” argument for massive Keynesian-style deficits during downturns. Otherwise, they are in basic accord with the general laissez-faire consensus of mainstream economics, which generally stands apart from the zany ideas of the Chicago School monetarists and rational expectationists, the supply-siders and libertarians driving the current wave of government-smashing austerity policies. Greider is a journalist. There are, however, a few thousand professionally trained economists who have earned the term “progressive”—often known as “radical,” institutionalists, post-Keynesian, neo-Marxist or Marxist— economists. None of these practitioners are advocating “fiscal constraint” at present. Furthermore, most of these progressive economists would question Mitchell’s standard-issue Keynesian solutions, since while “Japan has been running large deficits since…the early 1990s,” as Mitchell champions, it has also languished in a morass of deflation and stagnation. JAMES MARTÍN CYPHER Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas Madison, Va. I have no argument with William Mitchell’s logic; it’s his argumentative skills that need repair. After a long historical introduction, Mitchell lists five so-called neoliberal lies. He then proceeds to clarify the lies by repeating them in more or less commonsensical terms, pounding them even more clearly into his readers’ minds. Those lies have curb appeal. If they are to be refuted, the language must be equally appealing. As Mitchell points out, the public has been hornswoggled by smooth-talking blue-eyed devils on Fox and other media outlets. If he had simply stated that demand is a function of money in consumers’ pockets and supply is a function of demand, turning supply-side economics on its numskull head, he could have proceeded to destroy the neoliberal lies in plain, organized words instead of deluging his readers with opaque jargon. FRANKLIN LONZO DIXON JR. Correction Katha Pollitt’s May 2 “Subject to Debate” column said that Planned Parenthood received $317 million in Title X funding. Actually, Title X received $317 million in 2010, part of which went to PP.
Apr 20, 2011 / Our Readers
History and Heartbreak: The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg History and Heartbreak: The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg wanted it all: books and music, sex and art, evening walks and the revolution. Her lover, Leo Jogiches, told her this was nonsense.
Apr 13, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick
Letters Letters
¡Baja Libre! for the Real Arizonans Thank you for noting our Baja Arizona movement [“Noted,” April 4]. One small quibble: since the term “secession” has some unpalatable history, we prefer “separation.” Our model is West Virginia, which separated in order to stay in the Union when Virginia seceded. We have a drink too, the Baja Libre. It’s tequila and Squirt. Don’t waste the boutique stuff in these; any cheap tequila blanca will do. ¡Salud! BILL MILLER The Insanity of the Nuclear Age Mineola, N.Y. As Japan reels from the cataclysm of earthquakes and the tsunami—and the greatest nuclear disaster since Chernobyl—Jonathan Schell’s linkage of the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the folly of Fukushima should serve as a cautionary tale about militarism, the nature of war and the dangers of nuclear proliferation [“From Hiroshima to Fukushima,” April 4]. Although more than six decades have elapsed since President Truman ordered the atomic bombardment of two densely populated Japanese cities in World War II, we are still haunted by this mass incineration of civilians. When Italian physicist Enrico Fermi produced the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942, the objective was the disruption and elimination of Nazi Germany’s war machine—not the wholesale eradication of noncombatants. Nuclear energy is a fact of life in the Land of the Rising Sun, and Japan has borne the brunt of yet another atomic tragedy. ROSARIO A. IACONIS West Kingston, R.I. Jonathan Schell’s conclusions on the nature of nuclear crises are biblical. This is what we get for fooling with nature. We humans are tropical animals, akin to monkeys and chimps. It is not a great step from fireplaces to steam engines to nuclear power. Each of these methods of creating heat and fuel is severely flawed and unsustainable. If we are doomed for fooling with nature and taking on necessities too complex to handle, then we were doomed 1 million years ago when we conquered fire. The control of fire ultimately resulted in our taking over the planet. I suppose one could argue about whether that was a good thing, especially for the other living things on the earth. But the alternative was to remain in the tropics as just another group of quarreling smart apes. I think of the human species in classical Greek terms. Our nature contains our strengths, beauty and incredible creativity; also the seeds of our destruction through arrogance and greed. We can do nothing but appreciate this fact and try to overcome as we watch and suffer and feel sorrow for our fateful limitations. MARQUISA LaVELLE The Legacy of the Triangle Fire Brooklyn, N.Y. Joshua Freeman, in “Remembering the Triangle Fire” [April 4], did not mention a major change in worker protection inspired by the fire. The day before the fire the New York Court of Appeals declared the state’s first workers’ compensation law unconstitutional. It took until July 1, 1914, three years after the fire, before a new law would come into effect, after amending the New York State Constitution. RONALD BALTER New York City My grandfather, Benjamin Schlesinger, was president of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in 1903, when he was only 27, then president in 1914–23 and again in 1928–32. At the time of the Triangle fire he was manager of the Jewish daily Forward. My mother often quoted him: “Live a life of social significance!” When his wife complained that they were living in a fourth-floor walk-up in the Bronx and she had to shlep carriages, etc. for three small children, Grandpa would say, “When all the workers live in an elevator building, we will live in one too.” So much has been written about the Triangle fire. Less known is the role of women in the history of the ILGWU. By and large, these very young women, girls as young as 14, came from Eastern Europe. Most were Jewish and lived on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Through these shared experiences the women developed a loyalty to one another, and, as Joshua Freeman notes, a passion to work together. One of them, Clara Lemlich, who had been beaten up on the picket line, called for a general strike. The “Uprising of the Twenty Thousand” followed. The kind of unity that developed among these women workers is, I believe, unique. Yes, today’s feminists work together and have accomplished much. And there are women today serving as mentors to younger women just beginning their careers. But we come from all over, speak different languages, have various levels of education—these differences make it difficult for me to imagine a feminist leader calling for a strike today that would be followed by a walkout of 20,000 women. Now and then, I wish I had lived at the time of Clara Lemlich, especially now when “labor” is a bad word and belonging to a union is treated as if it were a crime. “Labor” was a bad word then, too, and belonging to a union was a crime. But the women went on strike, and bit by bit the unions and the nation grew stronger. JUDITH S. ANTROBUS New York City My mother, Rhoda Rothman Gladstone, lived through the Triangle fire, 100 years ago, by hiding in a closet. MORTON GLADSTONE The F-word Highland, N.Y. I’m a retired teacher and after I finish reading your wonderful publication, I donate it to my former high school’s library. So that is the reason for this request; not for censorship. You do not use the F-word gratuitously, and I am not offended by it. But I fear a parent may complain and your valuable publication would be taken away from those youngsters, who would benefit from the progressive point of view. Perhaps you could print that word like this: f**k. JOE DiBLANCA We understand your dilemma, and also that well-intentioned but unenlightened parents sometimes call for censorship. But we also see “f**k” as censorship, a euphemism that weakens language and is a tool of hypocrisy. We’d like the kids to see this word used “properly.” If the parents remove the magazine, the kids will lose. But either way they lose. —The Editors No More Bottom of the Bird Cage Northglenn, Colo. How to recycle your Nation magazine: 1. Remove your name and address label to protect your privacy. 2. Place a sticker on the front instructing others to also recycle by passing the magazine along. 3. Make sure the subscription address and phone number are prominent. 4. Leave copies at the airport, and in your doctor’s, dentist’s and other waiting rooms so others can learn about The Nation. GARY COXA ‘Death to PBS and Planned Parenthood!’ St. James, Mo. While we supposedly fight to eradicate the Taliban and their oppressive Sharia law 
in Afghanistan, the “Tea-liban” and their oppressive law take over our country! DON THOMANN
Apr 13, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
‘Class Warfare!’ Our Rallying Cry! Hillsborough, N.C. Finally! Eric Alterman writes of the only issue that subsumes all the rest: class warfare [“The Liberal Media,” March 28]. When the right talks of class warfare, the left acts as if this distasteful topic should never be talked about. It won’t even use the term, as if it delegitimizes anything that follows. Ronald Reagan initiated the relentless organized assault on the middle class and the poor, carried on by every president since, with support from a paid-for Congress, the right’s think tanks and the usual demagogues. If Frank Luntz can construct frames that advance right-wing class warfare, it is time for the left to use this term as our rallying cry. We must illustrate with specifics what has been done to the middle class and the poor. I used to wonder how a decimated middle class would be able to buy goods when finally tapped out. Now I understand that business no longer cares about the domestic market, which after all is only 300 million. There’s a whole world of billions out there desperate to consume. We are marked down for clearance. Alterman laments that no one in the media challenged Rick Santelli’s disgusting comparison of public pensions and the slaughter of 9/11. Such a challenge will never happen, because our media are the problem. Consider the evening “news,” as formulaic as infotainment can be. Headlines, followed by the disease of the day and whatever “human interest” stories (Charlie Sheen? Baby in a well?) can be squeezed between the drug and car ads. If they can divert us with this garbage, no one will notice that we’ve finished second in today’s ferocious class warfare. M. DAVID PRESTON Clara Zetkin & International Women’s Day Jackson Heights, N.Y. In a March 28 “Noted” item, Kate Murphy uses the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day and the release of a report from the White House Council on Women to assess the economic inequalities women still face. She acknowledges the role of Clara Zetkin in initiating the celebration of International Women’s Day. But her description of Zetkin as a “German activist and politician” is too brief. Zetkin was a leader of the revolutionary wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany for nearly four decades spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her opposition to World War I led her, along with her close friend Rosa Luxemburg, to split from that party and help found the German Spartacist League. She became a founding leader of the German Communist Party and a Reichstag delegate representing that party. Zetkin died in exile in the Soviet Union shortly after the Nazis came to power. She is interred in the Kremlin wall. It is rare today in the United States for revolutionary voices like Zetkin’s to gain a hearing. But the role of revolutionary socialists in the growth of the international labor movement is an essential part of its history. Zetkin wrote, “The main task is, indeed, to awaken the women’s class consciousness and to incorporate them into the class struggle.” Perhaps such words deserve a hearing today, as attacks on the American labor movement intensify in a manner that will surely have a disproportionate ill effect on women. TOM TILITZ Get the L Out—APA, Not ALPA Denver Steve Early wrote in “Vermont’s Struggle for Single-Payer” [March 28] that Brian Dubie is a member of ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association. Dubie’s union is the APA, Allied Pilots Association, not ALPA. As a liberal I am irritated that any union member would support the Republican agenda, and I do not want my proud union, ALPA, associated with him. By the way, many ALPA members came from across the country to protest with and support the people of Wisconsin. JAKE SANDERS
Apr 6, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
On Wisconsin! Ashland, Wis. I am resubscribing to The Nation because of your excellent coverage of the Wisconsin labor rallies. I am passionate about fighting Scott Walker’s dictatorial agenda and his desire to eliminate public unions in this state. I appreciate very much how you have supported this state that I love, and I feel it is important to support you in return. Progressives should stick together, and I will stick by you. TIM ZIEGENHAGEN Gig Harbor, Wash. I enjoyed John Nichols’s “The Spirit of Wisconsin” [March 21] as well as his appearances on Ed Schultz’s show. With all that has transpired there, I am amazed that the old custom of tarring and feathering has not been suggested for the governor and the Republican legislators. They need to be reminded of something that stuck in my mind after hearing it in the movie V: “People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” WENDY WEIDMAN Appleton, Wis. Walker the Stalker Takes from the poor, gives to the rich This lying, cheating, son-of-a-_ _ _ _ _. Walker the Stalker An odious man who attempts to invoke The will of his masters, the brothers Koch. Walker the Stalker His abuse of power we cannot condone It’s time this tyrant was pulled off his throne! THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL Does Abortion Make Us Brown? Pleasantville, N.Y. Bravo to Melissa Harris-Perry [“Sister Citizen,” March 21] for bringing up an important issue that has not been mentioned on either side of the abortion debate. Her discussion of the misogynistic and racial concern that white women are not having babies while women of color are harks back to the mid-nineteenth century, when abortion first became a contentious issue in the United States. There were a number of activists on the antiabortion side (including women’s rights activists, but that’s for another day). One group of key players were physicians, led by Dr. Horatio Storer, who wanted to outlaw abortion, except when recommended by a physician. Obviously they had a financial motive: in those days anyone could hang up a shingle and be an abortion provider. Dr. Storer had another concern, however, which echoes Harris-Perry’s allusion to today’s antiabortionists’ fear that our country will become more brown. Dr. Storer famously asked in 1868 whether the West would “be filled by our own children or by those of aliens.” He said, “This is a question our women must answer; upon their loins depends the future destiny of the nation.” Sound familiar? CAROL ROYE Secaucus, N.J. As an actress, I tour nationally with a 1912 script by suffragist Marie Jenney Howe, called Someone Must Wash the Dishes: An Anti-Suffrage Satire. Howe used a term now so obscure my audiences rarely even request a definition: “race suicide.” Having read Melissa Harris-Perry’s column “The War on Women’s Futures,” I plan to volunteer that definition at each future performance. I knew the early-twentieth-century white majority feared that women’s suffrage would reduce the number of “real” Americans in proportion to the more propagative immigrants. I hadn’t realized how frighteningly that fear is reflected in the rhetoric of today’s Tea Party members of the House. MICHELE LaRUE People or Gadgets? Los Angeles The March 21 issue presented two useful visions of how Internet freedom will or will not create more openness: Micah Sifry’s “The End of Secrecy” and Chris Lehmann’s “An Accelerated Grimace.” I am closer to Lehmann’s view. The Internet, however ubiquitous and sophisticated, is a widget. It is people, not gadgets, who create a free society and the culture and institutions that go with it. Missing from the articles, as well as most discussions of the WikiLeaks disclosures, is the role of freedom of information laws. Strengthening these laws seems more likely to result in a greater level of government transparency in the long run than hacktivism. NICK McNAUGHTON Copy That Glen Ridge, N.J. The Nation arrived and I looked, as always, to see if Stuart Klawans was in it. Yes!—reviewing Certified Copy [“A Signature Copy,” March 21]. I agreed with his analysis, especially that it’s “futile” to try to decide whether the two characters have just met or really go back. But unlike him, I didn’t like the film. I don’t think Kiarostami likes his two characters. I suspect he may not like his audience either. I’ve seen several Kiarostami features; this is the only one that’s so cold. The others have puzzles too. But in the Koker trilogy and all the others I’ve seen, he is interested in and respectful of his characters. A partial exception is the cellphone guy in The Wind Will Carry Us—an interesting exception, because that guy is portrayed as Westernized, almost rootless, like the Western, cosmopolitan leads in Certified Copy. When I leave the theater after a Kiarostami film, even Taste of Cherry, I feel good. Not this time. It all seemed like a game, one I didn’t care about. STEVE GOLIN Klawans Replies New York City Thanks to Steve Golin for such a thoughtful and kind dissent, and such a reassuring one. It seems he would have gone to see Certified Copy no matter what I wrote, so I won’t have to refund the price of his ticket. He is definitely onto something when he compares William Shimell’s character here to the character of the so-called engineer in The Wind Will Carry Us. But I don’t know where in Kiarostami’s previous work we could find an analogue to Juliette Binoche in this movie. Only in Ten—and really, not even there—has Kiarostami put on film a woman who is so emphatically present. To me, his attitude to the character is not cold at all, and goes beyond mere like or dislike. He’s enthralled by this woman, with her continually shifting desires, dissatisfactions, hopes and hurts, her strangely opaque outpourings and amusingly transparent little lies. That’s how I felt, anyway—and in saying it, I recognize that Golin and I may have an unbridgeable difference of sensibility here. So I’m grateful to him for registering another response, and also for giving me an opportunity to confess what I see as my biggest failure in writing about Certified Copy. I never mentioned that it’s often very funny. STUART KLAWANS Correction Ian Thomson’s “Scotland Yard” [March 28] made it appear that Haitian independence was declared in 1805. It was 1804.
Mar 30, 2011 / Our Readers and Stuart Klawans
Letters Letters
Get Mad as Hell! Tehachapi, Calif. After reading “Indignez-vous!” by Stéphane Hessel [March 7/14], I was compelled to order his French original online. Looking at his photograph, I would never have guessed at his incredible depth and understanding of the world’s unceasing shortcomings. He looks embittered and hardened by his life’s experiences. Obviously, looks are deceiving. His life’s experiences have propelled the man to surpass himself time and time again. The “fight” has not gone out of him at the ripe old age of 93, which makes him practically a superhero. He should be the kind of man youth read about in comic books, admirable in his very tenacity to continue the fight for the universally oppressed. Thank you for making me aware that hope is still alive. MAXINE de VILLEFRANCHE Mayville, Mich. I was happy for, and envious of, the French, who have a person with the stature of Stéphane Hessel to call for outrage over the present course of government and to hark back to the Resistance and its members’ vision for society. Where are the American statesmen—in government and public service—who truly have the common good as their vision? Where are the large figures who will denounce our elected officials who serve the corporations and banks? Our middle-class and poorer citizens are bearing the brunt of taxes; who is there to represent us? Where are our statesmen who will sound the cry “No taxation without representation!”? It certainly applies today as much if not more than 235 years ago. JOHN R. WYSKIEL We Shall Overcome Mount Pleasant, S.C. Contrary to Gary Younge’s “Selling History Short in Mississippi,” the fiftieth anniversary reunion of the Freedom Riders is neither about Governor Haley Barbour nor about people with similar mindsets—those who would rewrite history, losing the truth in the editing [“Beneath the Radar,” March 7/14]. It is about a group of people and their supporters who set in motion, against all odds, a movement that changed the country. When the Freedom Rides began in 1961, Ross Barnett was the governor of Mississippi and John Patterson, the governor of Alabama. Both championed an oppressive way of life for people of color; we confronted them directly on their turf. Freedom Riders (the term was used interchangeably with “Freedom Fighters” by locals) were divided into two groups—those who rode the buses and the citizens of Alabama, New Orleans, Mississippi and other places who supported, trained and protected the riders. It was the latter group who did whatever they could to assist the riders viciously beaten in Birmingham and Montgomery. People by the hundreds faced angry mobs in Montgomery the night before and the day the riders left for Jackson. It was this latter group who sent riders from Nashville and New Orleans to join the rides in Montgomery. It was this latter group, in New Orleans, who provided training and support for about 40 percent of the riders who went to jail in Jackson. In addition to celebrating the event, the reunion of the Freedom Riders should also be about telling the whole story of the Freedom Rides. I understand why people might not agree to attend a reception sponsored by Mississippi’s Governor Barbour; however, I do think we should celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Freedom Rides in Jackson. We need to bring the focus back to Mississippi and let the local people who played a role in the Freedom Rides (and their children) speak. Our actions in 1961 motivated further actions that exposed and brought down many racial barriers and promoted the emergence of new leaders; they also resulted in great suffering and the deaths of many, such as Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Mickey Schwerner and George Raymond, to name a few. I owe it to them to return to Mississippi for this reunion. I owe it to many whose names your readers will recognize who continued the struggle—Fannie Lou Hamer, Annie Devine, Victoria Gray, Amzie Moore, C.C. Bryant, the Rev. Clinton Collier, C.O. Chinn, the Castles of New Orleans, again to name a few. More than that, I owe it to all those people and their children and grandchildren in Mississippi, Alabama and New Orleans who provided support and protection to those who continued the work in Mississippi through the 1964 Freedom Summer and continue the work to this day. I owe it to these people to go back to Mississippi to say to their families, Thank you. I need to let them and the world know that there would not have been a successful Freedom Ride or a successful Freedom Summer without their support and sacrifice. I also want to stand with them and say to the world that the fight is not over. We fought it yesterday, we are fighting it today and we will fight it tomorrow. Failing to support the fiftieth anniversary reunion of Freedom Riders in Mississippi and giving the local people their place in history would most certainly be “Selling History Short in Mississippi”! DAVE DENNIS (See ms50thfreedomridersreunion.org) A Friend to Public Sector Workers Las Vegas Jane McAlevey’s “Labor’s Last Stand” [March 7/14] misrepresents my actions as former Clark County [Nevada] manager and my sentiments toward public sector unions. Specifically, she states that in 2003, I “aligned with the Chamber of Commerce and the Nevada Taxpayers Union” to blast “public workers for earning more than their private sector counterparts. With a Democrat as the messenger, liberals were confused.” Here are the facts: I never endorsed any report by the Chamber or the Taxpayers Union, and I never “blasted” public employees for making more than the private sector or questioned their collective-bargaining rights. Rather, my position was that by refusing to compromise on wages and benefits when Clark County’s population and service needs were increasing sharply, union leaders jeopardized the county’s ability to fulfill its core mandate: delivering essential services. In 2003 our employees were receiving pay increases double the rate of inflation and far ahead of growth in the CPI, making them among the highest paid in the nation, though we ranked at the bottom in number of public employees per capita. We were falling below acceptable levels for critical services. Since labor made up most of our spending, and we lacked authority to raise revenues, payroll reductions were unavoidable. But the unions’ unwillingness to make any concessions led to service cutbacks and, ultimately, to layoffs. I believe the majority of unionized public sector employees understand the need to compromise. Their leaders, unfortunately, are often less practical even when revenues are down, debt is up and demand for services is unrelenting. This hardnosed tack puts their own membership and vulnerable populations at risk and has cost the unions the broad public support they used to enjoy. Rather than dig in their heels, I would suggest—as I have for years—that they learn to be more flexible. THOM REILLY McAlevey Replies New York City Thom Reilly’s “facts” don’t add up. When I arrived in Nevada in early 2004, the Democratic county manager was almost daily attacking the wages of the workers. In the many news articles from that time in which Reilly is quoted blasting public employee wages for being out of line with those of the private sector, he never chose to distance himself from the attacks officially launched by the Chamber of Commerce, the Nevada Taxpayers Union or the bruising Review Journal cartoons that ridiculed the Clark County workers. In the April 5, 2005, issue of In Business Las Vegas, Reilly states, “There isn’t any justification for government workers getting higher cost-of-living increases than what everyone else gets out there.” In the May 12, 2004, coverage of the county executive making his case to gut workers’ wages and benefits, the reporter states, “Reilly and Finance Director George Stevens returned to well-traveled ground while describing the long-term financial situation of the county to the commission. The pair have argued that the growth in rank-and-file salaries has exceeded the wage growth in the private sector and inflation, and has undermined the ability to create new positions to serve the rapidly growing county population.” Reilly’s letter to the editor underscores many of the points I make in my article about the attack on government workers. Far from jeopardizing the county’s “ability to deliver essential services,” as Reilly claims, the government workers in Nevada in fact offered up many ideas of ways to alter the revenue stream and dedicated hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against potentially devastating cuts to needed government services. Perhaps most insidious, Reilly raises the false choice of “needed services versus workers.” The problem with Reilly’s narrative, then and now, is that liberals have accepted this antiworker logic rather than outright rejecting the idea that we have only two choices: either destroy some of the few remaining decent middle-class jobs left in America—especially for African-Americans and women, who hold a disproportionately high number of government jobs—or defend needed services. It’s a choice invented by corporate America and its neoliberal allies, who seek to distract us from the many real choices we have as a nation—starting with taxing the rich and corporations. JANE McALEVEY
Mar 23, 2011 / Our Readers and Jane McAlevey
Letters Letters
Gotcha Covered Allentown, Pa. Keep the table of contents inside the magazine. The new covers are a jumbled mess. Please bring back Avenging Angels or a similarly edgy and creative agency. DENNIS MICHAEL FURST Barton, Vt. The new cover format—a touch of horizontal voyeurism?—displays the contents more clearly. It’s cleaner, and I like it. MARTHA GORDON Kept the Home Fires Burning Prescott, Wis. Ah, yes! Michelle Goldberg’s “When Fiction Becomes Fact” [Feb. 28]: in early 1942 the US military received a civilian report that one Ransaku Saito (a Japanese immigrant) had installed a searchlight in his chimney in Aberdeen, Washington, which helped direct Japanese aircraft to Aberdeen. Never mind that Saito had died in 1936. Indeed, history does repeat itself. WILLIAM KRUBSACK Jack the Gipper Manchester, Md. Alexander Cockburn’s acerbic and brilliant prose has never been used to better effect than in “Dishonoring Reagan” [“Beat the Devil,” Feb. 28]. “Malign vacuity” is an inspired description. I experience an involuntary shudder when I see footage of Reagan, much like what happens when I drive over a crushed animal on the road—minus the pity. KRISTIN KOLARIK Jacksonville Beach, Fla. Bravo, Alexander Cockburn! I sometimes feel like I am living in someone else’s bad acid trip—until a writer like Cockburn rekindles the light of reason and clarity and reminds us of the true legacy of a man who did more to damage our political and socioeconomic landscape than anyone in the twentieth century. PATRICK NOLAN San Jose, Calif. Thanks to Alexander Cockburn for doing the deed on poor, dumb Ronnie Reagan. I have had it up to here with PBS et al. trying to turn this sappy fascist into an elder statesman. This guy bought arms for terrorists. Isn’t that a criterion for treason? TIM RYAN Brandon, Iowa Thanks to Alexander Cockburn for a burst of reality. Amid all the hoopla over the Reagan centenary, I had begun to suspect mass amnesia. Cockburn’s brief review of the sordid record of his presidency is a sorely needed reminder of what it was really like. We must admit that he did have an enormous impact on public attitudes and discourse: almost single-handedly, he made unabashed greed acceptable. The Great Prevaricator was able to convince the poor and the middle class that they deserved no better than what they had. WILLIAM REEDY An Apple for the Mentor New Orleans Re David L. Kirp’s “The Kids Are All Right” [Feb. 28]: it would be great if there were enough stable adults (and money) for every troubled child in America to have a mentor, but as Kirp points out, it’s impossible. Friends of Children provides something rapidly disappearing in the schools of poor communities (where the number of troubled children is disproportionately high): teachers who stick around. With the rise of programs like Teach for America, teaching has become less of a career and more of a two-year stint for fresh-faced college grads to use to beef up their résumés. Growing up, I visited my second grade teacher after school all the way through high school. She was always in the same room with the same posters on the wall and the same sunny disposition I’d known when I was 7. That consistency meant the world to me when other parts of my life became unstable. Mentoring depends only on an adult’s willingness to stick around and to care. SOPHIE LUCIDO JOHNSON Who Are You Calling ‘Socialized’? Portland, Ore. Paul Goode states incorrectly [“Letters,” Feb. 21] that “single-payer is socialized medicine: the state owns and operates a healthcare system financed by taxes.” “Single-payer” refers only to how healthcare is financed, not how it is delivered. Medicare is a single-payer system. The Veterans Administration is socialized medicine; its doctors are on the federal payroll. Every state single-payer bill I know of, as well as the national legislation (HR 676), allows free choice of providers, whether public or private. PETER SHAPIRO Oregon Single Payer Campaign Read It and Leap Seattle Charles Taylor, in “The Ballad of John and J.D.” [Feb. 14], seems to be arguing two things at once. One is that John Lennon and J.D. Salinger represent some sort of opposing poles in American culture. The second is that reading fiction can influence your behavior. This is a topic that I think goes back to Plato, who wanted only inspiring literature in his republic. It is the theme of Don Quixote. It is evidenced by Goethe, when thousands committed suicide after reading one of his early works. And it is explored in a similar way by Chekhov, who notes that some women end their lives after reading about Ophelia. Mark Twain makes fun of the notion but writes about it frequently. In the case Taylor is writing about, Mark David Chapman read Salinger intensely before killing Lennon. I would like Mr. Taylor to answer the following: Can fiction actually induce entirely new behavior? Or does the tendency to look to fiction as an unerring guide already exhibit a pathology? MAHLON MEYER Taylor Replies Brooklyn, N.Y. We tend to think of art’s influence in one of two naïve ways: either as a wholly benign force that can spread only understanding and enrichment, or as a force that has the power to unhinge the unstable, one that elites (the government, school boards, the MPAA ratings board) must vet for the lower orders. We have a hard time accepting that art is neither completely benign nor directly poisonous, that part of its power, and its horror, is that it can stir up all sorts of unpredictable feelings. I sense the same either/or approach in Mahlon Meyer’s questions. My piece clearly answers his first question: I stated that J.D. Salinger did not inspire Mark David Chapman to murder John Lennon. But Meyer’s second question turns Salinger’s fiction into a powerless entity and thus misses my point. That The Catcher in the Rye didn’t direct Chapman’s behavior does not make it impossible for Chapman to have found in Salinger’s elitist moralism an echo of his belief that the corrupt and phony dirty the world, a belief he decided to act on with a gun. CHARLES TAYLOR
Mar 16, 2011 / Our Readers and Charles Taylor
Letters Letters
David—1, Goliath—0 La Jolla, Calif. Congratulations on your February 21 issue—most stimulating! Egypt, a left-wing Tea Party, feminism in Iceland and Marshall Ganz teaching us David sometimes wins! TANJA WINTER Vacaville, Calif. The Egyptian protester shown carrying a cellphone instead of a gun?—it worked! ROCCO J. COLELLA Corporate Citizens: Pay Your Taxes! Port Townsend, Wash. Johann Hari’s “The UK’s Left-Wing Tea Party” [Feb. 21] is huge. Has anyone picked a target corporation and commenced action that we here in Washington can join? Let’s get it going! MARK STEVENSON Brooklyn, N.Y. Johann Hari’s article on protests against tax dodgers in England presents a great example of creative tactics largely using social media. What Hari does not present, however, is a credible organizing model for a progressive equivalent to the Tea Party. First, the Tea Party may be odious and destructive, but it has a comprehensive political vision—eliminate social programs, shrink government, deregulate big business and let individual Americans do whatever the heck they want. Because of this clear vision, the Tea Party not only cast doubt on healthcare reform but pushed both parties to attack deficit spending, shifting the terms of debate. The British protesters Hari describes are against corporations and the rich dodging taxes. But what are they for? Do they represent a pro-tax “movement”? Do they defend taxes for everyone, or even call on the government to raise taxes? Unlike conservatives, US progressives have long been hobbled by their lack of a vision on this and other issues. Organizing protests on Twitter doesn’t change this. Second, there is a fundamental difference between mobilizing and organizing. “Mobilizing” means inspiring or provoking people to participate in an action. “Organizing” is a more sustained process that builds individual and group power to identify goals and engage in sustained action to achieve them. Mobilizing is thin and narrow. Organizing is thick and transformational. Both are important, but to suggest that some oppositional protests—albeit creative tactically—are the same as a more sustained ideological movement is like suggesting that going to a McDonald’s is equivalent to cultivating a farm. Empty calories can feel satisfying, but… Mobilizations can become transformational movements—but that takes deep organizing and a positive long-term vision. SALLY KOHN, founder, chief education officer Movement Vision Lab Hari Replies London Mark Stevenson: you can find a map of all planned US Uncut protests at usuncut.org/actions/list. If there isn’t one in your area yet, it’s very easy to arrange one and add it to the map. Let me know how it goes! Sally Kohn: UK Uncut has a very clear vision. The British government says every day that the only way to deal with its budget deficit is to dismantle public services and make the middle class and poor pay. UK Uncut says that the government should instead collect the £120 billion the superrich are currently avoiding and evading in taxes every year. What could be clearer? Make the people who caused this crisis pay for it—starting by collecting the taxes they already owe, and by (yes) increasing them. Kohn asks, the protesters “are against corporations and the rich dodging taxes. But what are they for?” It’s there in my article and in everything UK Uncut says: preserving and extending the welfare state that has been built up by centuries of activism and preserving all the things we value about our country—from publicly owned forests to good schools—by making the people who crashed and trashed our economy finally pay their share. Isn’t that a positive vision? She also asks, “Do they represent a pro-tax ‘movement’? Do they defend taxes for everyone, or even call on the government to raise taxes?” Yes, yes and yes, as she could have seen if she’d looked at UK Uncut’s website before insultingly comparing the group to a political Happy Meal. If the UK Uncut agenda—which commands majority support, according to polling—succeeds, hundreds of thousands of people being forced out of their homes, and millions of public workers being fired, will see their terrible suffering vanish. I think you’d find it hard to tell those people this amounts only to “empty calories.” I agree that “‘organizing’ is a more sustained process that builds individual and group power to identify goals and engage in sustained action to achieve them.” If Kohn wants an inspiring model of that, she’s welcome at a UK or US Uncut meeting anytime. JOHANN HARI Clarification Gary Younge’s March 7/14 “Beneath the Radar” column, titled “Selling History Short in Mississippi” stated that “[Diane] Nash and other original freedom fighters will not be attending” a reception honoring Freedom Riders being hosted by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. To clarify: some Freedom Riders, including John Lewis and Bob Filner, will be in attendance.
Mar 10, 2011 / Our Readers and Johann Hari