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
Letters Letters
Scrap the Constitution? New York City; Austin, Tex. In “Stealing the Constitution” [Feb. 7], his fervid attack on right-wing constitutionalism, Garrett Epps writes that the Constitution has grown “more democratic and egalitarian” over time. Not quite. Enormous strides have been made in the direction of racial and sexual equality, but other trends have been in the opposite direction. Where it took five states representing as little as 15 percent of the population to veto a constitutional amendment in 1789, for instance, it takes thirteen states representing as little as 4.4 percent of the total to do the same today. By the year 2030, according to Census projections, it will take just 4 percent. When it comes to the people’s basic right to alter their mode of government, the United States is growing less democratic. Similarly, forty-one senators representing as little as 11.5 percent of the population can veto any bill, a figure that is expected to drop over the next three decades to 10.1 percent. Today a voter in Wyoming, which has a nonwhite population of 14 percent, has seventy-three times as much clout in Senate elections as a voter in California, the first “minority majority” state. By 2030, he or she will have eighty-nine times as much clout. Wyoming voters also have three times as much power in presidential elections, which means they have at least that much extra leverage when it comes to judicial appointments. If the federal judiciary leans more and more heavily to the right these days, this clearly has something to do with it. Thanks to the rule by which an amendment requires the concurrence of two-thirds of each house plus three-fourths of the states, the US Constitution is the hardest such document to change on the face of the globe. Thanks to the principle of equal state suffrage—which Article V says cannot be modified without the unanimous agreement of all fifty states—the Senate is the most unrepresentative legislative chamber in the putative democratic world. Yet that is equally unchangeable. As we saw with Bush v. Gore, the Electoral College allows a determined minority to steal the White House, and it, too, remains as unyielding as the Rock of Gibraltar. What the Constitution giveth in terms of the occasional progressive judicial opinion, it more than taketh away by augmenting the power of Wyoming, the Dakotas and other rural white bastions. The result is a pitiless dictatorship of the past over the present that grows more constrictive with each decade. Constitutional intractability of this sort is a powerful sop to the right, which explains the growing potency of the ultraconservative movement. Perhaps the Tea Partiers understand the Constitution better than Epps realizes. DANIEL LAZARE SANFORD LEVINSON Ashland, Mass. If the left spends its time trying to “take back the Constitution,” as Garrett Epps recommends, then it is in a very bad place. The right’s claims about the Constitution are indeed absurd, but is refuting them the best the left can do? Instead, progressive lawyers and legal scholars would be well advised to begin creating model constitutions and new amendments and laying the groundwork for a constitutional convention, with all the difficulties and perils that it would entail. A constitutional convention is in our future, and the left and “ordinary people” are completely unprepared. BERNARD GILMAN Epps Replies Washington, D.C. Daniel Lazare and Sanford Levinson take me to task because, they say, one part of the Constitution, the Senate, is not “more democratic and egalitarian” than it used to be, and is arguably less so. This would be a well-placed objection if I had said, “All parts of and institutions under the Constitution have become more democratic and egalitarian.” But I did not. I dislike the Senate gerrymander as much as Madison did in 1787, when he fought desperately against it. But I think it is mistaken to suggest that because the Senate gerrymander remains undemocratic, we cannot celebrate the major democratic strides represented by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-third, Twenty-fourth and Twenty-sixth Amendments. These are tremendously important changes. Far-right “constitutionalists” minimize or ignore them. For progressives to remain silent about them is to collude with those who wish to strip them of their value. To regard the ongoing existence of the Senate gerrymander as somehow negating all those accomplishments is wrong, and all the more so because this critique ignores the fact that in one important respect the Senate is more democratic and egalitarian than it was in 1789. Today, because of prolonged, disciplined popular agitation, senators are elected by the people. I would have thought Professors Lazare and Levinson might at least note that in passing. It strikes me as important. Bernard Gilman says that a constitutional convention is “in our future” and that instead of defending the progressive features of our current Constitution we should be preparing to rewrite the entire document. I suspect that he is wrong; indeed, considering what could happen at a constitutional convention in the present climate, I profoundly hope so. But I am confident that if we do not defend the proper interpretation of this Constitution, there will be no need for a convention; the far right will simply strip the current Constitution of its many valuable and progressive features. Senate or no, “model constitutions” or no, I am not willing to be silent while that act of theft takes place. GARRETT EPPS Print the FLAME-ing Ads! Columbia, Md. I have been reading the objections [“Letters,” Feb. 28] to the Nation’s printing of ads for FLAME (an acronym for “Facts and Logic About the Middle East”). I agree that the ads are disgusting, but still I think you should print them for the remuneration you get from them. I put this in the same category as the Christian Zionists giving money to the Israelis on the basis that it will be used to get rid of the Palestinians so that Israel can take over all of the Holy Land and thus enable the Second Coming of Christ. The hitch is that Jews will then either all be converted to Christianity or will be killed. If Jews took this seriously, they would not accept the donations, but they know it is silly, so why not take the money? I doubt that Nation readers will be influenced by the FLAME ads. Hopefully, they have learned enough from reading The Nation that they realize this is propaganda. DORIS RAUSCH
Mar 3, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
Moneybags to Middle Class: Drop Dead San Francisco There is only one element missing from William Greider’s stellar analysis of the state of American capitalism, “The End of New Deal Liberalism” [Jan. 24]. The capitalist class has figured out that it no longer needs demand from our middle class to sustain production or profits. It is more profitable to produce overseas and then, with the cheap dollar, sell the products to the burgeoning middle classes of India, China, even the Middle East. Customers here number only 200 to 300 million. Customers there number 500 million or more, and growing. Whatever motive impelled Henry Ford to pay a living wage or others of his status to tolerate government subsidies of middle-class life (the GI bill, mortgage deductions, college tuition aid, union protection), it’s gone now. We’ve all thought such subsidy is what America is about. Not. It was about maintaining demand for extraordinary productive capacity. Don’t need that demand anymore. The policies that enabled its growth are nothing but a diversion of profit to the undeserving. I hope Mr. Greider will write in his inimitable way on this consequence of globalization for civilized life (here, that is). LUCY JOHNS FLAME Out Accord, N.Y. I strongly object to The Nation’s regular inclusion of the FLAME advertisement. Is this an attempt to be ironic? STEVEN LANCE FORNAL New York City I fail to understand by what logic you find it reasonable to run the biased FLAME ad in your otherwise respectable publication. If your magazine is so desperate for money that you accept ads from an organization that misconstrues “facts” and blatantly promotes the violent right-wing Israeli state, then you might as well give up publishing. I’d rather see ads from porn sites. In fact, cancel my subscription. RACHEL SIGNER Escondido, Calif. The latest FLAME joke, in the January 24 edition, almost produced a fit of apoplexy. A few years ago I canceled my subscription to The New Republic because of its clear pro-Israel bias, which negated any claim it might have had to journalistic integrity. I was tempted to cancel over the FLAME ad in The Nation a couple of months ago. I forwarded a copy of my letter to you about the ad to Gerardo Joffe, the president of FLAME. He had the effrontery to call me and inquire whether I was an anti-Semite. I laughed at him and suggested he was nothing more than another Abe Foxman. After reading his latest screed, I calmed down slightly when I noted you had placed it on the last page. I suggest you not only place the ad on the last page but that you perforate the page along its edge so it can be easily detached and taken to the lavatory to be used appropriately. JACK LOVE Brace yourselves for the FLAME ad appearing on page 23 of this issue. As our readers know, very few American publications challenge Israel’s policies and its treatment of the Palestinian people as The Nation does. We often publish articles that controvert the distorted rhetoric in FLAME ads. However, we accept advertising not to further our views but to defray the costs of publishing. The Nation’s advertising policy (TheNation.com/node/33589) starts with the presumption that “we will accept advertising even if the views expressed are repugnant to the editors.” We do impose limits on commercial ads, barring, for example, the lurid, patently fraudulent, illegal or libelous. But ads that present a political point of view fall under our editorial commitment to freedom of speech, so we grant them the same latitude we claim for our own views. We do reserve the right to denounce the content of such ads, which we frequently do. —The Editors Point of Historical Fact Southampton, N.Y. I came to New York from Lisbon in May 1940 as a small child on the San Miguel, a small cargo ship. My mother and I shared the captain’s cabin; my father, the first mate’s. The ship, about the size of a Staten Island ferry, carried cork but no passengers on this two-week maiden voyage to New York. Of course, we all feared German submarines, but with a child’s belief in magic, I thought that if we were torpedoed, I would be able to save my parents by swimming to a big hunk of cork, pulling them up on it, and then floating to shore. If the owner of the cargo ship line had not been a great fan of my father (a world-famous athlete), we would have been stuck in Lisbon perhaps until the end of the war. As far as we knew, there was no more transportation out of Europe. Certainly not out of Lisbon. I wonder, therefore, where Maria, the wife of Gen. Francisco Aguilar González, Mexican ambassador to the Vichy government, found a steamer bound for New York from Lisbon—indeed, one with space for “twenty trunks of their belongings” [Dan Kaufman, “A Secret Archive,” Jan. 24]—in a time when hundreds, no, thousands and tens of thousands, of Europeans, especially Jewish refugees, were willing to pay anything to get away from the Nazi Holocaust; when hundreds, no, thousands and tens of thousands, of Europeans, especially Jewish refugees, had trouble renewing their three-month visas, which permitted them to stay in the relative safety of Lisbon. Otherwise they would be transported to the prisons of Tangiers, from which few returned alive. Could you explain, please? EVELYN KONRAD Kaufman Replies Brooklyn, N.Y. Maria Luisa Boysen de Aguilar, General Aguilar’s wife, traveled with the couple’s trunks from Lisbon to New York on the SS Drottningholm in the spring of 1942. Her voyage was confirmed by a telegram sent from the Mexican Embassy in Lisbon and received in Mexico City on June 9, 1942. I am extremely grateful to filmmaker Trisha Ziff for uncovering this detail and for providing me with much of the background on General Aguilar and the journey of the suitcase that appeared in my article. Ziff has recently completed La Maleta Mexicana (Mexican Suitcase), a documentary due out later this year, which explores the rediscovery of the lost negatives and the important, but often overlooked, role Mexico played in the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. DAN KAUFMAN Beyond the Palin Key West, Fla. Sarah Palin followers should be known as “Palindrones”: they’re becoming increasingly monotonous, and they never could tell backward from forward. JIM STENTZEL Shibboleth Somers, Mont. Re Trillin et seq. [“Letters,” Jan. 31, Jan. 3, Nov. 29] on the pronunciation of Speaker Boehner’s name: you, Karl Schoeppe (pronounced Shep-ee), say “tomahto,” I say “tomayto.” Let’s call the whole thing off. FRANKLIN SCHROETER, (pronounced Shray-ter) Not a Member of the Club Because of a fact-checking error in Frances Richard’s “The Thin Artifact: On Photography and Suffering” [Dec. 13], it was stated that James Nachtwey was a member of the Bang-Bang Club, a group of photographers who worked in South African townships in the 1990s. Although Nachtwey did photograph in South Africa, he is not considered to be one of the four members of the Bang-Bang Club.
Feb 10, 2011 / Our Readers and Dan Kaufman
Letters Letters
WikiLetters: Pollitt on Assange Susanville, Calif. I was delighted with Katha Pollitt’s “The Case of Julian Assange” [“Subject to Debate,” Jan. 10/17]. She dared to challenge the consensus view of the left media, namely, that because Assange leaked information that the public has a right to know, he must also be innocent of rape. Pollitt not only decisively proved her point, she also shook her finger at fellow progressives, including Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn. She has renewed my faith in The Nation’s editorial policy. CANDACE TOFT Maple Glen, Pa. Being attacked by Katha Pollitt is an honor, but she misrepresents me and the points I made regarding the dubious sex charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Pollitt accuses me of making light of rape in my article—specifically of the Swedish charges against Assange. In fact, as I wrote, I take the charge of rape, including date rape, very seriously, but Sweden isn’t charging Assange with rape. Pollitt repeatedly makes the journalistically inexcusable error of talking about Assange as if he is guilty, as when she says, “It’s been known for some time that Assange was accused of using his body weight to force sex on one woman.” That’s pretty slippery wording—not saying it’s “known” that he did such a thing, just that it’s “known” that he’s been accused of it. But Pollitt goes on to say he penetrated a second woman without a condom while she was asleep, conveying the clear impression that it is a fact. It is not a fact; it is an allegation by the alleged victim. Furthermore, this woman said the alleged (a word Pollitt doesn’t seem to like using) act happened not while she was asleep but while she was “half-asleep.” Initiating intercourse with a sleeping woman might be offensive and perhaps criminal. But what the hell does “half-asleep” mean? Could a guy know whether he’s hearing yes or no? What if Assange was “half-asleep” too? Is anyone culpable? Remember, this is two adults in bed who had already had consensual sex, making it all the more likely that Assange might have misunderstood his “half-asleep” partner’s level of enthusiasm. As for “sex by surprise” (not my terminology), which referred to the other alleged victim’s claims that Assange deliberately sabotaged a condom and continued having sex after it “broke”: on what basis does she know he deliberately damaged it, and how would she know he knew it broke? These are two pretty sorry cases of “rape.” In fact, the leader of Women Against Rape, a British feminist organization, ridicules the charges (I quoted her). I also made the point, ignored by Pollitt, that my investigation of Interpol’s records showed Sweden had sought only two Interpol red alerts for detention of people on sex charges in all of 2010. One was a Swedish national facing multiple charges of child sex. The other was Assange, wanted only for questioning on the two women’s complaints. Calling in Interpol was a remarkable case of overkill and raises questions of political motivation, particularly given the US government’s venomous antipathy toward Assange. Furthermore, a female municipal prosecutor initially dropped the case after discovering that both women had tweeted friends after having sex with Assange to brag about their conquests. The case was reopened by a national-level prosecutor under suspicious political conditions, a point Pollitt ignores. Pollitt can attack me but should at least meet basic journalistic standards. Assange, never before accused of a sex crime, is innocent of these accusations, which are of a “he said, she said” nature, unlikely ever to go to trial or lead to a guilty verdict. DAVE LINDORFF Pollitt Replies New York City One of the Swedish charges against Assange is indeed rape: the penetration (without a condom yet) of a sleeping woman. That would be rape under US law as well. If you’re unconscious, you can’t give consent. My editor and I were careful to avoid language implying that Assange was guilty: I simply recited what was known of the accusations. As for Interpol, we do not know how many people Sweden asked it to pursue because only some of the names are public. It may well be, as Lindorff argues, that Assange’s case is being pursued with special vigor because of who he is. That doesn’t tell us, though, whether he is guilty. We’ll just have to wait until the trial. KATHA POLLITT Honor Roll 2010 Lincoln, Neb. I applaud John Nichols’s “The Progressive Honor Roll of 2010” [Jan. 10/17]—with one exception. Ed Schultz is a fine showman, full of bluster and passion. But “most valuable TV voice”? No way. OK, he’s for the working man. He’s for unions. He’s for real healthcare. Fine. All good. But his voice is shrill, and he paints the political picture in black and white, good guys and evil, much like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. We don’t need a lefty Glenn Beck. Leading progressive voice? No. That’s Rachel Maddow, hands down. She is rational, she appreciates a good argument, she gives her opponents their due, she lets the arguments fall where they may with ultimate faith in reason. JOHN WALKER New York City I agree that Ed Schultz belongs on the Honor Roll. Schultz brings an anger and a passion to radio/TV lacking in most progressives. He speaks the language of working-class/middle-class wage earners. When I hear him, I believe he is speaking for me. Missing on the honor roll is Paul Krugman, the only true liberal who writes for a mainstream publication. REBA SHIMANSKY Dexter, N.Y. The Honor Roll ignored the person who contributes more to liberal issues than the fun-time show people getting your attention: longtime activist Amy Goodman. She gets interviews with the most recent headline-makers before the “professionals” can get off their butts! STEWART MacMILLAN Redmond, Wash. John Nichols refers to “the single-payer ‘Medicare for All’ approach rejected by the Obama administration.” But Medicare for All and single-payer are two different things. Medicare for All amounts to national health insurance: people purchase health insurance from the state and are treated largely by private sector providers. Single-payer is socialized medicine: the state owns and operates a healthcare system financed by taxes. PAUL GOODE Puzzled! Wilmette, Ill. I cast my vote for continuing to reprint the older puzzles by Frank W. Lewis. My wife and I have been doing them together since we met twelve years ago and would miss them terribly if they disappeared. DAVID FERSTER Portage, Wis. When I receive The Nation I turn first to the puzzle! Once I’ve done it I read the magazine. I find the older Frank Lewis puzzles difficult—context seems important. I look forward to the new puzzle master you announced you will be choosing. SUE BRADLEY A Confusion of Carolyns In Katha Pollitt’s January 31 “Subject to Debate” column, it was Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4), not Carolyn Maloney (NY-14), who proposed a bill to ban the sale of large ammunition clips.
Feb 2, 2011 / Our Readers and Katha Pollitt
Letters Letters
Energy Justice Cataumet, Mass. American progressives are still in denial about energy policy [Mark Hertsgaard, “The Cancún Compromise,” Jan. 3]. Even The Nation publishes commentary about climate change without acknowledging that there are millions of people in the world who need to increase their use of energy in order to live with some measure of dignity. Terms like “fuel poverty,” “energy poverty” and “energy justice” are seldom seen in US publications. In the 1930s, the left fought for electrification and enlightenment. Voters were excited about energy justice. Nowadays, self-styled liberals throw cold water on the world, saying, “Stop wasting energy. Turn out the lights.” If this is liberalism, Thomas Malthus and Ebenezer Scrooge were liberal prophets. Bah, humbug. Robert F. Murphy Tiptoeing the Af-Pak Tightrope St. Louis Anatol Lieven’s analysis of the Afghan/Pakistani puzzle, “How the Afghan Counterinsurgency Threatens Pakistan” [Jan. 3], is among the very best I have seen. He mentions one important variable I haven’t noticed elsewhere regarding Pakistan’s reluctance to suppress the North Waziristan Afghan Taliban, who use this border region as their rear area bolt-hole. Beyond the more recognized desire of the Pakistanis to preserve the Afghan Taliban as a rear reserve force for possible conflict with India, Lieven mentions that such a military move would be so unpopular as to create a grave government crisis. And he is right to argue that developments in Pakistan are far more important to US and Western security in the long run. Another point, perhaps speculative but worth concern: President Karzai may be unenthusiastic and even foot-dragging about the fundamental US goal of “standing up” the Afghan army (and police) to take on the Taliban. Aside from the questionable cultural mechanics of the Afghan army’s training, Karzai may suspect, and fear, the loyalty and motivation of a large semimodern army largely made up of recruits from the non-Pashtun minorities. Past coups still echo. In the face of somber analyses on “unwinnability,” President Obama is sending in 1,200 more troops to keep fighting during the winter off-season, perhaps to catch the Taliban hibernating or as an easy way to occupy vacated land. This sounds like one of the serial gimmicks General Petraeus keeps pulling out of the “throw it against the wall” bag of bootless ideas, perhaps for a meager but meaningless uptick in Taliban casualties. AL EDGELL Copyright? How Quaint New Orleans What is most disheartening about the letters [“Exchange,” Dec. 27] published in response to “The Pirate’s Prophet” [Nov. 15] and the piece itself is that the whole conversation takes for granted that no kind of culture worth having could grow or survive in the absence of copyright, the free market, the profit motive. Is this really the sine qua non of the artistic impulse, of the human spirit? This seems to be the animating principle of this argument, which has found a strange berth in The Nation. Or is merely to ask such a question hopelessly naïve, “anarchistic” or, most shameful, “romantic”? And how is it that these terms (in various dreary permutations) pass for reasoned argument, as though they were shorthand for some unassailable argument or commonplace of everyday wisdom that only fools such as I could possibly be unaware of? Bottom line: is it a historical fact that culture—the sort of culture our own wan culture supposedly reveres—is viable only under the aegis of copyright and capitalism? It is not a fact, and even Wallace-Wells’s examples tell against his assumption. This whole debate savors of a gaggle of myopic theologians straining to see how many angels they can find dancing on the head of a pin. A lot of us are waiting for somebody to make the pronouncement: “Could it be possible? These old saints in the forest have not yet heard anything of this, that copyright is dead!” RUBY QUINCUNX Shoot Me Now Carlsbad, N.M. It’s so much fun reading The Nation. It’s a way to get all fired up to do something about the dire situation we find ourselves in. So many fronts require attention—the wars; joblessness; homelessness; lack of healthcare and unions; dwindling resources; out-of-control corporations, banks and Wall Street; misguided education policies; immigration reform; poverty; tax cuts for the superwealthy but budget cuts to social programs. If only we could muster the will to get out there and take to the streets, contact our Congress members, make phone calls, write letters, donate to all the causes. But how do you do all that when you’re working multiple low-paying jobs; are sick because you don’t have the money to see a doctor and are stuck eating low-quality, pesticide-laden GMO foods that make you sicker; are being foreclosed upon and are looking for a cheap motel to park your family in; or are worried about your son or daughter who is fighting for questionable reasons in far-off lands because he/she couldn’t get loans to go to college and can’t get scholarships because public education is so lacking; feel apathetic about politics because the people you vote for turn out to be different from what you hoped. Tell those neocons who want to start yet another bankrupting war, this time in Iran, to do it themselves [Robert Dreyfuss, “The Hawks Call for War Against Iran,” Dec. 20]—we the people don’t have the money or the time. MARGARET BARRY American Apparatchik Ann Arbor, Mich. In his superb review of the recently republished writings of Vasily Grossman [“The Maximalist,” Dec. 20], Jochen Hellbeck says that a Grossman story showing the “corrosive impact of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on the crew of the Enola Gay” had been “inexplicably left out of the present collection.” But Hellbeck also notes that the US editor of the Grossman volumes, Robert Chandler, retailed a false description of the Ukraine famine under Stalin that aligned with the propaganda of Ukrainian right-wingers. Bear those two editorial choices in mind and the omission of the story is no longer “inexplicable.” Grossman was anti-totalitarian but not anti-socialist. He was not a cold warrior. But clearly Chandler is. He preferred, like an American version of a Soviet cultural apparatchik, to censor Grossman rather than to expose readers to Grossman’s critique of the potential for totalitarianism inherent in US imperialism. JOHN WOODFORD For Crying Out Loud Winter Park, Fla. How about this for a slogan? “Speaker Boehner—a crying shame” [“Letters,” Jan. 31]. ROBERT J. HAVEL
Jan 27, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
These Are Your Letters on Drugs Noti, Ore. Thanks for devoting a special issue to the "war on drugs" [Dec. 27], a maladaptive, bigoted, dishonest and unjust policy that has been running for decades. When alcohol-consuming legislators decide their substance is the one acceptable choice, and they seek to punish all for the problems of a few, we have a hypocritical policy. Silence implies consent for its dishonesty, injustice and prejudice and the persecution of the people imprisoned because of it. Speaking out for drug policy justice shows real courage. R.C. STILWELL Alexandria, Va. Tracy Velázquez, in "The Verdict on Drug Courts," acknowledges that drug courts save lives but feels the money could be better spent on other community programs. Science says otherwise. Two decades of rigorous research—including a nationwide study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, hundreds of evaluations and five meta-analyses (advanced statistical procedures)—prove beyond a reasonable doubt that drug courts outperform all other programs for addicted offenders. For every $1 invested in drug courts, taxpayers reap at least $2 to $3 in net economic benefits, often considerably more. It is naïve to expect the same results without the backing of a judge. Outside the courts, 25 percent of addicted offenders never enroll in treatment and another 50 percent drop out. Less than 5 percent achieve long-term sobriety. Drug courts double, triple and even quadruple the odds of success. Requiring a guilty plea is one critical ingredient. People who have hurt themselves and others are given a choice: go to trial or go to treatment. If they choose treatment, the guilty plea provides just the right leverage to keep them coming back when the cravings, withdrawal symptoms and drug-using lifestyle beckon. And after they have succeeded in treatment, the guilty plea and its consequences are withdrawn. Drug courts draw on and expand the resources in their communities. No services are usurped and no one is arrested who would not otherwise have been arrested if the drug court never existed. Let's face it, substance abuse treatment professionals have little public recognition and almost no political influence. But in partnership with the courts, they can effect real change. Decades of political anomie are fading away as these professionals are making a real difference that can be felt at the societal level. Why would Velázquez want to turn back the clock? DOUGLAS B. MARLOWE National Association of Drug Court Professionals Velázquez Replies Washington, D.C. Doug Marlowe's comments miss my point: drug courts are an expensive attempt to use the justice system to fix a public health problem. He tries to address their expense by restating that they have greater benefits than costs, but the reality is that treatment in the community produces $18 in benefits for every dollar spent, clearly an exponentially greater benefit. Perhaps if the public were more aware of this value, treatment providers wouldn't, as Marlowe suggests, need the justice system to validate their worth! And recent experiences in places like Denver counter Marlowe's assertion that drug courts don't cause more arrests. A judge there reported that the number of criminal drug filings increased three times in the two years following the implementation of the drug court, while the number of drug admissions to prison doubled. With corrections costs already straining state budgets, we just can't afford to continue dealing with addiction as a crime. Threatening people with legal sanctions and coercing them to engage in treatment would not be OK for any other public health issue, even those, like obesity, with social costs rivaling or surpassing illegal drug use. And it's not the way people with means generally get to handle their own or a family member's addiction. "Old school" is to think the justice system can solve our social problems; let's move to a paradigm where our resources are focused where they do the most good, namely on front-end social investments that improve the well-being of people and their communities. TRACY VELÁZQUEZ, executive director Justice Policy Institute More of Our Readers on Drugs… Brooklyn, N.Y. In "Obama's Drug War" Michelle Alexander unfortunately ignores important antiracist, budget-based antiprison organizing. As the prison system has metastasized, spending on cages and cops has drained funds from education, housing, health and other programs. The burden of such cuts falls on poor people of color—the same people being rounded up to fill America's new prisons. Antiprison activists are making common cause with advocates for public schools, health and housing programs, aiming to shrink the prison system and channel funding spent on prisons toward programs that meet the needs of our most vulnerable residents. We're not worried that the race card will be played. It is played daily in courts, police stations and prisons. Our protection against the next "Willie Horton" ad will come from work that insists that public safety is a matter of more preschools, not more cops; of more health clinics, not more prisons. Such antiracist, budget-based, antiprison organizing provides fertile ground where a large-scale movement to transform the New Jim Crow state can grow. CRAIG GILMORE California Prison Moratorium Project Fort Bragg, Calif. Living happily in the pot culture here in the Emerald Triangle of cannabis cultivation, I was interested in Sasha Abramsky's "Altered State." I voted against Prop 19—pot's virtually legal here as it is. I agree that the local economy would be decimated if Big Tobacco moved in, and I, too, have heard that it is already acquiring land. My greatest concern is for the health of this planet, related to the GMO revolution. The reason Big Tobacco and the medical-industrial complex are so threatened by cannabis is that anyone can throw a few seeds in his backyard and have enough supply for a year. The craze over the miraculous healing from cannabis oil is all over the Internet and is fueling the AMA and Big Pharma to gain control over another inalienable right—to grow our own God-given herb for personal health and well-being. GE companies like Monsanto are already on their way to holding the patents on all plants in our food chain, and this would be another coup for control of our choice in safe health remedies. Just one dusting of "terminator pollen" would wipe out any independent outdoor grower. I am not naïve; we're heading toward legalization. But I would send an urgent message to start growing seed crops indoors. And let's all keep fighting hard against genetic pollution. KIM CASTILLA Lakeside, Calif. Altered states, pleasure, pain management and the pursuit of meaning have always been central to the richness of life. The list of these pursuits dwarfs our Calvinist preoccupation with drugs: sexual intimacy; religious mysticism; danger and violence; entertainment and sports; the arts and intellectual pursuits; lifelong hobbies ["Rebalancing Drug Policy"]. All drug use, including drinking and smoking, certainly needs to be approached with care. But as we rationally require drivers, pilots and gun owners to have training and licenses, we could choose to distribute drugs (including alcohol and tobacco) in a rational manner. Prescribing specialists would provide access and science-based information on safe use, health consequences and treatment. As with tobacco, costs would be kept high enough to minimize harmful use and low enough to suppress criminal enterprises. Manufacture and distribution would be provided by contractors, free of promotion by corporations and street dealers. Economic and social costs would be much lower than incarceration and current public health outcomes; drug-related crime and violence would be largely eliminated. Drug use will not go away; Prohibition taught us that. We have eaten fruit from the tree of knowledge, and more than ever we understand the biochemistry of our pleasures. Rational solutions are abundant. We need the political will to choose sensible policies. RUSSELL DEHNEL
Jan 19, 2011 / Our Readers and Tracy Velázquez
Letters Letters
Cruciverbalists Over Easy Berkeley, Calif. I'm a cryptic crossword constructor/editor and a member of a group of two to eight or more that has met weekends since 1982 to solve Frank Lewis's puzzles over breakfast. As an American cryptic crossword constructor, Lewis stood alone: he was in this business far longer than any of us, he constructed more cryptics than any of us and his puzzles were exceptional [Judith Long, "A Puzzler's Puzzler," Dec. 20]. Easy cryptic crosswords limit themselves to a narrow vocabulary and have a rigid cluing style that makes them trivial and, to be honest, boring for experienced solvers. Difficult cryptics are impenetrable to beginners. But Lewis's puzzles have a unique freewheeling quality—he adhered to his own rules, and his clues were the great equalizer, challenging to the experienced and beginners alike. Also, his entries encompassed a vast vocabulary and many areas of knowledge. For these reasons, Lewis's cryptics were ideal for group solving. We often cursed him, but we never got tired of his puzzles. As my cryptic colleague Joshua Kosman put it, Lewis was "candid, ageless at heart and uncannily wise. (5,5)" HENRI PICCIOTTO Boulder, Colo. Ah, the sad state of classical education, even among our heroes. I'm afraid there is confusion in the crossword puzzle of December 20, 1975, reprinted in the December 20, 2010, issue. The answer to 8 down—"Lucius to Horatius, or perhaps East if one is West (6,7)"—is clearly "bridge partner." But Lucius was certainly not that to Horatius. The author confused Publius Horatius Cocles and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, who were not partners (see Thomas Babington Macaulay's epic poem Horatio at the Bridge, about the classic battle, ca. 505 BC), with Marcus Horatius Barbatus and Lucius Valerius Potitus, who were Roman consuls somewhat later, and might have walked across a bridge together, but are hardly known for it. SIDNEY SHINEDLING ¡No CIR! Jackson, Miss. An addendum to Roberto Lovato's letter in the last issue ["Exchange," Jan. 24]: the biggest problem faced by the Washington advocates of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) was that they wrote and promoted terrible immigration bills, which have faced widespread rejection by the immigrant communities and workers they were supposed to help. Grassroots groups like the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance (MIRA) that are fighting raids, detentions, deportations and mass firings recoiled from bills that increased enforcement. Nothing, not even withered promises of legalization, could convince activists that more enforcement is a good idea. Last year 400,000 people were deported, and thousands were fired from their jobs. How could the DC lobbyists spearhead a campaign to stop the administration's enforcement policy, when their own bills called for more enforcement? As movement activists sat down at the gates to detention centers, what lobbyists would want to come explain why their bills treated mass detention as a permanent fact of life? From the beginning, the CIR bills refused to address the root causes of migration—the trade agreements and structural adjustment plans that produce high corporate profits in countries like Mexico but force millions of farmers and workers to leave home. CIR advocates sought a strategic alliance with employers based on forcing future migrants into guest-worker or contract labor programs. Since changing trade policy would meet fierce opposition by CIR's employer backers, the DC groups chose to ignore these root causes. The CIR bills failed because they lacked popular support. Yet major foundations poured millions of dollars into those failed efforts while grassroots movements everywhere scratched around for resources to fight deportations, firings, guest-worker abuses, local anti-immigrant legislation and bad trade policy. A social movement for immigration reform isn't built by legislative strategists in Washington. It comes from people fighting in communities all over the country. They can and will make possible tomorrow what's considered politically impossible today. Fortunately, outside DC many organizations have clear alternatives to the CIR bills. The Dignity Campaign has one detailed proposal. Community2Community has been organizing dialogues throughout Washington State to formulate another. The Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations makes its own proposal for progressive reform for the United States while advocating the "right to not migrate" in Mexico. In Mississippi, MIRA pioneered a coalition of African-American and immigrant communities, fighting the racists to a standstill in our legislature while advocating a rights-based reform. The CIR bills and the strategy behind them are dead, at least for a while. It's time to listen to people building the movement outside Washington. BILL CHANDLER, executive director Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance In Orbit Santa Cruz, Calif. I am so grateful for Marilynne Robinson's brilliant essay on William James ["Risk the Game," Dec. 13]. I had not read James since my college days and had forgotten the enormous pleasure of being awarded a meaningful position in the bewildering universes of thought and the cosmos. Reading Robinson's exquisite presentation of James's thought has filled me with a kind of joy and release that, at nearly 80 years of age, I had not expected to feel again from the written word. I will now reread James with more love and comprehension. JAN HARWOOD It's a Bone! It's a Bane! It's... Juneau, Alaska Re the verse inspired by Calvin Trillin's deadline poem on John Boehner ["Letters," Jan. 3; Nov. 29]: I'm reminded yet again of the liar's gift for corrupting language. The clown's name is BONER, no matter how long he pretends it's BANER. More doublespeak in days of universal deceit. As Orwell knew, "truth-telling is a revolutionary act." KARL SCHOEPPE (pronounced Shep-ee) Back to the Future A production error caused a random "2" to appear in Elaine Blair's "Trakt Marks" in last week's issue. Ian Frazier returned to Siberia in 1999, not 12999.
Jan 12, 2011 / Our Readers
Letters Letters
…but Were Afraid to Ask Eugene, Ore. In "Ten Things You Should Know About Slow" [Dec. 13] Dian Duchin Reed considers endeavors that are common to all of us (eating, socializing) or to just some of us (driving, shopping, parenting). She forgets, however, another key slow endeavor that concerns us all: sex. Yes, there is slow sex, a delightful practice, sometimes known as karezza or tantric sex. This practice of generous touch is relaxing and fulfilling rather than fiery and consuming. Read Cupid's Poisoned Arrow by Marnia Robinson and Tantric Sex for Men by Diana and Michael Richardson. LAURA AND JOHN HOFER The Divine Sarah Stirling, N.J. Melissa Harris-Perry's thoughtful arguments in "The Misunderestimation of Sarah Palin" [Dec. 13] confirm my thinking. An inveterate blogger and writer of letters to the editor, I've repeatedly said, "underestimate this woman at your peril." Month by month she gains in stature and popularity while a chorus from the left wing of our national stage excoriates her. I don't care for her either, but I see how the media are buffing her luster. She will wind up with more electoral cred than she ever deserved. L.E. ALBA Rapid City, S.D. Melissa Harris-Perry says people will regret their "mocking" and "dismissive" attitude toward Sarah Palin. She is wrong. Jana Prikryl has it right a few pages on in "The Dirty Halo," where she describes Palin as a "glossy, unflappable" figure who sashays "her degraded political slapstick" onto the national scene and gets the attention of the talking heads. "Photogenic star power" does not qualify her as anything more than an attraction, kind of like Disneyland. Is that "dismissive," or a true grasp of reality? ELIZABETH COOK-LYNN New York City I intend to adopt the Republican strategy of "starving the beast." I will not click through any story that reports on, quotes, analyzes or otherwise pays attention to Sarah Palin. Please, I implore you, ignore her. D. MACLEOD Chariot of Fire Findlay, Ohio I was stunned by Anne Carson's translations "[3 fragments of Mimnermos]" [Dec. 13]. I had never heard of Mimnermos. Indeed, little is known of him other than that he died around 600 bc. What I found remarkable were the lines from "[that lucky old Sun]": "already tomorrow goes riding his bed of daysided/gold goes skimming/sleep countries from west to east…" If I interpret this correctly, the image appears to be that the earth is moving (rotating) from west to east! Otherwise, if the sun were revolving around the earth, it would be "skimming" from east to west. That such an image appears some 350 years before Aristarchus was allegedly the first to claim that the earth revolves around the sun is what I find remarkable. Carson is a classics scholar and has made her translations freely into modern English, so perhaps this is not an exact replication of Mimnermos' imagery. But if the translation does reflect his image, we may have to re-evaluate our understanding of when the geocentric theory was first challenged. JIM FLECHTNER Carson Replies Brooklyn, N.Y. I thank Jim Flechtner for his sensible question about my translation of Mimnermos fr. 8. The text is conveyed to us by a Hellenistic author named Athenaios, who says: "Mimnermos says in the Nanno that it is in a golden bed made for the purpose by Hephaistos that the sun, while he is asleep, crosses to the east, with riddling reference to the hollow of the cup…." I take this to mean that the sun has to get back from the west to the east each night in order to ride from there in his cup each morning, so he accomplishes this covertly while everyone is asleep and the lights are out. The "skimming" is this nightly transit, not his diurnal journey in the conventional direction. ANNE CARSON Charity Robs the Treasury San Mateo, Calif. Hoo-rah for David Nasaw's "The 'Giving' Season" [Dec. 6]! Charitable contributions do often directly or indirectly benefit the donors. Nasaw also raises the question of who should "make basic decisions about our schools, healthcare institutions and cultural priorities." I strongly support his preference for such decisions being made by a democratically elected body. Let me add that this deduction is even more regressive than he said, because wealthy donors may contribute appreciated assets. These contributions get special treatment: the donation is deducted from ordinary income at appreciated value with no capital gains tax paid. DONALD T. ELLIOTT Baton Rouge, Louisiana David Nasaw obscures important issues by equating "every $100 donated to charity" with "$35 less to the Treasury." Those of us working toward the Gulf Coast's recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the BP disaster know that the nonprofit sector does work that the government either will not or cannot do. In the immediate aftermath of the storms, small community organizations and faith-based groups were first on the scene. While state and federal governments were still strategizing, local (underresourced) nonprofits were rescuing the stranded and feeding the hungry. Without the nonprofits—most of which rely on funding from large foundations—which aid low-wealth communities and racial/ethnic minorities, the policies developed to rebuild and repopulate the gulf would have left tens of thousands (and more) behind. Granted, this work falls mostly into that meager "10 percent of charitable giving" that "goes to the poor and needy," as Nasaw says. But since these are our most vulnerable populations and do rely heavily on the nonprofit sector, it is essential that this sector not be incapacitated by efforts to curb wealthy power blocs. Thank you for your top-notch journalism—it is an oasis! JESSICA MCKELVIE KEMP Drip, Drip, Drip Boynton Beach, Fla. I see the drawn faces of poverty in puddles on rain-soaked streets. Victims of trickle-down economics. STEPHANIE LANGSON Clarifications Christian Parenti's "Green Strategy Now" [Dec. 20] may have created the impression that the Environmental Defense Fund accepts donations from the fossil fuel industry. It does not. Due to a production error, the version of Eric Alterman's "Liberal Media" column that went to press last week was not the final version. The final version is here.
Dec 22, 2010 / Our Readers and Anne Carson