Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Heckuva Job, Becky! Iowa City Rebecca Solnit has done an excellent job of putting the coverage of Katrina in context in "Reconstructing the Story of the Storm: Hurricane Katrina at Five" [Sept. 13]. When Katrina hit, I was working at a newspaper sixteen hours from the gulf. Our news staff was debating who would drive down to find stories—of pillage, devastation, conflict, anything—to resonate with our Midwestern audience. We were after the same stories as other reporters: pain, misery, racism, destruction. Five years later, we see the stories we and the rest of the media missed. There are cultural explanations for why media didn't cover what Solnit wanted them to. The way media understand themselves and how audiences understand media are to blame. These are the immeasurable cultural aspects of news work; they create familiar narratives based on myth; they resonate with the mass audience and the interpretive community, journalists. The story of Katrina uses collective memory—how we remember or wish to remember. And collective memory, in turn, fuels the myths and narratives that we saw in news coverage: poor blacks, the hungry, the marginalized, the flooded and destroyed. All the images look the same. Analysis of news that misses the cultural element of how and why that news was produced limits what we should have learned. Assessments of news coverage must go deeper to seek out the roots that reach into fiction, myth and narrative and resonate with values. If the cultural explanations aren't explored, what we could have learned from Katrina ends with Katrina. ROBERT GUTSCHE JR. Green or Gassy, Cars Gotta Go San Francisco A half-dozen letters responded to "Freedom From Oil" [Aug. 2/9] with conventional and constructive suggestions (plus battery-operated clothing) ["Letters," Sept. 27]. Certainly, green cars should be encouraged. There is a problem, however, with the exponential growth of that twentieth-century invention that saved us from the health hazards of horseshit. That sixty-mile traffic jam in China: well, I anticipated that an event—could be on the I-95, or in Tehran, Bangkok or on any of hundreds of autoways—would draw attention to the dysfunctional symbiosis that we, the weak bipeds, the keepers/attendants, have with those stronger, carapaced creatures. That dominant species demands ever more buildings and smoothed surfaces to accommodate its rising population. We, the auto deluded, are being colonized. JERRY BRONK Anchor Babies Aweigh! Rhinebeck, N.Y. Right-wing hysteria over "anchor babies" is absurd, but the Fourteenth Amendment is becoming more and more anomalous [Robin Templeton, "Baby Baiting," Aug. 16/23]. The amendment, the intention of which was to grant citizenship to freed slaves, is out-of-date and outmoded. The right of citizenship to all those born on US soil is unique to our country. I hope the furor from the left over right-wing efforts to repeal it is a feint. The anti-immigrationists' obsession with the amendment does, however, present progressives with a marvelous opportunity to negotiate immigration reform. Repeal of the amendment, if not retroactive, will cause little hardship. Meanwhile, a quid pro quo could be reforms such as a fast track to citizenship for established and productive "illegals." Repeal could be a win-win situation for immigrants. SAMUEL REIFLER Princeton, N.J. I've been studying Mexican immigration for thirty years and have interviewed tens of thousands of current, past and prospective illegal migrants; in all that time no one has ever said they wanted to come to the United States to have a baby. They come for economic reasons mostly—responding to US recruitment and labor demand and seeking to use their US earnings to finance a project at home. They don't plan to stay very long, and would prefer to make a few trips of twelve months or less and return home. This is exactly what happened from 1942 to 1964, when there was a large US guest-worker program, which at its peak, in the late 1950s, brought in some 450,000 Mexicans annually, mostly men, on temporary visas. There were no quotas, so Mexicans with ties north of the border could settle down. In the late '50s, settlement by legal immigrants ran at around 50,000 per year. This changed in 1965, when Washington ended the guest-worker program and imposed quotas, closing off legal entry. Since US labor demand continued unabated, cross-border flows continued, with or without documents, and were overwhelmingly male and circular. From 1965 to '85 for every 100 entries there were eighty-five departures, yielding a small net inflow. Things changed again in 1986, when Congress criminalized the hiring of undocumented workers and required employers to inspect documents (which caused an immediate boom in fraudulent documents). The United States also began a two-decade militarization of the US-Mexico border. The militarization of the border made crossing difficult, costly and risky, and rates of return migration plummeted. As male migrants spent more time north of the border, pressures for family reunification mounted, and women and children increasingly joined husbands and fathers. The militarization of the border backfired by lengthening stays, diminishing rates of return and promoting permanent settlement rather than circulation. In the 1990s net undocumented immigration doubled, not because more people were coming in but because fewer were going back home; and those settling were increasingly bringing in families. When young, healthy, married men and women are united, they do what comes naturally: they have babies. Mexicans do not come here to have babies. They have babies here because men can no longer circulate freely back and forth from homes in Mexico to jobs in the United States. Husbands and wives quite understandably want to be together. Not only are Mexicans not coming to have babies—they are not coming. According to estimates from a variety of sources, including Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics, net undocumented migration fell to zero in 2008 and since then has been negative, with the undocumented population falling by around 1 million between 2008 and '09, including a drop of 100,000 in Arizona alone. Where labor demand has evaporated and hostility to immigrants is surging, Mexicans are not coming to drop "anchor babies" or for any other reason. DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, co-director Mexican Migration Project; Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Princeton University Liberal Innumeracy Dan Bischoff's "Rand Paul's Kentucky Derby" [Sept. 27] cites 18,000 unionized coal miners in Kentucky. The correct number is 800. Thomas Geoghegan, in "Ten Things Dems Could Do to Win" [Sept. 27], stated that the cap on the Social Security tax is at $90,000. The cap is at $106,800.
Sep 30, 2010 / Our Readers
Readers Enter the Obama Forum Readers Enter the Obama Forum
Somewhere in Cyberspace I am transformed from defeat to victory by the insightful articles in your forum "Debating Obama" [Aug. 30/Sept. 6]. Thank you for defending the idealism of President Obama in a shark-infested Congress. RON SMITH Somewhere in Colorado I'm furious about "Debating Obama." The picture of Obama on your cover creates an impression of sadness and failure. The forum begins by saying how disappointed people are in his presidency. Then you tell the real story: how the Bush legacy, the structure of the Senate, the power of money, the culture of finance, entrenched ideology, the aggressive dishonesty and partisanship in the conservative media, and the weaknesses of the MSM are the reasons Obama has had to compromise on his pledges. Why not make that the lead instead of making the reader feel bad at the outset? Give Obama some help instead of putting him down! GAIL MOORE SUGGS Hollywood, Fla. Count me among the disappointed progressives. All the forum responses were brilliant. As a black man I was impressed by Salim Muwakkil's comments on Eric Alterman's reluctance to include an analysis of how race has affected Obama's presidency. Many white Americans continue to deny that the Tea Party is driven by mostly elderly white people's refusal to accept a black man as president. Michael Kazin's statement that "no presidential campaign...can substitute for a social movement" is true. But forgive this political idiot for believing we had such a movement when I watched the cross section of society at the victory rally in Chicago. I agree completely, however, that "the American right cannot pose a single serious answer to any problem plaguing the United States or the world." In this lies my hope that we will not be annihilated in November. EVAN JULIEN Inverness, Calif. The "Debating Obama" forum spotlighted some big obstacles to progressive change, but the discourse was notably hazy about presidential accountability for calamitous policies. It was a bad sign that the word "Afghanistan" did not appear anywhere in the forum's seven pages. (What would we say about a "Debating Johnson" forum in August 1966 that didn't mention Vietnam?) Whatever the limits to the president's options, he wields gargantuan power—and makes fateful choices. While the political terrain is cemented with structural factors, no systemic analysis should absolve government leaders of moral responsibility or basic accountability. "The system" may be to blame, but since when does that let the president—or anyone else—off the hook? After eighteen months, we should be discussing how progressives might try to bell this cat—a president who has clearly embraced what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the madness of militarism," in tandem with an array of other grim policies, including promulgation of extensive corporate agendas in the guise of "reform" and continuing encroachment on precious civil liberties like habeas corpus. The discussion is spreading inside the Democratic Party. In mid-August, the entire leadership of the California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus—by most measures the largest caucus in the state party—mustered a directness in addressing the president that eluded the seven writers in the Nation forum. "We worked very hard for your election as we do for all candidates who seem able and willing to work for progressive social change, and to make a better life for our citizens and for the world," the caucus's executive board wrote in a letter to President Obama. "Your rhetoric often suggests that you share this goal, but your actions frequently prove otherwise. We do not simply disagree with you on a single small issue. Unfortunately our unhappiness and disappointment has a broad scope." The letter said, "You campaigned against the Bush imperial presidency, and then you expanded it.... In our opinion you have failed, in whole or in part, to deliver on many of your commitments. Instead, you have continued and supported some of the Bush policies that many hoped and believed, based on your utterances, you would quickly terminate." And the letter declared that presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs, like chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, "is not the real problem, Mr. President. We fear you are." Such deep concerns are widespread—and increasingly corrosive for the Democratic base. Bleak poll data on inclinations to vote this November reflect the demoralizing and demobilizing effects of Obama's triangulation. Below the radar, many party activists are agonizing and questing for strategies as we try to prevent Republican gains and push for progressive policies. If progressives seem to be making excuses for Obama's corporate policies, it casts us as defenders of an untenable status quo—and helps corporate-funded "populists" of the right wing to masquerade as the agents of change. NORMAN SOLOMON, national co-chair Healthcare Not Warfare San Antonio How could Obama not have foreseen the behavior of the Party of No? The only way you beat the Republicans is by going on the offensive and beating the crap out of them. Period. Not trying to be BFFs. Now everything is half-assed at best: a healthcare plan with no public option; an energy plan based on nuclear power loan guarantees; an "end" to the Iraq debacle, as 50,000 troops remain; an Afghanistan policy that will achieve nothing—all contingent on the idea that we will build on these policies in the future. Let's remember NAFTA, which guaranteed that labor and environmental issues would be addressed in the future. The future never came. Mexico is run by drug lords, US workers are competing with 22-cent-per-hour Cambodian workers and the environment is lost in the corporate search for profits. Obama may be right to walk so delicately on the political landscape. But my solar plexus keeps telling me we have missed an enormous opportunity. ERIC LANE Ormond Beach, Fla. I was halfway through the forum when it occurred to me that neither the word "war(s)" nor the phrase "military-industrial complex" appeared anywhere. Americans could have been proud of a commander in chief of the armed forces who, as Job One, had stopped the killing of Middle Easterners as a start to dismantling the empire, which is bankrupting us economically and morally. EDWARD J. FLANAGAN New York City I offer this addition to Eric Alterman's paragraph on the Senate: the fact that the rural states, no matter how sparsely populated, are allotted two senators each, while the more urban, highly populated states are limited to the same number, is not only antidemocratic; it also makes it well-nigh impossible to advance an urban agenda—one that would adequately support, for example, educational and cultural institutions, sound urban infrastructure and high-quality public transportation. It will be virtually impossible to change this imbalance, because it would require a constitutional amendment, which the rural senators would never sign on to. ROXANNE WARREN Denver The forum's pile-up of lefty despair whined about centrist Democrats instead of shouting down Republican obstructionists. Over the years the right has opposed Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, the Clean Air and Water acts, and the decriminalization of homosexuality. Without decades of struggle by progressive citizens, enlightened jurists and politicians, we would still be divided by apartheid and breathing toxins, knee-deep in social and literal sewage. We are not. We are breathing freer in a cleaner, more equal society. The evidence abounds here in Denver, which has gone from 200-plus bad air days annually in the 1970s to zero—zero!—throughout the 2000s. Down the street, the struggling public school has steadily improved into a magnet for kids and parents. The public housing projects I deliver meals to are sparkling clean and packed with free therapeutic programs. My neighborhood has been transformed by rapid transit, free bicycle kiosks and traffic calming. We must fight the right by shouting out what the left has won for us all. LEE PATTON Bay Harbor Islands, Fla. I would like to express my growing impatience with the political politeness that prevents even progressives from calling things by their real name. When President Obama named Larry Summers head of his economic team (placing the fox in charge of the hens), he betrayed a promise of candidate Obama, i.e., to fix the economy. Obama owes his victory to the millions who saw in him a real promise. And also, of course, to the many more millions—of dollars—that Wall Street poured into his campaign. As shown by his choice of Summers, he decided to favor the latter over the former. JULIO RODRIGUEZ-LUIS Alterman Replies New York City I thank all the forum respondents and those who wrote in, pro and con. Space does not permit the replies they deserve, but I offer here a few clarifications. With regard to Evan Julien's—and Salim Muwakkil's—comments about race, I agree. But I don't see their relevance to my argument regarding the roadblocks to progressive legislation under a liberal Democratic president and a Democratic Congress—which was, after all, the topic of my essay. Regarding the many comments about Afghanistan: I share these concerns and wish Obama had decided to approach the issue in a radically different fashion. But it behooves us to remember that whatever we may think of his decision, this is one campaign promise Obama is keeping. He campaigned on a surge in Afghanistan, and we got one. It is a separate issue from the ones I addressed, which were largely what I saw to be structural impediments to his ability to keep the progressive promise of his campaign. As for "beating the crap out of" Republicans, as Eric Lane suggests, well, this again, is not the campaign Obama ran on, and it is not clear how he would do it with a divided party, which is just as beholden to some of the same corporate interests as are the Republicans. That does not mean there is no difference between the two parties, as some would have us believe; rather, it means progressives need to work harder and smarter to remake their party, as conservatives have remade theirs. I hope to address some of these issues in my book Kabuki Democracy, to be published by Nation Books in January. ERIC ALTERMAN
Sep 22, 2010 / Our Readers and Eric Alterman
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Get Out, Exit, Scram, Beat It, Go Home... Frankfort, Mich. Your editorial "Getting Out of Afghanistan" [Aug. 16/23] was right on the money! I've served in Kabul, and after hoping that a more nuanced policy would emerge from the White House (it clearly hasn't), I agree that we should get out. Thanks for this seminal contribution to US foreign policy. TED CURRAN Real Heroes: Those Who Speak Out Exton, Pa. As a 76-year-old Korean War veteran, I can well appreciate Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey's "WikiLeaks in Baghdad" [Aug. 16/23]. My heart goes out to Josh Stieber, Ray Corcoles and Ethan McCord, who are true heroes of the ill-advised and immoral war in Iraq. They describe not only the desensitization, dehumanization and even corruption of language soldiers face; they showed rare courage to speak out. The three young men showed their basic humanity and decency when they saw the brutalization of Iraqi civilians. NORMAN K. SMITH, US Army (retired) Population Bomb Falmouth, Mass. Andrew Ross's "Greenwashing Nativism" [Aug. 16/23] has much to say about population issues and environmentalists. But Ross doesn't acknowledge the Sierra Club's Global Population and Environment Program ([email protected]), which explains the club's population strategies. Readers may be interested in the club's advocacy training program and its population program, which will soon visit Texas. ROBERT MURPHY Rising From Its Ashes? Redwood City, Calif. Phoenix is not "ground zero for the national housing crisis," as claimed by Marc Cooper in "John McCain's Last Stand" [Aug. 16/23]; it is in third place behind Las Vegas and Merced. Nor is it the "bull's- eye of global warming in the Northern Hemisphere," as claimed by Andrew Ross in "Greenwashing Nativism." Phoenix is in trouble because of excessive development and real estate speculation. MARIANNA TUBMAN Oasis on the Upper West Side Bellevue, Iowa In her lovely, graceful remembrance of Iris McWilliams in "Noted" [Aug. 16/23], Katrina vanden Heuvel quotes a longtime friend of Iris and Cary McWilliams as saying of their apartment, "The intelligent and decent civil liberty types all drifted in, and as discouraging as the country seemed, the possibilities of an open and sane society seemed alive there." I wish The Nation to know that I feel about this magazine as did this friend about the McWilliams place. Thank you for keeping alive the hope for decency, inclusivity and community, all of which seem of so little value in this brave new barbarous world we have created. GREG CUSACK Back to School—II Hayward, Calif. Thank you for shining a light on the importance of education reform and for highlighting leading voices for meaningful reform ["A New Vision for School Reform," June 14; "Letters," Sept. 20].Linda Darling-Hammond remains a beacon of sanity and good sense. She provides an excellent overview of education reform efforts over the years. There is no silver bullet—the entire system needs an overhaul to address the many years of neglect. When No Child Left Behind was instituted, the air was sucked out of classrooms across the country. The rote, uninspiring drill-and-kill method of teaching that the law has spawned has prevailed with no discernible positive effect for the students it proposed to help. As Diane Ravitch accurately points out in her article ["Why I Changed My Mind," June 14], the rise in accountability through high-stakes testing has resulted in a "measure and punish" approach that radically narrows the curriculum, affecting students and teachers alike. Now with even fewer resources at our disposal, we are at last being asked to reignite the imaginations of a generation of educators to engage, inspire and educate our youth. The challenges of creating a bridge to brighter landscapes are welcome, but the designated pathways are full of pot holes. A positive offered by Race to the Top and the new focus on creativity and research is the opportunity to share successful practice. In Alameda County we are proud of our ability to put in place some of the exciting models of excellence mentioned by Pedro Noguera: schools as service centers; partnerships with higher education and business as pathways to college and careers; and comprehensive curriculums that include arts and civic engagement. SHEILA JORDAN Alameda County superintendent of schools Do Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well Baltimore In 1980, when Bush the elder referred to Reagan's "trickle-down" theory as "voodoo economics," he was making the legitimate point that the theory was nonsense. But Voodoo (or Voudon) is no more nonsense than Christianity, Buddhism or Zoroastrianism. It is the name of a syncretic religion with African animist and Catholic roots, practiced by some Haitians. It's disrespectful to use the term [Jordan Stancil, "Europe's Voodoo Economics," June 28]. ED MORMAN
Sep 15, 2010 / Our Readers
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Bubble Bubble, Oil and Trouble Los Angeles Thanks for your "Freedom From Oil" issue [Aug. 2/9]. Many of the ideas proposed—e.g., getting the military to buy green—have been around for a long time; it is disappointing that they remain mostly unimplemented. The most compelling argument for getting off our butts and doing something about peak oil is energy return on investment (EROI), the ratio of the energy delivered by a process to the energy used in that process. Cutler Cleveland of Boston University has reported that the US EROI of oil and gas extraction has decreased from 100:1 in the 1930s, to 30:1 in the 1970s, to roughly 11:1 as of 2000. So for every barrel we expend, we currently receive around eleven barrels of oil. If you add the costs of damage and lost livelihood from oil spills, the EROI will be even lower. Once it takes a barrel to get a barrel, oil will be useless. SANDY MALIGA East Moline, Ill. You suggest using the government's purchasing power to spur the green energy market. President Obama's executive order is a good step in that direction, but it should also be passed as legislation, because executive orders can be overturned. We must push every state, city, county, school district, park, community college, etc. to do likewise: establish these measures by executive order, then follow up with legislation. Here in Illinois, State Representative Mike Boland has passed legislation mandating hybrid, flex-fuel or biodiesel vehicles be purchased as the state replaces vehicles, and that Energy Star lighting replace incandescent lights as they burn out in state buildings. Boland also passed legislation requiring that all new state buildings or major renovations meet LEED standards. He was joined by the Green Party candidate for governor in pushing for a $1 billion Green Capitol bill to fund local governments and nonprofit groups to "green" their facilities. Multiply those kinds of efforts by the thousands of state and local governments across the country, and you will speed our nation's clean, green economy. MIKE HUNTOON Chief of staff to Mike Boland Brookline, Mass. Regarding "Freedom From Oil": yes, Americans should drive their X number of miles to work in energy-efficient vehicles. But they also must cut back on that X-mile commute. Yes, people should keep warm in the winter in energy-efficient homes. But in these homes, Americans need to set the thermostat in the forties and fifties, not at sixty-eight. Yes, taxes on carbon-based fuels should be increased and payroll taxes decreased. But the payroll tax should be diminished at the rate of 10 percent per year for ten years, and the revenue burden shifted completely to taxing energy. Taxes should bring the price of energy in line with its true cost, which is several times its current price, when you account for environmental costs and the military cost of maintaining the flow of imported oil. With ten years to adjust to a higher, more realistic energy price, we will figure out how to make transportation more efficient and how to do less of it. Warm winter clothing (possibly battery operated) will become fashionable as we figure out that it costs less to keep the person warm than to heat the whole house. Necessity is the mother of invention. Let us summon up our most important renewable resource: American ingenuity. CHARLES E. ROBINSON Richland, Wash. It is heartening to see The Nation tackling the complex issue of energy, particularly its acknowledging that the transformation to sustainable energy will take time. Of course, our goal should be 100 percent green energy, but there are limits to how quickly this can be done. Solar cell production requires huge amounts of ultrapure water, which the environment can't provide. Components in hybrid cars and wind turbines are often made of rare-earth minerals that exist in limited quantities. Given these natural limits, the only interim technology is nuclear. New generation nuclear plants are much smaller and safer than their predecessors and produce comparatively little waste. Combined with fuel recycling and safety and security measures, they will play an important role between now and when we can fulfill our energy needs with green sources. We can't expect hydrocarbon fuel use to be minimized until about 2050, after which nuclear can be phased out. This transition will take a lot of foresight and patience, which can be difficult to accept. But accept it we must. C.J. MITCHELL, chemical engineer Brooktondale, N.Y. Your "Freedom From Oil" issue presents the conventional vision of a future clean-energy supply based on wind, solar and other technologies feeding a smart grid. But every product that is derived from oil or other fossil fuels can also be derived from some form of biomass. Biomass should be elevated to first priority among renewable energy sources, as it already provides the greatest quantities of clean energy today, will likely provide the lion's share in the future, does not require new or exotic technologies and is the only way to replace fossil fuels. Policies supporting biomass energy, such as agricultural price supports and a carbon tax, could quickly inject new economic life into rural America and immediately reduce pollution by directly displacing fossil fuels. ED DODGE Pittsburg, Kans. I kicked the petroleum oil habit years ago. I have been using American-made synthetic lubricants in my automobiles for more than thirty years. Every jet and spacecraft in the universe uses synthetic lubricants. They are available nationwide and are a serious green solution to petroleum lubricants. I am a synthetic lubricants dealer, I sell them to friends and customers and I have registered others as dealers of synthetic lubricants, which can be used for all kinds of oil and grease applications. So, if readers are serious about kicking the oil habit, my e-mail address is [email protected]. F. EUGENE GARMAN Big Bad Book Dealers Carlsbad, Calif. Regarding Colin Robinson's excellent and accurate "The Trouble With Amazon" [Aug. 2/9], it should be noted that besides the unfair discount advantages Amazon receives from publishers, unlike independent bookstores, it is not required to charge sales tax. ROBERT ARNOLD Hinesburg, Vt. Colin Robinson's piece is excellent as far as it goes. But it suggests that Amazon's predatory behavior is out of the ordinary. It seems to me merely an instance of the extension of the "free market" to all areas of existence, one of the incidental consequences of which is the impoverishment and uniformization of what remains of our culture. Every country has its pathologies, but at least in France, with the 1982 Lang law prohibiting discounts on books of greater than 5 percent, the condition of independent booksellers is healthier than in the United States. Any such provision is, of course, unthinkable here. GEORGE HOLOCH
Sep 8, 2010 / Our Readers
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Back to School Chillicothe, Ohio As a retired teacher, union officer and reformer, I appreciated "A New Vision for School Reform" [June 14], your special issue on education. But deeper exploration is needed. Schools have not "failed" in their mission. They were designed as inculcation factories; their job was to keep the kids off the street, teach them work skills and turn our nation of immigrants into one nation—e pluribus unum. They did that job pretty well. After Brown v. Board of Education, schools had the task of integrating our society, with which they've struggled mightily and had some successes. Those schools were more humane, more student-centered than today's, which aim merely for high test scores. What's been left out of the story is the meanspirited retaliation from the right for teachers having entered the political fray, endorsing Carter for president and getting an Education Department. Reagan promised to abolish the department and created A Nation at Risk, which blamed the schools for the failures of business. That report was thoroughly debunked, but the press bought the idea that our schools had failed. Make no mistake: public schools and teachers have become targets. Sadly, some Democrats, including, apparently, President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, are using bribe money to get cash-starved school districts to agree to rate their teachers by student test scores—as ludicrous as that is—firing people, responsible or not, for our society's neglect of the poor. Creative, conscientious teachers will be leaving in droves. Good recruits will be harder to come by. And the poverty that kills kids' chances will still exist. JACK BURGESS Philadelphia As an educator, I am fascinated by your excellent articles referring to the negative impact of No Child Left Behind. The comments by Diane Ravitch, who changed her mind about "school choice," resonates especially with me. She calls Congress's stubborn support of this law "puzzling." It is not puzzling at all if you consider the education budget, hovering around $800 billion and rising. NCLB has been used to create new and innovative ways for the business community to latch on to education dollars through charter schools, test publishing and prepping materials—even through the fallout of a poor education, the exploding prison population. There is gold in educational entrepreneurship, and the Obama administration has done nothing to curb this trend. GLORIA C. ENDRES Morristown, N.J. Bravo! for your critique and analysis. Yes, the Obama administration is pursuing yet another futile and simplistic path of "reform" with its emphasis on charters, teacher demonization and more testing. Boo! to the hopes for top-to-bottom "bold" reforms that mirror those of ministates like Finland and Singapore. Why? Because, once again, the roots of the problem have been ignored. We have known for decades which children will be ill served by public schools: they are poor, they go to school with other poor children and they live in a family where English is not the first language. The gap at kindergarten with children of the middle class is nine to eighteen months, and they are only 5! They lack the vocabulary, language, general knowledge and familiarity with books they need to have a fighting chance of leaving kindergarten with the knowledge required to be strong readers by third grade. To narrow this kindergarten gap, every poor child must be provided high-quality preschool, followed by an intense focus on literacy in K-3. Look to the schools that produce literate third graders, and you will find schools that emphasize the needs of poor kids. Readers have a chance. Nonreaders don't. GORDON MacINNES, fellow The Century Foundation Columbus, Ohio Your special issue on education gave a pass to Barack Obama's dastardly public school policies. If continued, they will further privatize K-12 education on the backs of taxpayers. Obama is more effective than Bush in undermining public education. Under Bush, school districts lost federal funds if they failed to meet specific benchmarks. But Obama's Race to the Top program won't give fiscally strapped states money unless they remove caps on the number of charter schools, force teachers' unions to allow the use of student test scores for teacher evaluation and adopt the new national teaching standards. These requirements have been pushed by right-wing business interests, although there is no empirical evidence that they work. If implemented, they will further erode the public education that's needed for a free people. THOMAS M. STEPHENS, professor emeritus College of Education and Human Ecology Ohio State University Tarzana, Calif. The Nation brings together the best and wisest to present its case for the "change we need" in education to an administration that is not listening. Why? Among the contributors, Linda Darling-Hammond "served as the leader of President Obama's education policy transition team." Like many progressive Americans, we're asking, What happened in the transition from Obama's campaign to the White House? Why are such respected voices not at the table making policy? We need not simply a new vision but a moral one. That America has become, as Darling-Hammond observes, the world's "prison nation," willing to spend untold billions on incarceration rather than invest in its schools, shows a moral poverty that no quick-fix education innovation will alter. To restore our public schools requires a moral restoration; a different kind of great awakening, a public one. JAMES ANDREW LaSPINA, author California in a Time of Excellence: School Reform at the Crossroads of the American Dream Old Glory, Hallelujah! Amherst, Mass. Patricia J. Williams's July 5 "Semaphore" ["Diary of a Mad Law Professor"], on the US Flag Code, brought me a smile and very fond memories. I've been a Girl Scout for fifty years. I learned flag etiquette as a Brownie, but complete knowledge of the Flag Code came from ceremonies, badges and raising the flag each morning at Camp Bonnie Brae. I could not have become a First Class Girl Scout (the equivalent of Eagle Scout for Boy Scouts) without complete knowledge of the Flag Code. I have watched Tea Partyers break every section of the Flag Code. Their abuses of the flag are patriotic in their eyes. Meanwhile, if I arrived at a Tea Party demonstration in my Scout uniform, badge sash, Arrow & Star, and First Class pin and set fire to the flag, they would label me a traitor, although the Supreme Court has ruled it my First Amendment right to burn the flag. Jane Eastwood Weisner
Sep 1, 2010 / Our Readers
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Inequality—Connect the Dots... Ames, Iowa I am surprised that your special issue "Inequality in America" [July 19/26] skirts the giant elephant in our midst: the obscene piece of the economic pie going to the military. Military spending is not a good way to create jobs or distribute wealth. As Eisenhower said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." DEBORAH FINK Chicago The various contributors to this special issue restate the argument The Nation has been making for months now: wealth to the top, loss of jobs, solution is Keynesian stimulation, etc. One has to admire how Robert Reich manages to describe the past twenty years without stating the obvious: class war is being waged, and both parties have chosen to be on the same side. No, this not a win-win situation where all The Nation's contributors need to do is show Washington power brokers that green solutions will benefit their corporate sponsors. No, it is not a question of Obama having hired the wrong economic advisers because he didn't know Galbraith in Texas would love to serve. Hello! It is not a question of getting the truth out to the people with power. I've been a union carpenter for thirty years. It is a depression out here. The local media say 40 percent of construction workers are unemployed. Of roughly 38,000 union carpenters, only 11,000 qualified for their health benefits last quarter. (You qualify if you worked 250 hours the previous quarter or 1,000 the previous year.) Whatever numbers you believe, and most of us don't believe the official statistics, a lot of people are hurting. When will you get outside the box that limits political and economic debate to the difference between Keynes and Hayek? And please, forget about trying to persuade the power brokers. This is a war. Why not join the counterattack? MYRON PERLMAN Harry Hangs the Laundry Dixon, N.M. In response to Katha Pollitt's "Women on Top?" [July 12], I would argue that having two parents/members of the household working full time spells disaster for the planet. The economic recession—conservation by default—has done more to decrease our carbon emissions than all the resource-consuming alternatives. As Americans, a lot of us pay to work, contributing to credit card debt, stress, bad food choices and climate change. Ecologically speaking, someone needs to stay home, but it shouldn't have to be the woman—this is where men still need to step up to the plate. Hanging up the laundry and forging a relationship with a local grower, then cooking that food with love and care—these are things that shouldn't be optional in our country. We should strive for more balance in work and home life for women and men. Better for us—and better for the planet. FELICITY FONSECA Troubled Oil on Water Los Angeles In "A Hole in the World" [July 12], Naomi Klein asserts that the main issue in the BP oil "spill" is "our culture's...claim to have...command over nature." This assessment shifts blame to a "culture" or a "them," when the real culprit is a world full of individuals, Klein included, who do not comprehend the consequences of their actions. Control over nature is a philosophical issue that few people contemplate. More likely, people consider whether they would prefer to walk six miles to the store or drive. Most drive without considering any ramification beyond the loss of $3 to their preferred energy corporation. I think it is safe to assume that Klein drives a car and uses a computer. These are the issues surrounding this disaster—everyday people consuming everyday petroleum. The gulf will not be made "right," and people will not cease, until they are forced to. The issue is not cultural philosophy but rampant irresponsibility by people (probably including you, dear reader). JIAN NAJAC Boston Naomi Klein generalizes, even psychologizes, the BP disaster, suggesting that the problem is that we think we can manipulate nature. Who's "we"? Humans? Americans? Westerners? However imperfect or uninformed, most people don't seek to recklessly strip the earth of its resources without regard for the consequences: industries do that. And they don't act that way out of hubris; they do it to maximize profits within a frenzied capitalist system uninterested in human or nonhuman well-being. After all, there's no science to ignoring your own employees' warnings, haphazardly dumping toxic dispersants or obscuring better estimates of the leak rate. The problem is simpler, and much more vulgar. CARL MARTIN 'Artsy-Fartsy Francophone' Flicks Forest, Ill. Emily Witt's June 7 "Imperfect Cinemas" is the closest thing I have read to what I experience as the "African identity." Witt gets the fact that those artsy-fartsy Francophone movies Westerners praise for being so "auteur" and "revolutionary" have no appeal to common members of African society. Your explorations, Mr. African Indie Film Director, of the deep-seated neocolonialism in the psyche of the "African" through your dripping faucet imagery may have been praised from Cannes to Sundance, but, I can assure you, your layman Ghanaian or Gambian isn't interested. We want to see someone's marriage being wrecked by an evil mother-in-law, the "big oga's" daughter finding out she's been impregnated by the ruffian from across the street or at least the bush villager finally getting his chance to chase the American Dream. We may not be living up to Kwame Nkrumah's dreams of Africans maximizing their intellectual potential, but what society nowadays does? With America and Britain still in the throes of the "reality" TV revolution—ardently consuming such classics as Toddlers & Tiaras (ironically, on The Learning Channel) and the fist-pumping king of them all, Jersey Shore—we can hardly adjudicate these as intellectual prowess at its finest. When was the last time even I, a college-educated young woman, decided to skip my weekly serving of The Bachelor for a hearty helping of Masterpiece Theatre? I would say, never. It's a sad situation we find ourselves in globally, but that's something we can agree on: it's a global phenomenon. What we do to stop this and who we blame is, of course, another matter. I simply stand to commend Witt on her ability to look past her own interpretations of what the African perspective should be to write about what Africans themselves have shaped as their viewpoint of the world. WILHEMINA HAYFORD
Aug 25, 2010 / Our Readers
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
So, SEIU Me New York City Three years ago, very few people anticipated the complete and worldwide collapse of the economy. Our nation lost $17 trillion, a quarter of its wealth, virtually overnight. Every industrialized nation is now faced with impossible choices and deep cuts that slice right to the heart of the hard-won gains, both tangible and social, that progressives and trade unionists have fought for. Max Fraser, in his provocative article "The SEIU Andy Stern Leaves Behind" [July 5], asks many of the right questions but ultimately misses a key point: over the past fifteen years, SEIU accomplished something extraordinary. At a time when the American labor movement was shrinking, SEIU united more than 1.2 million workers in the union, doubling its size and the ability of those workers to make real and, one hopes, lasting gains on the job. Fraser's critique really speaks to the heart of what all working people face as a threat: the collapse of the social welfare system and the failure of capitalism to protect the fundamental security of those who work for a living. And that's why SEIU's executive board spent three days recently addressing the crisis that workers face right now and planning forward. We know that we cannot go it alone, because for all our union's progress in organizing and in politics, today we see the economic crisis destroying not only our jobs and our communities but also the standards we have worked so hard to achieve. Our decisions: § SEIU will continue working with partners in the labor, progressive and religious communities to march with workers through the streets to the doorsteps of very big banks that have been bad actors and have brought about this economic collapse. § SEIU will challenge the CEOs, politicians and even Democratic lobbyists who are helping those deemed "too big to fail" to continue to fail us. § SEIU will keep standing, marching and getting arrested with our coalition partners seeking justice for immigrants while at the same time we end the shadow economy that allows unscrupulous business owners to profit at the expense of all workers. § SEIU will participate in the global efforts to hold multinational corporations like Sodexo accountable for how they treat the women and men who work for them. § And SEIU will continue to fight day and night to see that workers—both in unions and not—are not forced to bear the burden of recovery alone. There is no question that working people would be in much better shape if more workers were in unions, and we will continue our efforts to make sure that all workers who want a voice on the job are able to unite. The easy part is recognizing the obvious: none of us have solved the problem that working people face each and every day. The challenge for us all is not just to imagine but also to realize a future that restores our economy and rewards work. GERRY HUDSON, executive vice president Service Employees International Union Fraser Replies New York City I thank Gerry Hudson for his thoughtful letter and agree with much of what he says about the challenges facing SEIU, the labor movement and working people in today's economy. He is right to note the important work SEIU has done over the past fifteen years to expand its membership while empowering workers in and out of unions. SEIU's accomplishments in both cases have been considerable, and the goals Hudson lays out for the years ahead are ambitious and inspiring. But my article does not question this aspect of SEIU's recent history; nor does it imply that SEIU has not embraced a progressive political agenda that has put it at the forefront of today's struggles for civil rights, comprehensive immigration reform, financial regulation and the like. Rather, it should be read as a warning: if SEIU—and really, the rest of organized labor—hopes to continue to play a role in these and other popular movements, it absolutely must figure out a way to resolve the existential threat posed by declining density in the private-sector economy. If labor's industrial and economic strength continues to diminish in relation to corporate power, so too will whatever remains of the movement's political capital, as we already saw in the legislative battles over the doomed Employee Free Choice Act and, to a lesser extent, the healthcare overhaul. As I argue in my article, SEIU came no closer to resolving this basic challenge under Andy Stern's leadership, despite the 1.2 million new members that Hudson cites. And in some cases, the more misguided and counterproductive strategies Stern embraced during his tenure set the union in the wrong direction. If Gerry Hudson and the SEIU executive board are committed to making sure that "all workers who want a voice on the job are able to unite" in a reinvigorated and progressive labor movement, this transitional moment at SEIU must be one of deep and serious self-criticism, reassessment and bold new thinking. MAX FRASER Public Workers—the Gold Standard Amherst, Mass. I thank Amy Traub for "War on Public Workers" [July 5]. Isn't it remarkable that privatization, deregulation and casino capitalism destroy our economy... and public employees are suddenly to blame? This attack on public employees, their unions and their benefits feels like the final swish down the toilet bowl for the New Deal. Some observations: (1) Traub notes with disappointment that New York's Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo has jumped on the bash-public-employees bandwagon; but he's not the only Democrat to do so. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has honed the fine art of being seen as a progressive while leading the charge against public workers—reopening contracts and demanding concessions from all state employees, from social workers to librarians to college professors—but not asking for any "shared sacrifice" from the wealthy, and then bragging about it. (2) Far from being a parasitic drain, public-sector workers provide critical services for everyone—education, public safety, environmental protection—that private enterprise cannot or will not supply. (3) The public sector sets the standard for quality of employment, and that benchmark serves as a constant reminder of the failure of private corporations to provide adequate compensation and economic security for their workers. Nowhere is the public benchmark clearer than in the case of pensions, and nowhere has the war been more ferocious. Resentment of public-sector pensions masks the important issue of adequate pensions for all working Americans. There is a pension crisis, but it's not the overgenerosity of public-sector pensions. The crisis is that the private pension system is collapsing. Companies that still offer traditional defined-benefit pensions—intended to provide a predictable retirement income for life—have underfunded their accounts. Most companies have ceased to offer pensions altogether or provide meager subsidies to roll the dice in the 401(k) casino. The consequences will be ugly. Many "retirees" will never retire. Or they will have to move in with their children, creating deep stresses, which had been eased by the solid pensions of the Greatest Generation. Reducing public-sector pensions won't solve that problem. Public- and private-sector workers need to look at each other, recognize friends and demand leveling up, not down. The real problem is not public workers' pensions but private employers reducing their commitment to their workers while increasing executive salaries and stockholder dividends. MICHAEL ASH University of Massachusetts Vale, S.D. I am reminded of John D. Rockefeller's response to striking coal miners at Ludlow, Colorado, in 1913. He got the Colorado National Guard to shoot up the tent village of striking miners. This is an example of the private sector calling on the public sector to help the private sector exploit its workers. ALVIN WILLIAM HOLST
Aug 11, 2010 / Our Readers and Max Fraser
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Dismantling the Punishment Industry Eastsound, Wash. In "Is This the End of the War on Crime?" [July 5] Sasha Abramsky rightly gives credit to the Obama administration for shifting antidrug rhetoric away from the "war on drugs" metaphor and toward drug abuse as a public health problem. However, the Obama drug control budget, like Bush's, still devotes nearly twice as many resources to supply-reduction strategies like arrest and incarceration as it does to demand-reduction strategies like treatment and prevention. As a thirty-four-year police veteran and Seattle's chief of police from 1994 to 2000, I know that rhetorical shifts cannot solve the huge problems caused by a national policy of prohibition (versus legalized regulation). The president must end this "war on drugs" instead of merely saying he has (see CopsSayLegalizeDrugs.com). NORM STAMPER Las Cruces, N.M. Sasha Abramsky is correct: these economic times are likely to spur penal reform, which is typically preceded by a sociopolitical crisis. For 200-plus years each US penal reform intended to diminish inhumane and unjust practices has resulted in widening the net of the punishment system. Also, benevolent penal reforms produce greater government intrusion into punished people's lives and communities. Not only do they fail to dismantle existing practices and ideologies; they add new punitive dimensions. The outcome has been an ever expanding archipelago of punishments disproportionately targeting the poor, people of color and other marginalized groups. This pattern includes the penitentiary itself, said to be the ultimate deterrent and the definitive crime fix but which became an intractable growth industry; the adult reformatory, designed to institutionalize treatment and "cure" the prisoner but which generated new "scientific" categories of offenders; and parole, intended to shorten prison sentences but which lengthened them while creating conditional, revocable "freedom" and a new layer of supervision and surveillance outside the prison walls. There is no reason to expect "restorative justice" to unfold any differently from past penal reforms. Yet as Abramsky notes, it is compelling, and the time is ripe for a movement aimed at smashing an unjust punishment system. Change is possible. DANA GREENE, Criminal Justice Department New Mexico State University CSP Rebuilds Iraq Arlington, Va. Luke Mogelson's May 31 "Aiding the Insurgency," regarding USAID's Community Stabilization Program (CSP) in Iraq, contains incomplete information and misrepresents facts. These errors reflect a not uncommon—but still unfortunate—misunderstanding of how USAID and implementing organizations such as International Relief and Development (IRD) operate in conflict situations. CSP was designed to mitigate conflict and boost employment through vocational training and job placement, business development, community infrastructure rehabilitation and youth engagement. The community infrastructure rehabilitation component provided Iraqis with immediate income in return for their help in rebuilding their communities. The money and work provided to participants was intended to be an alternative way for them to support their families, rather than relying on the insurgency. IRD worked with many local partners to implement the community infrastructure rehabilitation component and CSP as a whole. Worldwide, we collaborate with the communities we serve because we believe the most effective programs build local capacity. Contracting with Iraqi firms infused much-needed financial resources and practical skills into midlevel businesses and jump-started the middle class, which is critical to stabilizing any economy. This ensured that the rebuilding of Iraq focused on the men and women of Iraq and their priorities. To meet the challenges of implementing CSP and ensuring results in the midst of daily conflict, USAID and IRD established thorough checks and balances, including regular audits and independent evaluations of program activity. IRD rejected numerous payment requests to Iraqi contractors during CSP because of incomplete documentation. In addition, IRD acted immediately on any improvements suggested by the auditors. CSP has been declared a success by many, including beneficiaries and partners in Iraq and government and military leaders in Washington. IRD's efforts were proven to help stabilize communities across Iraq and help move the Iraqi people toward a better future, and IRD is proud to have helped so many Iraqis. This work is controversial to some. We respect those views and encourage informed dialogue on the issue. ARTHUR B. KEYS JR., president and CEO International Relief and Development Mogelson Replies Brooklyn, N.Y. I appreciate Arthur Keys taking the time to respond to my article (for which he declined to be interviewed). However, while claiming it contains "errors" and "misrepresents facts," he does not cite any instances of such. The general background he provides on the intent of IRD and the CSP is certainly informative. Of course, none of this negates or explains the problems I described: the vulnerability of cash-for-work programs to fraud, the overemphasis these programs place on statistical outputs and the fact that USAID hesitated to suspend one such program, implemented by IRD, even when several senior military and civilian officials warned that it was enriching the insurgency. As for Keys's assertion that "CSP has been declared a success by many," the most thorough analysis of the program's effectiveness is the audit conducted in 2007 by USAID's own regional inspector general for Baghdad. It concludes: "The audit was unable to determine if the Community Stabilization Program was achieving its intended result—to help defeat the insurgency by reducing the incentives for participating in it—because we could not rely on one of the major measurements of the program (employment generation)." The inspector general could not rely on this measurement because many of the time sheets in IRD's possession, accounting for the workers it claimed to be employing, were found to be fraudulent. LUKE MOGELSON True GRIT, FeSTiVe—Good News! New York City Ben Ehrenreich's right ["How to Survive the Crisis (Organize!)," Aug. 2/9]. The media that love the Tea Parties ignored the US Social Forum. But credit where it's due: while the money media stayed away, Free Speech TV (FSTV) and The Nation's colleagues at GRITtv were on-site, at the USSF's People's Media Center, packed with media new and old. A miraculous grassroots tech collective (shout-out to May First/People Link) made it possible to distribute up-to-the-minute reports—via print, radio, blog, tweet, even live TV. In a manner barely imaginable just two years ago, FSTV broadcast more than forty hours of live programming on two satellite networks (Dish, channel 9415 and DirecTV channel 348) and online, reaching millions of homes. Our team included progressive journalists and activists Don Rojas, Herb Boyd, Sarah van Gelder, Rosa Clemente and Marc Steiner, along with reporters from the New America Media, Yes magazine, Making Contact and other members of the Media Consortium. You can see Free Speech TV's coverage at fstv-ussf.blogspot.com. LAURA FLANDERS, GRITtv; DON ROJAS, FSTV
Jul 28, 2010 / Our Readers and Luke Mogelson
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
Bird Over Jerusalem Salisbury, Md. I thoroughly agree with Kai Bird's "Next Week in Jerusalem?" [June 28]. I stand in both camps, with a son-in-law who is Jewish; a father who was probably Jewish, although he denied it; and a longstanding friend who is a Palestinian Arab with relatives in Palestine. I would go beyond what Bird says and ask the Israelis to release Marwan Barghouti from prison. It strikes me that he could engineer peace talks. I compare him to Nelson Mandela, imprisoned by South African whites and accused of being a communist and a terrorist. Before the second intifada, I heard a Palestinian leader say, "We didn't engage in terrorism for six years, and it got us nowhere." I was encouraged to hear recently that the Saudis have announced a fatwa against terrorists. BETTY L. WHITMORE Drummed in Your Dear Little Ear... Waverly, Va. In "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" [June 28] Melissa Harris-Lacewell presents us with her hope that people like Arizona and Texas policy-makers "may find that the world has already moved beyond their fearful grasp." I hope she is right. But this optimistic view misses a larger point that calls for pessimism. The civil rights movement of the '60s was primarily a political struggle for justice. Somewhere along the way it turned into a cultural struggle for tolerance. The political struggle disappeared, absorbed by the system and converted into something less threatening. There is no denying the enormous progress of the cultural struggle. But there is also no denying the regress in the fight for justice. The Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama era has been one of ever increasing inequity by way of deregulation, tax cuts for the wealthy, cuts to vital social services, corporate bailouts and increased militarization. We should be grateful for the progress in the "decades-long culture war." But we also need to acknowledge the toll this shift of focus has taken on the political struggle. Cultural progress without political progress is superficial, and it distracts us from the more fundamental problem of injustice. We've been carefully taught indeed. STEPHEN WARREN Divesting From Israel Brooklyn, N.Y. Many thanks to Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss for their thorough June 28 article "The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement." BDS is rapidly becoming one of the defining civil society movements of our time, and the increasing discussion of its tactics and goals, still largely suppressed in most US media, is critically important. Just since the article was published, Jewish Voice for Peace (jvp.org) has announced a campaign to get pension giant TIAA-CREF to divest from the occupation. This takes divestment nationwide. The campaign debuted with a petition from more than 250 people, including Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, Michael Ratner, Nadia Hijab, Richard Falk and a dozen rabbis. We secured more than 4,000 signatures in the first thirty-six hours. Clearly, people deeply concerned about Israel's actions are looking for a way to do something, and the BDS movement provides it. REBECCA VILKOMERSON Executive director, Jewish Voice for Peace Washington, D.C. Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss tell a very selective tale about those who support and those who oppose the so-called BDS movement. They speak of a "nod toward the movement" by the Palestinian Authority in terms of the campaign to boycott goods made in settlements. That nod, however, was very much qualified. The article ignored the PA leadership's unequivocal stance that this boycott must not apply to goods made in Israel proper. "We are not boycotting Israel," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the boycott's organizers in Ramallah in May. "We have relations, and we import" products from the Jewish state, he added. The authors mischaracterize Americans for Peace Now's views on boycotting Israel. APN won't endorse a systematic boycott of everything that is Israel. But we have said that it is not illegitimate for the Palestinians to launch a campaign focused on settlements. That is consistent with our position that boycott and divestment efforts shift their focus from Israel to the occupation and the settlements. APN has never called BDS anti-Semitic. We have lamented that anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments may be cloaked in criticism of Israel. At the same time, we have repudiated the tactic of Israel's knee-jerk defenders of jumping to discredit critics of Israeli government policies before taking an honest look at them. DEBRA DeLEE, president and CEO Americans for Peace Now Amherst, Mass. I write to clarify two details in Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss's article, as far as they concern the official role of Hampshire College. In February 2009 Hampshire's trustees most definitely did not vote "to divest from six military companies involved in the occupation." Moreover, the college had had for many years a socially responsible investment policy. The board's investment committee merely reported to the full board on its decision to deploy a different third-party screen more in line with our values, a screen that at the time tagged some of the six companies but not all, and voted to suspend the policy until it could be updated. In November Hampshire's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine did host a BDS conference, but with the clear and stated understanding that SJP, not the college, was hosting the event. RALPH HEXTER President, Hampshire College Emily's 'Epilepsy'—More 'Potted Theory' London James Longenbach in "Ardor and the Abyss" [July 5] properly questions the need for a tidy diagnosis of epilepsy to explain Emily Dickinson's reclusion. In fact, Dickinson's latest biographer, Lyndall Gordon (Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family Feuds), made the diagnosis based on a complete misunderstanding of nineteenth-century pharmacotherapy (a field I am well versed in). From an 1874 formula for epilepsy containing chloral hydrate, glycerine and peppermint, Gordon assumed glycerine—which Dickinson took in 1851-54—was the active ingredient. In fact, it was the bitter medicine chloral hydrate, first noted as an anticonvulsant in 1870. To anyone's knowledge Dickinson never took chloral hydrate. Glycerine was a sweet carbohydrate used to disguise the taste of bitter drugs, and as a supposed nutrient for consumption (tuberculosis), which Dickinson's physician may have suspected. In no medical text or pharmacopeia of the time was glycerine ever suggested as an anticonvulsant. Dickinson even recommended the drug to her brother for his cough. There have been too many potted theories to "explain" Dickinson's magnificent poetry and mysterious persona, which trivialize the poet; this is but the latest. NORBERT HIRSCHHORN, MD
Jul 14, 2010 / Our Readers
Letters to the Editor Letters to the Editor
'Free Gaza' Flotilla Fallout New York City You know, it's funny. Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority are all engaged in this blockade (which I strongly oppose). But if you read The Nation's June 21 editorial, "Free Gaza," you'd have to assume that they are all doing this because it's fun or because they are big meanies or, at best, for no reason at all. There is no notion that any sane person in Israel or Egypt or the West Bank would ever have a problem with anything Hamas has ever done or have any reason for concern if it ruled the country on its borders and had the power to kill whomever it liked by whatever means it liked. You'd never know, either, that it is a regressive, totalitarian, anti-Semitic political movement opposed to liberalism in all its forms, particularly as it relates to women. This editorial, like most Nation editorials, assumes Israel is 100 percent at fault in this conflict and that whoever opposes it is 100 percent correct. It is the mirror image of the right-wing Zionist viewpoint it attacks. As such, it can have no relevance to the views of anyone who takes the complications of the conflict seriously in hopes of finding a solution that might one day be acceptable to the country The Nation consistently demonizes. ERIC ALTERMAN Nation columnist Miami I disagree with every statement and position in your rabid condemnation of the blockade and biased support for the Arabs of Gaza. The gross failure to recognize that the raining of 10,000 rockets onto Israeli homes by Hamas for years and the express assertion of absolute enmity for Israel by Hamas and its commitment to the destruction of Israel certainly entitled Israel to blockade all weapons, just as the importation of rockets into Cuba warranted the US boycott of Cuba. You fail entirely to acknowledge that humanitarian supplies were permitted to enter Gaza, and this brands your diatribe as absolutistic, unreasoned hatred. MILES J. LOURIE New York City It is too bad that the spill of human blood does not elicit the same response as the spill of oil. With oil, there is no question that it must be stopped. With blood, we find reasons it should continue. Only those capable of feeling the pain of others know that blood is thicker than oil. Those are the people who were part of the flotilla, who tried to stop the gushing well of pain in Gaza. These are the people the IDF labels "terrorists." RON MUSICUS Cambridge, Mass. One point has been lost in conversations about the flotilla: Israel continues as a violent and oppressive regime partly because American Jews turn a blind eye to the inhumane acts perpetrated by the Israeli government. Jews who vote Democratic and champion progressive causes are too often the same Jews who support the actions of the State of Israel, implicitly and explicitly, by refusing to acknowledge its failures. If we want a Jerusalem not riddled with mortar shells, we Jews need to acknowledge that we have been oppressors. It is not 1948, and we can no longer use the terrible acts committed against us, or even the grave threats of extremists, to justify the terrible acts of violence we commit. ELI PLENK The Editors Reply The point of the "Free Gaza" editorial was not to analyze Hamas but to explain why the Israeli military's violent attack on a humanitarian flotilla in international waters, and the blockade of Gaza that attack was enforcing, are so damaging not only to basic Palestinian rights but to long-term Israeli and US interests. Israel has certainly allowed humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza, as Lourie claims, but never in even remotely sufficient quantities. According to an Amnesty International report earlier this year, which echoes reports by the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, "by restricting the food, medical supplies, educational equipment, and building materials allowed into Gaza, the Israeli authorities are collectively punishing the entire population of Gaza, the majority of whom are children." The Nation has never been a supporter of Hamas; as Alterman must surely know, three years ago in a lead editorial we said, "We cannot accept Hamas's ideology, and we reject the idea that 'Islam is the solution' to political problems (the common formulation of Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood–affiliated movements). But the United States and Israel must finally acknowledge that Hamas is a popular movement with deep roots in Palestinian society, and for that reason should be engaged rather than ignored." In 2006 Hamas won elections that were universally acknowledged to be free and fair. For the United States and Israel to attempt to sabotage those elections and isolate Hamas—which they have done from the moment the results were announced—because they didn't like the outcome is not only the height of hypocrisy but deeply damaging to the prospects for a resolution of the conflict. As we pointed out three years ago, "arbitrary exclusion of a major, democratically elected Palestinian constituency in favor of malleable figures with little popular backing is doomed to fail." Furthermore, although Hamas is in many ways deeply reactionary and has carried out appalling acts of terrorism, it is a complex and evolving party and movement, with moderate and hardline factions. Its leaders have stated repeatedly that they will accept a two-state solution; most recently, top leader Khaled Meshal did so in an interview with Charlie Rose. Engaging Hamas, and testing its claim to accept a two-state solution, which the Palestinian people overwhelmingly support, is the best way to reinforce the movement's moderate tendencies. The tragedy aboard the Mavi Marmara was a wake-up call—a call not only for America and Israel to end the inhumane Gaza blockade but to end the counterproductive isolation of the Palestinians' democratically elected leaders. Only then will we be able to work toward a just and lasting resolution of the conflict. THE EDITORS Money & Polling: The Root of All Evil Los Angeles As a longtime Nation fan I prefer writing love letters about what a critical role you play, but I have strong concerns about your "Ten Things You Can Do to Win Political Campaigns" [June 21]. It is a mistake to lead your list with "Raise money" and follow with "Poll smartly." Money often goes into awful and inept TV ads and lousy mailers, which make no difference in electing good candidates. More and more data show that far more important than another bad TV ad (which viewers mute, TiVo or forget) is active engagement. The use of social media or a phone call or e-mail to a neighbor, friend or relative has far more impact than ads. We absolutely must work outside the money machine framework. We will never achieve committed candidates and meaningful progressive change if we are chained to the yoke of money and polls. I'm pleased you called attention to fairelectionsnow.org. We at BNF are pleased to work for fair elections and to help fix the system. ROBERT GREENWALD Brave New Foundation
Jun 30, 2010 / Our Readers and Eric Alterman