LETTERS to the Editor.

Bradley's Health Plan Scores

I believe the Bradley health plan is a good one, responsive to a great humanitarian need and worthy of support from all who have labored in the cause of health care as a basic human right.

As Doctors Ida Hellander and Steffie Woolhandler point out ("Wrong Prescription," December issue), not a single candidate for President has ever advocated a nonprofit national health insurance program. Meanwhile, since 1992, seven million people have been added to the rolls of the uninsured, which now total forty-four million. How many more millions will lose their coverage before there is a confluence of the administrative, legislative, and popular forces that would work together to achieve the enactment of a single-payer system? No one has the answer.

During the 1970s, the Committee for National Health Insurance organized broad-based coalitions in all fifty states in support of a single-player program. The plan was co-sponsored by thirty-seven Senators and more than 150 House members. But even with all of that power, lacking Presidential leadership, we failed. I believe that, with Bill Bradley in the White House, his commitment and his thoughtful plan would finally succeed.

Hellander and Woolhandler are concerned because the Bradley plan wasn't opposed by the Heritage Foundation, won't put the insurance companies out of business, and won't transform the health care delivery system into a single-payer entity. But what the Bradley plan will do is make real the principle that some forty-four million Americans, most of them in low-income working families, should have ready, affordable access to health insurance.

Max Fine Bethesda, Maryland 

A Single-Payer Candidate

Authors Hellander and Woolhandler commit a huge error when they state, "Not a single candidate has the courage to advocate the nonprofit national health insurance program America needs and Democrats used to support." Longtime peace and justice activist Dr. Robert M. Bowman, who is campaigning for the Reform Party's Presidential nomination, is clearly on record in support of a single-payer health plan for all Americans. (See his web site at http://www.rmbowman.com.)

The courage in question in this case is not that of candidate Bowman but that of our supposedly progressive journals that traditionally refuse to cover third party candidates who represent the very values the journals claim to espouse. It seems that peace and justice are fine to talk about as long as no actual political campaigns are involved. But when it comes to real elections, expediency requires rallying around the Democrats no matter what.

Alan Port Athens, Illinois 

The Meat of the Issue

As new subscribers, we read our first copy of The Progressive with great excitement. One thing that concerns us (granted, we have only a single issue to judge by) is the lack of any mention of our main political focus--veganism/animal rights. We were especially dismayed to see this issue ignored in the Comment "An End to Hunger" (December issue).

The article argues that world hunger is politically caused but ignores the fact that more than 70 percent of the world's grain and soybeans are fed to livestock, which is a political issue in and of itself. Because it takes sixteen pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, and because beef is overwhelmingly eaten by consumers in the world's richest countries, the meat-based diet of the Western world is using up the food that could be available to people in poor countries. In fact, 90 percent of Latin American cow meat ends up in North America, much of it in fast food hamburgers. The massive amount of land used for America's meat addiction deprives local peoples of land needed to grow their own food.

According to a 1994 Worldwatch Institute report, there are more people on the planet than can be fed by our food supply even under optimal conditions. And, even if Worldwatch is wrong, most experts agree that food scarcity will definitely be a problem in the very near future, as population grows.

A conscious effort to redirect grain and soybeans from cows directly to humans will become an imperative. Not only is meat consumption a hunger issue, it is also a humane as well as an environmental issue. Every year, billions of animals are raised for slaughter, causing horrific suffering and huge environmental degradation. These seem like definite concerns for progressives. So we're asking ourselves, is there a place at the table for us at The Progressive? Only time will tell, but we sincerely hope so.

Steven and Helen Rayshick Murrysville, Pennsylvania

Your article on hunger is good and timely. However, I believe that education, jobs, legalized abortion, and national family programs are the best defense against hunger and overpopulation. (And when I say jobs, I mean good jobs for women.)

Lest we forget, here in the U.S. we have the largest population in the developed world--275 million. And millions of our fellow Americans live in dire poverty.

Eugene Carrington Brooklyn, New York 

Israel's Extremists

The opinion of Palestinian American Professor Edward Said appears like clockwork in your magazine, most recently in "The Politics of Partition" (December issue) and in David Barsamian's interview with him (April issue).

Why not for once include a thoughtful piece on the topic from someone else?

For starters, you should look no further than Professor Israel Shahak, the eminent Israeli human rights activist and dear friend of Said, who has often exposed the intense fanaticism of the ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The most important issue facing Israel today is its relations not with the Palestinians but with the ultra-Orthodox Jews. It is shameful to see Israeli leaders kowtowing to these extremists.

Zionism has become in the past half-century, inappropriately, the alpha and omega of Judaism and the Jewish people.

Too much of Encyclopaedia Judaica, the Britannica of the Jews, is needlessly Zionist-oriented. The secular Israeli flag and the sacred Torah scrolls stand side by side in many synagogues. And Jews from anti-Semitic-ridden Russia are not all lowed their choice of countries to immigrate to but are funneled into Israel by the Zionists.

Sure, Israel is important to Jews, but eternal Judaism must exist independently of Zionism and its many follies.

Jacob Mendlovic Toronto, Canada

The Internet Is the Alternative

Robert W. McChesney's criticism of the media is certainly justified ("Oligopoly: The Big Media Game Has Fewer and Fewer Players," November issue). It reflects the views of W. H. Auden, who wrote that the mass media was nothing more than "entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish."

However, I am hoping that McChesney's view that the media giants will rule the Internet proves to be erroneous.

As a teacher, I am finding it increasingly difficult to convince students that often the word "media" is a synonym for "mediocre." It is becoming obvious that the only alternative might very well be the Internet, where students and adults alike might have the chance to be informed the way they should be.

This is why publications such as The Progressive should do all they can to maintain and update their web sites.

Larry Vigon Chicago, Illinois

Hope Disqualified 

Will Durst's suggestion of Bob Hope as a Reform Party candidate ("More Reform Party Candidates," December issue) wouldn't work.

Hope was born in England and is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. Thus, he is ineligible to serve as President or Vice President.

Unfortunately, Strom Thurmond is.

Norton N. Black Tucson, Arizona

Bottom Line in Nigeria

When Chevron violated the rights of the poor in Nigeria ("Chevron Sued Over Nigerian Violence," November issue), it underscored the myth that global capitalism will increase freedom.

Multinational corporations do not care about freedom of speech, assembly, religion, or freedom from torture and unjust arrests. All they care about is the bottom line.

Jerome McCollom Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Challenge the War on Drugs

Craig Aaron's review of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis (December issue) states that of the almost two million prisoners now in American jails "most of them are nonviolent drug offenders." The list of changes needed in our criminal justice system, however, failed to mention drug law reform.

Whether this is the fault of Aaron or of the book's author, Christian Parenti, I do not know. In either case, it reflects the reluctance of the liberal community to challenge some of the most unliberal laws currently on the books.

Our repressive War on Drugs has resulted in outrageous numbers of poor and minority prisoners. Plus, due to a sensation-hungry media, the War on Drugs has taught Americans to equate welfare recipients with drug users.

It's time for the liberal press to challenge the basic premise of the drug war: that illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin represent a vastly different and greater threat to society than legal drugs like nicotine, alcohol, Prozac, and the weight-loss drug Phen-Fen.

Frances Burford Houston, Texas

Tillie Olsen's Timelessness

Anne-Marie Cusac's interview with Tillie Olsen (November issue) was surely deserving. The exchange is timely. It brings to the forefront an arresting picture of one of America's most gifted writers, who has portrayed the working class milieu with a radical's insight and a poignant sensitivity.

Olsen has depicted a timelessness in her stories, a militancy that is as awakening today as it was when she scribbled her earlier prose.

I believe her book Silences (Delacourt, 1978) is on a level of importance with any of the collections of political essays by George Orwell, a memorable storehouse of revelation that has a mournful ring of truth.

William F. Johansen San Francisco, California 

The editors welcome correspondence from readers on all topics, but prefer to publish letters that comment directly on material previously published in The Progressive. All letters may be edited for clarity and conciseness. Letters may also be e-mailed to: [e-mail]. Please include your city and state.