Letters to the Editor.

Left-Right Cooperation Can Work

Ruth Conniff's piece "Left-Right Romance" (May issue) points to the oddity of ideological opposites working together to challenge Channel One in our schools. As someone who has written extensively about Channel One and been active in the movement to remove it from schools, I found Conniff's writing very thoughtful and quite useful.

The idea that both Ralph Nader and Phyllis Schlafly might be on the same side on some issues can seem curious, but it is worth giving serious thought to. The religious right's "authoritarian populism" does have elements of good sense in its attempts to keep children from being seen as simply consumers of whatever commodities corporations want to aim at them. Strategic and very cautious cooperation between left and right on these things may be wise and may reduce the stereotypes on both sides.

This is not to say that such ultra-conservative movements aren't dangerous. They are. But, as I show in Cultural Politics and Education (Teachers College, 1996), sometimes people get pushed to the right because they don't easily see the left working on issues that are deeply troubling to them, such as too much central control of schools, curricula, and testing, and the dominance of things like Channel One. Working strategically with conservatives on some issues may give folks who are now integrated under the rightist umbrella a chance to see that those of us on the left do, indeed, have things to say that are crucial to the lives and well-being of their children.

Finally, it's important to realize that schools choose Channel One not out of some ideological commitment but because they don't have enough money to pay for needed equipment, texts, and many other things. The solution isn't just in getting Channel One out of schools---although that is crucial--but to give all schools the funds necessary for a high quality education for all children.

Michael W. Apple John Bascom Professor of Education University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Amazed and Angered

I just wanted to briefly comment that the cover story for the April issue ("The Devil's Chair," Anne-Marie Cusac) was phenomenal. Cusac's research and findings not only amazed me but angered me as well. I wasn't totally surprised by some of the information she uncovered, just disgusted. Yet I was also relieved that someone went to such lengths to get this information out, and that a magazine like yours would print it.

As an International Relations/ Human Rights major, I try every day to bring about an awareness of injustice, and it's comforting to know that people like Cusac and the rest of The Progressive's staff are right there doing it, too.

Emily Delmont St. Paul Minnesota

Tax Wealth, Not Income

Barbara Ehrenreich in her April column ("We Are Certain to Elect a Scumball") is informative, entertaining, and witty, as always. But she misses an opportunity when she writes, "Neither party is proposing to end poverty, abolish the death penalty, restore the progressive income tax...."

Ehrenreich cites the progressive income tax as a good thing, which, when compared with most alternatives, it is. But there is something even better--a tax on wealth, rather than income.

Poor workers pay an income tax that may be small in relation to their income but large in relation to their net worth. Indeed, workers who live hand-to-mouth and need 100 percent of each paycheck for food and bills pay an income tax equal to 100 percent of their net worth. If we must have an income tax, we should means-test it by the taxpayer's wealth and exempt the poor from such a tax.

Better, though, is to replace the income tax with a wealth tax of, say, 4 percent--exempting the first $250,000 of personal wealth and giving a small negative wealth tax to those who file a net worth of less than $25,000.

The wave of the future is with the wealth tax replacing the income tax. Tell a friend.

Moody Lawrence Cambridge, Massachusetts 

Quit Slamming Starbucks

Anyone with a real grievance to air has every right to feel cheated out of the half-page you gave to whining about allegations that Starbucks operates predatorily in the upscale coffee market (On the Line, April issue).

In the first place, if a local competitor can't stand up to Starbucks in quality of product and atmosphere, it doesn't deserve to survive. In the second place, if you've ever heard a cellphone-wielding customer in Starbucks using the word vente (meaning "large") with a straight face, you know they're not in there for the quality of coffee and wouldn't be in line to buy good coffee anywhere else.

If you can't find a better use for your paper and ink, you need to spend less time in the coffeehouse and more time on the beat.

Carl A. Anderson Yeadon, Pennsylvania 

Lori Berenson and the Democrats

It has been a number of years since I tore up and threw away each solicitation for money I received from what used to be the Democratic Party. After reading "Gringa in an Andean Prison" (March issue) and the interview with Ramsey Clark, I have decided upon another tack.

Today, I received a request for funds from Richard Gephardt and the Democratic Committee.

I didn't tear it up in disgust. I sent it back (at their expense, as I didn't put a stamp on the envelope) with this notation: "I won't send you a dime until Lori Berenson is out of that prison in Peru and in her own home where she should have been four years ago."

I respectfully suggest that your readers, and as many of their friends as they can talk to, do the same. In an election year when we all get three or four of these letters a week, it can't hurt.

Arthur E. McGowan Ocala, Florida 

Gore Is No Solution

Dan Ryan, a Gore supporter who reminds me of all the folks with illusions about Bill Clinton eight years ago, chided The Progressive for covering Presidential candidates with little or no chance of winning, such as Ralph Nader and Socialist Party candidate David McReynolds, and for covering "some obscure protest that nobody ever heard of and which doesn't change anyone's life" (Letters to the Editor, April issue).

In contrast, I would like to commend The Progressive for its coverage because I strongly disagree with the contention that Al Gore is going to "do right by the environment" or do much of anything else that's going to make anyone's life anything but worse.

And if he does, it will be precisely because of pressure from the forces Ryan derides.

Candidates such as Nader and McReynolds may not win, but they will educate thousands of people about important issues of our time, including the corruption of the mainstream political parties.

Protest movements may not always succeed, but occasionally they do. And without them, the change being advocated either wouldn't happen or would happen much later.

In our neck of the woods, Indiana University would right now be destroying a forest to make way for an exclusive private golf and country club on university (i.e., public) land were it not for a determined grassroots protest campaign that stopped I.U.'s administrators dead in their tracks.

And lest anyone forget, the powerful social movements that stopped the Vietnam War, won civil rights and environmental legislation, and produced a giant leap forward in the status of women and gays and lesbians started with the sort of small, obscure protests that Ryan thinks The Progressive shouldn't cover. Keep right on doing what you're doing. Your magazine is great!

Jeff Melton Bloomington, Indiana

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 be e-mailed to: [e-mail]. Please include your city and state.