Letters

Elections 2000 On their way, like it or not
Planning to vote? Not to vote? Thought of ways to insert your values into the debate? Send Peacework your ideas, causes, tactics, and strategies. Keep your letters under 350 words (good practice in writing sound bites, bumper stickers, and letters to the editor). Start sending them now, keep it up until October.

Larry Dansinger, Monroe, ME
I was disappointed by the response of some of the presidential candidates to the question of whether or not the US needs "a national missile defense system to defend itself against nuclear attack" in the February, 2000 issue. However, I was even more disappointed by the fact that only the Democratic, Republican, and Reform party candidates were included.

I would rather have Peacework tell me the positions of candidates like David McReynolds (Socialist) and Ralph Nader (Green) and challenge me to figure out how to get them on the ballot, than have Peacework leave them out and make me wonder if anybody takes them seriously besides me.

I hope Peacework can do an issue before the November election featuring various aspects of real electoral change--clean elections, proportional representation, ballot access, media gatekeeping on who is a "real" candidate, and other issues leading toward real democracy.

Howard B. Kriebel, Medford, NJ
Two quotes from the AFSC Peacework web pages (www.afsc.org/peacewrk.htm):

"Grounded firmly in spiritually-rooted nonviolence, we span the spectrum of issues of concern to those seeking liberation, thus providing a 'bridging' service between individuals who may feel somewhat isolated and organizations seeking to link their work with greater support."

"By 'destroying'private property, we convert its limited exchange value into an expanded use value. A storefront window becomes a vent to let some fresh air into the oppressive atmosphere of a retail outlet (at least until the police decide to tear-gas a nearby road blockade). A newspaper box becomes a tool for creating such vents or a small blockade for the reclamation of public space or an object to improve one's vantage point by standing on it. A dumpster becomes an obstruction to a phalanx of rioting cops and a source of heat and light. A building facade becomes a message board to record brainstorm ideas for a better world. After N30, many people will never see a shop window or a hammer the same way again. The potential uses of an entire cityscape have increased a thousand-fold. The number of broken windows pales in comparison to the number of broken spells--spells cast by a corporate hegemony to lull us..." (Peacework, Dec 99/Jan2000, "Voices from Seattle"--Source: The Black Bloc)

This was not a statement written by Quakers. However it was included in Peacework and is hardly "grounded in spiritual nonviolence." I don't wish to see my support for the AFSC used to publicize this kind of journalism. There may be a place for this sort of publication, but in my opinion it does not belong on the AFSC Web pages and does not speak for me as a Quaker.

Howard Lisnoff, Narragansett, RI
That Peacework would publish two such diametrically opposed articles as "Behold a Pale Horse: The Secular and Spiritual Crisis of American Politics," and "At Stake in the Battle Over Gays in the Military," is absolutely mind-boggling! After reading the former, I thought I had mistakenly picked up a different magazine in reading the latter.

Emma Goldman said that if she couldn't dance it just wasn't her kind of revolution. That's how I feel after reading James Carroll's piece about the need for equality in the military for gay men. Carroll states that "America's nobility lies in its having found ways to expand the dream of equality in every generation." Does that nobility include the war in Vietnam? Or perhaps it includes the wars in Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, Columbia, or the 9-year war against the people of Iraq? Or maybe Carroll means the sickening poverty rate of 20 percent of children in the US? Just imagine how that poverty rate would decrease if military expenditures were for self-defense and not part of the New World Order scheme to make the world safe for despoiling.

The issue of gays in the military is a bogus issue that is neoliberal to its very core! Why would an individual want to serve in a military environment that by its very nature is meant to exploit and murder? Isn't that what has been happening to gay men in the US for decades? Why would anyone want to serve in an organization that is the mechanism for his own destruction? Militarism is predicated upon brute aggression and the violation of human rights. You can't have it both ways. Equality and aggression can't exist side by side in the present climate of US hegemony. Name one military operation of any scale that hasn't had as its corollary the rape of women and the deaths of the young and elderly. I look forward to a day when military service has to do with bona fide self-defense or serving the needs of communities. Perhaps then we will have evolved into a culture that accepts differences of sexual orientation as natural. The reality of our current society is far, far away from that ideal.