Socialist Action /February 1999
Our Readers Speak Out
Dear editor,
I want to thank you for the Socialist Action issues you've sent me.
Your materials are of great use in my propaganda activities and are all
the more important because Russian mass media of today are wholly seized
by a small group of pro-imperialistically minded figures representing Russian
finance capital.
Practically nothing of the stuff like published by your paper does reach
mass audience through "big mass media" channels.
A.T.
Moscow, Russia
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Dear editor,
I'd like to thank readers who have given me feedback on my article ["Zimbabwe:
torn between Western banks, corruption" in the January 1999 Socialist
Action].
My goal in writing the article was to get out information not normally
found in the mainstream press.
The story had several points I feel are very important-including that
of organizations profiting from poverty and health care. This needs to become
part of the public discourse.
Let me share with you the intense emotions that motivated me to write
this story.
While in Zimbabwe, I spent half a day in the ghettoes/townships. I
was powerfully moved by the spirit of the people.
Anger welled up inside me that people in such a rich land have to live
under such conditions.
John Ruhland
Seattle, Wash.
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Dear editor,
Nat Weinstein's review of the 1998 Labor Party Convention (Socialist
Action, December 1998) set my mind working overtime. It is encouraging to
find articles on this important political development in the American labor
movement.
Many other left groups write off the Labor Party as a bunch of political
opportunists, reformists, sell-outs, etc. These leftists dream of seeing
a pure and smooth creation of a working-class party in a country where the
bourgeoisie struck deep roots in the labor movement....
Class-conscious militants must defend the progressive steps in America's
labor movement.
The unprincipled LP leaders tailing the AFL-CIO officialdom may become
utterly corrupt and brakes upon the further development of the party. Therefore,
progressive labor activists cannot entrust the exposed LP leaders with revolutionary
tasks.
The LP can only be taken forward by activists who fight for the political
interests of the working people; these activists must look to themselves
for solutions to the LP's current crisis....
C.P. Nonnaj
Brooklyn, N.Y
Socialist Action /February 1999 |