ISR Issue 60, July–August 2008
LETTERS
Expand the letters
Wow. I just finished reading the March/April 2008
issue. Your magazine is consistently informative and valuable. I ended with
the letters section and was very encouraged by the content and tone of the
correspondence. What especially excited me were the questions, requests,
and constructive criticisms of each letter writer. Given the fact that ISR is a sometimes active (and
potentially consistent) forum of discussion amongst the readers, I agree
completely with the ISR reader from Houston, TX, who urged you to expand the letters
section. The queries presented by the letter writers were valid and
deserved some form of response in print (even if it were one that explained
the economic constraints of responding to each letter). It’s possible
you responded to them individually, but I (and I assume many others) would
benefit from a dialogue based on the letters. I strongly request that you
respond in print if this is at all possible. Maybe a new Q&A section
could be integrated into the ISR hard copy or (more financially realistic) on the Web
site. I hope this is possible. Thank you for a great publication.
E. Francis Kohler
Editors’ response:
We too are pleased when our letters page expands and
dialogue/ polemics develop between readers and authors, and we also agree
that queries in letters deserve a response. We strongly encourage readers
to send us letters, so that an expanded letters page can become a regular
feature of the ISR. As
for adding a Q&A section on our Web site, these kind of things
won’t be possible until we overhaul and update it, which will happen
some time in the next year.
ISR’s
economic analysis on point
I read Joel Geier’s political economic analysis
of the most recent crisis of capitalism. It shows you have spent many years
studying the two main theories of modern day bourgeois economics. Your
article raises a lot of questions and it ties the past twenty-five years to
“supply-side economics” first thought up in Milton
Friedman’s Chicago School and tapped into the brain of Ronald
“Ray Gun” Reagan. Reagan was an actor by trade and a dangerous
conservative who got the capitalist ball rolling again after the defeat of
U.S. imperialism by the Vietnamese revolution.
As Marxists our main job is to have a clear and concise
understanding of the most recent crisis and your article is very much on
point.
At the root of a good socialist economic article is the
application of the materialist conception of history in its concrete modern
form. You did this and I feel as this economic crisis deepens we are all
going to be very busy indeed.
Comradely yours,
Tom Siblo
Saugerties, New York
When liberation theology began
I’ve seen your magazine on the newsstands for
several years now, and was always intrigued by the covers, but it
wasn’t until the March/April 2008 issue, with your cover story on
MLK, that I purchased a copy. Not only did I enjoy the MLK article (I
studied MLK, with a focus on his radicalism, while a grad student at Union
Theological Seminary), but I ended up reading the entire issue, cover
to cover. It was great to find a publication dedicated to radical thought
that was not rusty, dowdy, or stagnant in its material, presentation,
or outlook. One question: It appears one of your editorial focuses
this year is 1968. Any plans on doing an article on liberation theology,
which started that year and went on to shake the foundations of
institutions, both religious and secular, and which continues to
reverberate today, as even a glance at the current presidential
campaign will attest?
Keep up the great work!
Richard Doyle
Editors’ response:
We have a few more articles lined up—on the
Prague Spring, on Black workers’ struggles in the U.S., and on the
Massacre at Tlatelolco in Mexico City. The 68 series didn’t plan for
an article on the topic of liberation theology, but we will have something
on Paolo Friere’s pedagogy in the coming year.
