ustxtxb_obs_1965_12_31_50_00032-00000_000.pdf

some issue or another was the real cause for separation. Aside from the obvious loopholes which could be used to extinguish the career of the corporate man, even though he was ostensibly protected by a “right of free speech” law, there is the overriding question whether there are an appreciable number of men and women in corporate management today who are really desirous of speaking up on the current political issues, but fear to do so because of concern over job continuity. . . . The odds are that, as ‘a result of any introspection to which a person in corporate management subjects himself while working through the corporate maze, he will forego the right of free speech for the more demonstrable and solid comforts of a monthly salary with the promises of well-paid retirement at the end. . . . Ray, A. Hugos, Lake Waramaug, New Preston, Conn. Pick Up Our Bombs and Leave Where I disagreed [with the editor’s speech, Obs. Nov. 26] or where I thought you went a little overboard, I felt that you erred on the right side. Except for one paragraph: “. . . I am myself not convinced by argument that the United States should unilaterally withdraw, leaving the Viet Cong to work its will on those our people fight beside. Dubious though the history of our involvement is, we cannot honorably abandon the South Vietnamese to a slaughter. . .” I am baffled by people who present irrefutable arguments for getting out of Vietnam, and then wind up that way. . . . If you concede that we are under obligation to protect the South Vietnamese; you concede the whole argument. . . . In a comfortable settled society in which 32 The Texas Observer the burning questions are about having more of things, not about whether or not we should have anything at all, it is difficult for people to recognize that, in some situations, elementary humaneness cannot be guaranteed. Vietnam is one of those situations. . . . The real objective [of the Administration] could be securing permanent military bases on the Asiatic mainland, with an adequate protective perimeter \(completely bases secure. Large permanent bases which are now under construction could well be the bases envisioned. Or the aim could be to indulge in such brutality and frightfulness as to lure the Chinese into some overt move, no matter how trifling, which would serve as an excuse for flattening China with bombs. Such speculation may be reprehensible, but when our President involves the nation in a harebrained venture which could wind up in nuclear holocaust, it is ‘incumbent on citizens to try to figure out what goes on and to try to stop immoral and dangerous projects. Patriotically going along and not embarassing their government was exactly what the German people did during the Hitler regimeand we can all see now that they were wrong in doing so. But we are being asked to go all the way with LBJ in a field in which he is obviously unqualified to be an unquestioned leader. In U.S. politics he is a whizI approve of most of his domestic programbut as to “international communism,” he has obviously been colonized by the simplistic lunatic right.. .. Ho Chi Minh was and probably still is a national hero, and it seems likely that the country would come under his control [if the U.S. withdrew]. That he is friendly toward and supported by the Red Chinese doesn’t make it a foregone conclusion that all of Vietnam would become a province of Red China. After all, the Vietnamese have hated and feared the Chinese for centuries. . . . And as for slaughter, that is something that will go on so long as we stay there. When we leave, there may be some reprisals against the people who have been our mercenaries; ‘but such reprisals are almost certain to ‘be insignificant by comparison with the slaughter we are committing daily without sense or intelligent purpose. To assume that the North Vietnamese or the Chinese for that matterwould go in for senseless mass slaughter requires the assumption that they are murderous maniacs. Certainly senseless slaughter would serve no useful purpose for either Vietnamese or Chinese; and nothing reported from either forbidden land justifies the wild-eyed fantasy that they would indulge in bloodthirsty slaughter just for the fun of it. The way to quit is to quitjust pick up our bombs and leave. The sooner we do it, the sooner peace and civilization can return to Vietnamand the less likely we are to be permanently stigmatized as the New Huns. Roger Tornell, 2329 Goldenrod Ave., Fort Worth 11, Tex. Let Communists Participate Any private organization that desires to do so ‘has the right to exclude all communists from membership, or all Negroes, all Jews, all Catholics, or all socialists, for that matter. The question is whether they will benefit themselves by doing so. The left in the U.S. will not emerge fully from the shadows of McCarthyism until socialists of every persuasion, Maoists, communists, Trotskyites, and all others, are admitted to full participation. The S.D.S. seems to be less provincial in this respect than groups controlled by older people. . . . As [Michael Harrington] pointed out, communism “now rules one-third of the world,” and this less than 50 years after the first socialist revolution took place. It would seem apparent that they have some “good” ideas, to have sold them to so many so fast. And this, I believe, is the real basis for anti-communist hysteria, on the part of both reactionaries and liberals. If you have confidence in your own program, why fear communist participation in liberal groups? They are human beings, some passages in “The Ulterior” [Obs. Nov. 12] to the contrary, and communication with other leftists should convert them, if their own philosophy is as ‘barren as you say. If they win adherents, it would seem to prove that their arguments are superior. . . . The slightest acquaintance with Marxism, an optimistic philosophy, should dispel the illusion that those who believe in it are bitter, unhappy people. And if you have been indiscreet enough to meet a few personally, the stereotype of them as wicked, morally corrupt people is laughable…. If you really want to keep hyprocrites out of the movement, why not give them a lie detector test? Mary Umberson, Box 105, Refugio, Tex. The $6 Question I am in favor of both raising the price and increasing the number of subscribers. Some think the former will reduce the number of subscribers, so I am raising my payment by $2.Marion Snuggs, 128 Main Plaza, San Antonio, Tex. I think upping your fee to $6 would be a good idea.Ann Drogynous, Department of Philo, University of Texas, Austin. \(This curious correspondent refuses to present Raising the price from $5 to $6 or $7 would not stop me from buying the Observer. It is my only source for obtaining political news of Texas, and I certainly look forward to getting it every two weeks. John Scheel, Esso Standard Libya, PO Box 385, Tripoli, Libya. I am enclosing a check for $6, for renewal . . . the best possible use for $6. Who says $5 is more “even” than $6? Must be the new math. Alice Thomsen, 12529 Broken Bough, Houston, Tex. You might as well raise prices. Poor folks don’t read the Observer anyway. They don’t read anything.Hugh Lowe, 524 W. Woodlawn, San Antonio, Tex.