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.-4,——-k i str-Atill_-7/4-Y ./=E’ sori . T. 1.;* v gni -.L.. U -1 VO, 7 . tv ….. ;…, 71\\.w . -‘–i’ l “‘-11111, b liE TEXAS server A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powetfid or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. SINCE 1954 Publisher: Ronnie Dugger Editor: Dave Denison Associate Editor: Louis Dubose Editorial Interns: Pauline Cashion, Jim Lacy, Brian Maffly Calendar: Elisa Lyles Washington Correspondents: Mary Anne Reilly, Richard Ryan Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Jo Clifton, John Henry Faulk, Terry FitzPatrick, Gregg Franzwa, Bill Helmer, James Harrington, Amy Johnson, Michael King, Mary Lenz. Dana Loy, Tom McClellan, Greg Moses, Debbie Nathan, Gary Pomerantz, John Schwartz, Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh Editorial Advisory Board: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerrville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt, Washington, D.C.; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin: John Kenneth Galbraith, Cambridge, Mass.: Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick. Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.; Kaye Northcott, Austin; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg; Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. Layout and Design: Layne Jackson Typesetter: Becky Willard Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hinterlang, Alan Pogue. Contributing Artists: Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein. Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods. Managing Publisher: Cliff Olofson Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom Special Projects Director: Bill Simmons Development Consultant: Frances Barton SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year S27, two years $4S. three years 569. Fulltime students $15 per year. Back issues 53 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and bulk rides on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current subscriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal time; no one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. .._1989, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval Texas Observer Publishing Co., 307 West 7th Street, Austin, paid at Austin, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send ‘address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, P.O. Box 49019, Austin, Texas 78765 Bush Could Learn From Carter Many thanks for publishing Loins Dubose’s essay on President Carter \(TO, I have always felt that Mr. Carter’s main problem as President was that he not only professed to being a Christian, but actually put those principles into practice. No wonder the fundamentalist Right continues to vilify him. Mr. Carter’s recent work as an election observer in Panama is a case in point. Amid all the talk about possible actions against Noriega and abrogation of the Canal Treaty, Mr. Carter focused on the real issue that the Panamanian people, who voted overwhelmingly against Noriega, had the election stolen from them. Mr. Carter’s outrage was fueled by the simple fact that what Noriega and his henchmen did was immoral. After eight years of genial platitudes, it’s refreshing to hear some straight talk again. President Bush talks a great deal about public morality. He could learn a great deal by listening to Mr. Carter. James P. Mclnerny San Francisco, California Wrong About Jesse Jackson Richard Ryan’s “The Past Is Always with Us” \(TO, target against U.S. intervention and subversion of Nicaragua, and almost completely wrong about Jesse Jackson. Ryan’s case against Jackson is like that of the establishment press: Jackson can’t win and some people don’t like him. This anti-Jackson animus is itself sad evidence for the truth in the title of Ryan’s piece. We have had far too much unfair criticism of Jackson in the media. Jackson’s contribution to our world is precisely that he continues to challenge the individual and systemic forces such as militarism, racism, sexism, corporatism that keep the world mired in the hopeless assumptions, programs, and methodologies of the past. Jesse Jackson is far and away the most impressive progressive populist national political candidate, advocate, and leader in America in this century. Workers, farmers, peace activists, the economically oppressed, gays and lesbians, old people, and minorities have never had a better champion than Jesse Jackson. That he is willing to stand with and for worthy losers as well as winners is to his credit. Too bad the Texas Observer includes Ryan’s Jessephobia. Willie Ludlow Laramie, Wyoming Jackson Carried New York It’s hard for me to follow Texas politics closely from Brooklyn, and therefore I am in no position to debunk Richard Ryan’s claims about the “stiff price” he says Jim Hightower is paying for his endorsement last spring of “racist demagogue” Jesse Jackson. But I am living smack in the middle of New York City politics, and would like to straighten Ryan out on a few things. First, mayoral candidate David Dinkins, who Ryan calls a “Queens liberal,” is the Borough President of Manhattan. Second, in response to Ryan’s musing about “what sort of political capital Jackson brings to a city he once referred to as Ilymietown,’ ” how about having carried it, which he did, in the 1988 New York Presidential primary? Gara LaMarche New York Nobody But Jackson Most observers agree that Jesse Jackson’s campaign went far to reinvigorate progressive ideas and coalition building at the grassroots level. In the primaries Jackson united Iowa farmers, Vermont ecologists, Arab Americans, blacks, and progressive intellectuals among the previously disparate blocs. None of the “pragmatic progressives” Richard Ryan admires would even raise the issues of no first nuclear use, the Palestinians, our demented anti-communist foreign policy, the absurd tax giveaways to the wealthy, and affirmative action, not to mention abortion rights, anti-contra aid, and a dozen other major items on the progressive agenda. Since the Third World is the major victim of our foreign policy, it is appropriate that a Third World person such as Jesse Jackson would analyze and attack it. Nobody else in the Democratic primaries did! As for Jackson’s electoral impact in “Hymietown,” would someone please tell Ryan that Jackson won New York City in the 1988 Democratic Presidential primary. Michael Hardesty Oakland, California Paralyzed Cynic Mr. Ryan is not a dumb cynic, just a paralyzed one. It’s not Jesse that “betrayed” Ryan by being a “drab, liberal bureaucrat” with a “vapid” campaign \(TO, Jackson’s Presidential campaign was the high point of the political year, eclipsing Continued on page 39 DIALOGUE 2 JUNE 16, 1989