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Letters to the Editor Stern stuff on Stern To The Editor: On May 3, in a public forum, Henry Stern contemptuously labeled critics of the two leading Pier 40 proposals “socialists.” Now, in his talking point, Stern absurdly maintains that these remarks are not offensive because he does not consider “socialist” to be a bad thing. What disingenuous bull. Are we to believe that Stern was intending to pay a compliment when he dismissed his opponents and their work as “socialist?” Presumably, Stern doesn’t think it is a bad thing to be gay or an atheist either. Yet I wonder how someone would feel if he publicly bellowed those labels at them as epithets? Stern’s use of this particular “guilt-by-association” flourish was a clearly intentional echo of the HUAC witch hunts. Yet rather than admitting the obvious and apologizing, Stern digs himself in deeper. Condescending to explain what the HUAC was (ohh, maybe next he’ll tell us about this Hitler fellow and how people lived before iPods!) he bemoans that it has been “stigmatized” on the “American left,” though he concedes the portrayal to be accurate “to a considerable extent.” Mighty white of you Henry, except that the well-deserved stigma of HUAC is mainstream American history, not lefty folklore. In his headlong rush to change the subject from his own indefensible redbaiting, Stern shares with us the shocking secret that the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. were (gasp!) spying on each other in the 20th century. By the way Henry, they were Soviet, not communist, spies. Not all Soviet spies were communists and not all communists were Soviet spies. Please make a note of it. Oh, and one of those spies? Representative Sam Dickstein, father of your beloved HUAC. What any of this has to do with Stern’s wildly out-of-line attack on people at the Hudson River Park Trust hearing is anybody’s guess. Stern also shares with us his personal definition of “socialist,” which bears no resemblance to either the proposal made or to Webster. But then, if his column was the former commissioner’s idea of an apology, “socialism” isn’t the only word he has a private dictionary for.
To The Editor: a $10 bill to the subway booth clerk at 14th St. and Seventh Ave., so that he could credit my card for six trips. He handed me back the card and I swiped it on the little machine to the right of the booth. However, that machine did not seem to work. I asked the clerk to please activate the machine. He refused. At the turnstile, I found out that the clerk had not credited me — my card had a zero balance. I went back to the booth and asked the clerk to give me the $10 credit. He picked up the phone and told me he was going to call the police and that I had to wait. I had to take the phone number and the clerk information number posted at the booth and make a complaint. As I wrote the information, the clerk said, “S.O.B. you will never get your money. It is my word against yours.” Seeing what just happened, a man offered to swipe his card for me in exchange for $2. I hope there was a camera recording when I gave the clerk my money. I want to know how can I get a copy of that video and get back my $10.
To The Editor: How can anyone write even the briefest of histories of socialism in the U.S.A. without making at least a mention of Michael Harrington, who was the face and voice of socialism in the second half of the 20th century — and for many years a Villager? It’s like mentioning the invention of the phonograph and not mentioning Edison. Mike and I were both at The Catholic Worker and the White Horse Tavern in the mid-to-late 1950s — during which time we both became ex-Catholics after both of us got our degrees from Catholic colleges, he from Holy Cross, I from Villanova. I attended my first C.P. meeting in Bolton, Lancaster, U.K., in 1942, while on a radar course there. Mike died leaving a wife and two young boys in 1989. He was born in 1925, seven years my junior, but far more accomplished. It’s not permissible to write more than three sentences on socialism in the U.S.A. without at least giving a nod in the direction of Mike Harrington — and, of course, Norman Thomas.
To The Editor: The result? The L.A. Dodgers, Shea Stadium, the destruction of Ebbetts Field and O’Malley is wrongfully demonized for the move, although he did everything he could to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn. The only reason the aquarium was not built at Pier 40 was because of the opposition of the Brooklyn borough president. Where are the powerful political voices today? When Cirque du Soleil mobilizes its earsplitting piledrivers to build their monstrosity on Pier 40, when CampGroup takes its place on Randall’s Island, when the president of the Hudson River Park Trust is wrongfully demonized for the decision, remember the powerless leaders who told you that “No” was the answer. E-mail letters, not longer than 350 words in length, to news@chelseanow.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to Chelsea Now, Letters to the Editor, 145 Sixth Ave., ground floor, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. The Villager reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel.
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