Page 18 RAIN August/September 1979 A LETTER. Jim Frazin's letter about my article on rights and responsibilities raises an important question beyond whether I am a racist, or whether the article was. The question is how RAIN or any other community formulates what Frazin calls "a correct policy." One possibility is that there are no correct policies, only decent processes. A decent proccss, in my view, is one in which there is open discussion, clear statements of objectives, careful matching of, or comparing of opinion to reality, and testing of decisions so that policy never becomes simply congealed opinion. Process, in my view, always remains more important than policy. The end not only docs not justify the means, they cannot be separated. The mcans is the end. RAIN, following that line of thought, has what I sec as a correct process, a decent process. It is a place where people share ideas. Out of this process come not policies but practices. Jim asks that RAIN, with his help, draft a correct policy, in particular, on "liberation issues." My own article followed an incorrect policy on such a matter, apparently, because of its particular attitude toward the poor (that they must achieve their goals through their own efforts rather than through claims of 'rights'). Earlier in his letter, Jim suggests "a more rational approach for Karl's good intentions would be 'how can we think together, make allies and together overcome the oppressiveness of this society to all people?' " One approach to that, which I try to follow, is to avoid the formulation of correct policies and to pursue, however stutteringly, more experience, more space for the practice of freedom, more friends for the enlargement of it. My suggestions in regard to the illusions of rights and the power of responsibilities came from experience, reflected practice, and was in open friendship to every part of Jim Frazin's criticism except the part that implies that either he or you or I or anyone can or should draft and impose correct policies on anyone else. Correct policies, if they can have any decent meaning at all, would, it seems to me, simply be the reflections, after the fact, of effective, humane and considerate practices. And, to return to my central argument-and it is only that, an argument-when it comes to practice, there are no rights, only the responsibility to do it. Karl Hess P.O. Box 173 Kearneysville, WV 25430 cepted realities-not complete, but fully alive and healthfully taking form now It feels odd and rather sad to be parting ways with things so long familiar, with explorations followed so long together. But other urges call. New shadows appear through the mists of the future and their scent beckons again to less traveled fields where our hearts find greater nourishment. We have been with RAIN for four years, helping share new patterns that are emerging and becoming real around us. It has been an exciting time, and one which has been successful far beyond what mOst people could then conceive. Many things only dreams four years ago have become commonplace and acThis has been an eventful summer for RA IN, full of important changes. Still, we haven't managed to run a "Raindrops" since the May issue- and that's on their own strength. A renewable energy present is eclipsing fantasies of a nuclear future. A sustainable society i emerging from the cracks of an unrepeatable past. Projects and information and ideas once part of RAIN now appear in Better Homes and Gardens, Sunset and the New York Times, and have spread from paper to wood and glass and compost in our own neighborhoods. Special journals now track the burgeoning areas of passive solar design, alternative sewage, health care, urban agriculture, simpler lifestyles and community economics. Much remains to be done, and much that we and RAIN will help with in our own ways. But the time has come when Lane and I must become the last of the "old timers" to leave RAIN-to make room for new people and visions and to make new use of what the last four years have taught us. gossip from early April! So this 'Drops may feel more like a bucketful, as we backtrack a bit to fill you in ... Tom and Lane arc "letting go," but they won't disappear from RAI/V's pages. They nurtured RAIN through its early development and anything we might say now would be inadequate. We're sure that their longtime RAIN friends and readers join us in wishing them all the best in their new explorations. And there are more staff changes, some taking RAINpeople into new phases, others bringing new faces into the fold . ... Linda, after a leave of abo' sence in May to think out options, decided in June not to return to the staff. . .. Steven left UAIN as a staff member in June but is continuing to write articles and to consult editorially with the staff.. . . Phil is readying to
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