' Thanks for what you do and for being an example of what can be done. John M. Villaume U.S. Embassy, Khartoum Dear Rainmakers: I recently received a much awaited response from ya'll telling me that yes sir, you did get my renewal. I can stop worrying now. To fill you in on some regional information from southwestern Pennsylvania, I'll do my best. This is the start of Appalachia just above the Mason-Dixon line. Forty years ago or more this was a boom area due to the tons of coal being mined in many small and large mines around here. Most of them closed down when oil became king. The result around here is many "patch" communities. They're old hamlets with rotting housing sheltering many people who are genuine rural folks out of work since the mines shut down. Fayette County has its share of problems with high unemployment, ailing transportation networks, lack of industry, high numbers of welfare recipients, and strong mob control of business (legal-illegal) and government. The work worth mentioning is being done by the Fayette County Community Action Agency, Inc. (I'm interning with them). They are currently working on a salvage project where they hope to recycle old building materials to use on aging homes in need of structural repair. It is a much more logical solution as compared to giving away free money for fuel payments. The latter is purely a political solution and is far short of a long-term solution. They are also working on a project that uses salvaged materials to build solar greenhouses for eligible recipients. They built one demo greenhouse with an NCAT grant and since then have broadened the project. Twenty solar window heaters were built last year using funds from DOE Small Grants award. Now private money is aggressively being sought. It's a very positive action group. Working for tomorrow, Steve Proudman Uniontown, PA Mark: Your piece on survival was the best on the subject that I've read and, I believe. I've read most of them over the past year or so. I think it is crucially important for you to keep the door open for these folk. I believe that you need them and they need you—as broadening and moderating influences on each other. Tom Bender, as you may have noticed, doesn't agree. He dropped off the list of contributing editors because he felt we weren't covering enough good stuff and were, instead, catering to the hard core. He has a point, of course. I do lean toward the hard core because it's the only way to talk to them, and I sincerely believe they are worth talking to. They are, after all, doing in very practical terms many of the material things that the counter culture tried to accomplish. And they are changing. Where the literature once was dominated by the sense of isolation that you noted, there is more and more now of cooperation, community and neighborliness. Miles Stair has written about it—even about getting into local politics. So have Mel and Nancy Tappan. I don't suppose people like Kurt Saxon ever will but, then, they have small audiences. Incidentally, at the moment, I think, our newsletter is the largest in the field. As for shifting the debate from preventing nuclear war to surviving it, I don't think that's the problem you see. In the first place, these people haven't been involved in the debate at all so far. Now, however, there are signs that they'll come down on your side I There is a sharp anti-nuke flavor in the literature and also a fairly wise recognition of the imperial foreign policy that could get us all killed. After all, many of these people are old line isolationists, i.e., anti-imperialists. At any rate, I think you must be very y ty practical when it comes to war. The Ad- ministration, as it gears up for the SHOW ' .G DOWN, undoubtedly is going to emphasize /( civil defense somewhere down the line. I hope that the scene may be set—by surviva-': lists—to oppose that as a bureaucratic nightmare, with a double-barrel emphasis 1) on , local and not national civil defense, and 2) pa: flat-out opposition to nuclear or any other i kind of war as being, among other things, ' % the ultimate excuse for Big Brother govera- ment. I know that Reagan is riding high right now. But every time he has to use police power to crank up for the next step in his Imperial Cake Walk or Corporate Wing Ding, he is going to piss off more and more of the middle class. And only when the middle class finally understands that NO big government, big biz president is their friend, will the stage be set for a good, solid AMERICAN movement toward—I pray, a decentralized, libertarian society. But, of course, we are all just dreamers when it comes to this sort of thing. What probably will mark our lives most in the long run will be our actions and not our opinions. I hope you will understand that my actions continue along the same lines as when last ' we had a chance to chat [see RAIN VII:2]. The newsletter is just an opportunity to extend it a bit. Karl Hess Editor, Survival Tomorrow Kearneysville, WV January 1982 RAIN Page 3 ACCESS POLITICS Questions and Answers About the Reagan Economic Program, by The COIN Campaign, 1981, 36 pp., $4.00 (bulk discounts available) from: COIN Box 53361 Temple Heights Station Washington, DC 20009 The COIN (Consumers Opposed to Inflation in the Necessities) is an informal coalition of some 70 organizations representing consumers, labor, senior citizens, religious organizations, women, minorities and community groups. The Campaign put together this common-sense handbook in response to requests from people all over the country concerned about the impact of the new Reagan economic program. The five major points of the Administration's program—huge budget and tax cuts, de-regulation (drastic reduction in government protections), enormous increase in military spending, and a policy of tight credit and high interest rates—are discussed in an easy to read question and answer format. Political cartoons and pithy quqtes from both COIN leaders and government officials are interspersed throughout the guide. The booklet does a good job of demystifying the Reagan program as well as pointing out its internal contradictions. There's even a brief chapter on an alternative program based upon controlling inflation and stimulating investment in the sectors of the economy which produce the basic necessities of life— food, energy, housing and health care. This is a simple and effective educational tool. The only thing I've seen that does a better job of cutting through the Reagan rhetoric is Budget Director David Stockman's embarassingly-revealing recent interview in the Atlantic Monthly.—SR '"
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz