Letter to the editor

Editor,

Once again, Keith Kreitman shows his capacity for over-generalization to bolster his fairly predictable point of view. Reading his columns one can find these easy, almost lazy simplifications pop up from time to time exposing the author’s bias. In his latest column, Mr. Krietman states rather clearly that "99 percent of Americans do not even know what Marxian Communism is.” Really? Let’s see, 1 percent of the population (that are in the "know” like Kreitman) would come to 300,000 people. Yet, we have over 3 percent claiming to be Polish Americans and over 2 million Russian Americans with many coming from the former Soviet Union. We have eastern Europeans of all nationalities as well as a large percentage of Americans who have studied in esteemed institutions learning the principles and practices of Kreitman’s Marxist Communism. His statement is wholly ignorant of what these people may have to contribute to this statement. Are Hungarian Americans aware of those Soviet tanks that rolled into Hungary in 1968? Did they miss the significance of Marxian Communist rule and what this meant to them and their relatives in those former Iron Curtain Countries? It has been my own experience that those that use the term "Marxist Communist” also use this term to somehow explain how the communism we have seen employed thus far in such great places as the Soviet Union, North Korea or even Zimbabwe are not true to the principles of Marx, as though the bad things we have seen in actual terms are not representative of the "good” that exist in pure Marxian ideology. But many Americans, much more than Kreitman’s 1 percent, know the difference. There is none. And to suggest that Kreitman is in a rarified population that understands what Marxian-Communism represents can only be described as rubbish. My own thought is that Kreitman’s classroom studies in this field somehow makes him feel he has a unique observation. Forget the refugees, the Berlin Wall jumpers, the millions of persecuted populations that have settled here fleeing the marxist governances. Nope, they don’t get into the 1 percent, they know nothing compared to our own Keith Kreitman. No sir, Mr. Kreitman. Most Americans understand fully what Marxian style communism has given the peoples of the world. Some from careful study and observance, many from actual experience. To state that only 1 percent of Americans understand this nefarious system and its rather obvious failings tells us more about Kreitman’s slant on his own ideology. Kreitman may not be a marxist but he also appears to be clueless when it comes to what Marxism has meant to a huge slice of the American population. A textbook pales to the harsh reality of a gulag or rifle butt.

Raymond Laherrere

San Carlos