Letter from an American supporter in Norway to Geraldine Ferraro. The author also sent the letter to the New York Times. Letter has handwritten notes.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/vice_presidential_campaign_correspondence_1984_international/1125/thumbnail.jp

Ferraro, Geraldine

English

Fordham University School of Law

Fordham Law SchoolFLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and HistoryInternational Correspondence9-20-1984Letter from an American Supporter in Norway toGeraldine FerraroGeraldine FerraroFollow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/vice_presidential_campaign_correspondence_1984_internationalPart of the Law CommonsThis Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Correspondence at FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It hasbeen accepted for inclusion in International by an authorized administrator of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. Formore information, please contact tmelnick@law.fordham.edu.Recommended CitationFerraro, Geraldine, "Letter from an American Supporter in Norway to Geraldine Ferraro" (1984). International. 126.https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/vice_presidential_campaign_correspondence_1984_international/126{ ~~o(f~~ t::C :1VEO LO<:. '-~'1. · '\1 o~ \< • \ ~ ) OCT 01 1984 ~/ifr'I J{ I  (_Avf S-S ~ ~ {. ~,:.,.u,  '  o.r/ . .:.·, I .,,,1---:.··/2L</AY __ >  -T' I I 'lf'J:'.... l.0-;!'..!!n,c at thi111_~s fror:: a generf 1 ,' st5 vi ~r}IAfPNiO~e"efll to see things it would t~~-:e a s1rncialist to deu1 o•!S'trate. exarr.ples: bri tain seduced ar~en tina in to invading the falklands, ~nd / . this was a good thing. there was no rush to take rome after_fe.nz10, for good reasons. there was no need to drive the nazis entirely out of north afrir.a after alame1n (oe~ter to have ~he americans practice on them there and also Keeep hitler stretched)(resembles th• interc~ptsd roosevelt-cnurchill telegram that encouraged hitler ~o leave armies in italy). see, this british general says on tv he shoulda taken tripoli even tno c11urcr1ill took away mucn of his a:cyiy (sent to greece), but 'as any fool k 1 n plainly see' tnat assumes it would nave Peen a good thing to drive ni tler out of north afri ca at t,"at time; r'.n assuJtion more ol)vious tnan valid. so, wi1ile we ."-wonder about the sinking of tne belgrano, let's not overlook the question: what was british policy toward argentina and the falklands over the long term? was that policy constructive? was the effect desirable? as to the formulation and execution of britisn policy as a process with disquieting implications, that is quite another matter, and as a United States citizen i am concerned, due to the heavy influence London has upon Washington •. we cannot know now whicn of the crises forming the arch of our entrance into tne twenty-first century will be t:1e keystone; but it may well turn out to have been the crisis of control over the actual war-making powers of the great nations. during the past several decades the common man and woman have been scrambling to eaten up witn an awareness of what is going on in the big wide world and what their governments are doing abroad. how can we speak of representative government wnen the people at largB w:,om trie representative government represents do not ~now what has been done? of course, to know wna t l1as been done is not the same as knowing what is afoot--- but one cannot know what is being done, if one does not know what is afoot. so wno is responsible? we do not want mob rule, or its modern perversion (rule by pollsters) and the elected official must accept the responsibility of decisiwe action. but the society as a whole has the responsibility of describ-ing the office in terms of delegated responsibility--- and succeeding generations have the responsibility of maintaining the boundaries of delegated resiionsibili ties and improving tClemo The Uniteo btates has a Constitution which e~oodies certain values --- tnese are t~e ~rinciples for which we stand. some hypocrisy inevitably accompanies f;rinci~ · les, but with ronald reag'1n we have let t,he 'a;nerican dilemma' rl<n riot in an orgy of cynicism. if he gets re-elected it will be the time that tries the soul of our nation. shall the United States Constitution be tested to des-truction?] in which case it may mean the destruction of the world as well. historians without tne ulterior motives of tne Neo-Republicans w1LL ~"easily shrug and point to what did us in: we drifted away from the constitutional definition of tne war powers. no one would bell tne cat; or, rather, the people at large were diffident of telling george not to do it --- it was easier, less a threat to their sanctimoniousness (had they not saved the world from hitler?), to let the king take tne responsibility and become tne scape~oat jf history. but it is the citizenry who are selling their birtnright • for a mess of pardons --- they cannot escape that 4gnominy they will deserve if tney allow the current truly anti-American administra-tion to continue! so Reagan's dictatorial behavior in Grenada is wrong for the contempt of the constitution it implies. and that implication is born out repeatedly in rK~aRfEximxamaxarEHRmx~iEarag»a~ Reagan's rampages in and around Nicaragua. one wonders what he would have pulled in Lebanon if not restrained by people outside his adminis-tration. but 'we get what government we deserve'. and a person such as Reagan who removed tne porteait of Jefferson (could tnat have not been symbolic?!) is entitled to feel tnat 1if God had not intended them to be shorn He would not have made them sheep'. but American citizens are not entitled to be sheep! who are these 'Silent Majority'? are tney deaf too? and blind? are tney so dumb ~hat tney do not near tne sliding nor see the disappearance of American principles of LIBERTY? --- can my fellow Americans den~ that Reagan's jingo-ism abroad is renearsal for Know-Nothing-ism at home?! Send not to ask for whom ~he Liberty Bell tolls ••• Vote for The Constitution! Elect Mondale and Ferraro! and Reagan's confidence trick has a second par~: he betrays our posterity by spending tne principal of tneir patrimony --- he <!...*k€. pays for today's ~?~and circus with tomorrow's meat! and he has  2o/t;9~ 1/3 bJrrowed from nis frienas on our benalf at usorioJs rates! ~e nave a rat race of usory. and yoJ can be sure t ~at the first to ti1inK tnemse 1 ve s past t t1e post wi 11 not scruple to ex t E:: rmi na te the lemmings at ~he back so as to collect a fee from Mars. Drive tne usorers out of The Whi~e House now! --- before their goons drive us out of our houses at the nead of night laterl pernaps i ougntn't mention it, but i cannot avoid the feeli ng that . a cozy axis has developed oe tween tni s c1.1rren t admini stra tio:rm r\.' an~..fpresent Holy l''ather. the Polis ~1 Pope may have his own••••• axe to grind, but the CJincidence 0f Washineton a ffording di plo-matic recognition to The Vatican a few mont~s after the Pope's atypical brusqueness wc1ich. affronted the .Nicaraguans who had come to greet him, thus playing into Keagan's hand, and which Reagan nas been exploiting with oily entausiasm so as to mitigate tne unfortunate impression tnat it is Protestan ts a gainst Ca t holics --- ah, well. need one be surprised at SJC3 back-wash ing? no, but consi dering our separat10n of church and state ••• there are some who simJlY adore Ronny and indeed he is an ideal front-man; but will ne li:ve as long as Ki1omeini? or Franco? or Mao? doesn't Bush have a better chance than Ferraro of taking over from a deceased or debiljtated incumbent? and you know with the practice at personality shifting gained apropos :;;a terga te, a shift (ah, yes, see Frederick Forsytne's new novel, the fourth somet~ingorother) to Jesse Helms would station Dracula himself in place for a possible, shall we say, E1~VEN years! if you laugh, then you nave to discount the power of media manipulation --- and the only waj to do that is to eject Reagan immediately! i warned against the election of reagan four years ago, and now i do not know if the world can tolerate four more years of him and some people think reagan actively wants a ma jor war: if he is re-elected, it will be up to those who love Am erican values to u s e t ne powers ~he Founding Fathers gave us to save our nation, and then we may well actually be the last best hope of mankindJ but then we migh t ask why couldn't we get the American pe ople to see what they see, that Rea gan and his behavior constitute a cl ear and pre s ent danger to The United States, to The Free World, to The Tnird World, to The Second World, to Generations As Yet Unborn, to The Penguins in Antarctica and to The Primeval Doze (not to men ti on Yo.;. and Me!). And t hink of the SHANE:! actually, i like to tr,i nk tnat t ne American Pe ople are actually pJlli~g a f a st one on Cl' U n~el Ronal'---him all the ~ay to t~e g ouill1tine b oot n 1 (n ".) Via t we a re sm i ling on / q~:;.-o 

Letter from an American Supporter in Norway to Geraldine Ferraro

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Letter from an American Supporter in Norway to Geraldine Ferraro

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