YES "YES LOGO"

DEAR STRANGER: A heartfelt THANK YOU for a brave and brazen issue ["Yes Logo", Jan 17]. I have been waiting far too long for a periodical I respect to stand up and count the ways in which corporations benefit our lives, and so far this century your team is the only bunch with the chutzpah to pull it off. I hope your articles are reprinted so often that Utne readers around the country have the chance to read something truly challenging. I assume that your mag is going to catch a lot of flak for the articles in this issue. Your readership, like myself, and like the majority of your writers, want to consider themselves deeply involved in left-leaning politics. Most of us hold liberal beliefs--we believe in equal rights for everyone, we believe that many laws of this country are rigid and intolerant, and we believe that a small group of committed people can make a difference in peoples' lives. The liberals in this country are responsible for all of the great civil-rights gains of the past 200 years--ending slavery, enacting labor laws, extending the vote to women, etc.

The embarrassing and ultimately depressing truth of the current day is that knee-jerk hatred of corporations, and anti-Americanism by extension, is all that remains of our leftism. The Left has become a moribund mass of contradictions and ditziness. We find ourselves shouting inanities into a chasm. Turning a grocery store into an enemy is no way to feel empowered! Driving a minivan to the NikeTown protest is no way to make a change! Corporations are here to stay: they employ our neighbors, they feed our neighborhoods, they fund our public institutions, and they support our arts festivals. They do as much good as they do harm, maybe more. Until the Left opens its eyes to the unclouded truths of our age we will be condemned as ineffective losers and fools. Thanks for doing your part!

Joshua Okrent, Mt. Baker, Seattle


THE STRANGER: A DIVISION OF THE HEARST CORPORATION

EDITORS: "Yes Logo." Devoting an entire issue to corporations... damn! I didn't mean to pick up the Seattle Weekly. Oh, wait. This is The Stranger.... What the f**k!?? So, you guys are playing head games with me, right? Ha ha. Thought it would be funny to mess with your readers. Keep 'em on their toes. That's a good one guys. Cuz, you know, for a minute I thought you were serious. But you know better than to alienate the dissident thinkers who support your asses.

I guess what gave it away the most was all those arguments with holes. I mean, if you guys were serious and had been taken over by Satan, you would at least be able to back yourselves up (hell, he's a smart guy). Actually, it's a great plan. Maybe you can get the attention of the P-I and they can merge with you (or forcefully take you over--what the hell's the difference anyway). "The Weekly P-I." That sounds like money to me.

Tell you what. Instead of waiting for the merger to go through, I'll just start picking up the P-I every week from now on. I mean, why get two newspapers when you can read all the same rehashed mainstream bulls**t in one.

A new avid reader of the P-I, via e-mail


Christopher HITCHENS: BLIND FROM DRINKING?

EDITORS: Of course Christopher Hitchens thinks capitalism is revolutionary ["For Want of an Answer," Sean Nelson, Jan 17]. He also doubts women have an unconditional right to reproductive freedom, and in recent months, he's actually been arguing that bombing the civilian population of Afghanistan was the most effective means of dealing with the Taliban. The Colonel Blimp Academy teaches its students these things. So it doesn't come as any surprise that Hitchens thinks capitalism--or the cult that thinks it's groovy that humanity and nature should be commanded by blind production rhythms and trade cycles and such weird-ass spiritual icons as "Invisible Hands" and "Magic Markets"--is the only revolutionary possibility at the moment. He's been skipping grooves for a long time. As for his argument that capitalism offers the world something other than fascism and empire at this point in history, well, the less said of this, the better. I'm just worried that poor Chris might be going blind from drinking all that ideological moonshine.

While I might agree with Hitchens that many of the WTO demonstrators displayed a conservative bent in terms of their fears of large economies, I see no reason to assume their analysis will stay in that place. Resistance movements do learn from their mistakes, and this one will too once it becomes plain to many of the "Green anarchists" that their leadership is riddled with "Green capitalists." And a little help from hard experience plus a few well-placed Red birds singing in their ears will make all that quite clear to this young radical movement in due time. Then the hoodoo gets upped, pals, believe it.

Michael Hureaux Perez, via e-mail


SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY HELP PEOPLE

STRANGER: I wanted to thank you for all of the support you have given to Cut Kulture and the Vinyl Shakedown sales. Plenty of people let us know that it was from The Stranger that they heard of the sale, making this the most successful one yet. I will let you know when we hold the next one as soon as we have a date chosen.

Damion and Jayne and George

Cut Kulture Gallery and Records, via e-mail


OUR READERS ARE MORE INTERESTING THAN US

STRANGER: What the fuck are you thinking?

The letters from outraged, barely coherent readers are the best part of your paper. Did you really think your "Meat Issue" [March 2000] was half as good as reading the rabid ravings of vegans? Or that fucked-up novel you published the week you all went on vacation--I couldn't wait for the next issue just to read the letters from the outraged literati. Now you've had an excellent run of letters from wild-eyed alcoholics.

The reader response to your paper is The Stranger's most artistic expression. Think of the rest of the paper as the tools by which you elicit...

[Letter to be continued next week.]

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: In the January 17 issue's interview with Christopher Hitchens ["For Want of an Answer," Sean Nelson], the title of one of Mr. Hitchens' books was misidentified. The correct title is The Trial of Henry Kissinger (Verso). We regret the error.