Readers sound off on Bill Clinton and The Progressive.

• Position: Nine letters on the president and the liberal media - Letter to the Editor

I wish The Progressive would ease up on the steady criticism of Bill Clinton. I keep a wall diary of the horror and stupidity of the Government's administration under Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and it always reminds me that the worst of Clinton is more like the Second Coming than the best of Reagan-Bush.

One gets the impression, reading the "Clinton Doctrine" pieces in The Progressive's January issue, that something important has been left unsaid. On their own, the articles describe in some detail the "failures" of the Clinton Administration to fulfill the President's campaign promises. What is missing may be an understanding of class dynamics.

Someone much wiser than myself or The Progressive's writers once observed that all governments are, in fact, executive committees of their ruling class. Our Government is just a bunch of capitalists and their lackeys figuring out how to make the world a more profitable place. Is this more complicated now than when Karl Marx made that observation?

Instead of offering a coherent analysis based on the premise that the first allegiance of any U.S. Government is to capitalism, The Progressive's "Doctrine" pieces stumble around, seeing the contradictions but supposing they are accidents. Has The Progressive fallen victim to what I call the Accidental Theory of History?

Liberals seem to think that history is an accident, that the failures of U.S. AID to support just development are unintentional, for example, or that militarized - that is, chauvinistic - beliefs about leadership are unfortunate holdovers rather than crucial strategies for maintaining real power in the world and at home. There are no significant accidents in our history. The Government does awful, cruel, self-serving things because it is serving itself.

It may not be fashionable today to talk about class politics, but just because one model of socialism failed at its most difficult task does not mean that the capitalist class is suddenly giving up its drive for maximum profits at any cost to humanity. From here on, class struggle will intensify. We can confront the truth and struggle for justice, or blind ourselves with ludicrous theories of "accidents" and well-intentioned but "incompetent" Presidents.

In the rhetoric of the last campaign: It's the class struggle, stupid!

Andrew Cohen's "The Help that Hurts" (January issue) about the alleged plans for a restructured U.S. AID leads me to repeat the question often heard around mugs of beer in faraway places: How can a group of such nice and well-meaning people produce such problematic programs?

I recall one such conversation at an outdoor pub in a Sahelian capital not too many years ago. We were discussing plans for a "structural adjustment" of that country's economy. In keeping with the latest trends in economic innovations, it was proposed to "compensate" those lower-level civil servants who would soon be laid off as part of the World Bank-dictated restructuring. Each would receive a "lump-sum transfer" or cash gift, and they were all expected to take it and open little kiosks to sell soap and candles - that is, to become little capitalists. I asked the US- AID official whether he was serious. He laughed and shrugged. "No, it won't work," he said, "but what else can we do?"

Before restructuring the world, U.S. AID desperately needs to restructure itself. I am disappointed to hear that this will likely not occur.

President Clinton recommends welfare reform, but what this country really needs is corporate reform. Our Federal Government, constitutionally and morally, is not intended to be primarily the guardian of corporate interests. Nor is it intended to look the other way when many of its citizens get the...