Tim Green Megan O'Reilly Rattle

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The above watercolor depicts Tim Green and wife Megan O'Reilly, editor and co-editor of Rattle, a literary journal (see previous blog on Rattle). Many others could have been selected and put behind the intellectually-restricting established-order bars. Well, I’ve saved them for other satires. I do have to give Tim credit because now and then he, unlike scores of others, does open up to debate, especially debate that cannot further his career. I was disappointed, however, in his censoring of comments made by David Ochs and perhaps others, as well as his closing down of certain debate forums. Censorship in any of its subtle and sleezy rationalized forms should simply not exist in the literary arena, not in a democratic society. If you favor censorship, then become a businessman or politician or professor, not a literary editor. P. Maudit and Mather Schneider are depicted as trolls, which in Internet terminology constitute persons who disrupt the happy-face ambiance of blogs with sledgehammer criticism. In any case, those who would reject vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, normally do so out of fear—fear of being ridiculed, fear of being exposed for intellectual fraud, and fear of engaging with social “inferiors.” If I were behind an academic pulpet, I’d tell students Do not fear to engage with someone simply because of his name, occupation and/or laurels. What will make you a formidable adversary will be unwavering logic backed by fact and example, and, of course, willingness to bend when proven incorrect.

[This is not a poem!]

Tim Green

The following was created in 2009.

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Issue #22

Dear Friends and Foes of The American Dissident:
The latest issue of The American Dissident (#22) has just been mailed out to subscribers. Please note the new address: 217 Commerce Rd., Barnstable, MA 02630.

Besides the usual critical (i.e., offensive) poems, literary letters to and from the established order, and satirical cartoons, this issue contains a negative review of the journal, the editor’s rebuttal of it, a contributor’s negative poetry review, notes on gatekeepers, comments from a contributor on his having been censored by Huffington Post, an article by an activist against welfare fraud, and more notes on urination from a 93-year-old poet. To date, the editor has still not received any public funding, despite requests. To date, only one English professor in America has proven sufficiently open-minded to not only invite the editor, but also to actually use the journal in class. Below is the issue’s table of contents. Thanks again to those who dug deeply into their wallets to help the fragile cause.
The Editor

Editorial 4
New Poetry et al
Alan Garvey (Carlow, Ireland) 5-6
Doug Draime (Ashland, OR) 7-8
Notes from the Offended—Becky Tuch (Somerville, MA) 9-12
M. P. Powers (Boynton Beach, FL) 13-14
Gary Goude (Riverside, CA) 15
Notes from the Censored—By Rick Ferris (Akron, OH) 16-17
David Ochs (Santa Maria, CA) 18-19
Craig Shay (S. Setauket, NY) 20
Poetry Review—Leonard J. Cirino (Springfield, OR) 21-22
Daniel Senser (Cincinnatti, OH) 23
Kathryn Weinberg (Beverly, MA) 24-25
Notes on Gatekeepers—The Editor 26-28
Ted Stein (Bloomfield, NJ) 29-30
David Pointer (Murfreesboro, TN) 31
Notes from Activists—Russell Streur (Atlanta, GA) 32-33
Mather Schneider (Tucson, AZ) 34-35
Charles Portolano (Fountain Hills, AZ) 36
Notes from Students 37
John Cantey Knight (Metairie, LA) 38-39
Jody Azzouni (Brooklyn, NY) 40-41
Notes from the Golden Years—Ed Galing (Hatboro, PA) 43
The Editor (Barnstable, MA) 44-45
Literary Letters 46-56

Oil of Vitriol

What a blessed world of snivelling nobodies we live in!
Oil of vitriol must be applied.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Above is the front and rear cover of my new chapbook, Oil of Vitriol, which contains 50 pages of mostly critical poetry and costs $10. Finding a publisher to publish poetry highly critical of the academic/literary established order is like finding a dissident professor on a college campus today. Kudos to Jeff and Ruth of Petroglyph Books. If interested in purchasing a copy, kindly send a check to
G. Tod Slone
1837 Main St.
Concord, MA 01742

Below are three poems taken from the chapbook. For a scathing critique of them, read Mather Schneider's comments in the comments section for this entry. My scathing critique of a Schneider poem was added to this blog (see below) only after reading Schneider's critique of my poems. The animosity between Schneider and me began, as mentioned previously, when I dared criticize his poetry though only after he'd lambasted mine on several occasions. Previously, we were friendly and corresponded frequently. I'd even offered a truce, but Schneider refused to accept it. He was irrevocably wounded by my critique. Thin skin plagues democracy today. Far too many citizens have learned to accept only self-esteem building cookies and pretzels. The nation's educational institutions are largely responsible for conditioning citizens to reject criticism via whimpering and calling mommie or daddie to the rescue.

Ordinarily, I save such critique for poems written by poets of the known variety. But I thought it might be helpful for Schneider to look in the mirror, something he hates to do. Vigorous debate is the cornerstone of democracy. I am a fervent believer and promoter of it, which is why I include it here. The Academy of American Poets censored my comments on its website by removing them and even banned me from participating in its online forums (see http://www.theamericandissident.org/AcademyAmericanPoets.htm). I will not imitate that action by removing Schneider's comments from this forum.

After a while, however, debate in Schneider's case seems to turn always to tedious ad hominem. That's when I tend to cease responding.


The Canon

A group
of men
dictates
Mister X
to be the
finest writer
of the past
few decades.
That group
with quite similar
tastes and aesthetics,
as well as parallel
apathy to engagement,
both social and political,
draws others to it
like chicken to feed,
pigs to troughs,
or cows to bales of hay.
Its opinion
permeates increasingly
like an oil spill into a harbor
or fumes into a town or city
propagated by a member
of the chamber of commerce.
Its opinion
hardens more and more
like adipose deposits in arteries
or a viagara-induced erection
until it appears as if objective
and none dare otherwise contest it,
well, almost none…



In a Society of Whores

I too have been one of those publishing gangsters in the New York lit world. I even
get a pretty good table at Elaine’s, for old times sake…
—Michael Mooney,
self-avowed lit whore, former editor of Harper’s
Perhaps there is nothing
worse
than a whore who declares
unabashedly
that
he has been
a
whore
as if that declaration
had
been
made
in a confessional
before a Catholic priest
and thus absolves him
of past and future whoring.
Our society would not be
recognizable
today
if suddenly
all the absolved
whores
disappeared…



The Poet Is

Not Because He Writes Poetry, But Rather Because He Resists
For its very survival, society constantly
smothers the citizenry—oh, we do dwell
at alienated antipodes, she and he,
separated by her great ocean of crap,
crap that blinds,
that suffocates,
that offers salvation…
How not to gasp for air, for the respite
of days off,
and in the teaching profession
relatively frequent they are, yet
hardly frequent enough!
Red wine flows into his veins, as
daily fluid of evenings
to help ease the deadliness,
to enable implacable struggle,
to assure survival against
the omnipotence of the structure
housing him with sole purpose
to digest, and otherwise crush!
A poet needs to be sharp sighted to see
beyond the laurels, anointments,
and herding circles,
or he shall meld into it unconsciously—oh,
how easy to adorn the titles, to feel the
comfort of brotherly approval, and the
satisfaction of winning, but winning what,
if not relief from the agony of not having
to stand upright, so alone,
relief from sharp-mindedness itself,
to lull in the soporific, to bathe in the analgesic!
Surrender! whispers the Siren and ye
shall have an audience of friends,
clappers and blurbers
Surrender! whispers the Siren and ye
shall be the very erasure of individuality,
relinquished into unquestioning conformity,
the ultimate dissipation of the prime essence
of what it means to be poet.

Everyday must count until the great void,
everyday battle must be waged against her,
but how to fight—and fight he must or
subtly slide capitulated, decapitated
—the army of dulling colleagues, jabber
and insouciance, surrendered so long ago.
Oh how destroyed they do appear, limping
and hobbling their obesity, here in herds
of acolytic swarming—so many lieutenants lost!


Of course, it was Schneider who indirectly incited me to put a few of my poems up on this blog and to mention the publication of my new chapbook. He’s been a pit-bull critic of my writing. It was like holding a fistful of fresh meat, blood oozing out. Yes, ole Schneider came running to it like a famished mutt, even faster than he usually does. Well, below is the poem Schneider had published in the most recent issue of Fight These Bastards. God, it’s really quite easy to know where to start with this poem, to paraphrase a Schneider comment on my poems. It is perhaps the worst poem in that issue. So, I guess I’ll quote Schneider, who described my poems: “First of all, the message is not a very strong message and definitely not a new message, so in order for that message to mean something it better be convincingly given.” Yes, Schneider, it better be convincingly given! But what is the grand message in the poem below? Not much of anything at all per usual—just an unoriginal Bukowski-wannabe vignette of the lowlife. “So, I look at the quality of the poems themselves. This is the great disappointment,” writes Schneider regarding my poems. Well, I’m not really disappointed in Schneider's poem at all. It makes a good filler piece for a journal with no purpose at all but poesy for the sake of poesy, which is not really the purpose of Fight These Bastards—did Schneider pay for a subscription to get it published? “Artlessness,” says Schneider about my poems. Well, what about the poem below?

The poem below is critical like most of Schneider’s poems, but only critical of faceless characters he either works with or transports in his cab—evidently, intellectually limited in scope. In this case, the poem is entirely disengaged—doesn’t say much at all about society—and critical of a working-class man, one of his colleagues. Its end is typical of Schneider’s poems (and Bukowski’s, though Bukowski is the master, while Schneider the pale imitator): cutesy wit. Schneider excels at vacuous cutesy wit. His comments are riddled with it. Oddly, he argues he doesn’t even like that kind of writing. Perhaps he doesn’t even like the poem below, but his drive to get published pushed him to send it out, right and left and all over the place. His poem is entirely devoid of metaphor, "unimaginative" or not. The character depicted in it is of course “dumb.” Everyone Schneider works with is “dumb.” Schneider is the only smart one at the job… or, on the other hand, since he’s been there for so long, paralyzed and unable to move on, he too might actually be “dumb enough/ and mean enough/ for the job.” How else to explain it? “Newbie,” is that a “schoolboy” word?

Newbie
Eric was kicked out of Hooters
for saying something
to a waitress

he’s one of our
new cab drivers

he’s dumb enough
and mean enough
for the job

if he’d start
slobbering out
the side of his mouth
he’d be perfect

On the Ad Hominid

[N.B.: Interestingly, a journal distributed to libraries will be publishing my previous blog account, which is embedded in a much longer essay on my experiences with librarians. When published, I shall mention here what journal published it.]

He [man] has invented a complete catalogue of vile and scabrous epithets which he is ever ready to sling at those who think and act differently, that is, think and act as he himself would like to, if he had the courage.
—Henry Miller, "When I Reach for My Revolver”

Often, an ad hominem insinuates that there is a connection between the character traits of a person and the ideas or arguments that the person is putting forward; it is an attempt to discredit a proposition by discrediting the person who articulates it. It involves pointing out characteristics of the person being attacked that the audience, real or assumed, will tend to perceive negatively, and then concluding that because of these negative traits, the person's arguments and ideas, especially those which were the object of discussion, are also toxic. [...] When an ad hominem is committed, this pertinent link [between the person and his ideas] does not exist.
—Normand Baillargeon, A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense

To those in power, all whistle-blowers, dissenters and boat-rockers are obnoxious, at least while they remain lone rebels... The ideas that rebels expound tend not to be attacked by those in power. The latter are inclined rather to kill the messenger by character assassination. For example, one rebel was said to be a womanizer... bitter... disloyal... and even, in the words of one accuser, dangerously mentally ill.
—C. Tarvis

What makes me different from most of those trying to “succeed” in the academic/literary established-order milieu is that I've tended to put “success” on the backburner, while truth telling in the forefront. Unfortunately, in academe, that makes for a disastrous carreer. Today, I am essentially unemployable because of it.

Thus, I am not only highly critical of that order, but also do not make it a habit of arguing via ad hominem, a widespread form of vacuous rhetoric, once the argumentation of predilection of children, but today that of so many, many “educated” adults.

Logic is my weapon of choice, while ad hominem seems to have become that of the established-order milieu and those seeking to become part of it. After all, how can such persons possibly explain themselves and the corrupt order they so admire with logic? In fact, Mather Schneider, a poet autodidact, recently argued he didn’t “give a damn about logic!” Now, that’s honesty, a rarity indeed!

Certainly, I succumb, from time to time, to the common modus operandi, for is it not so much easier to simply dismiss a person and his arguments by calling him a “fucking moron,” as that fellow who didn’t give a damn about logic called me? Nevertheless, I’ll readily admit my errors in judgment—my weak moments—and rectify them. After all, ad hominem is a knee-jerk reaction. I do have such reactions but, unlike most, I am quite aware of them and consciously attempt to replace them with logical argumentation. Indeed, a certain amount of intellectual energy is required. The lazy prefer not to expend it.

Miller was partially right that the ad hominid tends to lack courage. However, I disagree with him that ad hominids would like to think and act as I do or he did, that is, as brazen critics of society. Likely, it is the shock of sudden, unexpected, and in-habitual criticism that overwhelms the ad hominid’s ability to reason with clarity. Fragile ego is another factor, for the ad hominid tends to be bathed in positive feedback. That is what the milieu does. It seeks to spread false happy-face positivism and ignore anyone or anything poking holes in that shiny veneer, or at best dismiss the criticism with ad hominem. The sudden shock of unexpected negativity thus provokes knee-jerk anger and subsequent childish name calling.

Nearly all of the criticism I’ve received over the past several decades has been of the ad hominem variety. Sadly, such rhetoric is commonly used by academics, editors, and poets, amongst others, too intellectually indolent or incompetent to counter-argue with convincing logic. In fact, it is so common that one ought to be disturbed by the trend and wonder how and why both higher and lower education have managed to fail so egregiously with regards the inculcation of the importance of logical thinking and argumentation. Evidently, logic is not the friend of corrupt systems, including and especially the educational one.

Very few literary journals publish negative critique. Instead, they tend to publish self-congratulatory commentary. In that sense, The American Dissident is quite different. In each issue, the editor publishes the harshest comments directed at the journal and/or editor. By the way, the editor has never stated nor implied that he is a revolutionary, a great writer, or a brilliant poet. It is amazing the things ad hominids will say when a citizen simply stands up and speaks his mind against the herd. As for egotistical, any writer who puts up a website, publishes a literary journal, or sends out his or her writing could easily be accused of it. That epithet is as vacuous as the rest. Indeed, when the fellow who “didn’t give a damn about logic” stated I had an “enlarged ego,” I argued: “If you were not an egotist, you would have a purpose besides simply getting published.” His response deflected the point made: “I never said I wasn't an egotist, I said that you were an egotist. It's not the same thing.” Yet, isn’t it? Deflection is what ad hominids do best.

Another aspect of the ad hominem phenomenon is to call the argument itself names, as in "rant" and "diatribe." Again, that rhetorical tactic avoids dealing with the argument. The editor of Journal of Information Ethics, for example, wrote the following regarding an essay I’d submitted on librarians: “it is a personal diatribe based on a limited experience at a limited institution. It is not publishable.” When I brought to his attention the ad hominem phenomenon, he argued: “A diatribe is an aggressive talk or lecture or essay that insists very vehemently on a point caring little about counter-arguments or even fairness. For me it is not a pejorative term.” Websters.com defines it as “a bitter, sharply abusive denunciation, attack, or criticism.” How can an intelligent person possibly argue that “diatribe” is not a pejorative term? By the way, one of the arguments in the librarian essay was clear and entirely avoided by that editor: the free speech of a citizen was truncated on the whim of a librarian in a public space without due process. To any responsible citizen in a democracy, that fact ought to be pertinent. To that editor, however, it was simply a diatribe. Besides, reality is based on single such experiences and, more importantly, never did I even remotely suggest all librarians behaved thusly. Just the same, rotten eggs, like that librarian, should be exposed, not condoned via indifference. Later, I discovered that editor had been a careerist academic librarian!

Finally, one might easily fall into the trap of thinking that if so many people have dismissed my arguments, then maybe they're right and I’m wrong. Such people are urged to read Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” Indeed, Ibsen argued "The majority never has right on its side. Never, I say! That is one of these social lies against which an independent, intelligent man must wage war. Who is it that constitute the majority population of a country? Is it the clever folk or the stupid? I don’t imagine you will dispute the fact that at present the stupid people are in an absolutely overwhelming majority all the world over."