A Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy
***********************************************************************************************************************************A FORUM FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VIGOROUS DEBATE, CORNERSTONES OF DEMOCRACY[For the journal--guidelines, focus, etc.--go to www.theamericandissident.org. If you have questions, please contact me at todslone@hotmail.com. Comments are NOT moderated (i.e., CENSORED)!]Encouraged censorship and self-censorship seem to have become popular in America today. Those who censor others, not just self, tend to favor the term "moderate," as opposed to "censor" and "moderation" to "censorship." But that doesn't change what they do. They still act as Little Caesars or Big Brother protectors of the thin-skinned. Democracy, however, demands a tough populace, not so easily offended. On this blog, and to buck the trend of censorship, banning, and ostracizing, comments are NEVER "moderated." Rarely (almost NEVER) do the targets of these blog entries respond in an effort to defend themselves with cogent counter-argumentation. This blog is testimony to how little academics, poets, critics, newspaper editors, cartoonists, political hacks, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians et al appreciate VIGOROUS DEBATE, cornerstone of democracy. Clearly, far too many of them could likely prosper just fine in places like communist China and Cuba or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia, not to mention Sweden, England, and Austria.
ISSUE #47 PUBLISHED MAY 2024. NOW SEEKING SUBMISSIONS FOR ISSUE #48.
More P. Maudit cartoons (and essays) at Global Free Press: http://www.globalfreepress.org
Activist poems wanted
Just beginning here. Never done this before. I do not expect this blog to become popular. The American Dissident is not popular, nor is it meant to be. So many seem to judge quality on the basis of "hits" (i.e., popularity). Sad. Hopefully, I'll do one or several entries per week. It would be nice if they might elicit a little debate. As mentioned (Mather tires of this!), vigorous debate is the cornerstone of a thriving democracy. Evidently, it is not the cornerstone of the academic/literary established order milieu, which thus must not be a thriving democracy. Anyhow, this blog, my first one and first entry, is to announce that I am beginning to set up The American Dissident #18. So far, I have received fewer pertinent poems than in previous periods. Poets just don't seem to be writing activist poems nowadays... perhaps because seeking publication tends to be the only activism in which they engage. Sad.
The AD website now contains this blog and also several examples of activist poems just put up on the site today. Hopefully, they'll serve as an example to help out the confused.
So, what to do today? Unemployed and not quite ready for another battleship, I shall take a swim in Walden Pond, though the water and weather are getting a bit cool. This will likely be my last week in Walden.
1 comment:
do you ever listen to System of a Down? i believe you would enjoy Steal This Album, which they released in 2002. it's got some great lyrics, anti-establishment and whatnot. you should check it out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_of_a_Down
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