Donald S. Beyer

This is the front cover and editorial for issue #31 of The American Dissident

............................................

.............................................

Absolut Conformity 

From The Age of Reason to The Age of Multiculti

Assaults on Freedom of Expression

Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth.  

—Omar Ahad, co-founder of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

 

Without freedom of speech and expression, art and poetry inevitably become safe and innocuous… for the pillars of society.  As PC continues its conquest of the American mind, art and poetry continue on their way to becoming mere state-friendly ornamentation.  Poet laureates ineluctably illustrate the point.

     America seems to have become the last bastion of freedom of speech in the West.  Canada and the EU possess so-called hate-speech laws, whereas the US does not yet possess such laws, though it is clearly heading in that direction, as noted by Robert Spencer:  “We already have hate crimes in the United States.  […] The difference between a crime and a hate crime.  Well, it is speech.  And so we already have hate speech in the United States.”  

     The front cover of this issue of The AD was created as a result of HR 569, a bill that seeks to be the first hate-speech or anti-blasphemy law in America.  It clearly contravenes the First Amendment.  Over 82 Democrat congressmen are co-sponsors of it.  Only Democrats have signed on to it.  That alone ought to make a freedom-loving individual turn against the Democrat Party. A PC-groupthinker, however, would likely proclaim all Republicans racists and islamophobes, since not one Republican has yet been willing to co-sponsor the bill, which in itself is surprising considering the mass of Islamic Muslim Brotherhood money and influence pouring into both sides of the aisle.  

   Pope Francis would have people believe that an 11th Commandment exists:  Thou shalt not criticize religion! But religion tends to be anti-reason, anti-fact, and, in some cases like Islam, outright anti-freedom of speech and expression. How can a thinking individual not protest against attempts like HR 569 to limit the basic human right of freedom of speech and expression? Shamefully, President Obama and Hillary have been on the wrong side of this issue, as manifested by their collusion with the UN and its Resolution 16/18 (the Istanbul Process).  Shamefully, Trump has also been on the wrong side of this issue. Recall that he’d blamed Pamela Geller for the jihad attack on her free speech Muhammad cartoon event in Garland, TX.  Well, he’s gotten a taste of his own medicine: the media has largely blamed his speech for violence at his rallies. Thankfully, HR 569 is likely not going to be adopted. 

     On another freedom note, bravo to artist Milo Moiré (see photo on p.4), who protested alone the day after the mass sex assaults in Köln at Domplatte square in Deutschland.  She stood naked, holding a sign for 20 minutes in 39 degree weather:  „Respektiert uns! Wir sind kein Freiwild, selbst wenn wir nackt sind!“ [Respect us!  We are not free game, even when we stand naked!]  Sadly, her protest will likely not convince the New Year’s Eve rapists—most, if not all, of whom were Muslim—to stop raping.  Multiculti feminists of the far left seem aberrently silent on Islam and its culture of rape.  They did not even come out from their comfy dwellings to back Milo.    

    Yet on another freedom note, the following exchange (see video here: https://youtu.be/QFM6kLiUO14) between a young preacher named Joshua and an unnamed black cop took place in front of the University of Texas at Austin. It serves as an excellent example of the perhaps widespread, pitiful ignorance of the police with regards First Amendment citizen rights. It illustrates the gulf between de jura and de facto rights.  In essence, sure you have the right, but sure a cop will arrest you anyhow, put you in jail, and collect time and a half pay to watch you in court.  Yeah, that happened to me a decade ago in Concord, home of Thoreau and Emerson.  Hmm.

Intern: Um, does freedom of speech protect offensive speech?

Officer: Does freedom of speech do what?

Intern: Uh, protect offensive speech?

Officer: It doesn’t matter, freedom of speech. Someone was offended, that’s against the law. I- I don’t wanna argue with you—it’s against the law…

Intern: I’m sorry, can you say that again, it’s against the law to offend somebody?

Officer: Yes.  

    Finally, imagine being brought to court and fined for writing this—or anything else for that matter—on Facebook:  “…The ideology of Islam is every bit as loathsome, nauseating, oppressive and dehumanizing as Nazism. The massive immigration of Islamists into Denmark is the most devastating event Danish society has suffered in recent historical times.”  Flemming Nielsen was fined 1600 kroner for those words. Blasphemy is a crime in Denmark, even if the blasphemy is entirely factual and reasonable. Those depicted on the front cover of The AD want it to be a crime in America too. The Ages of Reason and Enlightenment are ever yielding to the Age of Multiculti.

Renee Graham

Hypocrites at the Helm... of Journalism

--Let's Have a Monologue about Race--

From: George Slone

Sent: Monday, August 21, 2017 8:50 AM

To: renee.graham@globe.com

Cc: mcgrory@globe.com; cathleen.cusachs@globe.com; Rosalyn Becker; Gary Goude

Subject: Racism! Racism! Racism! Ad Infinitum. Ad Nauseam. Ad Obscurum.

To Renee Graham, Assoc. Editor and Columnist, The Boston Globe:

Below is a counter-argument essay I just finished regarding one of your racist column essays on Trump.  Check it out.  Who knows?  Anything’s possible.  You might even learn something.  Would the Globe publish it?  Of course not!  Is the Globe “fair and balanced”?  Of course not!  Will you respond?  Of course not!  Thus is the state of the nation today…

......................................

[Graham did not respond to the email and essay, which follows.  That is what she calls "let's have a conversation about race."]

...........................................................

Racism, Racism, Racism 

Ad Nauseam, Ad Infinitum, Ad Obscurum

Firewalls that once strictly separated news from opinion have been replaced by hopelessly blurred lines. Once-forbidden practices such as editorializing within straight news reports, and the inclusion of opinions as if fact, are not only tolerated; they’re encouraged. 

—Sharyl Attkisson 

Reason and Freedom of Speech will always be the enemies of hard-core ideologues, left or right-wing, whereas double standards and ad hominem (racist! racist! racist!) will always be their friends.  Reason cannot defeat ideology.  Sadly, ideology throughout history has defeated reason (e.g., Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Castro).  Will left-wing ideology defeat reason in America?  It is certainly making progress in that darkness…

Normally, I do not read biased columns, that is, not unless I feel like writing a retort, underscoring the egregious bias.  Also, it is simply not possible to reason with a highly biased individual.  The Boston Globe, via race-obsessed black columnist Renée Graham, is ever pushing fake news and the Democrat-Party narrative.  Why?  Shouldn’t it/she be more concerned with evoking facts and writing objectively?  Well, evidently, fake news sells.  After all, the Globe is a business above and beyond anything else.  Its clients likely tend to be left-wing and want to eat fake news in the morning, every morning.  

So, what is fake in Graham’s latest Eugene Robinson-like column, “Donald Trump isn’t just a champion of white supremacists. He’s their leader.”?  Well, she did get one thing right:  “I was wrong” (the first sentence in the article).  Perhaps she needs to take a long look in the racist mirror… because she really does come off as a black racist white-hater.  “Trump was a racist long before he had a base to mollify, branded Mexican immigrants as ‘rapists,’ and tried to ban Muslims from entering this country,” she notes.  The reality is—and I am not a Trump fan, but rather an Anti-Liar-Hillary fan—that Trump never argued ALL Mexican immigrants to be rapists.  Why does Graham keep pushing that lie?  Why doesn’t Globe editor Brian McGrory tell her to cease pushing it?  Also, Mexicans are NOT a race, nor are Muslims.  What school did Graham go to?  Are there no fact checkers employed at the Globe?  Did she go to the School of Affirmative Action?  Also, a reason existed for Trump wishing to put a temporary halt on Muslims, though not all Muslims.  Why does Graham choose to ignore that reason?  Well, it counters the narrative pushed by the ideology.  That’s why.  One need only look at the EU to see the mess of un-assimilating, freedom-hating Muslims living in no-go zones.  One need only consider the increasing number of examples of Muslim/Islam terrorist attacks.  If one were to do that, then one might actually be forced to intellectually agree with Trump.  OMG!

Regarding Graham’s birther criticism, Obama failed to present an authentic birth certificate.  Period.  The brouhaha was his fault!  Why blame that on Trump?  The document Obama presented has been proven to be a later-day computer compilation.  The fake news has chosen not to examine the objective facts with that regard.  Instead, it opts for ad hominem, friend of ideology:  Birther! Birther! Birther!  Moreover, Obama is not the St-Obama that Graham perhaps prays to every night.  He has been an opponent of free speech (e.g., Resolution 16/18), a liar (Benghazi and Obamacare), a horrendous opponent of the Freedom of Information Act, a friend of black racists and white communists, etc..  He, more than anyone else, has caused the great divide confronting the nation today.  

Graham needs to be informed that black people are NO LONGER in chains!  Constantly evoking slavery will only help increase the Obama Great Divide.  Graham is a privileged black woman who needs to get off the unreality “woke” bandwagon and wake up to reality!  It is that constant racism, racism, racism ad infinitum, ad nauseam, ad obscurum that will only succeed in deepening and deepening the Great Obama Divide.  Graham argues, "White supremacists love him [Trump] because bigots always embrace one of their own."  Well, do black supremacists love her and/or Obama because bigots always embrace one of their own?  Graham further argues, “Trump wouldn’t have gotten to the White House without them and racists wouldn’t feel protected and understood without their personal president.”  Well, Obama wouldn’t have gotten to the White House if the majority of whites had been the racists, racists, racists that Graham, Robinson, Obama, and the bulk of other white-privilege-racist pushers wish everyone to believe they are.  

Egregious lies like the ones Graham writes in the Globe need to be corrected.  Graham conveniently forgets that Obama was even more reluctant to decry racist (since she wants us to believe Muslim is a race) terrorism attacks by Muslims.  Recall that he wanted to wait until all the facts were in before making a statement.  In fact, has he ever condemned Muslim supremacist terror attacks, as Muslim attacks?  Was it not shameful of him to state, “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”?  Clearly, that statement counters freedom of speech, since Muhammad was an enemy of it.  Recall also how Obama failed to attend with other world leaders the post-Charlie Hebdo march in Paris!  Double standards.  That’s Graham’s m.o.  

Finally, “Racism Judge” Graham lists a number of shaky accusations to support her racism judgement that Trump is a racist… just like every other white person in the country, which seems to be precisely what far too many of the nation’s indoctrination universities are teaching today.  Contrary to Graham’s false narrative, both sides in Charlottesville were indeed violent.  Antifa is a left-wing fascist movement, one that crushes free speech, one that demands fascist groupthink and groupchant.  Graham needs to be reminded that nazism and fascism were both left-wing socialist movements.  Mussolini was a devout Marxist and Hitler was a devout socialist.  The Black Panthers and Nation of Islam are both fascist black organizations.  Hopefully, affirmative action re-education will not succeed in erasing those realities from history, though it seems to be making progress in that endeavor.  “Hate” has become the new term to kill free speech and vigorous debate, democracy’s very cornerstones.  In Boston, it was recently used to kill the free-speech event which, contrary to fake newsers, was not a racist event.  Thanks mostly to the left, ad hominem is what it’s all about today, not reasoned debate.  Yes, as Maya Angelou once said, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”  Well, I do believe Graham, who ended her article with that quote.  It is highly unlikely that Graham is at all capable of heeding journalist Sharyl Attkisson:  “I’m commonly asked, ‘Can ‘the news’ be fixed?’ In simple terms, there are two components necessary to do so: We must correctly identify (and admit) our problem, and then take steps to correct it.  We have yet, as an industry, to take step one.”

Dan Chiasson

................................

For the Record--Wellesley College

Interestingly, the following intellectual scuffle began when I read a Boston Globe hagiography on the new Pulitzer Prize winner, Professor Frank Bidart of Wellesley College. I'd sketched a cartoon on Bidart several years ago, so checked to see if I'd posted it online.  I had... and discovered Bidart had actually left a comment on it in 2013.  Thus, I wrote a criticism of him, including my comment on his comment, and sent it to the student newspaper, The Wellesley News.  No response.  Well, it didn't respond to the Hillary cartoon I'd sent about three years ago.  I also sent it to all of Bidart's English professor colleagues, which is how I "bumped into" Dan Chiasson.  

Poet/Critic/Professor Dan Chiasson is employed by the New Yorker and Wellesley College.  He alleges that my criticism constitutes a "BORDERLINE HARASSING NOTE" and the three cartoons (each pertaining to the New Yorker) I sent with it to be "RACIST."  The "note" appears immediately below.  Chiasson's rather mind-numbing comment follows, including his threat to inform Campus Police (oh, my!), and request that I cease trying to engage in vigorous debate, cornerstone of a thriving democracy.   My comment regarding his comment then appears.  (When someone asks me to SHUT UP, I generally ignore them!)  And finally the three cartoons appear.  

.....................

Not one of Chiasson's English professor colleagues deigned to respond.  Vigorous debate is certainly not a cornerstone of the English Department!  

Finally, bellowing RACISM is an infantile tactic used to terminate debate.  Might it be surprising that a Harvard PhD like Chiasson employs that tactic?  Not really...

...........................

From: George Slone
Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2018 9:12 AM
To: dchiasso@wellesley.edu
Subject: Three criticisms of the New Yorker...

To Dan Chiasson, Poetry Professor, Wellesley College, Poet & Critic for the New Yorker:

Well, I sort of laughed when I saw “Poet and critic” highlighted on your Wellesley College Professor of English biography page.  After all, isn’t that an oxymoron of sorts, considering that in today’s academic/literary milieu, critic has come to mean anything but “rude truth”?   It’s the sales, stupid!  The sales of poetry books!  

Anyhow, perhaps I’ve jolted you a tad this morning in your world of backslapping and self-congratulating.  Ainsi soit-il.  In an effort to instigate a wee bit of vigorous debate, I attach three cartoon sketches I did regarding the New Yorker.  The first one was used for the front cover of one of my books.  Of course, those contacted at the New Yorker remained silent.  Silence, of course, tends to be the modus operandi of those working within the establishment when criticized from outside the establishment, although on rare occasions ad hominem might result.  

Finally, if you’d like to invite me to one of your classes to speak about The American Dissident and my experiences in the censoring, ostracizing, and banning world of poetry, I’d be most happy to jump into my car.  Just let me know.  Thank you for your attention.  

Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone, PhD (Université de Nantes, FR), aka P. Maudit

...............................................

From: Dan Chiasson

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2018 8:03 AM

To: George Slone

Cc: thewellesleynews@gmail.com; fbidart@wellesley.edu; kbrogan@wellesley.edu; wcain@wellesley.edu; mcezaire@wellesley.edu; pfisher@wellesley.edu; ogonzalez@wellesley.edu; ahickey@wellesley.edu; ylee@wellesley.edu; klynch@wellesley.edu; smeyer@wellesley.edu; jnoggle@wellesley.edu; tpeltaso@wellesley.edu; lrodensk@wellesley.edu; lrosenwald@wellesley.edu; msabin@wellesley.edu; vshetley@wellesley.edu; yko@wellesley.edu; msides@wellesley.edu

Subject: Re: Open Letter to Frank Bidart

Dear George Slone, In the interest of transparency I will also now forward to The Wellesley News, and to The College Police, the borderline harassing note you sent to me yesterday, and copies of the racist cartoons you attached. Please cease and desist contact with me and everyone associated with the College. 

Dan Chiasson

.............................

From: George Slone

Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2018 6:35 PM

To: Dan Chiasson

Cc: thewellesleynews@gmail.com; fbidart@wellesley.edu; kbrogan@wellesley.edu; wcain@wellesley.edu; mcezaire@wellesley.edu; pfisher@wellesley.edu; ogonzalez@wellesley.edu; ahickey@wellesley.edu; ylee@wellesley.edu; klynch@wellesley.edu; smeyer@wellesley.edu; jnoggle@wellesley.edu; tpeltaso@wellesley.edu; lrodensk@wellesley.edu; lrosenwald@wellesley.edu; msabin@wellesley.edu; vshetley@wellesley.edu; yko@wellesley.edu; msides@wellesley.edu

Subject: Re: Open Letter to Frank Bidart

Dan Chiasson,

Thanks for your amazing response.  Now, you have me shaking in my boots regarding the College Police!  Will they drive down to the Cape, knock on my door, and put handcuffs on my wrists?  Well, nothing really surprises me these days, especially on the part of poets and professors.   Your email in itself is “harassing” in its evident effort to push in-lockstep fascist pc-groupthink and stifle my First Amendment rights to speak my mind, not your mind.  But, unlike you, I possess a solid backbone, so will not wear a muzzle, despite your request.  I would rather be banished to a left-wing Stalinist gulag, than be stifled by your ilk.  

BTW, “borderline harassing” is not illegal.  Do you even know what the legal definition of harassment is?  Allow me to help you (and your colleagues) with that.  For a person to be punished by law for harassment—he or she, black or white—, the harassment must be continual (not one time) to the point where one can prove one can no longer do one's job.  That is the legal definition, not the pc-definition.  AND normally, the harassment must be effected by a co-worker or boss, certainly not by someone from outside your ivory tower, who did not make threats of violence and cannot really effect the job performance of a “normal” or “average” professor at your institution.  

Racist cartoons?  Are you nuts?  Well, if you’re pc-indoctrinated, as I suspect you are, then yes, you must be.  Two of the three cartoons I sent to you depict your New Yorker colleagues.  In one of them, the colleagues in question are all white.  How was that possibly racist?   In the other one, they are black and slightly black.  In both, my criticism is equally harsh.  That in itself proves the absence of racism.  Think!  Think, if that is at all possible for you at this point in your game.  

Could you really see no reason at all in those cartoons?  Is it possible for someone with a PhD from Harvard not to see reason when it appears in CAPITAL LETTERS?  Well, you prove that it is.  With characters like you at the helm, it is no wonder the poetry establishment embraces censorship, ostracizing, and banning of rare poet apostates like me.  In-lockstep is your desire for the poetry community.  Methinks, no thanks!

Finally, what a great lesson this controversy would be for adult Wellesley College students to engage in.  Too bad, you and the others contacted will likely keep it from them.  Why?  Because it makes you and the others contacted look far less than the Dr. deities you like to parade around as.   Can you not even comprehend that your "cease and desist contact" request is simply a statement of rejection of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy?  It is likely that your attitude mirrors that amongst the professorate of Wellesley College.  And that is truly sad for democracy... 

......................................................

.................................................

Natasha Trethewey

Don Share

.............................................

EditThe Silence…

Of the Poets, Professors, and Free-Speech Advocates

 What you find is that there’s never just one cockroach in the kitchen.

—Warren Buffet

The SILENCE is deafening. The SILENCE is foretelling. The SILENCE is Orwellian. Poetry Foundation and its Poetry magazine are highlighted on this issue’s front cover.  Send a critique, as I’ve done, to its editor, Don Share… and SILENCE. Ask the Foundation, as I’ve done, why it refuses to list The American Dissident with the other poetry magazines listed… and SILENCE. The SILENCE is incarnate in “post-truth,” word of the year for Oxford Dictionary. Dolores Granger brought that to my attention, while a Wall Street Journal editorial had brought it to hers, noting the term indicates “a time in which truth becomes unimportant or irrelevant.” And that of course explains… the SILENCE.  Post-truthers hate truth.  Ideology hates truth. 

    Interesting things, perhaps even unimaginable ones, can occur when one openly criticizes the feeding apparatus of a post-truther and tests the waters of democracy. Imagine, for example, that Quillette, a conservative magazine, banned me from its “free-speech platform”! (See cartoon on page 5.) Perhaps it should be the poet’s prime job to speak the rude truth that will shake and break the fragile backbones and egos of editors, poets, professors, cultural-council apparatchiks, and journalists. If one pushes an ideology, which inevitably conflicts with truth, the best response to such truth is always… SILENCE.  

     Still it is perhaps surprising that so few intellectuals, even purported free-speech proponents, will respond to uncomfortable criticism.  National Coalition Against Censorship is a pitiful example, refusing to address criticism. Why?  Does its SILENCE indicate the criticism to be on target… or the critic to be a mere plebe and thus unworthy of response… or perhaps both? Recall the Charlie Hebdo massacre over three years ago.  Today, that liberal magazine is located in a secret “bunker.” One to two million dollars per year is spent on security, which the magazine, not the government, has to pay. Seven Hebdo journalists died, while others were wounded… by Muslim assassins. And what about the Pulse Nightclub massacre by a Muslim extremist in Florida and the Muslim would-be butchers at the Garland, TX Draw Muhammad contest? But for the ideologues at NCAC, Islam somehow is not a threat to free speech. One journalist, Fabrice Nicolino, wounded at the Hebdo massacre, recently said, “Chez moi, où je suis connu, des voisins d’extrême gauche ne veulent plus me dire bonjour, car ils ne sont surtout pas Charlie.” (Where I live, where I’m known, my extreme leftist neighbors will no longer say hello to me.)  Why not?  Well, because Hebdo criticized Muslims… just like it did everyone else.   

     Inside Higher Ed is yet another sad example (see last issue’s front cover). I’ve questioned its editors on a number of occasions. Their response? SILENCE! Poets & Writers magazine is equally pitiful. I dared criticize its front-page story, “Ten Poets Who Will Change the World.” Was it a farce? Well, if you know poets, you know damn well it wasn’t. So, I wrote an essay (see p27) and sketched cartoons for six of those world-changing bards and sent them to the editors, the 10 poets, and even some of the latter’s academic colleagues.  SILENCE!  

    Most recently, I wrote a counter-essay regarding a piece published by a Bridgewater State University professor in Bridgewater Review and sent it to the editors, the author, and even the student journalists of the university newspaper, The Comment. SILENCE! Then I drew a cartoon on some of the characters, including the university president and shot it out to the targets.  SILENCE! The literary letters section at the end of this issue includes other instances of SILENCE, as modus operandi of those who hate free debate…   

      On another note, George Carlin once said, “Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in.” With that regard, poets, writers, editors and journalists, who quote someone who said SHIT-HOLE, should write SHIT-HOLE, not s-hole. The same goes for NIGGER and any of the other vocabulary on the forbidden list from BITCH to SPIC to CRACKER. And why isn’t NAZI on that list?  Isn’t it highly insulting to call any white person, who disagrees with PC-Antifa, a Nazi? Writing the n-word or b-word does not automatically give someone the moral high-ground. Instead, it gives a person the low-ground of a common self-censoring conformist. Saul Alinsky perhaps was on target: “He who controls the language controls the masses.” Do you want to be part of the masses or a staunch individual? Clearly, an army of Alinsky acolytes have been toiling away at controlling the language in the universities. When one writes s-hole or n-word, then clearly one is being controlled and needs to contemplate those who seek to control and pressure.  Faceless bureaucrats! Faceless academics! Faceless SJWs! Well, I for one will fight against control by them. And if that means they’ll call me a racist, islamophobe, homophobe, or sexist, so what!!! My ma taught me, sticks and stones…  What the hell are the mothers teaching their kids today?

..................................................

The Following was sent to POETRY magazine et al.  

Response?  

ABSOLUT SILENCE!

From: George Slone

Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2018 9:37 AM

To: wbunn@coladv.com; scalderon@coladv.com; gcocking@coladv.com; cgillock@coladv.com; jguylay@coladv.com; info@poetryfoundation.org; natasha.trethewey@northwestern.edu; tapestryofvoices@yahoo.com; Doug holder; Rosalyn Becker; dsklar@endicott.edu; John Lauritsen; midcapecouncil2@gmail.com

Cc: chris.abani@northwestern.edu; amin.ahmad@northwestern.edu; e-biss@northwestern.edu; b-bouldrey@northwestern.edu; khbreen@northwestern.edu; j-bresland@northwestern.edu; meghan.costa@northwestern.edu; a-curdy@northwestern.edu; john-cutler@northwestern.edu; sarah.dimick@northwestern.edu; bedwards@northwestern.edu; rebecca-johnson-0@northwestern.edu; andrew.leong@northwestern.edu

Subject: Bunn, Bienen, Share, and Trethewey: THE SILENCE OF THE LITERATI

In Celebration of National Poetry Month:  A Criticism of National Poetry and the Silence of the Literati

To the Editor et al of Poetry Magazine and Managers et al of Poetry Foundation:
You have permission to publish the front cover of the current issue (#35) of The American Dissident in next issue of Poetry magazine.  It depicts the pitiful reality of the latter and poetry in general in today’s America via Share, Bunn III, Bienen, and Threthewey:  MONEY.  The front cover can be examined here:  

http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2018/04/don-share.html.  As you know or ought to know, Poetry Foundation refuses to list The American Dissident with other magazines listed.  

Might one of you prove sufficiently curious to actually spend 30 seconds to examine the cover or are you all so intellectually buffered and restricted?  And of course I expect no response from any of you at all.  After all, your m.o. vis-a-vis hardcore criticism tends to be absolute silence, as in THE SILENCE OF THE LITERATI.  And of course that m.o. is quite difficult for me to comprehend, for unlike the bulk of poet editors and publishers, I not only brook criticism with my regard, but encourage it and publish the harshest with my regard in each and every issue of The American Dissident.  That is a rare, cogent expression of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy.  Sadly, that is NOT Poetry magazine, nor is it poetry in general today, where poets are absurdly deified to the point of THOU SHALT NOT CRITICIZE POET ICONS.  The higher the high-and-mighty literati get, the more intellectually corrupt they become and thus the more buffered from outside criticism they demand and succeed to be.

BTW, I have cc’d this email to a handful of Poet Laureate Trethewey’s Northwestern University English Department colleagues and hope that handful will send it to the other colleagues, though doubt wholeheartedly that any of those contacted professors will possess the intellectual independence to respond and do so.  A cartoon I drew on Trethewey in 2012 can be examined here:  

http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2018/04/natasha-trethewey.html.

Go for it!  Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, academic entrenchment did that.  Finally, it is good when a poet laureate is a professor… for one reason:  his or her email is made publicly available by his or her university.   I could not locate Don Share’s email.  Will you please forward this letter to him.

Finally, intellectual corruption is rampant in the poetry milieu.  A poet plebe editor/publisher like me without connections cannot possibly obtain public money from the NEA or Mid-Cape Cultural Council, for example, nor will he ever be invited to speak at a poetry event like Harris Gardner’s Boston National Poetry Festival.  In fact, to speak “rude truth” a la Emerson today means risking permanent ostracizing by the poetry community.  My very neighborhood library, Sturgis Library, a proponent of National Poetry Month, for example, permanently banned me w/o warning or due process because I dared challenge the hypocrisy of Lucy Loomis, its director, in particular, with regards its collection development statement that “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view.”  My point of view and the points of view published in The American Dissident have been permanently banned.  Do any of you care?  Of course not!  Why did I challenge Loomis?  Well, for one reason only:  Poetry magazine was the only poetry magazine on her shelves…