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
Kevin Larimer, Amy Berkower, Elliot Figman
75 comments:
Is this the recent one you requested my opinion on?
Ok, so I understand the point that originality and freedom of thought will not necessarily be improved just by ensuring proportional representation of people on the board or as leaders of a place.
However if the concern was whether staff are fairly treated or not, it might help there. After all, when representation is really far from proportional, there are bound to be some interesting historic & cultural reasons behind it. In this case, it seems some former barriers that kept some people out are just starting to come down. So that is of some interest though I agree that single-minded concern with representation will not guarantee quality. It will help with some of the blind spots of homogeneity, but not all, of course, as of course academic culture has its own homogeneity, as always.
Now, you also think they have the wrong focus. What should they be doing exactly? I don’t really know them, so what do they actually shy away from? Every magazine, etc. is technically free to have their own vibe. It seems to be a trade magazine that is for people who want to hone their writing stylistically & learn how to be published; also for people actually in the publishing industry. So it strikes me as maybe half a literary magazine and half about the actual mechanics & business of publishing, plus an aggregated job board and event calendar, etc. Apparently they started as a support network and community for writers to meet up in. So knowing all this, it’s understandable that they want a friendly atmosphere with ‘solidarity against the travails of the outside’. Yes, this won’t help sharpen debate, but they could presumably fight outside if they wished (like Norman Mailer😄) It is a fact that artists through time & place have always had more in common with each other than with non-artists, same for musicians, writers, etc (or soldiers, farmers, etc. for that matter).
Ok, so yes this is a boring answer, but any group of people is free to have a cosy club to hang out in, even if it’s not going to improve the art (won’t necessarily make it suffer either). Through history, lack of resources (b/c someone else laid claim to all of them through force!) has always the greatest barrier to independence, development of the person, & thus free expression. So yes, there are other factors, but that one is huge and should not be negated.
Well, I examined the cartoon prior to reading your critique. I suppose I could have toned down P. Maudit's riposte and got rid of the word "tan." Anyhow, the point made is clear: courage and individuality vs. ideological conformity.
Clearly, what P&W should be doing is permitting criticism, even if only one page per issue. It fully rejects criticism for evident reasons as stated on the N.B. on the bottom of the cartoon. Poetry in general mirrors the m.o. of P&W in its absolute rejection of criticism. It is certainly not INCLUSIVE and not DIVERSE in that sense. As an example, it refuses to list The American Dissident with other journals it lists. In essence, criticize and thou shalt be ostracized! Should that be the essence of literature?
Norman Mailer was hardly an outsider.
Your answer is not really boring. It simply reflects what I might have received if P&W were at all open to responding. The real elephant in the literary room is the absence of real criticism... as opposed to publicity in the cloak of criticism.
Never did I state that P&W could not do as it does. What I have implied is that it should not do as it does: exclude contrarian opinions. Open its doors and it would be stronger. If Chen Chen were to open his doors, he would be stronger. Instead, ostracizing those who do not think as they do tends to be the m.o. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
PS: We are entering an Age of Censorship. P&W is a proponent of this phenomenon. I am against it.
Yes, I got your point. I got it with the other cartoon also (that one had distracting insults but even so). The tricky part is where is the line (and is there one) between [taste, cosy communities, ostracism] and [censorship and coercion]. There is no person with infinite patience and with *no* barriers about what level of respect they do want in their environment vs. not. I think they probably find your journal to be more of a zine or amateurish, whether that is fair or not; it is run by 1 person (I think). The caricatures and sometimes their visual style, make it easy for people to dismiss as ‘not serious’.
I fully agree that criticism is good and makes things more robust, but I guess what kind of critical message do they not take (besides the circular critique that they don’t take criticism)? They all go to workshops and criticize each other’s writing to the extent it partially paralyzes them sometimes. According to a relatively homogeneous academic standard, although they then break free and criticize that too. What it comes down to is whether they want to take the time to respond to you, but what would you really say other than ‘respond to me’? You would say ‘think for yourself’. Any good artist is already trying to transcend their blind spots. If they can’t or are just bad, well...
Now, one real problem is sometimes people misunderstand the motivations for criticism of their poem. Caricature does not help remedy this confusion, it will reinforce it. If people feel their looks or self is being mocked, that’s how they respond.
We should also remember that if people were really oppressed in the past and told at that time they were not full people, they don’t have a right to an opinion, they shouldn’t be in certain jobs, or they shouldn’t get mad at unfairness because things aren’t worse like 100 years ago, etc., they are now going to be sensitive when it looks like people are trying to covertly say that stuff again. In the past, it went along with physical meaning, and even sometimes today it does. So while I agree sometimes people are reading too much into criticism of them, that is often the reason why.
Anyway, I am against censorship, but I am for personally being mindful of the reasons for people’s feelings. So wherever that balance is best located. Because I am also against people being put into too deep a state of fear or stress because of flashbacks to the bad stuff of the past/present, stuff physically real for them that is not a concern for you or I because of how we look. If all this baggage gradually gets sorted out, then I am in a better & better position to have my critiques taken w/o fear and in good faith by people who look different than me.
PPS: I mentioned Norman Mailer because he would physically fight people. When Gore Vidal later referred to Mailer as ‘that old pugilist’ it took me a while to realize this was not just figurative 😄
Well, your statement is the key: "I think they probably find your journal to be more of a zine or amateurish, whether that is fair or not; it is run by 1 person (I think). The caricatures and sometimes their visual style, make it easy for people to dismiss as ‘not serious’."
Why? For evident reasons. In essence, any journal that dares cross the line and actually criticize other journals et al, especially of the establishment, must of course be dismissed as "amateurish"... by the establishment. And I doubt you'll be able to grasp that evident reaction. In essence, it is ad hominem because if I am editor then I must also be "amateurish." And again, no need at all to challenge the precise criticism published and in each cartoon. Any uncomfortable truths expressed will simply be dismissed under the general diss "amateurish." How easy!
And so, according to you, my cartoons possess the wrong "visual style" and are thus "not serious." Again, your criticism is highly subjective and avoids the critical truths presented in each cartoon. You ought to run for Mayor of the Poetry Establishment! :)
You state: "They all go to workshops and criticize each other’s writing to the extent it partially paralyzes them sometimes." I assume by "they," you're talking about poets. Well, not ALL poets go to establishment workshops. Also, not ALL poets end up partially paralyzed when criticized. Truly, there is something wrong with a poet like Chen Chen who ends up partially paralyzed. Again, a poet like that needs to stay the hell out of the limelight!
A vibrant democracy demands vibrant debate and vibrant criticism. One will NOT receive such criticism at an establishment poetry workshop. After all, workshop leaders surely would not want to partially paralyze paying poets! Hmm. Now, there's a good alliteration... and I did not purposely create it!
Of course, they wouldn't want to take the time to respond to me! After all, I'd probably partially paralyze them! Oh, my!
Today's poets are living today, not 100 or more years ago. Your statement with that regard makes little sense at all.
Well, I guess we should put you in Salman Rushdie's "but brigade," as in I believe in free speech, BUT... Or I am against censorship, BUT... In essence, you really do NOT believe in free speech and are NOT against censorship. And for some reason, those like you cannot admit that reality. Allow me to quote Rushdie, who made the statement after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015:
So anyway, the thing that I come to—I used this phrase on TV the other day— the rise of the “but brigade.” I got so sick of the goddamn but brigade. And now the moment somebody says ‘Yes I believe in free speech, but,” I stop listening. “I believe in free speech, but people should behave themselves.” “I believe in free speech, but we shouldn’t upset anybody.” “I believe in free speech, but let’s not go too far.”
Well, POC are more privileged than critical white men like me, especially in poetry and academe and government and journalism and... That is a reality you and they refuse to openly acknowledge. Poets & Writers and the Academy of American Poets, for example, feature photos of many more POC than white males. Take a look! Open your eyes! How the hell is Chen Chen NOT more privileged than someone like me? How? And just look at the faces of the "10 Poets Who Will Change the World"! POC!
Well, when I saw Mailer speak in P-town, he had two canes.
I will likely publish some of your criticism in next issue. Too bad you do NOT possess the courage to step out of anonymity.
Thanks again for your interesting feedback, though I really cannot say it is at all unique. In general, it is ad hominem kill the messenger, deflect from the message...
PS: I wrote the following poem a decade and a half ago, while living in Concord, MA. It is pertinent to your stance. Some of it should be in italics.
The Tone Is the Message Is the Tone
I like what you’re saying but
you’ve got the wrong tone,
wrote an editor, then
another and another and another.
Grab a flap of flab from the belly literati,
twist and tug, twist and pull, and
bring forth hesitant, repressed indignation.
If you want to increase your congregation,
replied yet another… tin soldier
of the vast ocean army of invincibility,
you’ve got to smoothen out
the wrinkles in your voice.
Speak rude truth, and rage, rage
through the dying light of the establishment,
and educe ineluctably
the buried anger of crushed individuality.
I’d like to publish some of your work,
wrote another tin man, though
disguised in mask of freethinker.
You make some very interesting points,
but I don’t think our niche of readers
would appreciate your peculiar bluntness.
With the ax, fall revenues,
with the sword, tumble advertising dollars,
with the shotgun, shrink subscribers,
with the right tone, wane truth and justice,
with the pen of thin skin, butchery behind charade.
I’d like to see more of you in our publication,
wrote another editor,
but your discourse needs to be more civil.
It even makes me feel a bit uncomfortable,
so I could imagine our audience might also feel that way.
Kill the voice and the word be sameness
Kill the discrepancy and business be usual
Kill the messenger and the message be no longer
I think what you need is to add a little humor,
wrote a friend,
to get more people on your bandwagon, then
you could turn the blade on your laughing readers.
Ever humorless, though, and angry, raucous and uncivil,
fed with the fodder of consistency on how to build a constituency,
I still choose the coffin of anonymity…
PPS: In essence, establishment cogs can simply NOT focus on truths whenever those truths out them as corrupt frauds. They can only focus on "rude." And the truths are ineluctably "rude." Cite Ralph Waldo Emerson, since you wrote I am ever quoting him... yet how not to?
"I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways."
That quote comes from his essay, "Self-Reliance." I'd urge you to read it, though doubt you'd get much if anything at all out of it...
I have read the essay, and I do understand it, also, I myself am fine with all quotes that pertain, and they all did. I just don’t think the rude truth is really that non-white people get more privilege. In poetry, they seem to be treated by the white part of the establishment as almost exotic pets who are encouraged to write through the lens of their heritage in some ways (whether they feel like it or not), almost as a commodity and discouraged in others. Chen himself has lashed out at this in writing, somewhere. Even when not in poetry, it can be a liability to not be white, straight, whatever in that any differences ‘demand explanation’, according to the majority. But you can talk to the people themselves, it’s not like I know so much about this firsthand.
If you try to understand anything that I say, understand that I only think some of the content of your speech is factually correct, and that this is independent of style. Second, that I am telling you your style is diminishing the clarity of your message (unless that message is just to be as provocative as possible like Charlie Hebdo, which I’d understand, but then you have to disseminate that on your own, like they do, if it alienates others). It takes both sides to communicate. Otherwise, if you just want to speak and whoever listens, listens, do like Charlie Hebdo does; they don’t try to get their cartoons in other publications as far as I know. I don’t believe in any restrictions on free speech. People also don’t have to listen though, whether or not you or I think they ‘should’.
I might even draw a little cartoon about this, I had a sudden inspiration (related to birds). I used to draw all the time in school, btw. It is just a cute concept (well, so I think); we’ll see if it comes out well or not...
To Mme X (perhaps you're not even a female?):
Privilege. Well, it's a tough call. I simply took the opposite stance you took, which was essentially that all POC are underprivileged. And that stance Is certainly the new left-wing stance... dictated to the citizenry, aberrantly, by privileged POC et al. No doubt some POC are underprivileged AND some white males are underprivileged. But in the world of PC, that reality is prohibited!
Well, those "exotic pets" are jumping up and down in joy like Chen Chen. I sure as hell do not see them criticizing their white publicists at Poets & Writers! If Chen lashed out, I'm almost certain he dared NOT name names to the extent that his lashing was as harmless as it gets. Why, I must ask, are you so interested in him? I sure as hell am not. What brilliant thing precisely did he say, besides the words in my cartoon?
Well, in the nation's universities and colleges, blacks are definitely privileged! Affirmative Action accords them privilege. How many teaching jobs have I not been offered due to a black candidate? Well, I'll never know the answer to that... thanks to Orwellian transparency. In poetry, blacks are definitely privileged. In academe, it can be a liability not to be black!
Well, you have NOT yet informed me what precisely in my speech is factually incorrect! Inform me of a precise untruth and I will definitely rectify it! No problem! Well, I'm waiting...
What precisely is NOT clear in my message? Again, you fail to provide any concise examples. If anything, my writing is too clear for establishment cogs, which is why they detest it. I am not your typical poet wordsmith who simply plays around with words to the point where one must wonder whether or not there is a message at all.
My goal is definitely NOT to be provocative! It is rather one of being frank, truthful, and critical of nonsense spewed usually by those in the limelight. There's a big difference.
Charlie Hebdo is far-left in case you're unaware of that. Also, its cartoons normally just criticize upper echelon political hacks et al, something I rarely do.
If truth alienates others, to hell with the alienated others!
And so now you oddly state: " I don’t believe in any restrictions on free speech." And yet before you were a card-carrying member of Rushdie's BUT brigade. So, which is it? Clearly, your comments reveal that you believe in free speech, BUT...
It seems that you like many other citizens are confused regarding the reality of free speech. When free speech is punished, clearly it is not free speech, for example.
A cartoon about what? Also, you tend NOT to address all points that I make. I have addressed all points that you have made.
Au plaisir,
G. Tod
I just wrote an entire response again and it failed to upload... I will try again later. This platform seems to be less than fully robust.
Ok, so I’m trying again. Let’s see if I can answer everything and still have this get sent!
The painting Madame X is great; I will certainly never correct this with my full name now 😄. Idk why you doubt my gender though, except that I am at the *extreme* edge of how much time my gender bothers to invest in online arguments! Re: privilege, I think there are different kinds. The big one is related to money. The racial one intersects with this b/c laws and conventions used to bar certain people from certain places until the past couple decades, and the economic effects of that still linger. We also still have a kind of caste system where some non-white people get questioned or arrested if they simply hang out on their college campus or enter their house in a nice neighborhood b/c they ‘don’t belong there’. This is a fact. It can happen to white people too (Bob Dylan was questioned in NYC recently b/c of his ‘disheveled’ appearance), but it’s much more common for some of those who aren’t. Then, for those who were fortunate enough to make it to academe, there are the more subtle things to deal with, like having others saying a poem is ‘niche’ if they have to work to understand it, whereas the cultural references of someone who is of more ‘default’ heritage are considered universal or ‘worth putting the time in’ to look up. So I didn’t say white people can’t be shortchanged, but I have never experienced it *for* being white. Instead, in daily life, walking down the street, I am given the ‘benefit of the doubt’. In academe, I think minorities get simultaneous advantage and disadvantage in different ways. *All* that disparity is various flavors of unjustness, not only one kind. As for Chen, I will say it again, what I like is his poetry. If you don’t think style is relevant to writing, poetry and other art, I don’t know what to tell you. The very definition of art is that it is a form, it is a use of pattern that the brain happens to enjoy; it can be flexible, but to get rid of *all* the recognizable pattern at (the style), if done simultaneously, turns it from ‘music’ into ‘ambient noise’.
Part 2: About free speech and censorship. Is it so hard to understand that I think anyone should be able to shout/sing/say, etc. whatever they want in the street, but others don’t have to leave their doors & windows open to hear it? And that one who doesn’t care about annoying others might be thought to be an ass? Well, being an ass is not illegal.
The confusion in some of your caricatures is that you have just the same message over and over: 1. People should think for themselves (ok), 2. Some people don’t want to listen to you (ok), 3. You think white people are treated unfairly in the US for being white (maybe somewhere but not ever in my own lived experience; we have huge & growing class inequalities though). My cartoon would involve the way we are talking past each other and my idea of what you’re doing (from my own perspective of course!) using a metaphor about birdsong and drawings of birds. I noticed you seem to put more care & accuracy into your animal drawings, btw. Let me know if there are other questions you think I haven’t answered, I will try to do so once more. At some point if we can’t fully communicate, we may have to temporarily give up, though.
Christine D.
Oh, I forgot to put part of the last point: that your messages as far as I can tell are very general and about the entire system, but making a caricature (if a nude or perceived-as-ugly one) can make people think you are doing an ad hominem attack (and honestly, aren’t you, in some of those cases?), and they may lose patience. You don’t care, ok. But you will have a huge number of people who have now permanently closed their door to you, as is their right. Can’t have it both ways. If you really don’t care whether you have an audience, why is that almost the sole topic? That is what I cannot understand.
Ideology and Reason are enemies. You help prove the point.
Well, the platform must be like me then, "less than fully robust." Oh, my. Try writing your entry in Pages or Word, then copy and paste. You won't lose it then. Aren't you supposed to be an engineer?
Why would I not doubt the gender, race, or whatever else of a person who hides behind anonymity? That's the real question. Yes, tell the Obamas and Don Lemon and Oprah about the lingering financial effects of the past. In essence, one must begin with the present, then onwards. If one hangs in the past for ones entire life, then one will really never have a present or future. Or perhaps researchers need to do some serious research and attempt to out black-skin offspring of black slaveholders and black slave traders. After all, how can they be recipients of Biden reparations?
Where is the proof of this pc-identity politics assertion? "We also still have a kind of caste system where some non-white people get questioned or arrested if they simply hang out on their college campus or enter their house in a nice neighborhood b/c they ‘don’t belong there’." Read Heather MacDonald's "Diversity Delusion." Or simply continue wading in identity-politics delusion.
Well, a black murderer can always claim that he was arrested for being black nowadays. Is that progress or just prog?
Why not try walking down the street in a black neighborhood to see if you get the "benefit of the doubt" privilege...prior to making such a racist observation? I've done that. I was attacked by three black racists, who beat and robbed me in Baton Rouge. I'd made a mistake. You see, I was teaching at an all-black university, so had let my guard down. Yes, the "benefit of the doubt"! Well, that was experience with reality. You don't seem to have it.
It is perhaps not possible to write or draw without style or form. Think about that.
Well, as far as my cartoons go, you're mostly off. Have you analyzed the 2,000 cartoons I've sketched, most of which are not posted on the blog? After all, how can you make such a generality from 3 or 4 cartoons? You amazingly fail to grasp the messages in all of my cartoons, including the one on Chen. And I suppose that inability to comprehend can only be explained by your being offended and by your being somehow attached to the art/poetry establishment. How can you not understand the message in the cartoon above, if not for those two reasons? Allow me to dissect that cartoon for you, though I doubt it will help, for the intellectually blind refuse to see. 1. diversity has become a ploy for deflection; 2. conformity is a prerequisite for employment; 3. courage is needed to step out of in-lockstep--the three depicted in the cartoon lack courage; 4. taking a knee is copycat obedience; 5. P&W helps in the castration and cooptation of poetry; 6. monetization demands absence of real criticism. And I could go on, but what's the point? The establishment simply will not/cannot understand real hardcore criticism, which must ineluctably be offensive. That of course incarnates Chen Chen.
Often, quite often, I create from the dross I experience. So, as mentioned, it is quite possible that I shall create an essay from our exchange. To bad I won't be able to send it to you.
It is sad that you and those like you cannot understand the egregious conflict pitting career against truth. Your conscious desire to remain anonymous serves to prove the point.
As for ad hominem, unlike most, I do really make a conscious effort to avoid it... and sometimes I might fail in that endeavor, but only sometimes and quite rarely.
Your last post is not clear. "Can't have it both ways," you write. What are both ways? Do you mean fame and being critical? Of course, establishment cogs will close the door on me and of course I really don't give a damn. If I gave a damn, then I wouldn't criticize them. Yes, it is their and your right to close the door, as it is their and your right to live in an in-lockstep, safe-space bubble. So now, you've decided that my 2000 cartoons have only one topic: desperation to get an audience. Wow. You will never be able to understand a person like me who has constantly sacrificed career, invitations, publications, grants, recognition, etc... for truth. YOU HAVE LIKELY NEVER DONE THAT EVEN ONE TIME, nor has Chen. Alas...
I am typing this on a phone (inadvisable, yes!) And so I don’t have a text-editor program on here, but yes, next time I could use such things. Also, true, I shouldn’t have said ‘all’ since I have only looked at about 20 of the cartoons so far. It is illogical to take a few examples of successful black people within our current system to say there is no problem. I guess all whites would then be doing fine too, since Warren Buffett & Jeff Bezos are ok. Also if you don’t understand the gross power dynamics in play when slaves and slave owners had (illegitimate by law) children... We don’t need to investigate people’s background, just actually give everybody the same opportunities. There are massive health & education disparities for a lot of poor areas in the US today, and black people were deliberately kept poor/separate in these areas for a long time (re: ‘keeping people down’ do you know about the Tulsa massacre? Or the segregative rules around Detroit?). Poor people in general, in the country and in the city often can’t afford to move elsewhere. Btw, I am from the Detroit area, and never had a problem when I went to the poor parts of the city, but they were indeed very poor and falling apart (Since the bankruptcy, Detroit is finally recovering a bit though; my brother lives there). Poverty of any color is dangerous. About style and form, ok you use it, but just deny that it needs to be considered at all. Anyway, I understood you were saying all those numbered points above and was not at all offended by this cartoon, btw. To say some magazine has a worse way of silencing poets than the old type of censorship or than material poverty is doubtful to me though. Also taking a knee really hurt Kapernick’s career for years. Also, it does depend on the type of employment, what type of conformity is cared about. I only was angry at the Chen cartoon because it seemed very personally unfair, and even now, I see that you didn’t quite mean it that way. I am just telling you plenty other people will have that sincere reaction I did too.
Oh, and about me supposedly being attached to the art/poetry establishment, I don’t have any more idea than you what that connection could be— I read people’s poems, I like some of them, I admire the people who wrote those, ok? I am not anonymous because of my ‘career’ (which I have never paid attention to the ‘trajectory’ of, only whether the work interests me), my current boss would probably like your views more than mine. I have never encountered some hidden injustice at my work (perhaps the higher-ups keep any such things among themselves, idk), all of us there dislike bureaucracy & uncoordinated waste, we can leave (which I am shortly) if we get tired of it. By ‘both ways’ I meant ‘mocking the audience (or giving them that impression)’ and ‘getting mad at them for walking away before investing hours to better know you’. It does seem you are very angry at them. It is true I have not seen nearly all your 2000 cartoons though, as I said, just 1% so far. On your last point, look at it this way, I can write whatever poem or draw whatever I want, and it’s not contingent on grants, publications, etc, I have never sought them. And I don’t have any career ambitions to give up; my goal is to enjoy the work, if not, I move on.
Btw: If a venue like Quillette will not publish you when they will publish things that have all the same content/ideas (don’t they?), then don’t we have to suppose that either space limitations or the manner/perceived quality
of writing & drawing is the reason?
Hi Mme X,
Well, rather than echo the black good/white bad mantra, try using statistics. Heather MacDonald does that in her book. At least, I used some examples. You did not.
Are you aware that in Louisiana, over 1,000 blacks owned slaves? Likely you are not aware. Well, I used to live in Louisiana, where I taught at an all black university. And yes, black administrators were as corrupt as it gets! Oops, that goes against the mantra. If you are indeed white, I doubt very much you'd dare walk in an all black neighborhood, especially at night. I sure as hell wouldn't, but then again I have experience.
Detroit has been run by Dems (black and white) for ages. I guess their policies have had a negative effect.
How do you know what "plenty of other people" would think about the Chen cartoon? You don't. I don't.
Full ostracizing of critics, which is the policy of Poets & Writers, is a form of censorship. Deplatforming is also a form of censorship. The real question is: why doesn't Chen or you stand up for freedom of expression and write the editors of that magazine to tell them that they ought to provide a little space for rare dissident poet voices, apt to criticize the editors and the content of the magazine? Why don't you and he write a letter to the female autocrat director of the Sturgis Library which banned me for life w/o warning or due process? The answer of course is evident: both of you really don't care about freedom of expression, as long as you can express yourselves.
Well, what I really wrote is that your responses imply a connection to the establishment, be it only intellectual.
Well, then you must be anonymous because of a certain cowardice. Need I repeat that a democracy canNOT survive if the citizenry is cowardly (hides behind anonymity).
Well, I am not in the least angry at "them"! Because I criticize "them," they and you must conclude that I am an angry (dangerous) man. Ad hominem 101! Apparently, it is in your mind intrinsically.
Well, I sure as hell don't have career ambitions either. Oddly, in the current issue of The American Dissident, I published a prisoner who argued that black poets were not given coverage in the poetry media. So, I sent him the photos of the current Poets & Writers' front page and Academy of American Poets' webpage, both featured ONLY people of color. Go figure.
Well, you definitely have Quillette wrong! But also "quality of writing" is a highly subjective term... and of course when the writing is critical of Quillette, then the writing has to be of the worst possible "quality." How can you NOT understand that? Also, did you NOT read the exchange I had with Quillette? It follows the cartoon. I thought the editor's final response to be fully revealing of her and Quillette's reality. Is the editor's final statement (see below) not fully aberrant considering the platform's statement? Touche (accent aigu), as the French say! "Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange."
From: Claire Lehmann
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2018 9:07 PM
To: George Slone
Cc: pitch@quillette.com
Subject: Re: An essay for Claire Lehmann and Jamie Palmer...
Dear Mr Slone,
Please feel free to criticise Quillette and myself in any forum you see fit.
However please refrain from submitting to us in the future.
Regards,
Claire Lehmann
BTW, I have been published numerous times over the years, including in academic journals. More recently, the Journal of Information Ethics and New English Review have published my essays. (Downhome magazine [Canada] has also published a number of my travel essays with photos.) I do not send my work, especially regarding poetry, out much at all any more because clearly that's become a more or less futile effort due to its highly critical nature. And I do not boast about being published. I simply mention it here as a counterpoint fact to your assertion or implication that I do not write well.
Hi George,
As an engineer, I am aware that any side can selectively choose statistics to supposedly make their point. I can look up again the numbers for the shorter life expectancy and worse health of black people, due to not just being not as wealthy, but living in areas where the (white) planners have allowed pollution to be. Or the numbers on people being given harsher sentences for the same crimes. Or how much worse school quality is in poor areas of the US. And you will then perhaps dispute the numbers or give an anecdotal counterexample anyway. The real (if hard to access) truth is the totality of what happens in everyone’s daily lives. Idk if you like Tolstoy, but he was very big on that, I will never forget that this lived experience is infinitely more important than ideology. That is why we are talking. I am aware of corruption in all colors, including sometimes in Detroit city govt. However the real problems in Detroit are much wider and involved abandoning the city over decades and whites-only exiting to the suburbs to create a kind of reverse banlieue situation where all the jobs and money were all in the suburbs. Also destruction of streetcars and blocking public transit b/c it was ‘the Motor City’, and also building highways via eminent domain right through the black business district, destroying it. There were riots which simply accelerated all this further too. Anyway, I absolutely have walked in poor neighborhoods of different colors; Detroit, Dearborn, etc.(I once had a summer job that involved this at times), though during the day. The desperation of poor people is the dangerous part, not so much race. (you doubt I am white now, btw? Let’s talk about Led Zeppelin or the Red Green show or something until you are convinced😆) Now, I think I do know what people would think of the cartoon, but you can find out by asking a bunch of people, I suppose. I could actually write these magazines asking them to publish a ’dissent page’ or corner, I don’t read them or subscribe though (I read poems online or use the library or buy the books). Hm, I could either start all that or pretend to them that I am a subscriber. This is getting complex...🤔
I don’t think the substance of the criticism makes you seem angry, but the tone of it (and somewhat obsessive nature). It’s like having a red face, rigid posture and shouting, but then also saying, ‘I’m not angry’. Confusing to an observer. Anyway, yes, I read the Quillette exchange, but what actually happened? It looks like you sent them two things, they didn’t want to publish them, so you then criticized Quillette, and then they said, ‘don’t send us anything else’. You took their lack of interest personally, assumed they were trying to suppress your views (but which of those points do they *not* entertain in their pages, to the extent the views are expressed coherently?) To me this just says that you take every editor rejection as a deplatforming. Then they become annoyed and actually say, ‘well we certainly won’t give this guy a platform now!’ Both sides of this seem thin-skinned in my opinion, but editors do get to decide what they find ‘good enough’. They rejected you *before* you criticized them. I never thought I would be defending the motivations of someone at Quillette; where have these conversations led me? 😂 Haven’t you ever rejected a submission for AD, and couldn’t the submitter get bent out of shape similarly to how you did? Anyway, I am to blame here for continuing to argue online with someone who is very unlikely to see my points because of his current perspective. Whose perspective is in my opinion an idée fixe that reverses cause and effect.
Take care,
Christine
There is a lot of your writing I haven’t seen; I am interested in the travel essays (from Nova Scotia?), they may be somewhere on this blog... I only could respond to what I have already seen so far, which does of course vary from piece to piece. Or even within one; I think your letter to Thoreau fuses some correct and well-expressed points (similar to his thought, of course, as he is the indirect subject) with some other stuff that is very personal to you & only comprehensible to you. If I found an essay that refrains (in my opinion) from devolving this way at some point, it would be a welcome sign.
Well, I do not obsess like you apparently do on praising, criticizing, or commiserating with black people. And indeed by doing that, you do NOT treat them as equals.
What I do is break the unwritten taboo: thou shalt not criticize the academic/literary establishment, its apparatchiks (black or white), icons (black or white), prizes, publications, etc. And that’s why you never heard of me. Moreover, when one breaks that taboo it is automatically/inevitably in the wrong tone, style, and taste, something I suspect you will never be able to understand, engineer or not.
Sure, I can agree with you regarding the inaccuracy of statistics (and polling!), here, there, and perhaps even often.
So, wealthy blacks in Detroit remained in crime-ridden ghettos? Hmm.
Always, I shall doubt the purported identities of those who wear the garb of anonymity.
You completely missed the point regarding Quillette, which is supposed to be very different from all other platforms in its professed openness to debate, criticism, and "dangerous ideas." Evidently, I proved its statement (and editor) to be a load of horseshit. How can you NOT see that? In essence, I touched on topics that proved it to be a load of horseshit, including criticism of Quillette, a truly "dangerous idea." But for some reason, you perceive not that, but that I took it all so personally. That comment is a typical deflection from reality. Again, Quillette boasts about being different from "every editor," but somehow you missed that. Instead, you somehow generalize (and deflect) that I "take every editor rejection as a deplatforming." You do not seem to grasp what editors tend to reject: criticism of editors. Also, what precisely in those two essays sent to Quillette might have constituted real "dangerous ideas"? Instead, you ignore the content of those essays, as if well they were like any other essays... somehow hackneyed or whatever.
And of course Quillette has the right to say fuck off to me. BUT I also have the right to criticize Quillette's amazing hypocrisy, which I did in the essay and cartoon, which somehow you didn't even notice (i.e., the hypocrisy).
Of course, I rejected submissions when they fall completely out of focus of the journal, so NEVER when critical of me or The AD, which like Quillette (and The AD has been around a lot longer than it), argues to be different in publishing by openly promoting "free expression." I was NOT "bent out of shape." On the contrary, I love it when hypocrites expose themselves, so was quite content at Quillette's open killing of debate. Why? Well, evidently it provoked me to sketch a cartoon and write an essay. Again, from the dross, I create.
Your statement is actually indicative of you, not me: "Whose perspective is in my opinion an idée fixe that reverses cause and effect." As they say, take a damn good look in the mirror, baby!
Obviously, I am not trying to please you, but rather standing my ground as an unusual open, un-anonyous truth-teller.
Well, I have enjoyed our debate. And I enjoyed the debate with Quillette too. Your perception--perhaps a necessary one--of my raging in anger is way off...
Hi George, I thought when I was growing up that racism was ‘over’, but it’s just not true because the unfair treatment back ‘dug a hole and pushed people in’ and the hole hasn’t been fully filled yet. It is not patronizing to others that I finally understand this. ‘The past hasn’t even fully passed’ to imperfectly quote Faulkner. Regarding Detroit, the decline happened like this: jobs and people started to move out of the city to the suburbs in the 50s and 60s. But only white people could move to many towns, because the homeowners would refuse to sell to blacks, in a herdlike concern about property values and betraying their neighbors. Also, black neighborhoods in the city were redlined by banks as ‘undesirable’ (which they were to many whites at the time), so no investment or loans in those areas from those banks. Well, property values declined in the city, and black homeowners (there were and are many, since everyone once had automotive-boom jobs) either stayed in increasingly abandoned areas or sold at a loss years later in order to finally get out. No public transit except unreliable sparse buses after the streetcars were discontinued. The riots were in 1967 and accelerated everything. The tax base of the city declined leading to bad schools etc. and the whole cycle just fed on itself until everyone who could leave, left. The city was basically dead for a while; things are coming back now because city govt got cleaner after the bankruptcy and the property also gradually became seen as a bargain (it is, they are beautifully made houses, but many places had wires and plumbing stripped and the chemical pollution & neglect of the environs still lingers). Many cities have horrible corrupt govts (Dems in a monopoly) but this cascade of disaster was far larger.
As for the Quillette thing, was this not the sequence? 1. You give them essays that IMO have very common current-day right-wing positions (espoused many places online), expressed in a not particularly memorable way (elsewhere your writing can be more memorable but I digress) 2. They are not interested for whatever reason, we do not know. 3. You criticize them, for not publishing you, not any other reason. 4. They say they don’t want any more pieces from you. 5. You now say that they will not publish you because you criticized them. This may now be true, but is this suppression or not if they weren’t even interested while you were on good terms? Isn’t it dishonest to say that as soon as I criticize someone who’s not giving me what I want, that they are doing that *because* of the criticism. Turn that mirror toward you again 😄. I’m going to stop arguing on this point because this is a basic issue of logic. It is never acceptable to you that someone may not be interested, so then you immediately try to be on bad terms so you can say they did it out of dislike. It also bothers/interests you that I have lived outside the ‘sources of indoctrination’ and pressure you decry (further outside than you, anyway) but I still don’t agree with you.
Again, I must applaud you for "wasting your time" and engaging in debate with a more or less opposite like me. BTW, I had received 3 emails from 3 women, regarding the Chen cartoon. They were, more or less, enraged, and of course called me in perfect groupthink-synchronization "homophobic" and "racist." What else is new in our brave new world? Not much! So, I have begun writing my essay, beginning with them. In fact, I'm also contemplating a cartoon on one of them. I'd love to send the items to you when finished, since you will be an important part of the essay. I am not sure I will post it on the blog. Most of what I write and cartoon is not, btw, posted on the blog.
Perhaps racism is simply an aspect of perception. We perceive people who are tall or short or fat or skinny AND black or white. Now, racism of course implies treating someone differently (Affirmative Action) due to his or her skin color. But don't we tend to treat the handsome and the beautiful differently because of their physical (superficial) traits? Just a thought. But I must tell you how tedious the racism, racism, racism monologue has become. And I do believe it is serving not to unite, but rather to further divide. The way how things seem to be going is that racism, racism, racism will continue ad infinitum until whitey has finally been converted into a slave held by a black master... or until social engineers have finally succeeded in tanning America, as some racist blacks call their dream. As long as the past exists and is incessantly highlighted, unity will never exist. Ah, you didn't respond to the point I made regarding the black slaveowners in my comment. For you, it is a black and white issue. But such issues are ineluctably fallacious. Indeed, how to explain the black slave-traders and black slaveowners? Silence is the best way to explain those uncomfortable facts. Were there not riots in Detroit this year? Did Obama do anything to resolve the black on black murder epidemic in Detroit (and Chicago)? Hmm.
Well, it is interestingly common now to label a person right-wing when he or she criticizes what is not supposed to be criticized, including the left's evident attempts to reduce freedom of expression. If you are unaware of those efforts, please let me know and I shall provide some examples. Right-wing of course is ad hominem. Find a falsehood in the essays, then highlight it. Nobody does that. Instead, just call the essays right-wing, as you did. Frankly, I don't even recall the two essays and don't really feel like reading through them again. So, according to you, the essays were, more or less, already written by right-wingers. Can you give me an example? Nope. (Or maybe now you might because I wrote "nope!".)
You state: " 3. You criticize them [Quillette], for not publishing you, not any other reason." Again, somehow you simply cannot see the giant elephant in the Quillette editorial room. And evidently I cannot help you with that regard. Examine, then re-examine Quillette's egregiously hypocritical editorial statement. If they had published my criticism in the name of free expression, then I never would have/could have thought Quillette to be hypocritical. So, in a sense, I thought, then I came up with a perfect essay to out the hypocrisy. But you cannot see that. Nor can you see why Quillette rejected the two essays. Instead, you simply argue, "right-wing" banality. And over the years, I have pushed numerous other organizations in an effort to expose egregious hypocrisy. The local cultural council hereabouts boasts "all the art for everyone." BUT (the Rushdie brigade!) not my art! It boasts diversity and inclusion, BUT excludes my art and my writing. Somehow, you and they cannot perceive the egregious hypocrisy. So, simply resort to ad hominem or other epithets in a futile effort to kill the message. Very common ploy!
The reason Quillette said, no more, was because I criticized Quillette, not because of the other two essays. Somehow you missed that! Ah, but turn that mirror on me, as you say, then I WILL PUBLISH IT! That is the difference! How did you possibly miss that?
This statement is completely false: "It is never acceptable to you that someone may not be interested, so then you immediately try to be on bad terms so you can say they did it out of dislike." I would only do that if the magazine in question were boasting its embrace of freedom of expression... or inclusion. A number of magazines have rejected my work over the years. Rarely do editors ever present reasons why. Yes, yes, they're too busy. But in reality, rarely have I sent a criticism. New English Review is an example. So is the Journal of International Ethics. And if I had to, I'd come up with many other examples. I don't think you can understand a vigorous advocate of free speech like me. Often, the knee-jerk response to such advocacy is belittlement.
Well, I'm not really sure what you mean: "It also bothers/interests you that I have lived outside the ‘sources of indoctrination’ and pressure you decry (further outside than you, anyway) but I still don’t agree with you." How have you lived exterior to the "sources of indoctrination," which have become ubiquitous? I was fired from my last teaching job because I refused to obey the dean's demand that I cease responding to someone who was criticizing me (not a student). And yes, I wrote an essay, a poem and sketched a cartoon, thanks to that dross. You are anonymous. So, you can make up anything you desire. What you have NOT done like I have done is question and challenge power... and actually risk your job or anything else. That qualifies you as a friend of the establishment, if not an integral part of it...
The black slave owners etc. thing is about economic exploitation & greed, anyone can be greedy. Same in Rome. But in the US, a whole elaborate pseudoscience grew up to justify it by saying they were not full humans. Same as natives were demonized in order to take their land. I think this need to justify came because those in power knew they were going against their supposed Christianity. You should know I believe anyone can build these structures of domination. But the racial ones that still exist in this country all benefit white people except for possibly the small corner that is arts & letters, the past decade or so. There’s a lot outside that region! There were not riots in Detroit this year, unless you count windows of 2 buildings + those of police cars being broken in a protest that also had police violence. As for murder in Chicago, etc, you know full well it is due to gangs which are due to poverty/lack of jobs. True, neither Obama (nor the actually egregious Rahm Emmanuel) did not fix that for the cities. If O. had tried to create jobs there, it probably would be called racial favoritism; still it should be tried.
I didn’t miss that, I think you feel a requirement to publish every single criticism of yourself, but others don’t. Now, I agree that everyone ignoring it all the time is thin-skinned, but why do the people themselves have to be bound to publish your criticism of them 100% of the time, especially if they may not otherwise have published you? Criticism is not some magic button that means people unavoidably *have to* respond especially if they wouldn’t have otherwise. Other people may have rejected your ideas themselves (I myself find them flawed), but Quillette just published a relevant book review (article title: Reinventing Racism—A Review). National Review published a piece in June called ‘The InstitutionaI Racism Canard’. So the ideas are pretty omnipresent on the right since at least the 90s, to my recollection (mostly supplanting but sometimes existing in parallel with 1920s-style ‘race science’ talk). And I first called it right wing because those are the people I see on Twitter frequently making those points. You are not exactly of any wing, but they are. They are typically people who talk about the superiority of ‘western civilization’ while being almost illiterate about any technology, history or art. They do want to be in the club of race, and benefit from it, which I think differs from you. I consider Quillette right-leaning libertarian (and faux-rigorous). Anyway, next time it’s a right-ish publication, and if they aren’t interested, just keep submitting items with the same frequency/interval you would otherwise send your criticism and see what they do.
Ok, I stand corrected that you’ve not responded the same to every editorial rejection. It is true that no place should say ‘we are open to every possible viewpoint’ unless they mean it, that is committing to publishing a whole hell of a lot. I have frequently gotten into political discussions/disagreements with my bosses and colleagues; once someone brings such a topic up, And re: actual work issues, I openly bring up & mock the Kafkaesque facets of our work, together with my colleagues, and do not care who hears since I am not climbing a ladder. Whenever I actually have a disagreement (not that often on technical issues, since we all kind of collectively decide on everything we do), I express it. If I were higher up perhaps someone would punish me for this? But it never happens.
If I saw malpractice (which in engineering is like the Boeing 737 Max situation or the VW diesel emissions scandal) I would speak out. But if a company awards supplier contracts not always based on the best entry for each one, but in order to keep all the suppliers in business, b/c new entry as a supplier is so cost-prohibitive and complex that the company wants to keep enough suppliers to still have competition among them... and if everyone at the company & the suppliers knows this... we’ve just got fully transparent business nonsense...
I have also heard gossip about the crazy behavior of past executives, but have never seen this kind of stuff firsthand (well how would I in the case of execs), just as I have never seen harassment or workplace retaliation happen firsthand although people have told me stories about past stuff. The most that ever happened (pretty slight) was just that I had to reject repeated invitations to hang out from a man with deeply unpleasant vibes who kept making excuses to drop into our group area. It could be people just do not do certain more awful things in front of me!...
Anyway, I hope people would confide in me if bad stuff were happening to them in the present day, but I guess idk what people might be hiding if they so chose :-/
Uh, how does systemic racism Affirmative Action only help white people? Now, that's insane! It seems more evident that in Chicago, the constant violence is due to total Democrat corruption, including blacks in power, which/who doesn't/don't give a damn about black on black violence. How can you possibly ignore this egregious elephant in the Chicago room? "If O. had tried to create jobs there, it probably would be called racial favoritism; still it should be tried," you state. Well, what the hell is Affirmative Action? Is that not "racial favoritism"?
You often deflect from reality. You sate, "I didn’t miss that, I think you feel a requirement to publish every single criticism of yourself, but others don’t." Well, why the hell would I "feel a requirement," if not for my direct/open advocacy of freedom of expression? And if others don't "feel a requirement," like Quillette, then clearly they are blatant hypocrites when they state they are advocates. But YOU CANNOT/WILL NOT see this for some reason. Examine how you diminished me for my advocacy with that statement! You somehow managed to turn important advocacy to nothing but me, me, me.
In a democracy, responding to valid criticism (and my criticism is definitely valid regarding Chen Chen) ought to be the norm. "Other people may have rejected your ideas themselves (I myself find them flawed)...," you state. How precisely are all of my ideas "flawed"? You FAIL EGREGIOUSLY, per usual, to stipulate with precision.
From the standpoint of freedom, Western Civ. is definitely superior. Compare it with any Muslim or communist country.
Well, I did send criticism to right-wing Frontpage mag (David Horowitz Foundation). Surprise! It censored my comments.
Good. You bend. Kudos! Good. You debate. Kudos! You are certainly different in that positive respect than most people, including Chen Chen and Claire Lehman...
Back to square one: Why am I so wrong in criticizing the inanity/insanity of anointing "10 Poets Who Will Change the World"? Why as a poet, should I have reacted like the bulk of poets--coopted, castrated, and corralled--and simply opened wide and swallowed that nonsense? In fact, why didn't Chen stand up on his two legs and tell Poets & Writers that the anointment was silly and, for that, he decided to reject it? Why? There is something intrinsically corrupt in the minds of poets like Chen... and that corruption has nothing at all to do with his freakin' gender choice...
I am a little confused as to why you bring Chen back into it; I am not one of the 3 people who were emailing you. Earlier (in the other cartoon) you mentioned that you had told me something about a Harvard critic and it certainly wasn’t me you told. With all this correspondence there understandably is risk of a mix-up... also btw gender is not sexual orientation. If someone is simply gay, not trans or non-binary, he is simply a he. And this guy isn’t even androgynous. Anyway, it’s not wrong to find the idea of ‘10 poets who will change the world’ a little absurd, if poetry ever changes anything it is gradually & at first invisibly in people’s minds. Someone like Mary Oliver can change the world too. So I think Chen is quite good and their little list doesn’t offend me. But I read your essay about Greek ‘gadfly’ tradition, including the quote from Camus that says to reject what’s around you 100% of the time is also nihilism, and you also said at the time that poets don’t always have to be in critique mode. Well, what happened? Do you approve of any poem not in that style? The reason Soviet love poetry was bad wasn’t because Stalin destroyed the reality of love somehow, it was because he actually dictated the style even of love poems to make them serve ‘the right purpose’. And you say people are necessarily wrong if they focus on such poetry. Chen does do critique sometimes, he does critique those above him in the establishment sometimes, but his perspective is often a leftist one, and is very personal. So is he not allowed to have it? Is it really the case that people have to follow your exact views and prolificness in critique to not be a fraud somehow? Establishment positions come and go, some of them (not all of course) are going to actually be accurate sometimes. There is value in fighting the system, but that doesn’t mean the Sex Pistols for example are always vessels of truth...
I am not trying to deflect at all but to respond and bring up salient counterpoints. Yes, affirmative action is a 2nd wrong added to the 1st one, attempting to make a right. It is trying to compensate for the effect of bad schools, poverty etc. but obviously it is a blunt instrument. It does engender tension/hate in response as you said. I would propose wealth redistribution, more safeguards against tribal loyalty in policing, hiring, home buying, healthcare (even among doctors) etc. and environmental pollution cleanup. In other words attempting actual equity. And I already pointed out horrible dem politicians who are not interested in my kind of equity any more than the gop is, and the fact that gang violence of all colors, including in heavily black areas, is caused by poverty and desperation. What truth am I not acknowledging? Poor people are victims of the rich, etc., every power differential gives a possibility of abuse. Next point: There is a difference between sometimes publishing criticism and being reflexively compelled to publish all critique. As long as someone publishes some critical letters to the editor or whatever else (idk exactly where the line is, maybe 1 page like you suggested, or a %, whatever), they do not seem dishonest. But you seem to say if they don’t publish specifically yours, they are hypocrites. Well, as I said maybe only b/c they made physically unrealistic statements like ‘we include *all* views’.
Btw, when I say wealth redistribution and trying to undo self-perpetuating disparities for how people are treated in the system, I also mean for the non-racial forms as well (place where people live, class, gender). And I also mean redistribution particularly from the very top (Bezos et al) on a sliding scale, so that we get back down to the wealth inequality between top & bottom of the 1950s or 60s. I may have said this more vaguely elsewhere already. Wealth concentration in the hands of the few is poisonous for democracy and the daily lives of the many.
Hm, actually, in my opinion, the inequalities between top & bottom might best be reduced below even the 1950s level, since that eventually increased into what we have today, on this timescale. But things (wealth, power) always accrete like that sooner or later (like gravity forming planets or stars, building on inhomogeneity), so the real question is how just often or thoroughly we want to try to reset it.
Mme X,
Well, you did in fact initiate our conversation with the Chen cartoon. Did you forget? Again, you miss the point! It is not a question of whether or not Chen’s poems are good, which is nevertheless a subjective determination. I did NOT criticize his poems, which I have never read, nor have I an iota of desire to read.
Also, it is not a question of my approving a poem. It is a question of whether or not I—one person—simply like a poem. There’s a big difference.
I am not at all into love poems, Soviet or American. I am into very rare critical poems. For the only such poems I’ve managed to find over the past two decades, examine http://theamericandissident.org/poems.html. And if I am such a flaming homophobe, why would I have memorized Lorca’s very long poem, “El Romance de la guardia civil espanola, in espanol? Go figure, eh? Or just call me a fascist Franco fan! Don’t forget, Franco had Lorca assassinated in 1936.
Where do you come up with these things, as in “And you say people are necessarily wrong if they focus on such poetry.” ?? Never did I write that! If I had, I’d immediately eradicate it! I don’t give a damn what sort of poetry people focus on.
How can you minimize egregious hypocrisy, as in “But you seem to say if they don’t publish specifically yours, they are hypocrites. Well, as I said maybe only b/c they made physically unrealistic statements like ‘we include *all* views’.”’ ??
ONLY BECAUSE? Wow. Please attempt to rethink that response!
If we are going to have wealth redistribution, let us please begin with your wealth and that of all the hacks who vote for it! Aha!
Such distribution ain’t gonna solve the drug problem, the gang violence problem, the war problem, the diminishing freedom of expression problem, or the problem of those who just don’t want to work et al.
Did you say you were a social engineer… like the folks who are trying to tan Amerika?
OK. I think I'll bring on the rescue brigade for you and post another cartoon.
I did initiate that conversation, I just thought this was now a different one. And *I* never said you were even a homophobe, just that you misunderstand and seem dismissively careless. Good to know you like Lorca (or at least that particular poem) though. He was a rare person. The ‘only b/c’ statement was about if an editor can be a hypocrite just for not publishing a particular person. If they had not said ‘every single view’ in essence (impossible anyway), it would be not at all dishonest of them. If America becomes more of a cappuccino color over time, why do you care? I think you reference something with this tanning phrase, but idk what it is and it just sounds as if you have a problem with demographic change in the US (which is probably not even the case, I can say after spending all this time talking w/ you). You can certainly redistribute my wealth on the sliding scale, you forgot that part. The wealthy are those that make 100k/yr or more (depending where you live), but billionaires make so much more. If we redistributed from them everyone else’s income goes up. Millionaires and billionaires have done everything to accrete more, destroying everyone else’s quality of life in the process (median purchasing power has been going down in the US since 1979) They destroyed businesses, the environment, just to keep enriching solely themselves (the few). It may be a common human impulse but this shit is unsustainable. I’m an electrical engineer currently, but hopefully soon will be doing more sustainable farming (I already volunteer at that and garden).
Rescue?
If you want to attack a damaging form of oppression, let’s attack the wealth extraction system that let industrialists ship jobs overseas (enabled by bipartisan corruption), that made the hedge fund managers, investment bankers & Bezos their billions, etc. I want to redistribute what’s already been bled from people every day (the rich get richer and the poor stay broke). This is the biggest factor that’s hurt my family and everyone else I know. If you want to keep attacking poets who are even in the very worst case just an artifact of this system, well it’s an exercise for free speech, but we should use it against large injustice too!
BUT Quillette did write "every single view"! How odd that you do not understand that was precisely why I challenged it and ended up exposing its egregious hypocrisy. Are you perhaps a 4-Star General in Rushdie's But Brigade?
The problem I have is with the faceless social engineers ever trying and succeeding to fuck up the world. Think of the gulag archipelago or Hitler's concentration camps or Castro's firing squads !
When I visit Labrador, I don't go up there to see Africans. When I visit Africa, I don't go there to see Hispanics. But the social engineers just don't want that. They want a clone obedient population. But in reality, you're right. I won't be alive when they succeed. Perhaps they need to cross breed animals also. Maybe we need to turn grackles into grackleigeons? Or maybe grizzlies need to be bred with polar bears to eliminate whiteness? Evidently, eliminating whiteness is precisely the goal of social engineers. Do you hate whites? Is that why you want the tanning of America? Aha! Obviously, that is why many blacks want it, especially those at The Root, who perhaps invented the phrase, "tanning of America." Check it out. I did NOT invent it. In fact, I did a cartoon on it. I'll hunt for it now. Can't find anything. Just Google the phrase. I'd be surprised if my name popped up!
Imagine the corruption in such a redistribution of wealth process? Unfathomable! Yet you make it sound so easy. Imagine the corruption in the process for reparations? Unfathomable! Utopianism is simply not possible... at least not yet. When we're all turned into robots perhaps then it will be feasible.
Well, I like gardening too. So, bingo, we have that in common. I also like traveling and exploring and photographing.
Well, now you're talking like a conservative Republican RE stop shipping jobs overseas, which is precisely what Biden favors, as well as the Rinos. But you fail to mention what open borders does. It lowers wages and causes unemployment. Yet are you not in favor of it? Conflict!
Now, if I stop attacking poets and go on to "bigger things," then who the hell is going to out poets? Nobody. Again, you're always into the business of deflection. I am a free speech advocate, not an electrical engineer who wants to distribute wealth.I Why must I also be into what you're into? I am NOT an engineer, social or other. Wealth distribution will end up giving us a new Communist China or Cuba and always with a wealthy, privileged elite, like it or not! Now, I thought you might comment on my new cartoon, so we can leave Chen in the dust a bit. Notice how I did not draw breasts on the woman in question, nor did I put her in a dress. See, I'm always trying. Still, I did jest a bit with the bull sign. If I avoid satirizing trans people, then I'd be transphobic. I prefer treating them as equals, regarding my criticism...
I agreed with you about Quillette breaking the literal meaning of their ’we present all viewpoints’ thing. But I just think you’re being a bit pedantic with it considering it’s physically impossible, are you also going to tell the NYT they shouldn’t say “All the News That’s Fit to Print” because it’s a literal impossibility? Now this stuff about ’losing whiteness’ is nearly verbatim what I have seen from dozens of internet fans of the nazis, those people who were marching with torches in Charlottesville. I am indifferent to my whiteness except I know it confers me protection/ being seen as ‘one of us’ from police and others. We are not different species than other humans, George, that is appalling scientifically. That was what the slavery apologists used as one of their excuses. It is not so hard or utopian to tax the rich and come up with ways to make business operate responsibly. Teddy Roosevelt and FDR managed to break corruption and help people in these ways. Open borders only causes those problems because people are hidden and not paid a fair wage, the businesses are exploiting them. (And as if I trust Joe Biden to do what needs to be done, really! 😄) Give a serious penalty to businesses paying anyone below minimum wage, enforce it, and make minimum wage an actual self-sufficient living wage in each area of the country. The destruction of unions (through job exports and automation reducing their numbers) is the biggest reason our living standards have gone to hell in this country. A MI person knows! 😤😎 It was allowed because the rich write the laws. Anyway I don’t want a communist system etc. because it *is* (and has been) always ripe for abuse. George Orwell’s lessons about hegemony are always apt. Ideally I would be a complete anarchist, if that did not open us up to too much chaos in this world of empire right now. However our current system is also being abused unsustainably by the rich & powerful right now, what shall we do to change it? Or shall we just wait for catastrophic collapse and revolution? Climate change is the biggest looming threat to all of us, it’s insufficiently addressed, like all the others. You don’t have to have my same interests of course, I just think the things I want to change are a sine qua non of ‘getting somewhere’ with present problems. Anyway, I am not at all trying to deflect, 🙄 , I am trying to explain my overall worldview. Lastly, for Foster, why do you make it *about* their trans-ness? I guess you can answer on that cartoon.
Anyway, I am glad we at least both like gardening, photography & travel/exploration...
This stuff about ’an agenda of the rich to mix races’ was pretty bad, George, our rulers have always really been about ‘divide and conquer’. Pitting poor whites against blacks and others, to distract from the rich whites. Fascism was bound up with/ contingent on catering to big business interests (manufacturing, in WWII Europe) and lashing out at various outgroup minorities & also dissidents (anarchists & communists, in Germany, Italy & Spain).
It is also strange if you were trying to imply that white people somehow ‘belong’ more in North America than black people; it’s not every white American who has had ancestors here starting 1600-1820, (Mine weren’t here yet!) but almost every black American’s has.
Well, The NY Times is as hypocritical as it gets! It's amazing that you weasel around the statements of hypocrites. Now, how about a little truth, as in “All the News That Fits the Narrative"? There. Was that so hard? How about for Quillette, "We Will Not Publish Criticism with Our Regard." Was that so hard? But instead you prefer weaseling around. Well, I don't.
So, you are a fan of Nazi internet sites. Very interesting. I have never even checked out one such site. So, you've got me beat there. Check out the all-black The Root and its push for the "tanning of America"! You didn't do that, did you? Why does it want tanning of America? Need I repeat? Well, I guess I'll have to. It wants it because it hates whites and whiteness. Problem solved once there are no longer any Caucasians left. Then the perfect country will exist. Of course, the black racists of The Root cannot seem to look a wee bit over into Africa to see how wonderful everything is.
I'm not at all convinced with the global warming hype, which kills any facts apt to point in a different direction. How to explain Kerry who just bought a mansion ocean-front property... and the Obamas too? Yes, the sea is rising so rapidly! We're all shaking in our boots! And how about the jet-setting global-warming alarmists? And what about the medieval ice age and on and on. Oops, am I now spouting Nazi thoughts? OMG.
Both Foster and Chen boast about their sexuality. I sure as hell did not highlight that. They did and do. Again, the trans thing blinds you to the point where you canNOT even perceive the message in the Foster cartoon, which has NOTHING to do with Foster's sex orientation. Identity Politics Cecity 101! Is that the course you took in college?
In case you haven't noticed and I know it goes against your narrative: rich blacks are on the increase and actually do exist. And don't forget China... and India!!!
Simply put: I am against social engineering of populations. You obviously are for it. Well, I go to Labrador (Rigolet to Nain) to see Inuk and Innu. There, how's that? Do I go there in the hope of speaking Spanish with transplanted Hispanic populations? No. Yes, just call me a Nazi or someone like a Nazi. That's always the easy way around REASON and REALITY...
Testing
Well, I agree with you that the NYT is committed to the status quo (I don’t like that, being on the left). However as I said several times already, you can’t realistically expect people to always publish your criticism every time, just because it’s criticism. Even if they made the strict-logical mistake of saying they publish ‘everything’. (Like my old favorite radio station that used to say ‘we play everything!’😆) Recognize that if people have a lot of the same content, they will judge based on style. And criticizing them after that does not demand they now be interested in your stuff (although they seem to’ve decided they never want it, but that could’ve already been the case due to style rather than umbrage, and they just ended up telling you to save time in the correspondence) That’s all I wanted to say.
Next topic: I think you are not familiar with how Twitter works. Everyone posts their thoughts or links, videos, photos etc. then they can quote each other too or comment. You can go into anyone’s feed of output. So I see *a lot* of stuff all across the political spectrum, pleasant and unpleasant, in my case I usually see the garbage stuff when someone comments on it. But Twitter has everything; the sheep farming in Ireland is nice to see. There are dedicated fascist sites elsewhere somewhere of course; but Twitter itself does at least step in if there are threats/harassment or incitement of violence reported/verified on its platform.
As for The Root, I honestly can’t find what you’re talking about beyond the Steve Stoute book re: marketing/demographics/music & fashion culture. But what is this garbage about Africa? So you equate a place destroyed by colonialism and still not fully recovered, with outside powers/corporations causing huge corruption/exploitation with their money (yes many govts (not all) and bureaucrats in Africa are corrupt like most poor places!) to the US, a empire (with the original society more destroyed and very few native people left, in often bad positions).
Re: climate change, whoever buys seafront property that isn’t on a cliff is an ass, unless they plan to sell in 5-10 yrs. The actuaries are starting to account for it insurance-wise. Look at the situation in Miami or S. Louisiana, and at the conversations about flood management in Boston, NYC, and all across the world. But anyway, that’s not the most urgent thing; heatwaves, wildfires (including in the Arctic) ocean acidification and biodiversity loss from the rapid climate change (more rapid than at any period in the Earth’s history other than mass extinctions, larger & more rapid than such mild little fluctuations like the mini ice age you mention). Don’t be daft implying I am calling you a nazi on climate; only if someone wanted to annihilate other countries to reduce emissions, or deliberately make them starve/overheat, or something, would I make that accusation. As for jet-setting rich people, I made my response about their hypocrisy in my comment in the other thread. China & India are getting relatively richer in the world, so are black people in the US relative to the rest. But the global and US-internal divides between haves and have nots are worse than ever. In other words, the rich are becoming richer obscenely more rapidly as others make tiny gains or backslide (as most everyone in the US and many other places are worse off in an absolute sense- but the rich do very well!) This is not that hard to understand. Meanwhile consumption is totally unsustainable the way it is now, and it’s mostly because of the rich. They also block attempts to move to a better way of doing things b/c they are worried about having to pay for it out of their ridiculous excess that they made destroying the planet in the first place. 🙄
[Ah, so there is a comment size limit! 😆God help me (I’m a total agnostic/atheist btw😄🙏), I did this to myself]...
I think this ‘cecity 101’ must be a typo. Anyway, I oddly enough took very few humanities classes at university (due to engineering course requirements). 1 psychology, 1 anthropology, 2 philosophy. No English (except technical writing 🤮) as I tested out & had AP credit. Engineering itself does not mature people or teach introspection (or anything re: social justice).
Lastly, please, I am not for ‘social engineering of populations’. 🙄 My anarchic proclivities rebel at that. Though I hope Bostonians stay out of Vermont!😄 I think people should nonviolently work out how to meet the needs of those in a place & those who want to come there. And they should have all the same rights if they come in, to avoid development of an underclass. But I would not tell people where they can & cannot go, and I think the longer people have developed a unique culture in a place, the more I hope it survives. In the US, the unique native culture was largely destroyed. Mostly through violence due to greed/desperation of debtors to the crowns of Europe. You’re not a nazi if you do want to treat everyone the same, with the same options open, no matter what their race or religion.
Twitter seems to have become a left-wing fascist censor along with Facebook and YouTube. Yes, AOC said we only have 12 yrs left. And Gore had said not much time left, though that was a while ago. I don't believe the alarmists. Call me what you like. I don't give a damn. I'm far more concerned about the killing of free speech in America effected largely by left-wing fascists.
Well, I am also an atheist, though with a touch of nihilism.
I did not create the comment size limit. Cecity means blindness. The French say, cecite (accents aigus). Well, open borders is definitely a form of social engineering nowadays. I'm glad you don't think I'm a Nazi... or Antifa fascist... or communist totalitarian... or socialist anarchist fascist. Hmm. Shit happens. One day we will croak and all that we've done in life will be obnubilated. All of my cartoons and 1000s of pages of writing into the dumpster of oblivion. Ainsi soit-il.
Twitter will still show comments coming from the (current) president & others disputing the election results, or questioning medical opinion about Covid. But they do flag them as ‘unverified’ so perhaps that’s a form of censorship. Idk what Facebook does, but they’re a complete morass anyway. If these were press outlets they could be sued for printing lies, but when someone lies on a platform, what do you do? Technically it’s private but should probably be public at this point, so probably shouldn’t be censored. People need to realize almost nothing they see on social media is fact- checked though, including the links, so just get multiple sources...
The 12 years (~10 now) is for us to reduce our CO2 emissions and have a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 deg C global temperature rise (the strength of the positive feedback loops of climate will determine the exact end result. The atmosphere and oceans are still heating up. There is no point in time at which it’s fully too late, because every emissions reduction at least buys time, but there are certain tipping points. See my additional climate comments on the other thread.
If you were fully a nihilist you wouldn’t care about free speech, so of course your nihilism is thankfully only partial, if it exists.
I didn’t mean to suggest you imposed a character limit; the underlying platforms always have such things on their own.
Cecity, then, is the human condition. We can only attempt perception and note the result.
The idea of an antifa fascist is pretty funny because although they could be very personally doctrinaire, there would still be no organization. Well, fascism starts at home...
To call a lack of borders social engineering is pretty interesting; what is a border or a country, then?
I personally think that we should have more open borders for people and more closed for capital.
Lastly, information is never truly destroyed, weather occluded by clouds (very fancy) or actually burned, if there is anything archaeology and science tell us, it is that everything leaves a trace...
Christine/ Mme X
Everything leaves a trace? No. So much has likely left no trace at all! Time erases everything. Think of the thousands of poets over the centuries who have left zero trace. And the thousands who died in medieval plagues, who have left zero trace.
Well, apparently the Hunter Biden scandal was deleted by Twitter or whichever the NY Post had it on. Likely a number of posts have been deleted contrary to your odd view. I've had posts deleted in comment sections. Hell, I had my whole website deleted back in 2005 due to one complaint. These things definitely happen.
The problem with calling something a lie is that it might not be a lie. Attkisson points out a number of media declared Trump lies that were in fact not lies.
You mention fact checking. But who does the fact checking, if not staunch ideologues? Quis custodies ipsos custodies?
Well, by nihilism I suppose I really meant purposelessness.
Antifa definitely has an organization and is definitely fascistic, as are SJWs in general.
The de facto elimination of established borders is definitely purposeful social engineering.
Everything does leave a trace; information is never destroyed provided we have the tools to read it (which is changing all the time). We find the bones of the plague victims and can tell where they lived, what they are, a surprising amount about their lives. They found a woman’s skull with lapis lazuli on the back of her front bottom teeth because of wetting the brush when she was illuminated texts. And we find little notes and whimsical doodles in the margins of such texts from the artists. We find prehistoric animals perfectly preserved in Siberia, even unfossilized remains perfectly preserved (very special silt conditions) from the time of the meteor impact 66 million years ago. It was in June based on the pollen, George. We find thousands of human & animal footprints in the alpine mud, Hannibal’s army. We find the Y-chromosome of Genghis Khan in millions of living men. We find Greek ships from Homer’s era on the bottom of the Black Sea in an anoxic environment, perfectly preserved. Even the record of what goes into a black hole is stored on its boundary/ event horizon. Old walls and constructions leave an imprint on the land that can later be seen from above, and the roads themselves are a historical record. Things get ‘destroyed’ all the time, but that itself leaves characteristic residue of what happened. I digress! 😄
To your point about Hunter Biden, I do think Twitter deleted some breaking claim/story about him right before the election as ‘probable misinformation’ (but I think the turned out accurate); that was bad form. People took pics of it before it was deleted, it still circulated there despite their attempts. HB’s whole career reeks of shadiness, doubtless we will find out more. The usual sickening garden variety US political corruption as opposed to the aspiring 3rd world dictator (or Silvio Berlusconi copycat?) our current pres. What a choice we were given. 🙄
I do think it should be easier to go through a court case about the truth/lie of a given story.
I think we make our own purpose, so I don’t think absolute morality exists but do not consider myself a ‘nihilist’.
Antifa doesn’t have leaders; it’s a long running joke for people online to claim to be ‘President of Antifa’. When the current Proud Boys leader wears a shirt that says ‘Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong’, well... it’s not a surprise if someone finds that fascist and wants to counter march. I do think their place is marching in the street, not deciding who speaks at a school.
I would have thought you, with Thoreau, would see a border for what it is, especially considering your own border experience. A state is a large successful gang, with all the same underlying motivations and mechanisms. A tribal construct, though the larger it is of course the less parochial and petty but also more bureaucratically stupid... Socrates knew this as well; by all means, enjoy your place in it, I guess??
Anyway, do you have an opinion on the Robert Frost poem Mending Wall?
PS: The powerful within a state want to be able to expand their turf/hegemony through it, yet want that to have defined boundaries to control markets and who is ‘allowed to be’ where. Freedom when it profits them, barriers when *that* profits them. At the same time, to store their money safely ‘away’. If someone were serious about self-sufficiency of a region or country, they would ensure that the capabilities to be self-sufficient were not allowed to wither away, but somehow that’s never made the focus. For instance, Brexit could have meant relying on and fostering delicious local produce, and instead they were turning it into ‘accept all the US’s low-quality surplus crap food production, and btw, maybe privatize the NHS to US business.’ These supposed nationalists and patriots love their big business kickbacks; well, that was the business side of fascism too. The Spartans, original fascists, also were famous for individually betraying their national interests to the Persians for embarrassingly small amounts of money. Some kind of trend there maybe 😄
My other concept of a what a state is George Orwell’s version in Animal Farm, where essentially it is a zone of exploitation controlled by the owner for the benefit of the owner; a farm (often run with methods agnostic or downright counter to sustainability as well).
So while I do admire all manner of local culture, architecture, aesthetics, food, etc. (it could be argued these developed partially from the necessities determined by the landscape itself, historically), I also do not forget the coercive nature of borders and other structures contingent on physical force.
To say EVERYTHING is sheer nonsense. How many dinosaurs were completely obliterated by the mega comet explosion or evaporated by massive volcanic eruptions? Sure, here and there bones exist. BUT NOT ALL THE BONES OF EVERYTHING, which is precisely what you stipulate. And the same goes with writing! How many poems, for example, have been burnt into oblivion in the dumpster of time?
A thousand of my photos were erased forever. A professional tech team could not locate them on my hard drive. Period. And I'm sure you'll come up with something here, but something that sure as hell will not find the photos!
It is wise to avoid all-encompassing generalities, as well as stereotypes.
NEVER did I write or imply that old bones and writings have NEVER been found. I don't know how you got swerved into that odd assumption with my regard.
Contrary to your statement, the misinformation nonsense deleted and/or not covered by the MSM was in fact real information. And yet, you seem to deny that. Joe Biden's entire career in politics has been one of corruption. How else to explain his mansion(s)? To dismiss that as somehow okay because, well, its "garden variety" is simply aberrant. Clearly, Joe is part of the Hunter Biden scandal. He is certainly not separate from it.
How precisely was Trump "an aspiring 3rd world dictator"? Again, kill the messenger! And why Berlusconi when we have Maduro and Castro and Xi-Jinping and other left-wing dictators still alive and dictating?
How can you deny that Antifa has organizers and leaders? Riots were planned. They were sure as hell not haphazard. George Soros stands as great puppet master of left-wing anarchist fascists like Antifa, who seek to kill free speech. Was it Proud Boy nazis who were rioting across the country this year? No. The left wants to inflate Neo-nazis as a huge threat to democracy. I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find just one Neo-nazi where you live. But easy as hell to find a BLM fascist.
Well, for you I'll hunt for the Frost poem, though I am definitely not a fan of any poet who becomes anointed by a political hack. Well, I tried briefly, but couldn't find it. Can you send a link... please?
Without borders, chaos. I'd rather have some degree of hack control than absolute chaos. Look at what's happening to California thanks to open border chaos.
You seem to miss the point RE Brexit! The people voted to get the hell out of ex-Stasi Merkel's socialist EU. And yet, they're still not out. It is mind-numbing for you to reduce Brexit to shitty American food!
Clearly, there is no solution for the US... except two separate nations... which will likely not occur. For the left, the only solution, which is not really a solution, is the elimination of criticism, something the MSM, Twitter, Google, Facebook et al have been working on. The US is heading in the direction of the former leftist USSR, including the leftist gulag archipelago. That is my prediction... and I won't be around to see it become reality. The left certainly does NOT stand for freedom, but rather for ideology, the very opposite of freedom. Perhaps years ago, it did. But not now.
Well, you seem like an idealist. I sure as hell am not...
Au plaisir,
T
Hi again Tod(?)/ Dr. T,
In German the word Tod is ominous, I am semi-consciously reluctant to use it, though French or English are perhaps the only apropos languages here.
I say ‘everything’ because physics is exact, and everything therefore has its imprint or entanglement with the whole, things are only transformed. This was not meant to be an argument but a reflection for poets. I tell you even the thoughts in our heads are electrical signals both influenced by and emanating out into the rest of the universe forever, just a physical fact. Not saying we as humans do not ‘lose’ information with our current finite sensing abilities. But nothing can actually go, only be transformed in ways that depend on what it was in the first place.
To get back to the matter of Hunter Biden 😂, didn’t I say the reports seemed to have real content? That Twitter did trammel them in a way that in retrospect was definitely unjustified? Why must I talk about this guy? 🙏😂 And yes, his father may be benefiting somehow; at the least he was trading on his father’s name. To continue talking about disappointing people, Kushner also did when he met with Saudi Arabia to agree interlocking quids pro quo. This president cares only about loyalty to him and was rewarding and penalizing states (Charlie Baker was furious) with pandemic supplies based on political considerations. Berlusconi because he is exactly this kind of vain propagandizing sleazebag, but who wanted to use the military to break up peaceful crowds (and did use border patrol people far inland as his own private unmarked federal police bundling suspected demonstrators into rented minivans in cities for ‘arrest’ though they were released as they didn’t have anything on them). (1/2)
I don’t see the problem in CA except 1. their prisons are overcrowded and appalling and more people probably need released 2. housing is overpriced for the same reasons it is in eastern MA and jobs need to be spread more equally geographically again.
I’ve not met any violent people in MA although I did see some yahoos tearing around the roundabout in Hudson MA flying a confederate flag(??) so I flipped them off, but Michigan is where I knew of actual violent militias and white supremacist types who my friends had run-ins with. I have never witnessed leftist violence firsthand; I saw Antifa kids at a Boston demo and they were simply 110lb highschoolers w/ bandanas over their faces. *I* wanted to physically protect *them*😄 You still don’t get that riots can also be spontaneous and physically separate from the protests. That seems to have happened a lot. What is this right-wing bs about Soros, jfc, when will I even see evidence of anything bad that guy has done (he advocates more progressive politics in Hungary, great). And when did Xi Jinping become a leftist. To cast doubt on an election that had bipartisan safeguards in the states’ counting processes and say insane conspiracy theories without repeating those in court b/c there’s no evidence, seeking to throw out votes from ‘the enemy’ is a push toward apartheid.
It was inexcusable to push for no reason to delay election certification for Wayne county (Detroit and some suburbs). My brother was a poll worker in Detroit (during the voting itself); I certainly had it with those fuckers at the state level just stalling/contesting for a while b/c they were taking cues from this, uh, mercurial president, but no content anywhere. So all of it nationwide (except I think 1 small deadline difference upheld somewhere in PA?) thrown out of every court at every turn. The gall of possibly having a civic duty to go in the street to ensure the democratic transition to... Joe Biden... 🙄😂
As for Brexit, there’s the potential to do something good with it, but everything I’ve seen is just worse for the farmers and working class. I’ve not seen one thing that would be an improvement, just symbolism.
I grow ever more disillusioned (illusions perdues?) year on year, we’ll see what I think in coming years. But things have definitely been/ are currently better in other times and places than they are here in the US now. So I am interested in trying for improvement.
Mme X
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall
Which hack were you referring to re:Frost btw? He was quite an impressive poet in all fronts, in my opinion.
Et ben pourquoi "mort" n'est pas pantoute aussi menaçant que "Tod" ? Ah, parce que le dernier, c'est ben moi et dissident ! :)
When physics becomes politicized, it inevitably becomes un=exact.
Well, if the CAL prisons are overcrowded, that evidently means crime in CAL is surging. Releasing prisoners will likely increase the crime problem. It is certainly not a solution. One possibility that few seem to suggest might be WORK. Able-bodied prisoners, if released ought to be forced to work for money and help improve failing infrastructure. But if they refuse, then what?
How are you possibly unaware of leftist Antifa/BLM violence and widespread looting and destruction? That in itself is mind-boggling! And for you to somehow imply that yahoos with Confederate flags were a far more important problem than the left-wing looters is also mind-boggling. Clearly, there was a behind-the-scenes orchestration RE the rioting/looting. If there wasn't, then the rioting would have been stopped by law enforcers. How can you NOT understand that? BTW, I am NOT a friend of cops. I have a number of personal experience incidents with them that turned me against them. Also, how to turn a blind eye to cop corruption in MA?
Soros' moolah has been funding all sorts of corrupt persons from Hillary to Warnock and Gascon. CAL has become a mess, thanks in part to Soros money, which helped fund riots and voting fraud. Google it, that is, if Google hasn't eliminated the info to help put smiles on the faces of progs.
Prog politics is another term for communist totalitarianism.
Xi is the leader of a communist left-wing totalitarian (is there any other kind?) regime. Since when is communism right-wing? Read up on Solzhenitsyn's accounts of Soviet left-wing communism, including the gulags. Read his "The Oak and the Calf" account of communism and literature. Then perhaps you will understand why I fervently reject prog communism/socialism and its Pravda media.
Throughout Europe today, free speech has been diminished to the point where it is no longer free... thanks to prog socialism. Clearly, you are fine with no free speech. As an open critic, I canNOT be fine with that!
Voter fraud is NOT an "insane conspiracy theory," another facile/denier AVOID/KILL THE MESSAGE term. Read the list of fraud compiled by Attkisson: https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/11/what-youve-been-asking-for-a-fairly-complete-list-of-some-of-the-most-significant-claims-of-2020-election-miscounts-errors-or-fraud/. Or simply remain in your prog bubble of "there's no evidence" BS. Educate yourself, Mme X!
One thing that would be an improvement with Brexit is LIBERTY, INDIVIDUALITY, FREEEEDOM OF SPEECH and thus an end to EU prog socialism-communism, something that of course you embrace. THE PEOPLE voted for BREXIT. There is NO BREXIT. That already is indicative of the iron-grip of prog socialism-communism.
Frost read at JFK's inauguration. Now, do you think he read something critical RE the Kennedy clan? Well, poets schmoozing with hacks or hack poets, at least, do give me grist for my creative mill. Poets in general dare not bite the diverse hands feeding them and thus ineluctably suppress rude truths. I stand as an exception. For me, poets should stand for rude truth, not for prizes, anointments, idols, publication credentials and tenure.
Now, my advice to you: stand up, be a strong woman, and STOP hiding behind a veil of pseudonymity!
T
Hi again Tod,
I just didn’t want to use the name unless you really want to & it really is your name, but this is due to my idiosyncratic personal version of politesse; I don’t expect anyone to understand this. The closest parallel (but far more extreme/obvious) is when I refused to refer to some guy online as ‘Schweinehund!’ even though this was his self-chosen moniker.
The CA prison problem is a story of draconian drug laws especially of past decades. The prisoners do work for barely any money, including being depended on to fight fires; then they are often not considered for those jobs upon release due to their record. Very messed up; surprised you do not know the actual content of their problem.
You lump Antifa and BLM together, and say they ‘planned riots’ and somehow this was also in coordination with the police, what? 😂🧐 Isn’t it more plausible the police go after the demonstrators b/c they hate them (show me an actual demo where the police weren’t there), and this gives a free hand to the rioters who are elsewhere in the city? Honestly. You can’t be saying that MA police corruption is... toward being friends with Antifa?? 😆Watch them interact sometime!
As for Soros and ‘Prog politics is another term for communist totalitarianism‘, congratulations, you sound just like trashy online right-wing-propagandists, which you don’t believe Breitbart is, but they are. Here you go re: Soros- this is what I found. https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN23P2XJ
I have read the Gulag Archipelago, why don’t you refresh your memory what the unaccountable & murderous Soviet state under Stalin was really like. The problem is dictatorship, not the supposed orientation of left- right- or center. ‘Communist’ China doesn’t really provide much for their people, it’s a dictatorial bureaucracy, I call it center, in reality. There have definitely been right-totalitarians too; as I said the issue/problem is dictatorship, and any kind of overweening hierarchy that leads that way. So tell me what this current president could do and call for before you will admit that he wants to overturn the election results to stay in office? People can make claims, but the courts (and republican officials such as in GA) tossed it out because there was no evidence of them.
As for Brexit, you’re putting words in my mouth to correspond with your clichéed concept of what I think. Brexit would be a chance for Britain to have a nice localist economy, strengthen their farming & manufacturing etc., but that would not enable max profit for those ruling Britain (Boris and friends, Tories is who I mean), so they are moving toward ‘free trade’ with trash US exports, how is that better than the EU? It’s potentially a lot worse in terms of environmental laws, worker conditions, etc. Keep an eye on *what* they agree to as part of Brexit & after and we’ll see if it’s really better in any way.
As for Frost, he probably would have to be much more direct or concentrated in what he says for you to think he’s saying enough, fine. Still an excellent poet although your sole criterion these days might be how directly the poet attacks power, fine. Did you read Mending Wall?
Lastly, I am not going to make an exception & give my full name etc. online just for you when I didn’t give it out before. Additionally, I can just see my brother or friends sighing at me, “I can’t *believe* you spend your time arguing with strangers online, Christine... [insert statement about G. Tod’s political and racial views] What do you hope to accomplish? How are your preparations for spring farming?”
In other words, let’s talk about the terrain of France or Québec, but I am probably going to stop on these other topics b/c I don’t think we’re getting anywhere.
Bonsoir, Mme X/ Christine
So, the implication is no murderers, rapists, or thieves in prison, just dope smokers... and somehow I'm not aware of that. Hmm.
Not sure where you got that from: cops coordinating with Antifa rioters and looters? No. Cops are ordered from prog leaders to stand down... and basically that's what they did in many cases.
Salut Mme X qui n'a aucun courage,
The evidence of voter fraud is omnipresent. Your no evidence claim is simply absurd and utterly blind. You didn't even bother examining those two websites I posted here?
Judges are just hacks who climb the careerist ladder. They are a sad lot in general today bec. of egregious political bias and their ability to twist the law into something that it is not. I had an experience with a female judge in Concord, who sure as hell cared a hell of a lot more for her beloved career than for FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
Soros is an extreme left-wing prog. Examine where he puts his money. I recall once upon a time the left was bellowing against the Koch brothers. Not now. The Koch want open borders... just like Herr Soros.
You need to refresh your memory RE how the left was in love with Stalin during his reign of terror, including the Holodomor. But again my interest is more in the literary arena, than in the political one.
Brexit is much more about INDEPENDENCE, FREEEEDOM, LIMITED IMMIGRATION, and of course DEMOCRACY. Free speech is dead in England, thanks to the controlling bureaucrats of the EU.
I am certainly not into reading poems by a poet JFK hack like Frost.
Stand up! Be a fuckin' woman! To hell with what your brother and friends might think of how you spend your time!
And what are my purported racial views?
Where were we supposed to get? To Proglandia?
Well, I probably know the "terrain" of Quebec better than that of France nowadays. BUT it all depends on what you mean by terrain...
Au plaisir,
T
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