Kate Ryan

Issue #18                                        Winter/Spring 2009

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Editorial Issue #18/ 2009

Against the Established Order—Check out the new AD blog wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com—

Given the times, The American Dissident ought to be receiving a lot of submissions decrying corrupt politicians, left and right, corrupt lobbyists, corrupt CEOs, intellectually-corrupt professors and poets, etc.  On the contrary, it does not.  And what it does receive tends to be scribbled by writers who cannot seem to comprehend the journal’s focus and guidelines. Poets, editors, and other writers seem content relegating American literature to mere ornamentation. Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics boasts, for example, a blurb from Howard Zinn, but publishes interviews with Pinsky, Hass, Kooser, and others anointed by the established order.  In that light, how could it possibly take my criticism of the National Endowment for the Arts seriously (see pp 30-38)?  “We don't do rants, which is what your piece reads like to me. It's really self-involved and paranoid,” wrote co-editor Joel Whitney, who does not have the guts to publish those who would criticize the NEA, preferring instead to publish self-admitting sellouts like Billy Collins, who states unabashedly:  "Suddenly you're asked to stop looking at specifics—I mean, I write about saltshakers and knives and forks—and talk like a politician.”  Well, I don’t write about saltshakers, nor do I talk like a politician (left or right-wing), therefore I must surely be, in the words of Whitney, “blinded by ego and rage.”  A decade ago, Michael Parenti (Z Mag) simply wrote me: “we’re not interested in literature.”  In retrospect, his statement makes sense.  
          The NEA will not be according The American Dissident public grant monies because its panelists unanimously proclaimed: the “artistic merit of the publication is low; the design and readability of the publication is [sic] poor.”  Some pipedream that was, eh?! In vain, I challenged the NEA on its negative unanimity, asked for precision, and got none at all (read the essay). After all, I’m just a citizen “blinded by ego and rage.”  Clearly, the NEA’s decision was a political one, and such political decisions should not be legal… and perhaps are not, but what the hell can I do against the vast government wall?  
          On a positive note, the Concord Free Public Library allowed me to hold a watercolor display in its art gallery for the month of August. There, I was actually permitted to criticize the local pillars, while advertising The AD.  One curator noted: “The only thing I know is that I have never seen anything like your work in the Gallery.  You don't soothe, you awaken.”  That alone made it worthwhile. I asked curator Nick Capasso of DeCordova Museum to check it out. He did.  “While DeCordova Museum does have a long track record of presenting politically engaged contemporary art, I’m afraid that we will not be able to include your work in our exhibition program. Good luck fining [sic] other venues for your work.”  So, I painted a watercolor depicting him as a Nazi at the gates of the art museum autocratically determining acceptable aesthetics (see p. 3).  He’s depicted in the center of the illustration surrounded by colleagues Kois and Rosenfield.  The pig and hearts actually exist at the museum, which tends to promote, despite Capasso’s assertion, diversionary art that doesn’t question or challenge much of anything at all. Now, when was the last time you’ve heard of an artist satirizing an art curator? The editor wishes to thank subscribers for making The American Dissident possible.  Robbins Library (Arlington, MA) is a new institutional subscriber!  

Beacher Wiggins

The following open letter was sent in 2014.  

Open Letter (2014)
To the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center,
Another Odd Sponsor of Banned Books Week Proudly… Banning Books

Should public servants be in the business of determining what literature should be accepted and what literature should be rejected at the publicly-funded Library of Congress?  Should they be serving as Gatekeepers of Propriety—Grand Censors and Banners of Books?  How can such activity possibly conform with the principles of democracy?  

Beacher Wiggins, Director for Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access, finally responded to my query, originally sent in January 2014, then again in August and again in September of the same year, regarding the procedure for getting the Library of Congress to subscribe (only $20/year) to The American Dissident, a 501c3 nonprofit journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence.  His response was a curt “My apologies for not having responded to your earlier message.  The Library has determined that it will not acquire your serial.”  Period.  I’d received the same kind of curt response from the NEA regarding a grant request.  And the NEA refused to provide any details as to why its flat-out rejection of the journal as “low” and “poor.”  Of course, anything critical of the NEA or Library of Congress or National Poetry Month or Academy of American Poets or any other established-order organization, cog, or icon would have to be deemed “low” and “poor.”  

                As for Rob Casper, Director of the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center, he has yet to respond to my query as to how The American Dissident might be placed on his shelves (i.e., the public shelves of the Library of Congress!).  He and Wiggins have yet to respond to my request for details on the process of determination, that is, acquisition and non-acquisition.  Is their silence with that regard an indirect statement that the simple opinion of public-servant apparatchiks is the determining factor?  After all, how can one possibly make an objective determination regarding poetry and poetry criticism?  

Does the collection development policy of the Library of Congress include, like so many other libraries, the American Library Association's “Library Bill of Rights” statement that "libraries should provide materials and information providing ALL points of view"?  If so, why do chief acquisitions apparatchiks like Casper and Wiggins not adhere to it?  If not, why is that statement not part of it?  Do they espouse the left’s inclusivity mantra?  If so, why do they effect de facto exclusion.  Hypocrites?

Clearly, The American Dissident is a unique literary journal because it dares criticize what few if any other journals dare criticize:  the academic/literary established order.  Indeed, it questions and challenges, in the spirit of democracy, organizations like Poetry Foundation, the NEA, the Academy of American Poets, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and PEN America.  It has been critical of the knee-jerk ostracizing and banning of viewpoints subjectively deemed inappropriate or uncivil.  In fact, it also criticizes, in the spirit of democracy, the Library of Congress itself, including the aforementioned apparatchiks and its CEO Librarian James H. Billington.  The front cover of issue #18, for example, featured a satire on Billington and the poet he chose to be Poet Laureate of the USA (see https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=239569862679528067#allposts).  The front cover of issue #30 also featured Billington, this time with his new anointed poet laureate (see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2016/01/juan-felipe-herrera.html).
Perhaps it was the watercolor I did on the Poetry Society of America that irritated Casper, former Programs Director of Poetry Society of America (see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/08/alice-quinn.html)? Satire?  We no need no stinkin satire!  Is that it?  Sadly, those visiting the Library of Congress will not be exposed to such satire and criticism thanks to its gatekeepers.   Moreover,  one must wonder how American education failed not only them, but also the many American poets who manage to intellectually accept without question or challenge such an autocratic anointment effected by one man, Billington.  

Why have Casper and Wiggins decided to essentially ban The American Dissident from a publicly-funded library of the purported representative of the American public, the Congress?  Well, you’d have to ask them, for they have not been responsive at all.  After all, they do not have to be responsive, for they are public servants wholly unaccountable to the public.  As citizens are increasingly learning (hopefully!), public servants from President Obama to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on down seem to be less and less accountable nowadays.  

Essentially, Casper and Wiggins have decided to ban hardcore criticism of the academic/literary established order, including that targeting the Library of Congress itself, from the publicly-funded shelves of the Library of Congress.  What a twisted sense of DEMOCRACY they must possess!  Shame on those who gave them the power of selection (i.e., banning)!  Perhaps Casper and Wiggins might wish to reflect, stand up as men (as opposed to careerist ladder climbers), speak honestly for once in their lives, where few librarians would dare, and openly express their true scorn for and disagreement with the ALA’s core statement as noted above.   Pipedream?  Likely! 

Finally, as the PC-hammer and sickle, represented by Casper and Wiggins, continues making progress in America, how not to be outraged?  Casper and Wiggins illustrate the fundamental problem with America as a democracy.  The country is much too large to operate as a democracy.  Its public servants will often simply not respond to the public.  The powerful organization Judicial Watch serves as an example, for it must battle tooth and nail to obtain Freedom of Information documents from the Obama administration.  Now, how can a simple publisher like me expect to obtain a response?  

Beacher Wiggins

Hear ye!  Hear ye!  The Library of Congress will NOT stock issues of The American Dissident!  Why not?  Evidently, it cannot bear valid criticism.  Below is the front cover of Issue #18, featuring the Library of Congress and banned by the Library of Congress, one of the key sponsors, oh but of course, of BANNED BOOKS WEEK.