Becky Tuch and The Review Review

A Review of Becky Tuch and Her Review Review
Well, I was looking through NewPages.com and bumped into "The fastest growing literary magazine in the PNW, Belletristmagazine is 'breathtaking, a joy to read!' (The Review Review)."  Breathtaking... oh, yeah!  Vaguely, I recalled having a mano a mano with Mme Review Review.  So, I checked to see if I'd done a cartoon with her regard.  Sure enough I had (see  https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2012/10/becky-tuch.html). 

Below is Becky Tuch's 2010 review of The American Dissident (and comments), unsurprisingly not very positive.  The bold print is mine.  After the review is the brief exchange I had with Tuch, who then essentially did not respond to any of the points made in my critique of her review.  

Ideologues generally never respond to point-by-point counterarguments.  For them, there is no room for REASON that challenges their ideology and certainly no room for VIGOROUS DEBATE.  Clearly, Tuch learned her lesson:  it is best not to respond when one does not have any cogent responses.  For ideologues, there is plenty of room, however, for broad nonsensical groupthink echo-demonization epithets as in RACIST!  ISLAMOPHOBE!  NAZI!  NEOCON! HATER! WHITE NATIONALIST!  If you do not agree with the Tuchs, then you are automatically branded with a scarlet letter A, or rather R for right-winger...

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http://www.thereviewreview.net/reviews/politics-poetry-propaganda

Politics, Poetry, Propaganda

Review of American Dissident, Winter 

2010

by Becky Tuch

Rating: 

G. Tod Slone has a bone to pick. With academia, the literary establishment, state cultural councils, and with many editors of literary magazines. Thus his literary magazine American Dissident pays tribute to his ideals, publishing poetry, cartoons, correspondences and essays which treat themes of injustice and corruption, both within the literary establishment and elsewhere.

Slone’s effort is an admirable one. As someone whose favorite summer pastime was Bread and Puppet—a giant puppet show in Vermont which united puppeteering with politics—I love to see the worlds of art and activism converge. I agree when Slone says there isn’t nearly enough of this happening in literary communities, and it is trenchant of him to observe that academia has turned many a would-be-activist into a tenure-seeking-hand-shaker.

Yet when it comes to the arguments put forth by much of the poetry in American Dissident, I am not in agreement. Nor do I find much of the poetry particularly moving. The language is often prosaic, the message as clear as a bludgeon to the head. In some cases, the politics offended me. In other cases, it was grammar mistakes and/or spelling errors which offended. 

But, the good: Lauren Fleck-Staff’s “What Would They Say” is a lovely reflection upon the disconnect between global atrocities and academic comfort—“And who am I to stick out my lip/considering famine/ between lunch and dinner?” Similarly Mather Schneider’s poem “Social” admirably addresses the flaws of health care: “It was the end of an 11 hour day and I was thinking/ the only way to get health insurance/ is to be either wealthy/ or DIRT poor.”

It’s important to note that instead of the usual cover letter with a list of qualifications and publishing credits, Sloane invites submitters to describe a time they dissented in public, fought for free speech, or, as Sloane is fond of saying, spoken “the rude truth to power.”

I think this is a neat endeavor. I love the idea of caring more about writers’ activism than about their credentials. I certainly enjoy reading about people’s personal lives more than about where they went to school. In a particularly personal note, Rosalyn Becker writes that she “took tranquilizers and sleeping pills to force myself to work a job I hated—telephone operator for Ma Bell.” And Doug Draime tells of us his lifelong struggle to be a poet, giving up, starting over, giving up again, starting over again.

But mostly the poems in this journal celebrate individualism. Lauren Horth’s “Why Is It” ends with a plaintive cry for “free speech,/ individualism, reality.” Marina Sanot’s “Outsider” tells the reader that “You don’t have to do what they say/ Or believe what they think or/ Listen to their knowledge that/ they force upon you.” The editor’s own poem, “Poem #3 for a Hack of Bourgeois Hegemony” begins, “For democracy,/ I stood alone.”

Is the best way to combat political corruption by standing alone? By asserting one’s individualism? American Dissident seems to think so. Thus while the journal seeks to celebrate “literature, democracy and dissidence” it often reads as little more than libertarian propaganda.  

Or, in some cases, right-wing diatribe. Andrew Cook’s “Freedom” might find a suitable audience at a Republican rally with its nostalgia for a simpler time in America, its use of the pronoun “we” to assume an audience of alienated whites, as in “We are immigrants in our own country.” This poem's nostalgia for an old-fashioned America is both offensive and naive, as are its narrow-minded racial remarks. And it is sloppy with its grammar—“Chain-link fences and barred windows/have replace white picket fences” (italics mine.)

I found Doug Draime’s “Writers Writing Graven Images in Time” similarly offensive, but in a different way. Draime writes, “what is truth never changes/ never alters/ never stops being/ and is the only thing/ that is real.” This emphasis on the “truth” as being fixed and immutable is utterly ridiculous. Whose truth? Whose reality? Is the poet really claiming that there is one fixed truth which does not change, and is this not the very sort of claim used to justify social oppression for centuries? 

Comments

#1 Hate speech 

Posted by Ron (not verified) on Dec 21, 2010 at 7:06AM

Hate speech by its very nature self-immolating. Someone who descries not having health care insurance under an oppressive capitalism should not then rail against it because it is part of a socialist takeover. It is a blind infuriating fury that is expressed by these dissidents, no self-awareness of contradictory rhetoric, no logical development of a coherent ideology, just rancorous rage and paranoia at anyone who disagrees with them. If you don't publish their poetry you are part of a power structure that does not recognize their greatness, if you reject their ideas you are oppressing them and marginalizing them, if you don't take their fliers you are holding back the TRUTH that is the greatest truth of all truthfulness, the truth that is truest of all truth, their Truth. In psychology they call that delusional paranoia.

• reply 

#2 Ron, you are correct that one 

Posted by Ian Thal (not verified) on Dec 21, 2010 at 11:07AM

Ron, you are correct that one aspect of G. Tod Slone's on-going tirade against corruption is how his work isn't being published, how he isn't receiving grants, and how people are dismissive of his views. All of these things, to him, pointed towards a conspiracy.

This was manifested in his rage against the people associated with the (now discontinued) Foetry website, which had proved itself to be quite effective at identifying genuine corruption within the most high-profile poetry competitions.

• reply 

#3 Hi Becky, Thanks for alerting 

Posted by Ian Thal (not verified) on Dec 20, 2010 at 11:26PM

Hi Becky,

Thanks for alerting me to your review. I too have noted in my exchanges with Slone that his "dissidence" seems mostly motivated by his personal paranoia and that he often toys with extremist rhetoric (though I haven't delved into it as deeply as you have-- simply due to lack of interest in spending any more time on him.) My back-and-forth with Slone is recounted here:

http://ianthal.blogspot.com/search/label/G.%20Tod%20Slone

I've also had my own experiences with Bread & Puppet and found a similar tone of extremist ideology lurking in the background of the idealism that originally attracted me, so given that similar background, you may find this of interest:

http://ianthal.blogspot.com/2007/04/breaking-with-bread-and-puppet.html

• reply 

#4 B&P 

Posted by TheReviewReview on Dec 21, 2010 at 11:00AM

Ian,

Thanks so much for your comments. I will have to check out your blog on Bread and Puppet. I was going when I was a teenager, so of course didn't think too deeply about what views might be lurking under the surface. But it's always good to consider everything carefully before being too quickly swayed by a point of view...or by puppets!...Thanks again for reading the review, and best of luck with your own work.

• reply 

#5 You're very welcome. 

Posted by Ian Thal (not verified) on Dec 21, 2010 at 11:19AM

You're very welcome. Becky.

For a couple of years, I became quite notorious in Bread & Puppet circles and that particular blog entry developed into a series of analyses and interviews.

I enjoyed my time working with Bread & Puppet, but quickly came to see Schumann's frequent heavy-handedness defeating his more poetic tendencies-- and as a consequence some of the same tendencies we see in The American Dissident make themselves manifest. Of course, a major problem is that Schumann never really got over the fact that Germany lost WWII-- and every now and then this will come up in an interview, or more subtly in his art.

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From: George Slone [todslone@hotmail.com]
To: 99review@gmail.com
Sent: Mon, January 3, 2011 10:46:49 AM
Subject: Review of a Review

Hi Becky Tuch,

A friend just told me yesterday that your review of The American Dissident was up on your site.  If you’d told me you’d posted it, I would have responded a lot sooner.  Perhaps you didn’t want me to see it or respond?  After all, your review is a far cry from your initial email sent in October.

Hi Mr. Slone,
My name is Becky Tuch.  I just came upon American Dissident while doing a search for "Literary Industrial Complex." Your journal looks awesome. Of course, I'd seen it before at bookstores, but am especially excited to see all the past essays posted on your site.
I edit a website that reviews literary magazines, The Review Review. I was wondering if you might like to add us to your mailing list? I would love to review an issue of AD, to get the word out to readers about what a great journal it is.
Thanks so much, and keep up the great work,
Becky

“G. Tod Slone has a bone to pick,” begins your review in a rather “offensive” fashion, to use your term of predilection.  Yet could an independently thinking citizen actually not have a “bone to pick,” given the intrinsically corrupt nature of our society, including the academic/literary establishment sector?  Since you live in Massachusetts, are you totally unaware of the intrinsic corruption in state and local government?  Only a non-thinker or perhaps a thinking ladder climber, who’s learned the fine art of turning a blind eye and muzzling herself, would not have a “bone to pick.”  

Anyhow, thanks for the initial compliment, though one-star is not exactly laudatory.  Does every review get at least one star?   Or do some actually get no stars at all?  I’d love to consult a review you gave five-stars.  Now, that would really be fun.  Yes, I’d love to see that poetry!  

You note, “Nor do I find much of the poetry particularly moving. The language is often prosaic, the message as clear as a bludgeon to the head.”  As you likely know, most poets do not write dissident verse.  They tend instead to write anything but.  In fact, that’s why I like to bludgeon.  In that sense, I certainly stand at antipodes to the flowery, court-jestering poet herd.  My message is blindingly clear that way.  Who said poetry had to be obfuscatory and wordy?  Art for art saking is evidently not my purpose.  It’s the purpose of the poet herd.  Who said TRUTH cannot be BLUNT and BLUDGEONING?  Ralph Waldo Emerson did pair the word RUDE with TRUTH ("go upright and vital and speak the RUDE TRUTH in all ways").  And that makes a lot of sense, at least to me.  The RUDE TRUTH pisses people off… or, in your words, is offensive, prosaic, bludgeoning.  

“In some cases, the politics offended me,” you state.  As I tell my university students, always include an example or two to back such statements.   I also tell them to buck up and not be so easily offended!  What precise politics offended you?  If you remain vague, I can’t possibly counter-argue.  

“In other cases, it was grammar mistakes and/or spelling errors which offended,” you state.  Reading that statement, one would think The American Dissident to be loaded with botched grammar and spelling errors.  I know that not to be even remotely true.  Your implication is botched reportage.  BTW, you’ve misspelled my name several times!  Should I therefore be offended and conclude that your reviews are riddled with offensive spelling errors?  Likely, you’ll ignore that riposte.  

 “Is the best way to combat political corruption by standing alone?” you state regarding your belief that that’s my belief. Yet never do I state such a thing… anywhere.   On the contrary, the best way is likely via compromise and that means compromising ones principles.  That’s not my way.  My way is not the best way.  But democracy demands different ways be given voice in the marketplace of ideas.  It demands the possiblity of the RUDE-TRUTH way, which is evidently my way, not your way.  My purpose is to denounce corruption, be it in academe, the public-funding process, and/or in the poetry milieu.  It is to stand up and express myself with as little self-censoring as possible.  I do not filter my writing in order to get published and climb the literary ladder, which seems to be the litmus test for “success” applied by one of your commenters, Ian Thal.  Speaking the truth as I see it, as opposed to how you want me to see it, is what I try to do.   And like others, I too know damn well when opening my mouth might prove detrimental to my literary or career “success.”   However, it is likely that I break the taboos much more often than most poets or artists, you and Thal included, would ever dare.  That’s what makes me different.  That’s what gets me ostracized.  That’s what works against “success.”  That’s what doesn’t get me cultural-council grants.  That’s what did not get me tenure.  That’s what pissed Thal off.  

“Thus while the journal seeks to celebrate ‘literature, democracy and dissidence’ it often reads as little more than libertarian propaganda,” you write.  “Or, in some cases, right-wing diatribe.”  Again, you fail to present one precise example of “libertarian propaganda.”  And your one example of “right-wing diatribe” is not at all clear.  Of course, one would have to ask what your definition of right-wing might be?  Do you define “right-wing diatribe” as anything critical of the left-wing?  If so, then, yes, certainly accuse me of “right-wing diatribe”!  But who cares?  Your accusation only serves to divert attention.  It would be a lot more pertinent if you’d point to one precise example of a LIE in The American Dissident.  Where precisely have I, as editor, prevaricated?  That’s the real question, not whether or not I’m right-wing or libertarian or tea party or neocon.  The question is not whether or not I RAGE or BLUDGEON.  

Criticize the left, and the left will ineluctably dismiss the criticism as “right-wing diatribe,” no matter how true.  That’s been my experience.  That’s become both the shame and weakness of the left.  Just the same, I am certainly not right wing.  I detest the corporations that Obama snuggles with.  I detest the wars that Obama wages.  I detest religions:  christian AND muslim.  I detest the lack of transparency that Obama surrounds himself in (thanks Wikileaks!).   Yes, but I also detested those things when they involved Bush.  I’ve never voted for a Democrat or Republican.  I did vote for Ralph Nader in 2000.  Is he now viewed as a right-winger because he upset Gore?  I wouldn’t be at all surprised.  I am against the corporate feeding frenzy on illegal CHEAP labor.  Since that is not the PC-party line, does that automatically make me a racist or someone who publishes racists?  Or perhaps that makes you right-wing, since, if you favor illegal immigration, you must also favor that corporate-feeding frenzy.  Ideologues can never reason with clarity.  Am I automatically racist because I criticized Obama?  Is that how you think?  Wasn’t your remark on alienated white people a racist remark against whites?  You write as if the Republican Party had no black members at all!  Oh, yes, those aren’t blacks, they’re Uncle Toms.  Is it right-wing to note that the death of Ted Kennedy’s DOG was front page news in the Cape Cod Times recently, while the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan in the same paper were listed on the last page?  In what sands do you bury your head, Mme Review Review?  I’m really curious!  

You’ve used the PC-leftist mantra “offensive” three times in your review.  Should I conclude therefore that you are a PC-leftist?  Can a few spelling errors actually “offend” you?  What did your mother teach you?  Mine taught me, “sticks and stones…”  In other words, she taught me to toughen up and build spine.  The PC-left wants everyone to wimper down, not to question and challenge, so it can control and live in un-ecological mansions, drive in un-ecological limos and fly in un-ecological jets, while parading around as green.  No thanks!  And who gives a damn if you’re offended… by the TRUTH?  I for one certainly don’t.  

You note that “narrow-minded racial remarks,” are present in The American Dissident as if the journal is a racist review.  But I do not publish racial negativity… unless TRUTH.  Besides, what precisely are those remarks?  Are they made throughout the journal?  

As for your two commenters, Ron Anonymous sounds like his mind is also anonymous.  He puts all dissidents into one narrow “rancorous-rage” basket.  How easily bourgeois.  For him, I quote Leonard Weinglass, Defense Attorney for dissident Daniel Ellsberg:  “And the psychiatrist said to us you don’t want on this jury men of middle age because these are people who in the course of their lives might possibly have sacrificed principle for the sake of career, for the sake of family, and they live with that compromise and they will have and they will have a lot of disdain, even contempt for two men who did it for the sake of principle and took the risk.”   

Principle vs. Career.  Yes, they’ll hate you if you choose the former!  I do not sacrifice my principles for a dubious literary or academic career.  As for Ian Thal, he ought to focus on that quote.  I decried his nonsensical courtjester poet stage act.  Does poetry really need more jesters on the stage?  Christ, Thal even dresses up like a jester during his performances!  In any case, he too needs to support his general dismissal of me with a concrete example or two.  How else can I defend myself against his “tirade” of  my purported “on-going tirade against corruption”?  Thal too lives in Massachusetts.  Can he be blind to Democrat-party corruption in state government?  Is it a “tirade” that PEN New England (“defending freedom everywhere”… except in New England) refuses to respond to my criticism?  Is it a “tirade” that the Massachusetts Cultural Council refuses to respond to my criticism?  Is it a tirade that Doug Holder, Ian Thal, Charles Coe, Joan Houlihan, Fred Marchant, and others in the state refuse to open their doors to vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy?   They shamefully reject criticism of their incestuous milieu.  

And how does Thal know I am not being published?  I’ve had things published and without doubt much more than he.  The list of my publications runs well over 10 pages long, single spaced, New Times Roman 10 pica.  But I don’t broadcast those things every time I write!  In fact, I never do… unless I have to defend myself against unfounded accusations like Thal’s.  A new book of my caustic cartoons will soon be published (and not by me or a friend).  Recently, I had a bilingual book of poetry (French/English) published by Gival Press, and a chapbook published by Petroglyph.  Why does Thal insist pushing the lie that I’m not published?  Does my being published break his stereotypical view of me?  My cartoons are published on National Free Press’ website (see www.nationalfreepress.org/cartoonists) and the Camel Saloon recently did a special on them (see http://camelsaloonmaudit.blogspot.com).  I’ve even had highly dissident essays published (and not by friends).  But these things will not change Thal’s view.  Slone is not published.  That’s all Thal’s mind will accept.  It doesn’t matter how much proof is thrown before it.  Hell, I’ve even got a doctoral degree from a French university and wrote a 335-page thesis in French, a language I worked my ass off to learn.  What the hell does Thal have?  I’m fluent in French and Spanish, and read in Italian and German.  In fact, almost every day I read through the headlines (and articles of interest) in Der Spiegel, El Pais, Le Monde, Le Devoir, and Il Corriere della Sera.  

The public-grant according machine is corrupt and generally run by PC-leftists who practice viewpoint discrimination.  I will never get a grant from the MCC or NEA as long as such leftists favor bourgeois-type art and literature with the PC-stamp of approval.  There is indeed a kind of conspiracy against critical art and critical literature.  But it is not the kind of conspiracy where people sit together in a dark room.  It is a general conspiracy of dogmatism.  Thal can keep his head buried in the sand if he likes.  That’s his problem, not mine.  All Thal seems capable of is ad hominem insult.  Just call it “rage”.  How facile.  No need to disprove any points made.  Just dismiss it as “rage” or “personal paranoia.”  For the cartoon that ENRAGED Thal and provoked him to carry an interminable grudge with my regard, see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2010/01/ian-thal-poet-court-jester.html.  

Now, these things said, Becky, is my “effort” still “an admirable one”?  If so are you still going to do that interview, so we might get into a little more than Thalian name calling?  We could deal with some facts and I can show you actual documents, although it seems the paranoid do not have actual documents.  Yes, I can show you the no-trespass order issued by the Watertown Free Public Library without due process or the no-politcal culture regulation created by the Concord Cultural Council to keep me from funding or the letter from the NEA refusing to provide any concrete examples of why it designated The American Dissident as “low” and “poor” or the email from Doug Holder stating he would stand up on his hindlegs to insist that all viewpoints have voice in the Massachusetts poetry scene.  Sadly, Holder never did stand up.  His friend Harris Gardner refuses to allow my voice at his National Poetry Month festival in Boston.  Do you care?  Of course not!  There’s more of course… if you’re at all interested.  You might wish to look at the syllabus I created for a course in literature, democracy and dissidence, a course that so far not one college will permit me to teach.  Or how about the director of the Cape Cod Cultural Council arguing that art in the public library, which she also directs, must be “family friendly” and that there is a thin line between provocative and offensive.  Perhaps you know each other since you both seem to favor the knee-jerk, PC-offensive mantra.  

It would be interesting to discuss what a poet ought to be.  Perhaps for you a poet is an adept juggler of words, someone who fits in.  But for me, a poet should be much, much more, as should his poetry.  In any case, hope to hear from you soon and hope you have a little spine and will not be offended by this review.

Best,
    

G. Tod Slone, Founding Editor

The American Dissident, a 501 c3 Nonprofit 

Journal of Literature, Art, Democracy & Dissidence

www.theamericandissident.org

todslone@yahoo.com

217 Commerce Rd.
Barnstable, MA 02630

From: Becky Tuch <99review gmail.com="">
To: George Slone
Sent: Tue, January 4, 2011 1:12:52 PM
Subject: Re: Review of a Review

Hi Tod,

Thanks for your in-depth reply to my review. Your comments are much appreciated.

It is true that my initial email to you was upon first discovering AD. I had a lot of excitement over what I thought the journal was, or could be. Alas, upon taking a more careful look at its contents, I found myself to be in strong disagreement with many of the expressed sentiments and values contained within. I have already stated my beliefs in my review, and don't think they need to be reiterated here.

As for the misspellings of your name, I made the appropriate corrections.

Take care,

Becky

From: George Slone
To: 99review@gmail.com
Sent: Fri, March 4, 2011 12:42:14 PM
Subject: The Amer Diss

Becky,
Your review appears in the current issue of The American Dissident followed by my revised rebuttal.  You inspired me.  Inflexible minds always seem to inspire me.  And so many there are out there!  I wrote a poem.  You can read it and see your name here:  

http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/2011/01/frozen-in-mind-donkeys-vs-elephants.html.  I know you probably won’t understand it.  No matter.  You’ve also inspired me to do a cartoon/aquarelle on you further inspired by a Goya print.  It too appears in next issue.  Please do not think I am angry or think that I think that you’re angry.  I am a satirist a la Juvenal and Daumier.  En avant!

Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone

www.theamericandissident.org

Jeff Jacoby -- The Career Columnist Quandary

Needless to say, the Boston Globe would not publish, let alone respond to, the following cartoon and counter essay, regarding one of its own, columnist Jeff Jacoby.  After all, it broke a cardinal rule:  Thou shalt NOT criticize the journalists...

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Trolls Here, Trolls There, Trolls Everywhere!

Career Columnists vs. We, the People, uh, Trolls

Thou shalt not bite the hands that feed constitutes the fundamental problem confronting newspaper columnists, or any other so-called professionals, for that matter.  In the case of Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe columnist, criticism of the Boston Globe, its editor, and, of course, other columnists constitutes that taboo.  For example, Jacoby will certainly not write a column decrying the egregious anti-white racist writing of his fellow columnist, Renee Graham.  And sadly, his silence serves, like it or not, to support the black good/white bad narrative pushed by the latter.  Over the years, I’ve submitted a number of highly critical op-eds, including several critical of Graham’s blatant racism (see Black Racists with Press Badges” and “Racism, Racism, Racism Ad Nauseam, Ad Infinitum, Ad Obscurum") to the Globe, all of which were categorically rejected.  After all, I, plebe, uh, troll, have no voice.  

The idea of career columnists, who end up forming an elite group, is a bad one, because it demands one voice over and over each week, as opposed to different citizen, uh, troll voices.  It requires the career columnist to come up with something each week for his or her weekly column… and in the absence of a good idea, fluff is always a viable option.  And indeed Jacoby’s latest column is a good example of the latter, “Column-writing in the Internet age is much better. And much worse."  Sure, there’s the opportunity of plebe letters to the editor, but that venue demands very short critiques.  Also, there’s the opportunity of a guest editorial, but that demands the approval of the editor.  Try getting an op-ed critical of an editor published in the editor’s newspaper!

“I have made a living writing opinion commentary for mainstream newspapers since the 1980s,” notes Jacoby in his column.  In essence, that constitutes the very crux of the career columnist quandary because “making a living” (career) inevitably must conflict with truth telling.  Career is the crux of the professor problem, the politician problem, the lawyer problem, the journalist problem, the poet problem, and on and on.  Career vs. truth!  As a former professor, I was able to experience that problem first hand.  But unlike most, I chose truth over career.  In fact, I was fired from my last teaching job at American Public University because I disobeyed a direct order from my bosses to cease expressing my point of view regarding criticism lodged against me.  How many newspaper columnists would choose  truth over career?   Likely, very, very few… because money (and collegiality), for most professionals, always tends to trump truth.  Would Jacoby and other careerists be able to fully comprehend that quandary?  Have they ever even contemplated it?  Self-satisfaction (ego), of course, demands a failure to comprehend.  For those incapable of understanding, Solzhenitsyn’s powerful essay, “Live Not by Lies,” ought to be required reading.  

Jacoby does not, of course, address in his column the questions I address here.  What he does, instead, is address a more or less superficial issue:  writing columns in the age of the internet.  “I leave it to others to sketch the view of the digital landscape from 30,000 feet,” he notes. “Here’s what it looks like at ground level to one guy who has been in the opinion business since the era when opinions were crafted on typewriters.”  Well, opinions should not be crafted on typewriters… or computers, but rather in the mind and with TRUTH and FACTS always as the editor, not the BOSS as the editor.   

Careerists always cave.  Truth-tellers do not; they fight vigorously against the vague orthodoxy that tries always to get them to cave/to conform/to be collegial.  Jacoby cites an example, though to simply support his superficial account of the wonders of the internet, “In a 2012 column about vulgarity, I referred to a cable program that used the F-word 38 times in a four minutes. I wasn’t about to quote the scene—but I could supply a link to a video clip.”  Why does Jacoby write the F-word?  Why is that less vulgar than “fuck”?  For me, the two are the same, though evidently the former contains a touch of cowardly conformity and superficial politesse.  Careerists embrace word control.  Truth-tellers fight against it.  “Vulgar” is a subjective determination, made by faceless cultural apparatchiks and educrats, in an effort to control vocabulary and opinion, and deflect from truth.  

      Jacoby laments, “And while the extraordinary vistas opened up by the Web have made the job of a columnist so much more efficient and rewarding, the new norms of online culture are sour, angry, and tense.”  But “sour, angry, and tense” are simply epithets used to kill the messenger in an effort to deflect from truth, be it sour truth, angry truth, or tense truth.   The terms are used to denigrate truth or opinion, which the denigrator does not like and cannot, or fails to, challenge via reason and fact. For me, I’d rather speak the “vicious” truth, than receive an award like Jacoby:  the Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism…  or rather for Excellence in Turning a Blind Eye Regarding Bias Journalism!  

Jacoby laments, “the marketplace of ideas seems always at the point of exploding. The nastiness of social media, the bile of online comment sections, the viciousness of trolls—all are only too familiar. It is impossible to write these days without being aware of the online mob ready to pounce.”  Well, I surely must be part of that “online mob” because, well, I am a plebe, uh, troll, whereas Jacoby is an elite prize-winning journalist.  Unlike him, I openly express, for example, my full disgust against the platform provided by the Globe to egregious racists like Renee Graham.  

Elite career columnists, journalists and newspaper editors have grown thinner and thinner skin over the years just like academics and poets.  They cannot bear criticism.  How easy it has become for them and other establishment cogs to reject hard-core criticism with simple phrases like “go away troll” (poet Eileen Myles—see “Dyke Poet, Smyke Poet, Who Gives a Damn!”) or “the shrillness of your rants” (editor Chris Busa, Provincetown Art—See “BULLSEYE”).  In essence, just call the writer of unwanted criticism—no matter how factual and logical—a “troll.”  Jacoby’s entire essay is an anti-alt-opinion screed against so-called “trolls.”  He laments, “Too many readers have no interest in absorbing a column’s argument or weighing its merits. They read instead to validate beliefs they already hold. They desire not to better understand ideas they oppose, but to see those ideas denounced, refuted, and mocked.”  

Why has it become so difficult for columnists like Jacoby and Graham to brook, let alone encourage, alt-opinions?  That’s the real problem, not trolls!  As editor of a small literary journal, I always encourage and publish the harshest criticism lodged against me and the journal.  What’s the big deal?  Well, apparently, that is a big deal!  Jacoby concludes, ever lamenting, as if somehow he were forced to read comments about his columns:  “Opinion columns aren’t tweets, but we live now in a culture that conducts far more of its political conversation on social media than on op-ed pages. The norms of that culture have adjusted accordingly. The results haven’t been pretty. Just ask a columnist.”  

Well, if you can’t take the heat, get the hell out of the limelight, dear well-paid elite columnists!  Now, do you think the Globe and its editor, Brian McGrory, who I dared satirize in a cartoon, “The Journalists—Racism Here, Racism There, Racism Everywhere,” a year ago, will publish this counter opinion?   In fact, that summarizes the very crux of the Boston Globe problem, the one Jacoby will never address in a column…  

Matt Damon

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

This cartoon I sketched in 2004.

Cape Cod Art

Cape Cod ART

Cape Cod ART magazine is evidently an arm of the "Chamber of Commerce" and its tourist industry, which really does sum up what ART has become and is on Cape Cod, where I've been living for a decade.  In essence, art has become fully coopted and castrated, fully palatable for the local elites, including autocratic library directors like Lucy Loomis.  Criticize the latter and be fully ostracized, if not outright banned, by the latter.  

Now, I am not against art depicting little children playing on the beach or boats glistening in the sunshine, BUT I am against a machine that prohibits art critical of the machine and its diverse organizations and apparatchiks.  TOTAL SILENCE, for example, was the reaction I received last year regarding my criticism of the Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown (see my blog post on that below a bit).  The local newspaper, Provincetown Banner, refused to publish any criticism.  However, I actually did receive a rare reaction from an establishment-art personage the year before--Editor Chris Busa (Provincetown Arts):  "You are a silly pest that sucks blood from living things."  

In any case, below is my correspondence with Cape Cod ART.  Julie Craven Wagner, current editor, chose not to respond.  TOTAL SILENCE, by the way and contrary to general editorial belief, is not a cornerstone of democracy!  The previous editor, Matthew J. Gill, actually responded.  And how interesting it is to read his rationals for not questioning and not challenging the evident domination of business interests regarding the local art scene...

From: George Slone

Sent: Saturday, March 9, 2019 9:24 AM

To: jwagner@capecodlife.com

Cc: John Lauritsen; cbusa@comcast.net; ppronovost@capecodonline.com; sturgislibrary@comcast.net; curator@CapeCodArtCenter.org

Subject: The cooptation and castration of art and artists on Cape Cod

To Julie Craven Wagner, Managing Editor, Cape Cod ART:  

Why celebrate an art center that ostracizes art critics and only seeks to promote art apt to please tourists and business interests?  The boundaries of art should NOT be determined by the latter, but rather by independent artists not afraid to speak truth as they perceive it.  Contrary to your assertion, Cape Cod Art Center has NOT been “supporting artists and the community as a whole”!  It certainly, for example, has NOT supported me as an independent and highly critical artist living in the community!  

So, rather than celebrate the Center, we should instead DENOUNCE it and by doing so helpfully encourage it to embrace freedom of expression… ALL expression, including and especially that critical of the Cape Cod art scene.  You argue that, in your magazine, one will “encounter artists of all kinds.”  Yet clearly, one will NOT encounter artists that question and challenge the art machine!  That kind of artist is simply not permitted by the art machine.  Recall Thoreau’s dictum: “let your life be a counterfriction to stop the machine.”  The publicized career artist today instead has let his or her life be an integral part of the machine.  By presenting only art that does not offend, you end up offending independent thinkers like me.  

You could begin by manifesting the courage to devote one little page in your annual magazine to such criticism… just one little page!  Without real criticism, art will suffer and continue on its journey to full banality.  If you cannot devote a page, and I suspect you cannot/will not, then clearly your role has been one of coopting and castrating art and artists on Cape Cod.  Might you somehow actually be proud of that?  

Contrary to your conclusion, one will NOT find “artists of all kinds” in your magazine.  One will certainly, for example, NOT find Cape Cod artists who criticize the Cape Cod art establishment.   After all, proponents of the latter tend to detest real debate and freedom of expression, cornerstones of democracy.  

Finally, for the correspondence I had with the former editor of your magazine, Matthew Gill, see  https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2019/03/cape-cod-art.html.  Why not check it out.  After all, curiosity did not kill the art-magazine editor, the establishment paying her did that.  

As a footnote, I have yet to find one artist--just one artist--on Cape Cod willing to write a letter of protest against the permanent banning of my person in 2012 without warning/without due process from Sturgis Library.  Why the banning?  "For the safety of the staff and public" was the only reason provided by Lucy Loomis, despite the fact that I have NEVER threatened anybody and have no record of violence whatsoever.  It actually took an order by the State Secretary of Records to force Loomis to open library records to the public so that I could finally find the reason for the banning (for actual documents and details, see http://theamericandissident.org/orgs/sturgis_library.html).  My civil rights are currently being denied because I am no longer permitted to attend any cultural or political events held at my neighborhood library.  Do you care?  Paul Pronovost, editor of Cape Cod Times, has refused to publish anything regarding the banning.  Is that called good journalism... or rather journalism that suits the local elites? 

Finally, if you ever decide to open up to freedom of expression and devote a little page to criticism, then please include this letter on it.  Thank you for your hopeful attention.  

From: George Slone

Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 10:15 AM

To: mgill@capecodlife.com

Subject: A suggestion et al

To Matthew J. Gill, Ed. Cape Cod ART,

As a rather different kind of Cape Cod artist, I was wondering how I might get profiled in your Cape Cod ART magazine.  Although I do not try to capture the beauty of boats and sand dunes, I do try to capture the reality of the arts establishment on Cape Cod.  I would certainly have plenty of thoughts and anecdotes to share with you, including my view that art should be more than that approved by local chambers of commerce and apt to be purchased by tourists.  

You do mention in your editorial that some of the work you present is “to put it simply, fun.”  Well, “fun” is a rather subjective term.  But, well, I do have some rather “fun” aquarelles for your perusal.  To date I’ve done 50 in a collection I call “Democracy” and now 16 in a collection I call Entartete Kunst, many of which depict local Cape Cod personalities.  Entartete Kunst, as you might know, is the term the Nazi’s used to what they considered to be “depraved art” (i.e., art that had to be destroyed and suppressed).  So, in today’s America, as opposed to yesterday’s Germany, entartete kunst refers, from my point of view, to art that must be suppressed, banned or censored because it is critical of pillars of the academic/literary/art establishment.  It is the glaring taboo that few artists seem able to grasp, let alone willing to break now and then, especially here on Cape Cod.  

It has always been difficult for me to comprehend the artists, editors, poets, cultural apparatchiks, etc., who cannot bear to be criticized.  As an editor, I make it a point to not only brook criticism, but to encourage it and publish in each and every issue the harshest lodged against me and the journal.  What’s the big deal?  Well, apparently it is a big deal.  

Hopefully, you’ve been able to digest what I’ve written here, though I’m certainly not convinced that will happen.  Why not a few pages, even just one page, in your magazine devoted to artists who break art taboos.  

From: Matt Gill

Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 12:23 PM

To: George Slone

Subject: Re: A suggestion et al

Hi George,

What a very interesting letter that was. Very interesting.

Thank you for reaching out.

Can you send me 2-3 images of your artwork that I can check out?

In a few weeks time we will be hosting an editorial board meeting to plan out the 2017 ART issue, and we will review all candidates for profiles.

I'll show your artwork to the group at that time.

I'll keep you posted.

Matt Gill

Cape Cod LIFE

Cape Cod ART

From: George Slone

Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2017 2:21 PM

To: Matt Gill

Subject: Re: A suggestion et al

Hi Matt,

Thanks for getting back to me.  It would be very (very, very, very) surprising if your group proved sufficiently open to my dissident aquarelles.  It just ain't gonna happen!  But I'll attach 3 of the pieces anyhow.  I have been openly critical of just about every literary or art organization on the Cape over the years.  Sadly, that has gotten me essentially 100% ostracized.  

Now, if you want more neutral stuff, I am also a photographer, specializing in scenes from Newfoundland and Labrador, though have also been shooting on the Cape of Course.  I will be a featured photographer in an upcoming issue of Newfoundland's Downhome Life magazine.  Yes, I can get published up there (guest editorials et al), but not down here.  Newfoundland is as the Cape might have been 150 years ago--cod fishing.  Well, there's the moratorium now.  I'll attach three photos too.  Thanks again!

G. Tod

From: Matt Gill

Sent: Wednesday, March 8, 2017 9:55 PM

To: George Slone

Subject: Re: A suggestion et al

George,

Alas, you were correct. We ended up choosing a different lineup of artists for this year's issue of ART.

I'm curious though. Why have you been so critical, as you mention, of all the different literary and art organizations on the Cape over the years? Are you too extreme for them, or are they too run of the mill for you, or something?

I'm not an art expert, really more of a novice - I'm just good at editing and organizing, that kind of thing.

Let me know some more of your story, and I'd be happy to meet you one day if you wanna swing by our office.

Sincerely,

Matt Gill

Cape Cod LIFE

Cape Cod ART

From: George Slone

Sent: Thursday, March 9, 2017 9:26 AM

To: Matt Gill

Subject: Re: A suggestion et al

Hi Matt,

Thanks much for responding.  That alone makes me feel not 100% solitary, as an artist on the Cape, just 99%.   Anyhow, as I see it, an artist ought to seek truth and exercise his/her basic right of freedom of expression.  An artist ought to ask him or herself what he or she should not depict… then, now and then, depict it!  Break the artist taboos, the main one, of course, being criticism of artists themselves and their organizations!  Indeed, one truth I have found is quite simple:  artists and their organizations hate to be criticized and will usually ostracize any rare artist daring to do that.  And thus I exploit that fact in my art.  Academics are the same.  Now, without hardcore criticism, how can there be improvement?  

Should I not be critical, for example, of the Concord Cultural Council that at one point had banned "political" art, as a direct result of the art I’d sent it for grant consideration?  Should I not be critical of the Mid-Cape Cultural Council, which will simply not respond?  Should I not be critical of the Cape Cod Poetry Review, which will not publish my poetry for the evident reason that my poetry has a critical component?  And on and on.  In fact, I have given up trying to get public grant money.  I'd even spent $500 to get the 501c3 designation for The American Dissident in the hope that that might open the gates for public grant money.  Of course, I was wrong.

Again, I am confounded by artists, academics, poets, journalists who canNOT brook criticism.  As an editor, for example, I not only encourage harsh criticism of me and the journal, but also publish in each issue the harshest received.  From criticism, I create.

Again, I test the waters of democracy.  On the Cape, those waters are very murky!  And of course one does not know that unless one actually tests those waters.  The gatekeepers of art on the Cape keep their gates hermetically-sealed vis-a-vis the rare artist, who tests them.  In fact, I know of no other artist on the Cape who will question and challenge those gatekeepers.  In essence, doing that has become my artist modus operandi.  I'd rather speak rude truth, than gain entrance through the art gates.  In that sense, and sadly so, I am definitely too extreme for them.  I do not seek to make all art critical of art gatekeepers.  I simply seek to get the latter to open their doors to a little critical art.  Why not, for example, just one little page at the end of Cape Cod ARTS devoted to rare artists who criticize the art machine, including Cape Cod ARTS?  Or how about 1/8 of a little page?  Get my drift?  It's the same absolutely-not'ism found in poetry and writing magazines across the country, not to mention newspapers.  Imagine, for example, I could not get the Cape Cod Times or Barnstable Patriot to publish a tiny paragraph reportage that I, a citizen living on Cape Cod, was permanently banned from Sturgis Library, my neighborhood library, w/o warning or possibility of due process.  My very civil rights are thus being denied because I am not permitted to attend any cultural or political events held there.  Did the Barnstable County Human Rights Commission care?  Of course not!  

My story is a long one, for I have "battled" at Elmira College (NY), Fitchburg State University (MA), Bennett College (NC), Grambling State University (LA), American Military University (WV), Festival International de la Poesie de Trois-Rivieres (Quebec), Martha's Vineyard Regional High School, Walden Pond (MA), etc.   

Perhaps it would of interest to you personally to contemplate what art might be prohibited from the pages of Cape Cod ARTS.

Anyhow, thanks again for your interest!  And indeed I'd be happy to meet.  

G. Tod

From: Matt Gill

Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 10:22 AM

To: George Slone

Subject: Re: Je suis Charlie et al...

Morning George,

Excellent points made in this letter.

I admire your convictions!

I do see the irony of phrases and philosophies such as "all the arts for all of us," and then, yet, there's exclusion.

However, I cannot take on that particular battle on this particular day (day off).

Have a good weekend George. We'll get coffee some day.

Matt

From: George Slone

Sent: Friday, March 10, 2017 2:40 PM

To: Matt Gill

Subject: Just Say No to Alt-Art!

Matt,

Good enough, though you did not address a number of issues evoked.  When Cape Cod ART opens its gates to alt-opinions and alt-art like mine (don't worry I definitely will not be holding my breath!), then we should on that "some day" have a cup of coffee... or better yet a bottle of champagne!  Bon week-end!  

T.

From: George Slone

Sent: Saturday, April 1, 2017 1:08 PM

To: Matt Gill

Subject: New issue just published...

Hi Matt,

You are mentioned in my editorial for the new issue of The American Dissident, fresh off the press.  The reason for the mention is my unanswered challenge to you:  why not provide 1/8 of a page in Cape Cod ART to criticism of Cape Cod art (and ART)?  That question is of course at the crux of the art problem.  Copies are just $9.  And sorry, you won’t be able to read a copy in any library on the Cape because not one Cape library director is sufficiently open-minded to subscribe, whereas directors of Concord, Newton, Lincoln, and a handful of university libraries (Harvard, Yale, Brown et al) are sufficiently open-minded…

G. Tod