This list has seen a number of threads on Pound's politics, but I have to say that
I've been more than a little surprised by some of the recent claims. Yes, Pound
praised Thomas Jefferson and said he believed in the Constitution. In itself that
means nothing: the ACLU, Pat Buchanan, the students at Tiananmen Square and
Timothy McVeigh have all done the same. Lester Bangs once said all speed freaks
are liars, because anyone who talks that much can't tell the truth all the time. A
similar situation obtains in Pound's work: he wrote so much that through selective
quotation one could construct any number of political positions for him.

It seems absolutely clear to me that (as En Lin Wei as suggested) the key to
Pound's political beliefs is his Confucianism, and that this Confucianism is
deeply skeptical of representative democracy and deeply sympathetic to powerful
and even totalitarian individuals and elites. That's why Pound could
simultaneously praise Malatesta, Jefferson, Bronson Cutting, Lenin, Huey Long
(whose economic views were wildly at odd with Pound's), Mussolini and Coughlin. As
Leon Surette has stated, Pound was not an ideologue and with the exception of
economics and a handful of idiosyncratic interests, he didn't really care about
the specifics of government. Power and "insight" were enough. Even results
(sometimes) don't matter that much: Pound admits Malatesta's tempio is a jumble
and a junkshop, but praises it because it "registers a concept." Likewise, he
admits that Mussolini is full of contradictions, then insists those are irrelevant
if one treats him as an "artifex." (Talk about transference.)

Contrary to what a number of people have claimed, this is not somehow extraneous
to the Cantos; it is absolutely central to it. Additionally, I say that neither
because I'm an academic looking to further my career by trampling on Pound, nor
because I'm indifferent to the poetry. I think Pound is perhaps the most
extraordinary poet of the 20th century. That doesn't mean I'm going to sanitize
his politics.

Bill Freind