Charles Moyer writes:

 > Here are more quotes from Pound in his own defense. He writes,

"...a dark room back of a bank, hung with deep purple curtains. No one must
see what happens." ( For explication see "Secrets of the Temple; How the
Federal Reserve Runs the Country" by William Greider, esp. Chapter 7 "The
God Almighty Dollar".
    "Am I American?" he wrote to Hubert Greekmore. "...Yes, and bugger the
>present state of the country, the utter betrayal of the American
>Constitution..."

Betrayal?

This is a defense?  Someone, accused of treason (escaping the death penalty
on an insanity plea) speaking of betrayal?   Odd defense, it seems to me.

"...only trying to tell the people of Europe and America how they could
avoid war by learning the facts about money."

How is this a defense?  A defense --on what basis-- against what charges?
Try telling Mussolini and Hitler how they could have avoided war by learning
the facts about money.  And if they go to war, egg them on.  Isn't that what
Pound did?

(If David Moody would put give us some explanation or interpretation of
these quotes, it would help.  In the absence of any exegesis, I am compelled
to give my own).

"...I think the American system de jure is probably quite good enough..."

American system "de jure" or American system "du jour" ?  Consider what
Pound would have meant if he said, "du jour".  Which did Pound actually say?
  (Seems like an offhand blurb to me, which would need to be seen in
context.   Was he coming about to appear before a court when he said this,
or was he trying to get released from his confinement at St. E's?  [I really
don't know.  Let's have the facts.] )

"...Does anyone have the faintest idea what I said?"

No, I couldn't fathom a word.

OR

Yes, I did.  And that is precisely the problem.

For example when Pound said,

"France is a PART of Europe, and her sanity would consist in functioning as
a PART of Europe.  Preferably a Frenchman, not a half nigger, half Jew
bridgehead of Anglo-Judea." (Doob, 134).

I don't think we need to parse that, do we?  Maybe we do.  I would sincerely
like to hear some of Pound's defenders explicate in detail such statements,
word by word.

>Moody's comment hit the bullseye. "To seek to rectify democracy is to
>honour its principles, not to despise it."

I agree with that statement, as I have said.  I don't see what that has to
do with Pound though.  Pound never said, "I seek to rectify DEMOCRACY".  The
Confucian text Pound quotes speaks of "rectifying the people," which is not
the same thing.  Pound never said, "I honour the principles of democracy,"
as far as I know.

>If Pound would have given up on
>democracy he would have sounded more like Spengler who concluded that
>"Through money democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has
>destroyed intellect." Yet it would be unfair to call Spengler a Nazi, even
>though the Nazi  found him more useful to their purposes than they did
>Pound.

If Pound had given up on democracy (assuming he ever believed in it), he
would have sounded more like Mussolini, Odon Por, Hitler and Frobenius (who
was himself a proto-fascist,  see Jahn's essay on Frobenius).

And as it was, Pound OFTEN did sound more like Mussolini, and on occasion
like Hiter:

   As to the Hitler program, it was (what we ALL knew,
  and did nothing about, namely) that the breed'in of
  human beings deserves MORE care and attention than
  the breed'in of horses and wiffetts, or even the
  breed'in of sheep, goat, and the larger livestock.
  That is point ONE of the NAZI program.  Breed GOOD,
  and preserve the race.  Breed thorough, that is, for
  thoroughbreds, conserve the BEST of the race.
  Conserve the best elements.  That means EUGENICS --
  as opposed to race suicide.  And it did not and does
  NOT please the Talmudic Jews who want to kill off
  the other races they cannot subjugate. . . .
      (Doob, 140).


Whether this sort of racism is compatible with with democracy, I leave it
for you to opine.  It seems to me that it is more consistent with fascist,
anti-democratic ideology.

Imperialism seems to me somewhat inconsistent with democracy.  For instance
when Pound said,

   Italy needs Abyssinia  to achieve ECONOMIC
  INDEPENDENCE. . . the MATERIAL WEALTH, the
  raw materials necessary to clothe and feed
  the people of Italy.  And I hope Italy gets every
  inch of it
   (British-Italian Bulletin, 25, Apr. 1936).

So damn the Ethiopians, right?  (Of course, I admit Pound was no worse than
Mussolini here, and probably no worse than the average British politician
during the 30's and mid-40's).



Regards,

Wei






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