Carrol Cox said,


>Subject: Re: Invitation to speculate:  How might this affect Pound studies?
>
>En Lin Wei wrote:
>
> >   If there
> > were a fascist coup in the US would the study of Ezra Pound fare better,
> > would it deteriorate, or would it stay more or less the same as it is
>now?
>
>This is an unreal question

I didn't  know there could be such a thing as an unreal question.  Can there
be?

>since it (like the movie referred to in your
>post and almost all films and novels of the "It can happen here" genre)
>is abstracted from all those conditons within which such a coup would
>make sense --

The film in question-- Seven Days in May -- did posit a sufficienly
believable set of circumstances which might lead to a coup, namely, a very
pacifisitic President during the Cold War who negotiates a nuclear
disarmament treaty with the Russians, a treaty with which most Americas
disagree.  The feeling on the part of large sections of the military, that
the very survival of the country depends on the overthrow of the political
establishment, and the fact that the General is very popular --- these facts
make the scenario plausible, if unlikely.

>and it is in those conditions, in the whole social route
>to the hypothetical coup, not in the mere coup itself, that the coup would
>have meaning.
>

That also is a fair point.  But we can imagine a situation, quite easily, in
which an authoritarian or quasi-fascist government is installed in the US.
For instance, if in ten or twenty years, the process of globalization
accelerates the ""race to the bottom," and workers wages are sufficiently
depressed; if an economic downturn of large proportions occurs, and if war
breaks out between China and the US over Taiwan, or another issue--- we can
predict that the possibility will arise in which the placement of an
authoritarian government over the people, to KEEP ORDER and to combat the
FOREIGN AGRESSOR, becomes "necessary."  It is possible, and we would have to
be a bit dogmatic to refuse to recognize that virtually anything is
possible.   The US government thinks it possible, otherwise they would would
not have drawn up Federal Emergency contingencies which include detailed
plans for an extended period of Martial Law.


>And those hypothetical conditions involve an even more massive set
>of conditons: the general breakdown in peaceful capitalist rule which
>must precede any recourse to openly violent rule.

That is of course possible.  OR it may be the case that the current general
state of plutocratic rule could devolve into a form of oligarchical rule,
which in turn could develope into a form of more rigid authoritarianism, and
finally even into a form of dictatorship.

Apathy may be a factor too.  I heard that according to a recent survey, more
Americans can name the THREE STOOGES than can name the THREE BRANCHES OF
GOVERMENT.  So if one or two branches disappeared, many Americans might not
notice, or they might easily be convinced it is a good idea.   Another
survey showed that more and more Americans (A majority, I believe) think
that there is too much freedom of speeech in the US, and also that the
"separation of Church and State" has gone too far.  So there are disturbing
trends, which could pave the way to a loss of democracy, such as it is.

>And it would be
>within that general breakdown that the attitudes and social forces
>would develop which would determine regime's attitude towards
>"cultural studies" in the academy. In the abstract, the "same" kind
>of regime, depending on conditions, might order all Pound's books
>burned or might mandate their study at the core of the university
>curriculum or anything in between.
>

That point is fair.  But I specifically posited a fascist coup.  Are
suggesting that a fascist coup would ban pro-fascist materials?  That seems
unlikely, if the fascism we are talking about resembled Mussolini's or
Franco's fascism, don't you think?  I could imagine a psuedo-populist coup,
or quasi-communist totalitarian coup which might ban Pound.  But even in
China, which is supposedly communist, Pound is not banned (though Trotsky,
for all practical purposes, is).

In fact, I don't know of a single country in which Pound has actually been
banned.  Does anyone?

Totalitarian governments -- whether of the far right or the far left-- might
never feel the need to ban Pound, since his works are relatively
inaccessible, and even if they weren't, there is nothing in them that could
easily be used to subvert any form of totalitarian government.

Has Pound ever been banned?  And if so, where?

Wei


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