Tom White writes:
> The curious thing is how it doth appear the world is now at last catching
up
> with Pound. What he was objecting to was the left, socialist, atheist
ethos
> of non-observant or apostate Jews (which was oddly the mirror image of the
> money worshiping Jews, à la Rothschild), what one writer, talking of the
> Russian Rev. of 1917, has lately called "Lenin's willing executioners,"
> mimicking the accusation by a Jewish writer that Germans and especially
> German Catholics were Hitler's.

Tom,
     I also think yours a excellent thumbnail, ...only a little startled
at the above,... had never thot of EP as a neo-lib? ...you  mean to tar
every lefty with the yeltsin kleptocracy? ...the gulags?  ...do you really
think neo-lib the EP hermeneutic for us today?

thanks,
bob


----- Original Message -----
From: Tom White <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 20, 2003 10:59 PM
Subject: Pound & Politics


> Tom W. NJ
> I'll bite. I'm in so sense a scholar, rather, like you, just a reader of
> Pound. Off and on, since 1950. Don't think the Cantos have ever been
issued
> WITH notes (and I hope they never are), but there are great books
explaining
> the "village explainer," easily found in the bibliographies. Hope you are
a
> subscriber to Paideuma.
>
> To cut to the political question. It is all really about the money system.
> Pound had become convinced the money system was a devilish racket. He
never
> wavered from this view, elaborated since by disciple Eustace Mullins and
> others, and very much the opinion of the Austrian school of Economics and
of
> its leading American intellectual light, the late Murray N. Rothbard. The
> jury on this is in: the system IS a devilish racket, but we are stuck with
> it until it somehow transits to some other system. God's own guess as to
the
> how and when of that.
>
> The Jewish question. Pound angrily pushed (he was not a saint) the routine
> European distaste for the "alien" to the absurd degree visible in his Rome
> radio talks, but in a calmer moment he said race prejudice is a sign of
> intellectual defeat. He didn't hate Jews as people, or so I think, but he
> hated the "Semitic" mind or ethos, which scholars tell me is on view in
the
> Talmud and of course is derivable from some of the morally dimmer passages
> in the OT. He caste it up against the "Mediterranean" ethos, the Greek
gods
> if you will. He told an Italian nun who asked if he was a religious man
that
> he believed in the Greek gods, to which she answered (as I recall), "E
tutti
> religione," which I trust means "It's all religion."
>
> The curious thing is how it doth appear the world is now at last catching
up
> with Pound. What he was objecting to was the left, socialist, atheist
ethos
> of non-observant or apostate Jews (which was oddly the mirror image of the
> money worshiping Jews, à la Rothschild), what one writer, talking of the
> Russian Rev. of 1917, has lately called "Lenin's willing executioners,"
> mimicking the accusation by a Jewish writer that Germans and especially
> German Catholics were Hitler's. But among the things now being revealed is
> the extent to which the "big" and "Zionist" Jews themselves did not exert
> maximum effort (this is the mild statement) to rescue their fellows in
> Europe. We are not at the end of revelations on this. Accusations are now
> being made by dissident Israeli intellectuals that the largely clueless
> European Jews were deliberately sacrificed by the Zionist "organizing
> brains," to gain international clout as super-victims, the very clout that
> Finkelstein (http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/) has now exposed as heavily
> fraudulent.
>
> None of this is to excuse Pound's faults, but the thing is more
complicated
> than most people are willing to see. The Net is opening it all up, and
> nothing is finished yet. Pound will continue to be execrated by the same
> people who think America should police the globe, take on the Arabs
> wholesale, and contain China and Russia and North Korea and all the rest
of
> the Johnny-pop-ups. Belligerent idiocy seems to be the distinguishing
> characteristic of our Maximum Leaders.
>
> Enough. I've let myself be a bit carried away. You can't talk about Pound
> with the average American school graduate. But there are a lot of people
> around who agree with you on his poetry, and a lot, though fewer, who
agree
> that his hatred of the money system and the big money people (Jews
figuring
> prominently but not solely in the roster< say, "Rockefeller") was as
> justified as any hatred can be, which, speaking in Christian-Catholic
terms,
> is never as to people but always as to "structures of sin."
>
> I think Pound was horribly wrong in thinking the "State," the "Muss," or
> anyone else of that ilk, could bring money and/or cultural salvation. But
> his case presents a mile-high obstacle to the long-run continuation of the
> present system. I believe as Alfred North Whitehead wrote, that ultimately
> poets are the rulers of the world. Of course it remains to be seen if we
get
> by the current threat to the human race and are ever able again to settle
> down to the study of letters and the practice of creative peace, that is,
> return to questions of truth and beauty. Let us pray. Tom White
>
> > From: Tom Walsh <[log in to unmask]>
> > Reply-To: - Ezra Pound discussion list of the University of Maine
> > <[log in to unmask]>
> > Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:19:48 -0500
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Intro
> >
> > Listserver,
> >
> > Thanks for this opportunity to share thoughts and discussions with
> > experts in Pound. I hope I've used the correct email address. Although
> > I've been a programmer for 25 years, for some reason, I've always had
> > problems with listservs, and their complexity (at least what I perceive
> > to be complexity!)
> >
> > I know what follows is redundant. I know you've all probably read this
> > series of statements more than several times. As a background, I've read
> > Pound since college, and have always had the same problem. Whenever a
> > member of the previous generation spots the name "Pound", they, more or
> > less, call me a traitor to America. I know about Pound's background, how
> > he sided with Italy and its regime, how he broadcasted political
> > messages, both anti-Semite and anti-Allies, and how he was arrested,
> > tried as insane, apologized and was locked away, where he worked on the
> > last part of the Cantos. The fact that his work won a post-War award
> > must have shocked the world. However, it doesn't shock me. His lines
> > remain brilliant.
> >
> > But, a true artist should be regarded as devoid of his past, as the
> > Revisionists said, right? My mind's heart always stops when I read his
> > powerful lines, dripping in myths, supported by ancient names and
> > languages, bringing English to an airy arena, with literary splendor.
> > His poetry is untouchable, striking, fresh, and always refreshing in its
> > use of tones and words. And, of course, I haven't touched on who he
> > influenced, which is every poet since his time.
> >
> > Can the list advise on the dichotomy between his politics and his
> > poetry? Also, I'm currently trying to locate one book, which contains
> > both the Cantos and annotations to the Cantos. Do you have any
> > suggestions?
> >
> > Thanks, again, for this opportunity to address you.
> > Tom NJ