I would like to respond in some detail to Carl's post. After reading it, I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that while we may disagree on Pound, we may agree on almost everthing else. So in the spirit of freundly dialectical interchange, I make my replies. Carl Parcelli wrote: >While I applaud En Lin Wei's spirited attack on American foreign policy, it demonstrates a naivete toward the nature of that policy that is nothing short of fatal to his attempts to insert Pound's Cantos into it. I admit this approach exists only in an embryonic form. I do not suggest (yet) that a full critique of American culture and foreign policy is consistent with a systematic critique of the Cantos as an imperialistic epic. What I do suggest is that one of Pound's main critiques of the US was that it was NOT imperialist enough. He does state his view, in the Radio Rome speeches, that the US and Japan, rather than fighting one another, should pursue their imperialistic goals in the their respective spheres. >Rather than "imperialist" motives it is the very social/liberal institiutions that En Lin Wei sees as an "alternative" to Pound's political/economic Pantheon that are responsible for the very slaughter that En Lin Wei lays at the feet of those "imperialist" motives that he asserts are reflected in the Cantos. We have to distinguish between different types of imperialism here. Pound's distinction between an imperialism which sacks a country and one which civilizes it, is largely mythical. In other words, the Italian exploitation of Ethiopia (which Pound praises) was just as bit as destructive of the colonized country as was British exploitation in West Africa, which Pound decries. A careful look at the record will confirm this. See Salvemini, for example. But I am sure I don't need to tell you this. (Of course, it is equally hypocritical to argue that British imperialism was more benificent than Italy's forays into Africa. For instance, while the Italians used poison gas in Ethiopia, the British used it in Iraq). >So called "democratic institutions" are a liberal/social mask.(See Edward Bernays, "Propaganda"1928.) The real politique of the Dulles Brothers, Ed Lansdale, Richard Helms, Henry Kissinger etal bears no practical relationship (and Kissinger does not allow for the figurative) and the conquest literature that appears in the Cantos. I am with you here. Books like "Bitter Fruit" document the extent of US horrors in Guatemala. Dulles' policy has left about 200,000 dead in its wake. (incidentally, I think you understand that I do not endorse the current "liberal" capitalist system, any more than I endorse fascism or "socialism with Chinese characteristics," as current PRC regime qualifies itself. I endorse forms of syndicalism, economic democracy, mutualism, worker's self - management , libertarian socialism, the economic philosophies of Kropotkin and Proudhon, and the critiques of Noam Chomsky --- to name of a few). >That Pound supported Mussolini's actions in North and East Africa (a demonstrable fact) does not mean that Pound understood the political nature of those acts and the Cantos . . . The question then is DID Pound understand the political nature of Mussolini's acts in Africa? How was he so easily able to form negative judgments about British imperial actions in Africa, and not about Italian acts of conquest? On what basis did he decide that one set of European conquerors would act in such a way as benefit the conquered population, and that another would not? What evidence, what facts, what historical data did he have to lead him to the conclusion that Mussolini's empire was good? Why was he so sure that Hitler's empire would benefit Europe, and that Japan's conquest of Asia would re-civilize the benighted Chinese? Was it the case that Pound was really incapable of understanding the implications of a fascist effort to conquer "Abyssina", or that he simply chose to ignore any evidence that could cause him to question fascism? >The poem itself admits to a, well, larger impractical set of imaginative motives---"to the imperial/ calm." I could accept this defense for the writings of almost any other poet. But Pound himself claimed over and over to be interested in facts juxtaposed to reveal truth. This is the ideogrammic method. Are you suggesting, as some others have, that Pound let his imagination get the better of him, that he was unable to see the truth because he was fixed on the " impractical imaginative motives" ? If Pound rejects the otherworldliness and idealism in Platonist thought (in the Guide to Kulchur), and instead affirms the practical wisdom of Confucianism; if he rejects Greek abstraction in favor of a Roman philosophy of concrete action (again in the Guide to Kulchur), then how can we defend him? Can we say, well, he wanted to be practical rather than theoretical; he wanted to be realistic rather than idealistic------but he was just totally out of touch with concrete political and social reality? The evidence I have examined, in the political sphere, and in Pound's prose and poetic writings seems to indicate that Pound was above all a rhetorician, a poet ---- yes, a POET, --- who sought to propagate fascist, imperialist, racist ideology because he really believed in such things. If Nazi Germany had conquered Europe, and if all the democracies had been wiped off the face of the earth, Pound would have approved. He states this view over and over. >At the time Pound was playing imaginary tennis in his gorilla cage, the U.S. government was flying Nazi's into the U.S. through Operation Paperclip (among other operations still secreted from public scrutiny) just as fast as they could circumvent the International War Crimes Act. Werner von Braun, who said "I aim for the stars but sometimes I hit London" was treated like royalty, ensconced at NASA and now children can see his office when they attend NASA's Texas Space Camp. Walter Dornberger, who worked Jews to death in slave labor camps at Peenemunde, was brought to the U.S. and embraced by the military industrial complex. Yes. Here you are absolutely correct. I agree. This is the nature of US capitalist hypocrisy. It continues to this day; I think you and I will agree on this point. >Hundreds of other Nazi murderers were immediately put on the U.S. and corporate payrolls. And let's not forget Reinhard Gehlen. All the while Pound is facing an indictment for treason and railing against the very government in its hypocrisy (a trait Pound admired?) is bringing in by the plane load Nazi war criminals that if one is to believe En Lin Wei were ideological fellow travelers of Pound. Does Pound ever rail against the hypocrisy of Mussolini or Hitler ? If he were, like other more principled poets (say Byron, or Shelley) he would rail against all forms of hypocrisy. Nothing is more deadly to the poetic spirit than to endorse the doings of monsters. Pound was for Mussolini what Kipling was for Victoria's empire. As to the hired Nazis being Pound's fellow travellers. Pound thought the Nazis and fascists who were "building empires and spreading civilization" in Europe, Africa and Asia were his fellow travelers. He lost no occasion to praise them. >Where the Nazis had info and expertise to trade for their lives, Pound had a poem. Big difference. 'Bout 13 years in St. E's worth. The Nazis like their handlers from the State Department, ONI, DIA, corporate and OSS/CIA were far more "worldly" than Pound. And Pound's poem contains little they would have recognized as THEIR WORLD. Again, I agree with you. There is a distinction you make here which is not only valid, but essential. Nevertheless, while those particular Nazis may not have recognized much that the Poem contained, Pound chose to shape his poem in such a way that it contained and approved of the very masters and ideologists who framed the fascist doctrine in theory and practice. >En Lin Wei would benefit greatly by learning to make these distinctions. Yes. Pound was a poet; he was not a Nazi or fascist expert who had skills which the US could use in the pursuit of its future political aims. He was, nonetheless, a committed fascist, whose poetic brilliance is, for me at least, seriously marred by adherence to a brutal imperialism. Now if you are as seriously critical of US imperialism as you say you are, then I wonder to what degree you are troubled by Pound's affirmation of imperialist goals? What difference in our judgments should there be between those who perpetrate acts of imperial agression, and those who advocate them as vociferously as Pound did? Incidentally, I like your caricature of my view as the equation: >Cantos = Blueprint For American Imperialism As U.S. Foreign >Policy Makers Implement the Policies of the Han Dynasty Of course, Pound made some statements similar to this. He said that the US should follow Confucian and Mencian political maxims, and argued quite seriously that the Confucian Analects and other Confucian classics should be put AT THE TOP of a list of required texts to be read by all US university students as part of the "Totalitarian synthesis" [Pound's phrase, not mine]. He also wrote Mussolini, offering his China Cantos as a guide for foreign policy and as a testament to his "faith" in Fascism and in Confucianism. I don't think it is really possible to caricature any critique of Pound, because Pound's own extreme and seemingly absurd juxtapositions cannot be caricatured. If Pound's propagandistic skills had been admired by the US adminstration, and if Pound had been hired by US foreign policy makers after the war (instead of tried), then the slogan you suggest ---"Blueprint For American Imperialism As U.S. Foreign Policy Makers Implement the Policies of the Han Dynasty"---would have been the one POUND himself would have written. After all, what objection do you have to the Han dynasty? Regards, Wei ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com