Thank you, Charles Moyer, for your kind remarks. Forgive me, but my reply to your thoughtful and detailed post will have to be shorter than usual. You said, >Mr. Wei implies that Pound "egged them (Mussolini and Hitler) on in the >war. >But I would ask Mr. Wei, did they really pay any attention to him? I'm not aware that they paid any attention to him except mussolini's "tea with Ezra Pound". How can one claim that Pound had any effect on Hitler? However, Pound was deluding himself if he ever believed that the fascists would be any kinder to neo-paganism and a poet's Weltanschauung than democracy or communism had ever been. See the Nazi files on Julius Evola for example, document AR-126 and AR-83 which is Himmler's summary dismissal of Evola. They are in the Introduction to "Revolt Against the Modern World". The fact is although the "Volkish" movement was exploited by the Nazi and the glory of Imperial Rome by the Duce, the greatest pacts they made for their political success were with the Catholic Church, and the Protestants >protested little. In Hitler's case it was in 1933 when the Catholic party >supported the Nazi in the Reichstag putting them in power. I find little to disagree with here. If I gave you the impression that I thought fascist leaders took Pound seriously, I did not intend to. My argument rests on the not too unreasonable belief (or assumption) that POUND took FASCISM seriously, and urged others to do so. >On the subject of punning "de jure" with "du jour" I did not see the >possibility of that and that would put us in an entirely different soup. >But it is reported that he said "de jure", and it is again our illusive reporter JL who gives this as a direct quote from Pound himself. It may have been in the same correspondence to Hubert Greekmore from which JL took the other quotes. That's all the facts I can give you. My suspicion is that Pound did believe in the system of English Common Law for it is the best >system for appealing to reason and fairness and the most democratic >allowing >one to be judged by one's peers. I would like to see the quote in its full context. It is a bit too vague for me (personally) to give it much credence >'...Does anyone have the faintest idea what I said?' Obviously, Pound felt >misunderstood by this, but admittedly the qoutation you present looks >pretty >bad and rascist. But is it treasonable? Who or what is Doob? Is it "treasonable?" That is a very, very complex legal question. The statement by itself is not treasonable, of course. I am not one of those who strongly believe that Pound should have tried and executed for Treason. However, it is difficult to know what should have been done with him in the years 1945-1950. Doob is the editor/transcriber of the complete Radio Rome Speeches, which taken together constitute a considerable tome, several hundred pages. These speeches were the basis upon which moves were made to indict Pound for treason. They are some of the oddest radio broadcasts you will ever read. Here is another brief excerpt, Machiavelli Senior remarked: "Men live in a few, and the rest are sheep." The idealists struggle against that. An occasional miracle happens. In China men have set up a series of dynasties. Acts of heroic creation . . . (Doob 287-288). Make of this quote what you will. It does not speak well for a belief in either common law, or in Constitutions, I think. > As for the difference between "rectifying the people" and "rectifying democracy", I thought democracy was defined as the "rule of the people". If one rectifies the people will they not rectify their own rule, grasshopper? > Finally, in your posting to thank Leon Surette you say you agree fully and with no reservation with his statement part of which is that Social >Credit is an erroneous solution to problems. I also agree with you and Surette on the rest of his statement, but question this assumption on Social >Credit. To my knowledge the few experiments in Social Credit had some limited success. Even Keynes recognised that if money was off the gold >standard that it would need some type of regulation. Is the Federal Reserve System any more democratic than social credit would be if this was the way >the Congress decided "to coin money and regulate the value thereof"? You may be right here. I remember reading (or hearing ) an explanation of the limitations of Douglas's social credit theory, and it made sense then. It has been a long time since I read Douglas, and I would have to go back to work out the details. I have very great admiration for the general thrust of Douglas' work, ie, giving democratic control over the nations' credit to the people. You are correct, I believe, about the gold standard, and about the federal reserve system being undemocratic. From what I recall of Douglas' Social Credit, I think it would work if implemented in the framework of a Scandinavian social-democratic political system (or better yet, within a system in which the economic enterprises were owned, controlled, and managed by the workers themselved, on a democratic basis. You might want to look at how banks are run ---which belong to a large multi-billion dollar federated group of democratic cooperative--- in Mondragon, the Basque Country, in Spain. See http://www.mcc.es The site describes the banking system, and the way credit is democratically controlled and apportioned in some detail. I think it is an excellent system. ) Best wishes and friendly regards, Wei ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com