The fact that there is such equivocating amongst members of this List (re: Pound's ideas vis a vis anti-semitism) is proof in itself that Pound was unrepentent about his views re: "kikes", etc. If he had come forward and made an unequivocal statement about his outrage (as a human being, let alone a poet) concerning the Nazi regime... we would not be in this no person's quagmire of phony allegiances and alliances that smack more of groupee-ism than anything else. Stoneking ----- Original Message ----- From: bob scheetz <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Saturday, November 27, 1999 11:31 AM Subject: Re: Getting things all mixed up > here's jonathan morse's j'accuse, > shouting tim romano down, > and naming him "anti-semite": > > >8. None of this is news. But "counter-propagandist"? That rustling noise > >you hear is the sound of a political hand being tipped. > > > so ... a pretty classical illustration how it works. > while one may well see an abundance of the all-too-human, > he searches morse's 9 articles in vain > for the "blood" dripping from ep's hands. > > the historical context of this whole fascism issue > is the maelstrom of what everybody at the time > saw as a world-wide pop rising against capitalism > after the exhaustion and incommensurable > cruelty of ww1 and great depression. > > that rev is the ball which everybody had their eye on. > thence the usa temporized opening a western front > despite its intelligence on the "final solution", > because its o'erwhelming consideration > was that nazism and bolshevism destroy each other, > thereby to allow the ancien regime to weather the crisis, > make the world safe for democracy...n'all dat. > > ep's focus, from the opposite end of the field, > was equally intent...so in that out-of-focus area > a crime was committed by his party. > which party he considered to be on the side of humanity. > > it is indeed a devilish moral problem, > ...if only he'd been with gramsci, silone, ...the resistance > > but the holocaust industry's brief here > is extravagantly meritricious . > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jonathan Morse <[log in to unmask]> > To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> > Date: Saturday, November 27, 1999 3:55 AM > Subject: Re: Getting things all mixed up > > > >At 12:30 AM 11/27/99 -0500, you wrote: > >>I would like to be directed to the evidence of Pound's "blood-dripping" > >racism, as you put it. So far, I've found nothing to indicate that Pound > >the wartime counter-propagandist approved (or was even aware) of anything > >remotely resembling Ethnic Cleansing or genocide. Or perhaps you meant > >something else by "blood-dripping"? > > > >I meant that the whole racist mental pathology is dripping with blood, > >historically speaking. But as to Pound's awareness, I refer you to > >_Letters in Captivity_, letter 49, p. 187. There, after visiting Ezra at > >the DTC, Dorothy reports this way about her trip home under chaotic postwar > >conditions: " . . . boarded the train, a merce, with cattle trucks for > >goyim." About which we can say: > > > >1. "Merce," without the grave accent over the last letter, is Italian for > >freight train. Elsewhere in the book the word is translated correctly, but > >here Omar Pound and Robert Spoo make an interesting Freudian slip: they > >render "a merce" as "Thank God!" > > > >2. "Goyim" is a Hebrew word meaning "non-Jews." By Jews it's ordinarily > >used in a derogatory sense, as the Pounds knew. I.e., Dorothy here is > >indulging herself and Ezra in a fairly nasty bit of self-pity, meaning > >"They're doing to us what we did to them!" Compare T.S. Eliot's French idol > >Charles Maurras, Nazi collaborator. When the court handed down his prison > >sentence after the war, he shouted, "C'est la revanche de Dreyfus!" > > > >3. Date of Dorothy's letter: November 13, 1945. That's just six months > >after General Jodl surrendered to General Eisenhower. Several years later > >Sylvia Plath would write, "An engine, an engine, / chuffing me off like a > >Jew," but the information was out and available much earlier. It was shown > >in the same newsreels where Pound saw Mussolini's battered body, for > >instance. Or, if you insist on literary evidence, Vasily Grossman's 1944 > >eyewitness article "Treblinskii ad" -- the first published account of the > >death camps -- was available in a French translation ("L'Enfer de > >Treblinka") as of 1945. > > > >5. More generally: Daniel Goldhagen's _Hitler's Willing Executioners_ may > >not be worth much as history, but the phenomenon of its reception in > >Germany is worth a great deal. Well no, not all the Lager were in faraway > >Poland; there were some 10,000 concentration camps within Germany. Well > >yes, it took a positive effort not to know about those. Goldhagen helped > >the generation of the Third Reich admit that at last. > > > >6. Pound had no Goldhagen to help him. But he knew. > > > >7. See also the recent thread on this list about people who tried to tell > >Pound, and compare Marianne Moore's vain effort to get _The Criterion_ to > >notice Hitler's persecution of the Jews. How close to the European action > >was Moore? Not very. But when did she start saying things that Eliot didn't > >want to hear? In 1933. > > > >8. None of this is news. But "counter-propagandist"? That rustling noise > >you hear is the sound of a political hand being tipped. > > > >9. Nevertheless, sursum corda. The text of Pound's own diagnosis is badly > >garbled in the old Paige _Selected Letters_ (no. 328, p. 295), but some > >meaning does come through the static. "A man can read a thousand or 5000 or > >whatever books," says Pound, "but to suppose that they will be the _same_ > >1000 or 5000 after new treasure is available than there were in 1500 is to > >relapse into habit." Pound is talking here about the classics; specifically > >Pindar, whom he considers no longer worth reading. Substitute the name > >"Kenner" and interesting possibilities arise. > > > >Jonathan Morse >