Monday, March 07, 2005

Monday Report

I have this week's Monday Report. I hope it doesn't throw too many folks. It offers a different take on the assumed nature of events-- is a reminder that U.S. imperialism was promoted first by liberals.

The question is whether, in a free country, people have the right to be different-- or even to be wrong.

Most people don't know that some very good writers-- J.F. Powers and Kenneth Rexroth to name two-- we're Conscientious Objectors during the Second World War, and endured many indignities as a result. There is also the controversial matter of Ezra Pound, who was put in a small cage like an animal after the war, then locked away for years in a psychiatric hospital.

When one starts examining the actual history of events, more questions are raised than one might think-- things aren't always according to the accepted record. I wanted to raise some questions with my essay. (I'll have more about the matter this week on this blog.)
Posted by at

3 comments:

King Wenclas said...

You're right, Leopold. Hitler, and the Soviet Union, were the result of World War One-- undoubtedly the dumbest war in history.

3/08/2005 07:40:00 AM
Anonymous said...

A book by a highly acclaimed American novelist about U.S. aggression and oppression against people who differ from the U.S. rulers and much of its populace by ethnicity and religion? It must be a dramatic, blistering portrayal of the money-burning and criminal U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, which as I've noted elsewhere, "has been judged to be illegal by the head of the U.N. and legal experts across the U.S. and the globe, and has had the predicted effect of increasing the likelihood of attack against the U.S., and was based on fraud as known in advance, and meanwhile has killed over a thousand U.S. troops, and wounded or debilitated tens of thousands, and has killed upwards of 100,000 Iraqis and maimed countless others while destroying their country." It must be a novel that illuminates life today and around the world, that helps people understand it, a novel that matters now for people virtually everywhere and for the future of the globe itself.

No surprise, it's not, and has no intention of being so, as Roth himself has pointed out.

Haven't read Roth's novel, so don't know what he does to history, speculative or otherwise, but plenty of the historical take in the monday report is flawed, which anyone reading this can easily look up, if interested.

3/08/2005 09:41:00 AM
Anonymous said...

Leopold,
You're Canadian so we forgive you, but that quote about speaking softly and carrying a big stick is Theodore Roosevelt's big line. He was FDR's cousin, older, and an earlier president (they also belonged to different political parties though both cousins were at least marginally progressive--reportedly they didn't care for one another much either). To be honest I don't know why Roth bothered, as it's unlikely he could top Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, another novel about a fascist takeover of America and published in 1938?, about the time Roth sets his novel in. It's up there with 1984 but not taught in American schools often because it hits a bit too close to home.
Cheers!
Wred

3/08/2005 12:16:00 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)