Comment to Katie Ryder

I've submitted a comment to a post by Katie Ryder at the literary site Guernica Magazine, here:
http://www.guernicamag.com/daily/katie-ryder-banned-books-week/

My comment awaits moderation. I'm giving it here, in case it's not posted:
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I just noticed this. Quite a lot of contradiction in this piece. Whether there are truly banned books today, there are certainly banned writers– such as the populists and zinesters who made up the Underground Literary Alliance. The centerpiece of the reactionary attack on the ULA was the Tom Bissell essay in The Believer, republished this year in his collection of essays. You, Katie, did two interviews with Mr. Bissell and seemed to agree with everything he said, asking him not one hard question. Such as, “Was your ‘classocide’ slur against the ULA exaggeration? What about the ‘lots and lots of tombstones’ line?” Amazing to me how the purported defense of the lower classes– including writers– by the literary and media elite is in fact very sketchy.
Banned books indeed!
Have a good day.
(The Bissell essay taken apart at http://www.kingwenclas.blogspot.com)
Thanks.
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Power Used Against the Powerless

THE ARROGANCE OF LITERARY POWER

McSweeneys Books shouldn’t have included the smear essay against the Underground Literary Alliance in Tom Bissell’s Magic Hours. What was the point? Bissell wasn’t attacking and slurring the powerful, but the powerless—an organization which was already broken; many of whose writers are broken. This enabled various literary people in outlets as diverse as the New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, Los Angeles Times, and Guernica magazine to take ill-informed shots at the ULA and its writers. That they did so was revealing—showing that the liberal pose of these people is just that: a pose. McSweeneys included.

The truth of the matter is that McSweeneys IS the One Percent. Dave Eggers IS the One Percent. Vendela Vida IS the One Percent. Many of their good friends, Rick Moody, Daniel Handler, and many others, ARE the One Percent. These are writers of privilege—in some cases, extreme privilege—who are out of touch with the struggles of the bulk of the American populace. No doubt many of them this moment are vacationing at their summer resorts.

What did they attack in the Underground Literary Alliance—in 2003 and again in 2012? They attacked the ONLY American writers group which has never kowtowed to the One Percent, is not dominated or owned or paid by the One Percent, has no connections whatsoever to the One Percent. An organization which was founded to stand up for the underdog, against power. You’d have a hard time saying these things about any other writers group—including the most “liberal” of them, PEN among them, which in reality are little more than playthings for the very One Percent they pretend to stand against. The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

History will judge the truth of the matter.

Ahead of the Curve

THE ULA ONCE AGAIN PROVEN RELEVANT

I note the Joel Whitney article in Salon.com regarding the CIA/Paris Review connection. His article has been further addressed by the likes of Jennifer Schuessler at the New York Times Arts Beat blog, by Alex Halperin on twitter, and others. Golly gee, where was this kind of coverage when the Underground Literary Alliance addressed the issue in 2005 and 2007?? We took a lot of heat over the matter, were supported by no one in the established literary world, and were effectively blackballed. Yet, as with our populist protests, precursors to both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, we were far ahead of the zeitgeist.

This once again shows that more important than what's said in American culture, is who's saying it-- whether or not you're one of the Approved. Truth is a secondary concern.