My response: http://www.fglaysher.com/NYTpr.htm
In predictable fashion The New York Times Book Review and much
of the media have chosen to support the more radical and supposedly
"enlightened" viewpoint on the tiff with The White House and Laura Bush.
A more misguided and wrong-headed response could
not exist. It's so fraught with cliches I hardly know where to start.
In general, it's a pity that Sam Hamill, and others who think like
him, demonstrate once again that poetry, as defined by them
at least, indeed doesn't matter, so complete is their inability
to think seriously about the threat represented by Saddam Hussein
and his weapons of mass destruction. Their ridiculous pose of mounting
the barricades is really quite contemptible. It is clear that the crowd
alluded to by Mr. Hamill summons poetry to their own radical
distortions and agendas, achieving only a further marginalization
of an art that has all too often, among some, lost allegiance to
the civilizing values of peace, which require defense never more so
than now.
Far from "the conscience of our culture," such poets have
no sense of history and the deep obligations of our country, to
ourselves and to the world, which the burden of power lays
upon us at this juncture. President Bush is right to call the United
Nations to live up to its founding Charter, to be a common refuge
of defense, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,"
not merely consultation, reduced to babel. At this time of national
and international crisis, poets who betray their nation, art, and
humanity merit no audience at The White House.
For a different view of the issues involved, I invite your readers
to consider my essay "The Victory of World Governance":
http://www.fglaysher.com/WorldGov.htm
Frederick Glaysher
www.fglaysher.com
Earthrise Press
P. O. Box 81842
Rochester, MI 48308-1842 USA
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