'Democratic Money' & the Tragedy of Anti-Marxism (wasRe:Populism)

Katha Pollitt kpollitt at thenation.com
Sat Nov 13 21:48:20 PST 1999


E Fuller Torrey wrote a book (forget name) about ten years ago about Ezra Pound's years as a patient at St. Elizabeth's. Torrey, who was a shrink at St E's after Pound's day and had access to all the relevant hospital records, thought Pound was not mentally ill, but had been put away to avoid an embarrassing treason trial. While in hospital Pound was given very special treatment, and no mental health treatment to speak of-- unless you count conjugal visits from young girlfriend! He took advantage of this situation to carry out from hospital an elaborate correspondence with a white supremacist neo-Nazi (sorry forget that name too) who was involved in disseminating antisemitic and racist literature and in bombing synagogues in Florida. According to Torrey, Pound was a much more hardcore racist and antisemite (not to mention fascist) than he is usually acknowledged to be. The literary cult around him has played a rather obscurantist role here. And getting around things like calling FDR "Kikey Rosenfeld" takes some doing!

.Wrote some wonderful poems all the same.

Katha

I find that when people start talking about the evils of currency, and how we need to go back to gold, or land, or whatever, a diatribe against "the jews" is usually not far behind.



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