tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post5447935790755356063..comments2024-03-29T12:05:09.910+07:00Comments on <b>Postcards from the End of [the] America[n Empire]</b>: Postcard from the End of America: Center City, PhiladelphiaLinh Dinhhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-16496493091660694272015-02-28T20:11:02.410+07:002015-02-28T20:11:02.410+07:00I had it as the Union Club, but a reader pointed o...I had it as the Union Club, but a reader pointed out that it's actually the Union League, so it's corrected. He added, "They don't worship Satan overtly but they worship Reagan. They raided the employee pension fund for an ill-advised renovation that drove them into extreme debt despite four figure membership fees, with some members suspecting them of cooking the books.* Not aware of any board games played - the kind of place where you don't want to beat the wrong person in a game, you'd know who'd you want to let win. It was the inspiration for Trading Places, with Eddie Murphy in the Angel role." Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-73557234392855948042015-02-28T02:32:14.670+07:002015-02-28T02:32:14.670+07:00Linh, I want to quickly mention Raymond Williams&#...Linh, I want to quickly mention Raymond Williams' writings about Orwell, someone who sees the pros and cons of him like few others with a compatriot's perspeptive on common influences. Whatever cons there were with GO were sincere and not a result of opportunism. Though he is remembered for being a dystopian writer, when he was immersed in radical culture for an extended period he wrote his most hopeful book, Homage to Catalonia, in my view his most indipensible one.<br /><br />re: your heckler: everyone who takes up these issues is going to get called all sorts of names, the germ of that provides the immunity.Ian Keenanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16596558654735506132noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-33402183837332915982015-02-28T00:28:08.987+07:002015-02-28T00:28:08.987+07:00Yo Joe,
As for 1984 and Animal Farm being in the ...Yo Joe,<br /><br />As for 1984 and Animal Farm being in the curriculum in the West, it's because these books were treated only as indictments of Communism. Now that the US, UK and others have adopted, more openly, tactics described by Orwell, students are too glazed eyed to know what the hell they're reading<br /><br />Moreover, the vast majority are no longer reading Orwell, at least not in the US. Elizabeth Hayes used to teach 1984 at her community college in Cleveland, but the administration told her it was no longer on the approved list. They didn't say it was for political reason, but simply because students couldn't penetrate such a strange book. As for highschools, I seriously doubt if 1984 is being taught at more than a handful of places across the US, if at all.<br /><br />Linh<br />Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-1913901436057383022015-02-28T00:11:47.815+07:002015-02-28T00:11:47.815+07:00Yo Joe,
During my two years in Italy, my wife and...Yo Joe,<br /><br />During my two years in Italy, my wife and I experienced universal healthcare and that was amazing. For a modest fee each year, we didn't have to worry about dropping dead or going bankrupt with one emergency room visit, and we were merely temporary residents, and not citizens of Italy.<br /><br />LinhLinh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-10719221008978542332015-02-27T22:46:58.082+07:002015-02-27T22:46:58.082+07:00p.s. thanks for the beautiful poetry and translati...p.s. thanks for the beautiful poetry and translations!x larryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11386953427204887354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-9897845193354234422015-02-27T22:42:36.987+07:002015-02-27T22:42:36.987+07:00hi linh,
sorry for the ugly phrase 'systemic c...hi linh,<br />sorry for the ugly phrase 'systemic change'. divisiveness, to be sure, is everywhere and all-pervasive. i have even wondered before whether orwell himself was divisive. for example, he made a comment in one of his essays about the laughability of the old christian ideal of equality--that is, the mindset of all of europe for maybe 1500 years, or more, where nation was not nearly so important as being christian (i think--or something like that). he seemed to imply right after that his race was rather superior--i'd have to look it up. i could perhaps say more on my impressions of orwell, but they're not fresh in my mind. overall, i think he's a very interesting writer at least. i can't say i totally trust him. he did of course work for the bbc, which is maybe why he knew what he knew. also, i wonder why, if it's so subversive, 1984 (or animal farm) would be allowed to exist. maybe they're just waiting for the nearby day when all is electronic and easily manipulated, edited and erased. but that won't be necessary, with the brain dead population now in existence worldwide. once proud peoples! do something quick--switch overnight or even over a generation from vacant tv watchers to sensitive poets en masse.<br />by communism or socialism--i'm obviously no expert, interested though i am (i've no direct experience living in these places)--i certainly don't mean totalitarianism, or control, or order. all i mean is this: we have, common sense tells me (and i thought this as a young boy, and have held onto it since), or should have anyway, an absolute birthright to a decent house and plenty of good food. this could be achieved tomorrow. for people who think a big house, an expensive car, a trophy wife is important--to them i have nothing to say. in a world not totally upside down, they would be laughed out of every room they entered. not in our present world, though. women are the key to this, in my mind. if they aren't impressed, then big shot goes away. unfortunately, women have proven in the past century anyway (this can be changed) to be fully as capable of fascism as men.<br />anyway, the social safety net in britain (which they're trying to dismantle rapidly) is the closest thing i've seen to what i have in mind. there are no starving here. though of course there are SO many of the miserable. but, to me, private property must not only be abolished, but seen for what it is--laughable, cruel, stupid, childish (well, only the worst, spoilt children). i said britain's benefit system and health care are along the right lines. but of course britain is almost the very home of private property. the only true models, perhaps, are american indians, australian aborigines, and all tribal people. <br />but what madness--people trying just to survive, people eating from dumpsters. bill gates and the queen and george soros and bono and blair and paul mccartney filthy fucking rich. and the rich get their money through inheritance. and those rags to riches stories--what ruthless, pig-headed asshole did what for his money (today it was a 15 year old girl in manhattan with a 400 thousand a year babysitting business). and people still admiring the rich.<br />on that note, bye for now,<br />'joe'x larryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11386953427204887354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-70725004955768609642015-02-27T20:07:14.201+07:002015-02-27T20:07:14.201+07:00Yo Joe,
Lastly, if I show "little hope for s...Yo Joe,<br /><br />Lastly, if I show "little hope for systemic change," in your phrasing, it's because I see nothing but divisiveness everywhere, and many people who are disatisfied are stuck on just a single issue and don't see the bigger picture. Others are so committed to some ideology, they see enemies or heretics everywhere. There is little in the way of empathy or respectful attentiveness to even one’s potential allies. <br /><br />Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-65308354525545739982015-02-27T19:51:04.514+07:002015-02-27T19:51:04.514+07:00Discussing Arthur Koestler, Orwell wrote, "th...Discussing Arthur Koestler, Orwell wrote, "there is almost no English writer to whom it has happened to see totalitarianism from the inside. In Europe, during the past decade and more, things have been happening to middle-class people which in England do not even happen to the working class [...] England is lacking, therefore, in what one might call concentration-camp literature. The special world created by secret-police forces, censorship of opinion, torture and frame-up trials is, of course, known about and to some extent disapproved of, but it has made very little emotional impact. One result of this is that there exists in England almost no literature of disillusionment about the Soviet Union. There is the attitude of ignorant disapproval, and there is the attitude of uncritical admiration, but very little in between. Opinion on the Moscow sabotage trials, for instance, was divided, but divided chiefly on the question of whether the accused were guilty. Few people were able to see that, whether justified or not, the trials were an unspeakable horror."<br /><br />Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-14665552475533839682015-02-27T19:50:02.191+07:002015-02-27T19:50:02.191+07:00Hi Joe,
The problem with Communism is that it'...Hi Joe,<br /><br />The problem with Communism is that it's a one party system which tolerates no dissent, and it's economically a disaster. We cannot insist on adopting a system that's been rejected by all the societies that have tried them, and I include in this list the ones that still call themselves Communist.<br /><br />I'm not even against the Communist Party as long as we don't have to live under its dictatorship. In many countries, there are active Communist Parties that manage to get their candidates elected, and that's fine. My only objection is to any kind of totalitarianism or dictatorship.<br /><br />The man who pays me $200 a year for my one Vietnamese article is poet Trần Dạ Từ. He was jailed for 12 years by the evil Vietnamese Communist regime. His bio from <a href="http://www.vietnamlit.org/wiki/index.php?title=Wikivietlit" rel="nofollow">Wikivietlit</a>:<br /><br />Trần Dạ Từ (1940), real name Lê Hạ Vĩnh, is a poet, editor and publisher of Việt Báo, a newspaper based in Southern California.<br /><br />He was born in Hải Dương, northern Vietnam. In 1954, during the partition of the country, he went to Saigon, where he became a journalist and prominent poet. During 1963, he was jailed by the Ngô Đình Diệm government for his dissident views, then imprisoned for 12 years by the Communists from 1976-1988, after the collapse of South Vietnam. His wife, the famous novelist and poet Nhã Ca, the only South Vietnamese female writer among 10 black-listed as "cultural guerrillas" by the Communist regime, was also imprisoned from 1976-1977. In 1989, a year after Trần Dạ Từ was released from prison, the couple and their children received political asylum from the Swedish government, but later moved to the US and now live in Southern California.<br /><br />[...]Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-8057668008567620972015-02-27T19:15:48.732+07:002015-02-27T19:15:48.732+07:00Tố Hữu was also a very high-ranking Party member. ...Tố Hữu was also a very high-ranking Party member. Near death in 2002, he circulated a farewell poem. I translate:<br /><br /><i>To my most beloved friend in life<br />A few lines of verse and a bit of ash<br />Poetry for life, ash for the soil<br />In life I give, in death I also give.</i><br /><br />The Vietnamese word for “give” is “cho.” Add a rising diacritic, however, and “cho” becomes “chó,” meaning “dog.” In oral circulation, the last line of Tố Hữu’s poem has been converted to:<br /><br /><i>In life I was a dog, in death a dog.</i>Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-16500873511883744532015-02-27T19:14:36.344+07:002015-02-27T19:14:36.344+07:00Hi Joe,
And while Vang Sao nearly starved to deat...Hi Joe,<br /><br />And while Vang Sao nearly starved to death, the pampered poet of North Vietnam was Tố Hữu.<br />He spent decades writing bloodthirsty or obsequious poetry, among which is a bizarre ode to Stalin. My translation:<br /><br /><i><b>Stalin! Stalin!</b><br /><br />A mother showed to her child<br />A picture of Stalin with a young child<br />His shirt is white against red clouds<br />His eyes are kind, his mouth smiling<br /><br />On an immense green field<br />He stands with a little child<br />Wearing a red scarf round his neck<br />Towards the future they both look<br /><br />Stalin! Stalin!<br />How I loved my child’s first word<br />When he said the word Stalin!<br />The milky fragance of a baby’s mouth<br />Is like the dove of peace and a limpid moon<br /><br />Yesterday the field speaker blared<br />Tore my stomach to shreds<br />O how the village convulsed<br />O how can it be… He’s dead!<br />O Stalin! O Stalin!<br /><br />Without you, are there still sky and earth?<br />The love for my father, mother, wife<br />The love for myself are but one tenth<br />Of my love for you<br />The love for my child, country, race<br />Can’t be greater than my love for you<br /><br />Before there was only barren desolation<br />Thanks to you there’s brightness and joy<br />Before only torn clothes and hunger<br />Thanks to you our rice pots are full<br /><br />Before only torment and shackles<br />Thanks to you we have days of freedom<br />When people have land to till<br />When independence comes tomorrow<br />Who will we remember with gratitude?<br /><br />This gratitude I’ll bear on my shoulders<br />One side for Uncle Ho, one for you<br />My child, you’re still so clueless<br />But you’ll learn to thank Stalin for life<br /><br />Loving you a mother vowed in silence<br />To love village, country, husband, child<br />Although you have disappeared, gone<br />Your crimson footsteps are forever<br /><br />Today on the village road at dawn<br />Incense smoke curled up everywhere<br />A thousand in mourning white, joined<br />In wrenching eternal remembrance of you.</i>Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-32968170915587801302015-02-27T18:48:11.498+07:002015-02-27T18:48:11.498+07:00Yo Joe,
There were good people who believed whole...Yo Joe,<br /><br />There were good people who believed wholely in Communism, and were selfless and enjoyed working with each other, but unfortunately, they ended up being jerked around and abused by the pigs, if not locked up and shot. Orwell describes this well in Animal Farm. <br /><br />Theres is a Vietnamese poet named Tran Vang Sao, and here's his bio, as found on Wikivietlit (something I'm technically in charge of, though I haven't had time to take care of it in years):<br /><br />"Trần Vàng Sao (1942), real name Nguyễn Đính, is a poet, also a memoirist.<br /><br />He was born in Hue. Soon after, his father was killed by the French during the First Indochina War. During the Vietnam War, he contributed to the underground newspaper Thanh Niên Chống Mỹ [Youth against America]. He joined the National Liberation Front in 1965, lived in areas under its control, broadcasting propaganda until 1969, when he was injured and removed to the north.<br /><br />In spite of his allegiance to the Communist cause during the war--his pen name, "Vàng Sao," means "Yellow Star," a reference to the national flag--he has been blacklisted since 1972 for his candid depictions of social conditions inside Vietnam. He’s been harassed constantly, even imprisoned, his manuscripts confiscated.<br /><br />His poetic voice is bemused, ironic, deliberately banal, a reaction against the dogmatic bombast of many of his contemporaries. His poems have been translated into English and published in the journals American Poetry Review (Vol.28/No.1, Jan/Feb 1999) and The Literary Review (Winter 1999)."<br /><br />So there you have a great Communist who's been destroyed by the pigs. I was never able to meet Vang Sao, but I talked to him once the phone, and a mutual friend told me about his wretched living condition.<br /><br />And here are <a href="http://poeticinvention.blogspot.com/2007/02/tran-vang-sao.html" rel="nofollow">four of his poems</a> I've translated. Do read them.<br /><br /><br />LinhLinh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-69654109646493394292015-02-27T14:37:20.517+07:002015-02-27T14:37:20.517+07:00hi linh,
i agree that orwell is very moving. '...hi linh,<br />i agree that orwell is very moving. 'homage to catalonia' you didn't mention, but it is a great book on a great subject. when i re read 1984 a few years ago (the first time was in high school in around the year 84), i was floored. it is a staggering book, absolutely terrifying. i could only wonder, why the hell didn't i see that when i read it as a high school student? probably the way it was presented to us, or the fact that by high school i and everyone pretty much hates reading--they do their job well!<br />i won't say i have an issue with your take on communism, but just feel despair, and any glimmers of hope i see seem to quickly vanish. i am thinking of various examples of the same thing: the ideal of socialism. i am now reading fidel castro's autobiography, for example. chavez gave me great hope for the world. there's a documentary on yugoslavia i saw a year or so ago which states that the usa bombing into oblivion of that country was due to the fact that it was the one shining example to the world of a place where socialism worked. i met in spain around new year's 1998 a couple from former east germany, who missed it so much, who hated west german pigs, who missed above all the comraderie and lack of selfishness. i think of putin, who said 'anyone who doesn't lament the fall of the soviet union has no heart'. i think of essays by andre vltchek on cuba and china, positive essays on the beauties of what they're doing there and in other axis of evil places. ok, etc, etc.<br />do you make anything of all this, linh? (i do i think get your general drift from reading many of your writings, but you seem to have no hope for systemic change in such a corrupt, horrific world)<br />and with x, i give you my heartfelt sympathy against the motherfucker that's trying to torment you--i'm guessing it's that guy you've already mentioned up on north broad. ah, the crazies! cheers,<br />joeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-88804725321666976842015-02-27T11:27:03.959+07:002015-02-27T11:27:03.959+07:00One more thought about Orwell. Since the allegoric...One more thought about Orwell. Since the allegorical 1984 and Animal Farm are his most famous books, many readers may not realize how great of a descriptive writer he is. The man looked and listened very carefully. <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79d/index.html" rel="nofollow">Down and Out in Paris and London</a> is an example of this, and the first two chapters of The Road to Wigan Pier are masterpieces of descriptive writing.<br /><br />Orwell's disdain for certain types of leftists rankles people to this day, and his flareups of misogyny are inexcusable. That said, he was deeply concerned about men and women of the working class. It's the prigs and poseurs that made him seethe.Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-33513150994085303062015-02-27T10:41:53.677+07:002015-02-27T10:41:53.677+07:00Hi X,
In chapter XI of The Road to Wigan Pier, Or...Hi X,<br /><br />In chapter <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79r/chapter11.html" rel="nofollow">XI</a> of The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell rails on the armchair socialists.<br /><br />In Chaper <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79r/chapter6.html" rel="nofollow">VI</a>, he talks about how little the English working class and unemployed have to eat, and thus mention in passing Asian coolies.<br /><br />Though Orwell went to Eaton, his family could only afford it thanks to a scholarship, and Orwell was poor much of his life. Here's his account of being a poor ward in a Parisian hospital. It is a <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/part39.html" rel="nofollow">must read</a>.<br /><br />When I mentioned Orwell in my last Postcard, a reader responded with<br />"Believing that the Anglo Saxon sex fantasy '1984' is a serious political book and trying to base an analysis upon it, is the very definition of bourgeois!" I'm sorry, but that really pained me, for how can any person be so aggressively stupid? How can anyone possibly read 1984, one of the most important political novels ever, and reduce it to a masturbation aid?! Such gleeful malice and such bottomless idiocy! It is very sad.<br /><br />Orwell had moral and physical courage, and so did Jack London, and his <a href="https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/london/jack/people_of_the_abyss/" rel="nofollow">People of the Abyss</a> is a neglected classic. In the passage below, London describes a bathing scene in a workhouse:<br /><br />“two by two, we entered the bathroom. There were two ordinary tubs, and this I know: the two men preceding had washed in that water, we washed in the same water, and it was not changed for the two men that followed us. This I know; but I am also certain that the twenty-two of us washed in the same water.<br /><br />I did no more than make a show of splashing some of this dubious liquid at myself, while I hastily brushed it off with a towel wet from the bodies of other men. My equanimity was not restored by seeing the back of one poor wretch a mass of blood from attacks of vermin and retaliatory scratching.”<br />Linh Dinhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00328959360983573810noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4284893230469697578.post-31376318052574052142015-02-27T10:12:52.383+07:002015-02-27T10:12:52.383+07:00Unfortunately, many of us have the tendency to foc...Unfortunately, many of us have the tendency to focus on and be affected by an idiot, when there are others who respect us. I hope that stalker does not affect you too much, Linh. What you're doing is very moving and important. Even if all you did was talk to people like Angel but not write anything, it would still be important, for you would have given time and attention to the people ignored by far too many.<br /><br />In which work did Orwell write about the socialists, and about the coolies? I've only read 1984 and his essay on the English language ("Politics and the English Language"). I need to familiarize myself with more of his writings.<br /><br />In general, I am very affected by the destituteness you show in your photos. However, people like Angel, Stephanie, and Jill (from a previous postcard), affect me even more because I'm in the same age group. It's somehow massively unfair that they have to go through what they go through. Apparently, Bill Gates is reputed to have said "Life isn't fair. Get used to it." It's pretty easy to say that when one has all the riches in the world.<br /><br />We had a similar discussion a while ago, about Tolstoyan groups, but besides that, is there no way for these homeless folks in general, and the young ones in particular, to have a brighter future? Is there no way that people with the heart and money can somehow start something to give these folks a career, or at least just a job? Or is there simply a fundamental incompatibility given that we're in a system that keeps concentrating wealth in the hands of a few?<br /><br />The fact that the shelter folks annoy people like that to wake them up is so sadistic. I wonder if it's a case of "you homeless people make me feel bad and sad. Quit making me feel bad and sad. Get the fuck out!" Basically a case of blaming the victim because the victim is making the person feel bad.<br /><br />Fuck this retarded system.Xnoreply@blogger.com