------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 27, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
POETS WAX ELOQUENT AGAINST PENTAGON WAR By Minnie Bruce Pratt Poets are joining in the mounting, vociferous protests over the Bush administration and its drive toward war on Iraq. Sam Hamill, founder of Copper Canyon Press, was invited to a White House symposium on "Poetry and the American Voice," hosted by First Lady Laura Bush. He asked friends via the internet for anti-war poems to take with him. In three days he had 1,500, and the Bushes had canceled the symposium. Now Hamill has received almost 9,000 poems. And even U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins has declared he opposes the war. (poetsagainstthewar.org) The original date of the symposium, Feb. 12, turned into a day of poetry against the war. Some 160 poetry readings all across the U.S. brought out thousands who also opposed the U.S. intent to wage war on Iraq. Hamill's efforts recall the earlier action of singer Eartha Kitt. Invited to a luncheon at Lyndon Johnson's White House in 1968, she used the occasion to speak out forcefully against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Kitt was viciously attacked for her bravery. The current poets' protest was also recently criticized by powerbroker Leonard Garment. He described their action as "bad behavior"--as if they were unruly children. (New York Times, Feb. 8) But the very fact that Garment had to weigh in with his opinion betrays the significance of this cultural resistance to the war. And his comments contain an undertone of threat that artists who speak out will meet with reprisals. That's because Garment, once special counsel to Richard Nixon, headed up a congressional commission in the 1990s that set up legislation setting limits on federal arts grants to certain artists--those whose work challenged the reactionary religious, economic or gender/ sex status quo. Right-wing attacks on feminist, gay and lesbian artists by conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) and the American Family Association gave the opening for this censorship. But the government suppression of alternative points of view in the arts paralleled its intensive campaign against other kinds of information. The FCC threatened to cancel the licenses of radio stations that aired programs with explicit safe-sex information for gay men. (Washington Post, July 13, 1990) Louis Sullivan, at that time Health and Human Services secretary, repudiated portions of a report on youth suicide, commissioned by his own department, because those recommendations were about preventing the deaths of lesbian and gay young people--and didn't "strengthen family values." (Washington Blade, Oct. 5, 1990) This suppression of information was put in place at the same time that the U.S. launched its attack on Iraq in the first Gulf War. Students were denied the right to protest on university campuses. Arab Americans were questioned by the FBI about their political beliefs. Conscientious objectors in the military were shipped out before their appeals were processed. Government workers feared their anti-war sentiments could cost them their jobs. (Washington Post, Jan. 29, 1991) Now, in the build-up toward a new war on Iraq, it's d�j� vu all over again. Unknown numbers of Muslim, Arab and South Asian individuals have been imprisoned in the U.S. since Sept. 11, 2001--without release of their names or the charges against them. Students at universities have been threatened with expulsion for protesting against the war. (democraticunderground.com, June 14, 2002) Meanwhile, a massive tide of resistance is rising against the domestic and foreign tyrannies of the U.S. government. And out of this crisis of capitalism, some artists are infusing old cultural forms with the new content of struggle: As Pippa Brush writes: I will speak out, she says, because I can no longer stay silent, because I can no longer let this happen in my name, because I want those I am told are my enemies to eat, not to die. [Minnie Bruce Pratt, a writer and white anti-racist activist, was denounced by Sen. Jesse Helms and the right-wing American Family Association in 1990 for the lesbian content of her poetry. Her poem, "After the Anti-War March," is online at www.poetsagainstthewar.org] - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
