OntheWilderSide

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Dear Friends (who were also friends of Allen’s):

In the October 10^th New York Times Book Review, there was an article by Lee Siegel comparing the views of Beat Generation writers, including Allen’s, to the right-wing Tea Party movement. I wrote a letter to the Book Review editor in response because I thought it was important to challenge Siegel’s misrepresentations, particularly with the elections coming up and with so many crazy Tea Party candidates running.  Of course, it’s difficult to get letters to the editor published in the NY Times (although I have managed to get in a few in the past) because they receive so many more letters than they can publish. Since I just found out that this one isn’t going to get in there, I thought I would at least send it around to friends who were also friends of Allen’s, in the hope that some of you might appreciate it.

With all best wishes,

Eliot Katz.

[Unpublished letter to the NY Times Book Review Editor by Eliot Katz:]

To the Editor:

As a poet, activist, and longtime friend of the late Allen Ginsberg, I wanted to challenge the characterization of Ginsberg’s political views and work in Lee Siegel’s provocative article, “The Beat Generation and the Tea Party” (Oct. 10).  Introducing his piece with the claim that the Beat Generation writers were driven mainly by a desire for individual freedom, Siegel writes that they were “essentially apolitical” and that “insofar as they had sociopolitical ambitions, their goals…were the stuff of poetry, not organized politics.” After portraying Ginsberg as uninterested in working practically to improve government policies, Siegel then proceeds to link the ideas of Ginsberg and other Beat Generation writers to the right-wing Tea Party’s project of downsizing government’s role in ensuring people’s social and economic needs and rights.

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Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, Anti-War, Election 2010, grassroots democracy, media, News, Peace, poetry, politics, progressive politics, social & economic justice, US Politics, war | Tagged: Abbie Hoffman, allen ginsberg, Beat Generation, Chicago 8, David Dellinger, Eliot Katz, Eliot Spitzer, howl, Lee Siegel, Moloch, new york, new york times, New York Times Book Review, NY politics, PEN, politics, Student Action Union, Tea Party, Tea Party protests, The New York Times, united states, Vietnam, Walt Whitman | 2 Comments »