United States of America

Bust portrait of a young man representing the nativist ideal of the Know Nothing party, from Harp Week collection of American political prints, 1766-1876

Anti-Immigration Politics Pre Trump

April 24, 2017 by Emily Sosolik

“I Know Nothing”: Faith, Fear, and Politics in Antebellum America By Emily Sosolik Let our opponents torture and distort the truth as they may, no specious reasoning, no political sophistry can alter the fact that those who are constantly laboring to fight down Americanism and Protestantism are enemies of their country, and tories or traitors of their native land. — The Know Nothing Almanac and True Americans’ Manual for 1856 The fear of the other has manifested wildly […]

Categories: Article • Tags: Catholic Church, citizenship, Fourteenth Amendment, immigration, Know-Nothing Party, nativist, naturalization, United States of America, US history, US politics

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Wendy Artin, Tamara on her Side with Foot in Hand, 2003, watercolor on Fabiano Ingres paper, 12 x 9, © 2003-2014

The New Shadows, Judd, Artin

February 7, 2017 by William Eaton

At sea in these thunder-clouded days we write out of habit and wishing that we might find some magical, Archimedean fulcrum that would right the ship or allow us to gather the pieces and start building anew. At present we cannot be sure how, or if, these pieces fit together. In any critic’s work, we may find an underlying set of values which inform the critic’s assertions that work ‘a,’ artist ‘b,’ public policy ‘c’ is superior or inferior to […]

Categories: Comment, William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: Donald Judd, Gatsby, Thomas Jefferson, United States of America

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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Anima dannata, 1619, white marble. Embassy of Spain in Vatican City, Holy See, Rome

Americans’ Anger / Poetry / Trump / Furies

October 24, 2016 by Walter Cummins

Review of H.L. Hix, American Anger: An Evidentiary (Etruscan Press, 2016). “I’ve got a family to feed, a neighborhood to defend.” “I’ve got a family to feed, a principle to defend.” “I’ve got a family to feed, my honor to defend.” — H.L. Hix, American Anger These lines taken from separate poems in the first section—“Aggression Cues”—of H. L. Hix’s recent poetry collection, American Anger, can serve as elements of a mantra for the entire book. The voice […]

Categories: Review • Tags: anger, Donald Trump, poetry, United States of America

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Whig primary, 1848 - An Available Candidate, The One Qualification for a Whig President

Trump, de Tocqueville, Democracy, Materialism

March 14, 2016 by William Eaton

Many people in Europe believe without saying, or say without believing, that one of the great advantages of universal suffrage is that it calls men worthy of the people’s confidence to take charge of public affairs. The people do not know how to govern themselves, but, it is said, they always want the State to thrive, and they but rarely fail to choose for leaders people who both share this desire and are the most fit to wield political power. […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, corruption, de Tocqueville, democracy, Donald Trump, New York Times, Presidential campaigns, Socrates, United States of America, Yeats

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People console one another outside the emergency room entrance to Loma Linda Medical Center after two shootouts in San Bernardino. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Guns, Death, Terrorism, the United States

December 3, 2015 by Walter Cummins

Details are still emerging about the San Bernardino shootings, but evidence mounts that this was terrorism. Public reaction appears to be much more disturbed and fearful than it was a few days earlier when a lone domestic gunman shot people at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood office. The extent of the San Bernardino reaction is understandable because it reveals once more a network of organized forces hostile to Americans, impersonally seeking victims in a variety of public settings. The […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: death, guns, Planned Parenthood, San Bernardino, statistics, terrorism, United States of America

Cocteau, Americans, Dignity, Slinkys

August 6, 2015 by William Eaton

In 1949, the French writer, artist, and filmmaker Jean Cocteau wrote a few lines about French politics at that time, lines that might help Americans today view their own political battles with more optimism than usual. In my translation: I know well that in 1949 politics are a big deal and the clashes of different factions seem more important than lovers’ quarrels. But, just between us, don’t these political battles feature the same injustice and bad faith as lovers’ quarrels? […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: art, France, Hollywood, Jean Cocteau, Le Journal des Goncourt, Museum of Modern Art, Picasso, technology, toys, United States of America

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The solitudes of this America

July 23, 2015 by William Eaton

In the woods of Michigan in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville recounts, he found a not entirely unfamiliar solitude, but what was unusual was that, unlike previously, when he had visited the ruins of ancient European civilizations, the solitudes of America led his mind to project forward, losing itself “dans un immense avenir” (in a vast future). He and his traveling companion, also from France, asked themselves why fate had given them this quite singular opportunity to see both a portion […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: de Tocqueville, indigenous people, natu, solitude, translation, United States of America, Western civilization, Willard Van Orman Quine, Wittgenstein

Dedicated, well-armed sociopaths who’ll stop at nothing

July 16, 2015 by William Eaton

1 I’m just waking up. News radio. Listening for the weather. The solemn voice of a commentator: . . . what we’re dealing with . . . dedicated, well-armed sociopaths who’ll stop at nothing to impose their will on as much of the world as possible. It’s July 2015. I’m in the USA. Even groggy I know who the commentator has in mind. But halfway to the shower the thought occurs: Not a bad description of another bunch, of a […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, Hillary Clinton, Octavio Paz, sociopaths, T.S. Eliot, United States of America