Too far to the right?

 November 29, 1985

 
Jim just left here with a few bundles of “Scrap Paper Review.”
Another messenger we send out into the dark world to do our desperate duty as an underground newspaper.
He figures he can spread the news despite the fact that mainstream world really isn’t ready for us or has a desire for us to speak our minds.
Jim, however, isn’t like the rest of our crew. Some see him as our token Nazi for his extreme right-wing views.
Michael certainly reacts to his statements in that way and gets irritated by the fact that I continue to publish him.
I believe in free speech; Michael often doesn’t.
Nazi is too strong a term in describing Jim.
But we are living in a time when the so-called righteous have become intolerant, and if someone doesn’t share our views, he clearly is evil.
Jim is someone insensitive when it comes to issues of racism and refuses to see a racist under every rock the way many of my fellow former school mates do. He also reflects a lack of sensitivity when it comes to antisemitism, although I would not consider him anti-Jewish.
He reminds me of my uncles who I see as stereotypical Americans, too busy with their noses to the grindstone to worry about who they offend.
Jim is more talk than action, an intellectual right-wing icon who stands out against the backdrop of left-wing ideology we all were forced to endure while students. He’s not the kind to go out and buy a gun or promote violence. He just won’t judge other people if they feel the need to do it.
Jim is more about being an individual rather than being part of left-wing machine – although because he says what he says, people think he’s a spokesperson for some new Arian nation.
The left is constantly looking to scapegoat people by calling them some kind of racist when a person refuses to buy the party line.
I guess that’s why I tolerate him.
We are all the product of our upbringing and Jim was raised in Boonton, whose parents are part of the West Jersey wasp elite – though technically, he has little attachment to that way of life either.
But the left is always looking for their scapegoats to stand out somehow as extreme, while Jim looks on the surface too bland to play that role, more blue collar than middle class, dressing like a dock worker or a seaman most of the time.
Unless you hear him talk, he seems invisible in a crowd, blending into the background. Even when he speaks, he seems bland, cold, his voice detached and unemotional, rarely sounding excited about anything, even when he claims he is.
Even today, he seemed distant, while I know he must be feeling horrible about the death of his father last Friday.
Jim isn’t stupid.
He works as a biochemist at the Jersey City Waterworks, in an office at the reservoir a few blocks from his house in Boonton.
Terry knows him best. They were close once at college although they seem to be more distant now. They shared writing.
I remember his submitting massive amounts of material when I was editor of the literary magazine at school.
Michael hated it all and yanked out only those pieces he claimed, “almost worked,” complaining each time about how Jim rambled – although the Celine piece he did last spring (yet another hint of fascism?) was brilliant and sharp.
It becomes harder for me to judge others especially those who I might disagree with.
There is something sterile and clinical about borderline fascism that is fascinating, even when at times as an ideology is seems confused.
But it is difficult to tell if the confusion is his or mine, and whether or not, he and people like him will slip over the edge into real fascism if times get bad.
I don’t know him well enough, only what he submits to our newspapers in the mail.
He’s a regular contributor with something to say, which is more than I can say about many other so called creative artists.
And I appreciate it.