April is the poet’s month.

I wanted to post something by Andrea Dworkin this weekend; I know that she wrote poetry, but I don’t know where to find most of it. The published works that I’m familiar with are prose: essays, short stories, novels. Her writing is poetic wherever she writes, but I wanted something in verse. Since I couldn’t find anything in print and my resources for really looking for it are limited, I decided to go with this. I don’t know whether this counts as poetry or not, properly speaking; I do know that it is exactly right. This is from Heartbreak (2002), her memoir and the last book that she finished before she died.

IMMORAL

People play life as if it’s a game, whereas each step is a real step. The shock of being unable to control what happens, especially the tragedies, overwhelms one. Someone dies; someone leaves; someone lies. There is sickness, misery, loneliness, betrayal. One is alone not just at the end but all the time. One tries to camouflage pain and failure. One wants to believe that poverty can be cured by wealth, cruelty by kindness; but neither is true. The orphan is always an orphan.

The worst immorality is in apathy, a deadening of caring about others, not because they have some special claim but because they have no claim at all.

The worst immorality is in disinterest, indifference, so that the lone person in pain has no importance; one need not feel an urgency about rescuing the suffering person.

The worst immorality is in dressing up to go out in order not to have to think about those who are hungry, without shelter, without protection.

The worst immorality is in living a trivial life because one is afraid to face any other kind of life–a despairing life or an anguished life or a twisted and difficult life.

The worst immorality is in living a mediocre life, because kindness rises above mediocrity always, and not to be kind locks one into an ethos of boredom and stupidity.

The worst immorality is in imitating those who give nothing.

The worst immorality is in conforming so that one fits in, smart or fashionable, mock-heroic or the very best of the very same.

The worst immorality is accepting the status quo because one is afraid of gossip against oneself.

The worst immorality is in selling out simply because one is afraid.

The worst immorality is a studied ignorance, a purposeful refusal to see or know.

The worst immorality is living without ambition or work or pushing the rest of us along.

The worst immorality is being timid when there is no threat.

The worst immorality is refusing to push oneself where one is afraid to go.

The worst immorality is not to love actively.

The worst immorality is to close down because heartbreak has worn one down.

The worst immorality is to live according to rituals, rites of passage that are predetermined and impersonal.

The worst immorality is to deny someone else dignity.

The worst immorality is to give in, give up.

The worst immorality is to follow a road map of hate drawn by white supremacists and male supremacists.

The worst immorality is to use another person’s body in the passing of time.

The worst immorality is to inflict pain.

The worst immorality is to be careless with another person’s heart and soul.

The worst immorality is to be stupid, because it’s easy.

The worst immorality is to repudiate one’s own uniqueness in order to fit in.

The worst immorality is to set one’s goals so low that one must crawl to meet them.

The worst immorality is to hurt children.

The worst immorality is to use one’s strength to dominate or control.

The worst immorality is to surrender the essence of oneself for love or money.

The worst immorality is to believe in nothing, do nothing, achieve nothing.

The worst immoralities are but one, a single sin of human nothingness and stupidity. “Do no harm” is the counterpoint to apathy, indifference, and passive aggression; it is the fundamental moral imperative. “Do no harm” is the opposite of immoral. One must do something and at the same time do no harm. “Do no harm” remains the hardest ethic.

A week ago over at the Mises Institute, Lee Wishing ran into a touchy ethical dilemma: it turns out that this year he will be netting $646, transferred from other people’s pockets to his, courtesy of the behind-the-scenes number juggling of TurboTax and the IRS’s refundable child tax credit for his family’s four children:

Line 43 of our 1040 shows that the tax on our income is $3,354. Line 51 notes that the child credit is $3,354 making the total credits, line 55, offset our tax liability.

But my zero tax liability isn’t the point of this story. I really have a negative tax liability. The federal government will not only return the money I had withheld during the year, they’ll be kicking in another $646, which is the difference between the total of the child tax credits on line 55, $4,000, and my tax liability of $3,354 on line 43.

Believe it or not, the federal government is going to give me $646 of your money. The formula on Form 8812–the Additional Child Tax Credit form–that determines I get an extra pile of dough is complex. I checked the calculation and it was correct. I called a tax accountant and he said it was correct.

But is it right?

My six-year-old daughter, Mary, asked me what I was writing about.

I explained the concept: I just filled out our tax forms and I learned that the federal government will be giving us money that doesn’t belong to us. They will be taking it from other people and giving it to us.

That’s not right! said my first-grader.

Eight-year-old daughter Sarah was listening. I don’t like that. I mean, I don’t like that the government is going to take money from other people and give it to us, she said sadly.

Gosh, that’s clear thinking. But the tax system blurs clear thinking.

— Lee Wishing, Mises Institute (2005-04-05): 1040 Plunder

Blurs it enough, I guess, that Lee doesn’t come to any resolution by the end of the article, even with young Mary and Sarah’s prodding. However, I wrote my friend Dr. Anarchy for advice, and she pointed out that there is a simple solution to Lee’s problem. Lee’s worried because the federal government took money from other people against their will, and now they’re giving some of it to him. What to about the double burden of a guilty conscience and $646.00 he doesn’t deserve?

Simple. I’ll take it.

I am one of those unfortunate taxpayers out of whose pockets Lee’s $646 was taken. He can solve his problem by sending $646.00 to me, Charles Johnson. I’d be glad to send copies of the 1040s to prove my net liability to the Feds over the past few years: this year I’ll be coughing up $156 in taxes and fees. Last year I paid about $350 all told. My forms for 2002 are back in Auburn, but I am sure that I rendered at least $140 of tribute to the federal government. So by sending me, Charles Johnson, $646, Lee can not only solve his ethical dilemma and save face in front of his young daughters, and help out someone who (as you might guess from the low bills) would be glad to get the money back, he can also make his own contribution to rectifying the injustices of Leviathan.

You might say that any other taxpayer has just as good a claim to Lee’s $646 as I do. True, but Lee can’t afford to pay them all, and $646 is all the restitution he’s on the hook for–the rest of his tax refund is just getting his own money back. Why not try to distribute it evenly between all the net tax recipients? There’s hundreds of millions of them; trying to split $646 between all of them would mean that, effectively, no-one gets any of their expropriated money back on the margin. But by giving it all to me, Charles Johnson, Lee can ensure that two people are restored to a state of libertarian justice: he won’t have his expropriated gains anymore, and by giving the block of money to me I’ll be set back to where I was before I paid out taxes for the past 3 years. What’s so special about me specifically? Well, I could use the money, and it was my idea. The rest of you can find some other net tax recipient with a guilty conscience and homestead a claim to your money from their surplus.

What an opportunity for Lee: he’s just $646 away from libertarian justice. I’m glad to help him out. It won’t take any ballot boxes and it won’t take any political parties; all he needs to do is join a nonviolent direct action against State expropriation. I gladly accept credit cards, cash, or electronic funds transfers.

Happy Tax Day.

This is also from Nervous Interview (1979). It may be good for Ampersand and anyone else who is dealing with obsessive anti-Dworkin trolls or out-of-left-field, illiterate jibes from psychos on their memorial posts.

Q: People think you are very hostile to men.
A: I am.

Q: Doesn’t that worry you?
A: From what you said, it worries them.

TONIGHT, on News of the Obvious:

• International correspondents John Lopez and Donald Rumsfeld: U.S. Has No Exit Strategy for Iraq

• International correspondents Anthony Gregory and Terry Jones: Bombing is bad for children’s health.

• International correspondent Thaddeus: The US armed forces are facing a major crisis as commitments throughout the world continue to demand fresh recruits and, despite the fact that the army has lowered its standards, the number of people willing to enlist is falling fast.

• In New York, Tom Tomorrow: Cops abuse their power and lie about it. Film at 11.

• In Atlanta: Eric Rudolph is not an anarchist. But he is a a real asshole.

• Correspondent Trish Wilson: E-mails disclosed to News of the Obvious reveal that the Father’s Rights movement are weaselly apologists for male violence.

• Correspondent Michael Berubé: David Horowitz isn’t just a far-right ideologue. He’s also a sorry old fraud.

• And in History of the Obvious a couple of days ago: Leninists kill people after claiming to be their “comrades”, and just because he’s the one who lost doesn’t mean that Leon Trotsky was any better.

I will probably be preparing some kind of pseudo-comprehensive round-up of Andrea Dworkin memorials toward the end of the week when I have the time and the energy to collect myself and put the links together in one place. For the time being, I just want to mention two fantastic remembrances, from One Good Thing (2005-04-12) and Sappho’s Breathing (2005-04-13).

This is from Letters from a War Zone, a collection of Andrea’s essays, articles, and speeches, 1976 – 1989. The Nervous Interview was originally written in 1978.

In 1978 I wrote a whole bunch of short articles. I desperately needed money and wanted to be able to publish them for money. Of these articles, Nervous Interview is probably the most obscure in its concerns and certainly in its form and yet it was the only one that was published at all, not for money. Norman Mailer managed to publish lots of interviews with himself, none of which made much sense, all of which were taken seriously by literati of various stripes. So this is half parody of him and his chosen form and half parody of myself and my chosen movement.

…

Q: Can I ask you about your personal life?
A: No.

Q: If the personal is political, as feminists say, why aren’t you more willing to talk about your personal life?
A: Because a personal life can only be had in privacy. Once strangers intrude into it, it isn’t personal anymore. It takes on the quality of a public drama. People follow it as if they were watching a play. You are the product, they are the consumers. Every single friendship and event takes on a quality of display. You have to think about the consequences of not just your acts vis-?@ef;bf;½-vis other individuals but in terms of media, millions of strange observers. I find it very ugly. I think that the press far exceeds its authentic right to know in pursuing the private lives of individuals, especially people like myself, who are neither public employees nor performers. And if one has to be always aware of public consequences of private acts, it’s very hard to be either spontaneous or honest with other people.

Q: If you could sleep with anyone in history, who would it be?
A: That’s easy. George Sand.

Q: She was pretty involved with men.
A: I would have saved her from all that.

Q: Is there any man, I mean, there must be at least one.
A: Well, ok, yes. Ugh. Rimbaud. Disaster. In the old tradition, Glorious Disaster.

Q: That seems to give some credence to the rumor that you are particularly involved with gay men.
A: It should give credence to the rumor that I am particularly involved with dead artists.