What happened was that Jewish feminists decided to either reclaim some stuff or -- they pushed into the Jewish community -- and people who had been o… - Irena Klepfisz

I am still a socialist, though I despair at how to express that these days. It's simple, so utterly simple: there ought to be fair distribution of wealth. I think the kind of economic disparity we're seeing now is obscene. I'm not saying anything radical or new. You can read it in the New York Times; the chasm between the rich and the poor has increased endlessly in the last two decades and that's a terrible, terrible thing. It's terrible when you consider what people's basic needs are-whether it's the vaccination of their children or affordable housing and the obscenity of what basketball players or corporation people or HMO presidents get. Nobody needs that much money.

I think poets are our most important defenses against linguistic corruption. They are the reinventors of language, the defenders of language, who insist that how you express yourself, how you convey your experience, actually matters in the world.

If someone were to ask me did I think a Jewish Holocaust was possible in this country, I would answer immediately: "Of course." Has not America had other holocausts? Has not America exterminated others, those it deemed undesirable or those in its way? Are there not holocausts going on right now in this country? Why should I believe it will forever remain benevolent towards the non-Christian who is the source of all its troubles, the thief of all its wealth, the commie betrayer of its secrets, the hidden juggler of its power, the killer of its god? Why should I believe that, given the right circumstances, America will prove kind to the Jew? That given enough power to the fascists, the Jew will remain untouched?