illiterate, which, if so, makes thenreading public very small. It isnastonishing to estimate, roughly,nthe number of bookstores thatnNew York, or any city, wouldnhave if they stood in the samenproportion to the number ofnpeople who are able to read.nThe literate Portuguese,nmoreover, seems able to managenFrench and Spanish as well asnhis own tongue, for the shopsncarry a large stock in bothnTAKING LIBERTIESnAnyone who has ever seen a movie set innthe time of the French Revolution knowsnthat it was a conflict between “aristos”nand “citizens.” “Citizen” did become anpropaganda term in France, and evernsince the revolution there have been twonapproaches to the question of citizenship:nclassical republicanism, with itsnemphasis on duties as well as rights, onncivic virtue as much as civil liberties; andnradical democratism, which builds up thenpower of the government as guarantor ofnequality. Kenneth L. Karst’s Belongingnto America: Equal Citizenship and thenConstitution (New Haven: Yale UniversitynPress, 329 pp.) is a faidy representativenexample of the latter tradition.nFor Karst, a UCLA law professor, thenDark Ages of American history end innthe mid-1960’s with Brown v. Board ofnEducation and the 1965 Voting RightsnAct. Real citizenship means, it turnsnout, using the Supreme Court to defendnthe rights of blacks, women, aliens,nand homosexuals against the entrenchednhostility of local communitiesnand private institutions. That there isneven a conflict of interests — as opposednto a world-historical struggle betweennthe forces of light and the forces ofndarkness — never dawns on Prof Karst.nHe is immune even to the irony ofncelebrating JefFersonian democracy,nwhile at the same time attacking all ofnits institutions.nBut neither irony nor scholarship isnKarst’s strong suit. The eady settlementnof America is the history of Calvinistsnlooking for freedom from persecution;nlanguages. . . .One sees anconsiderable blessing in illiteracynwhen one remarks the utternabsence of signboards along thenroadside. They hardly exist innPortugal; one may drive anhundred miles without seeingnone. I do not think it would benunfair to say that the onlynadvantage of our general literacynis that it enables people to readnadvertisements.nDespite my reservations, Saldzar BlinksnREVISIONSn”After Turner’s revolt, no Southernnblack could avoid the fear that the patrolnmight ‘shoot first and answer [sic] questionsnlater'”; homosexuality is only anquestion of orientation rather than ofnpathology; gender differences are ideological,nnot biological (for which nonscientific evidence is cited, only feministntracts); etc., etc. The most interestingnblunder deserves to be cited in full:nThe [Korematsu] decisionnupheld Franklin Roosevelt’snwartime order excluding aboutn120,000 persons of Japanesenancestry (some 70,000 of themnAmerican citizens) from theirnWest coast homes, for relocationnin camps in the interior . . .butnthere was no threat of invasion,nand there had been no acts ofnsabotage or espionage bynJapanese Americans.nTaking the errors in order: a large proportionnof Japanese Arnericans held dualncitizenship, and when draft-age mennwere given the chance to fight for thenUS, only about 6 out of 100 in thenrelocation centers came forward. Ofnthose who did volunteer, many refusednto take the loyalty oath renouncing allegiancento the emperor. After Pead Harbor,nthe threat of invasion was felt to benvery real, although the actual attacks thatnmaterialized were quite trifling. ConfiscatednJapanese papers revealed that ImperialnJapan had very eagerly recruitednJapanese Americans to provide intelligence.nOn at least one occasion, JapanesenAmericans in Hawaii collaboratednwith the enemy, and even within thencamps the fascist/militarist Hokokunnnis still better than 95 percent of thennovels published this year in the UnitednStates. I also recommend Slavitt’snAnagrams, Rochelle or Virtue Rewarded,nABCD, or his masterful translationnof Ovid’s Tristia.nThomas McGonigle is the author ofnThe Corpse Dream of N. Petkovnand the forthcoming Going tonPatchogue.nSeinen Dan staged rallies in which thenyoung men declared their eagerness tonfight for the emperor. If there was littlenactive sabotage, this may have had asnmuch to do with the effective measuresntaken by the government as with thenreliability of the Japanese-Americannpopulation. To this day, there are loyalnAmericans of Japanese ancestry (SenatornHayakawa and Ken Masugi) who despisenthe claims for reparations.nBut Karst knows many things withoutnhaving to look them up. He knows thatnAmerican (and Western) history is anrecord of intolerance against minoritiesnand that the future belongs to creaturesnimpatient of all distinctions of class,nethnicity, religion, “sexual orientation,”nand nationality. What will these free andnequal citizens of the US and the woddndo with their freedom and equality?nKarst apparentiy doesn’t have a clue.nAfter he and his kind get through destroyingnall the institutions of civil life,nthey leave the citizenry free to work fornmultinational corporations, engage innwhatever erotic activities they happen tonprefer, and attend Arts Councils demonstrationsnin the time they have left over.nThey are free to do anything they like—nwith the Supreme Court’s permission, ofncourse—so long as they do not interferenin the smooth operation of the govemmentnmachine.nFor a radically different view of citizenship,nread George Washington: AnCollection, compiled and edited bynW.B. Allen for Liberty Press. It is ansuperb collection of letters and speechesnthat communicate the character of ourngreatest classical republican. (TF)nJUNE 1989/41n