Defending the Honor of Gunter Grass

So I've been defending Gunter all day.

Finally I realized just what was lying beneath the surface and what it was that was bugging me. This dumping on Gunter Grass right now is hypocritical. And it's also very political. It's a chance for people who have been discomfited by his writing for all this time to try to pull him down. He has a lot of credibility as a peace-and-justice kind of guy partly because he's always admitted to a childhood of Hitler Youth and also admitted that he hadn't believed anything bad of the Nazis until he was forced to in prison camp. If this admission can be construed to be false or insufficient: if the man can be discredited as a force for peace and social justice: why, that's one less socialist-leaning peacenik on the horizon, right?

And the Poles. My dear dog, the Poles. Where in the fuck do they get off trying to get Gunter Grass to give back his honorary Polishness -- my dog, honorary Polishness!! Yeah, I know the Poles suffered a lot during World War Two, but their behavior building up to the war and through it was not exactly shining, okay? (read that awful book by Jerzy Koscinzki -- The Painted Bird -- if you need persuading, or better, don't, just read a little history)

All's I can say at this point: the whole thing stinks.

Gunter Grass rocks, still.