WHO (OR WHAT) IS MOLOCH?

THE ALLEN GINSBERG ESTATE
doesn't seem to know! In this half-century anniversary year of the composition of the best-ever Underground poem, those fine folks at the Ginsberg website have answered a question from a reader about who (or what) Moloch actually is by saying it's the military-industrial complex , and that substituting "Moloch" for "Bush" when you read the poem aloud proves it.
My God, what a narrow, unimaginative definition to be handing down to new readers--and these are the people who want to sell you his books! Ginsberg says it in the poem itself: "Moloch, whose name is the Mind." He explained it the same way on tv in Britain in 1995 or '96, interviewed by Jeremy Isaacs: Moloch "The destroyer god" who's not "out there, he's in here" (Ginzy pointing to his own chest). The destroyer god in the individual chest and head who stomps out into the world driven by fear and confusion, "entangled in (his) own projections", suppressing his impulse to be tender, and CREATES monstrous manifestations of himself like heartless cities full of "blind windows", nuclear weapons, armies...If Moloch was just the military-industrial complex, section two of the poem wouldn't connect with sections one and three, which are personal in nature, describing the lives of free-minded "queer" hipsters and how they are driven to suffering and madness by the refusal of a repressive, conservative society to allow them the space to be themselves; and of course, showing in the poem's glorious climactic moments how the cruelty of society can be defeated by the assertion of love and tenderness between man and man, or man and anyone.
That's what "Howl" is about, and that's who Moloch is. It's YOU. It's ME. It's Bob Rosenthal and Gerry Nicosia and Norbert Blei and splake and Kate Moss and William Burroughs and the guy who created Fred Flinstone and your mother and Ruth Randall and any other name you want to insert.
I suggest if you have any more questions about Allen Ginsberg you come here instead of there. If I don't know the answer I can easily direct you to someone who does.