Giant Paranoids (was Giant Adenoids)
Craig Clark
CLARK at superbowl.und.ac.za
Fri Oct 4 03:55:44 CDT 1996
MantaRay sez:
> Wiesenburger's companion to GR asserts that some of the Conspiracies are a
> little paranoid, like the Byron the Bulb story, but even seemingly ridiculous
> conspiracies allow us to engage, within and without the text, our capacity
> for recognizing connections, esp. in regards to power relations. The supposed
> Paranoid at least sees connections, whereas the rest of the 'normal' world is
> trapped beneath an elaborate denial that takes everything for granted.
Of course the "Byron the Bulb" conspiracy is ridiculously paranoid,
but there's several nuggets of truth in it: I suspect that the
Phoebus Cartel or something like it did exist, and of course "planned
obsolesence" (commodities designed to wearout so you have to buy
another) is real enough - and could be read as a "conspiracy" by the
owners of the means of production against the consumer. Similalry,
the faceless Them who stage the war in _GR_ are a ridiculous
exaggeration, but the role of large multinationals during the war is
not.
> One only has to look at today's media to see this in action. What about
> Independence Day, the so-called "good old-fashioned return to American
> violence," (Medved's words), which seems innocuous enough as a work, until
> you take into account all the cheerleading the Establishment is doing so it
> can fill up again on Defense funding. It is no accident that the release and
> huge success of this movie coincides with probs with Immigration and the
> renewal of legistlative interest in Star Wars defense tech. Sound paranoid?
No, sounds very plausible to me... I'm intrigued by Medved's
response, which sounds (from your comment) to be negative.
I suppose asking for consistency from a man who clearly has little to
do with the truth or with rational thought is asking a bit too much,
but one of the things which I found most irritating about _ID4_ is
that it seemed to have been written with a copy of Medved's
_Hollywood vs America_ in hand.
Craig Clark
"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"
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