Vineland

[davemarc]

> From: Sean Hoade <shoade at iusb.edu>
> 
> 'Member:  Repetitive, garralous, monotonous messages may be what we think
> of when we think of "propaganda," but the US way is flashy,
> colorful--downright enjoyable--and that, to me, is what makes it even
more
> dnagerous than the tiling of Big Brother posters in totalitarian
> dystopias.  The Chinese can see that their hopes are sure to be dashed
> thanks to the old-style propaganda everywhere; what clues do we have of
> our government/media's intentions when entertainment and propaganda are
> virtually indistinguishable from one another?
> 
We not only have loads of clues but we have people who come right out and
try to say what the problems are.  Sometimes they're persecuted, it's true,
but to say that it's the liveliness of US discourse that makes it dangerous
misses the point entirely.  One of my favorite all-time Pynchon remarks,
maybe my very favorite, is his message to Rushdie & Wiggins, in which he
thanked them "for recalling those of us who write to our duty as heretics,
for reminding us again that power is as much our sworn enemy as unreason." 
What may make the US dangerous is its unreasoning wielding of its  might.  

As for this idea of the Chinese seeing that their hopes are sure to be
dashed, that wasn't the case about ten years ago when so many gathered in
Tienanmen Square, nor was it the case during its numerous "opening ups"
since Mao's takeover.  Just as in the US there have been red scares,
antilabor scares, antidrug scares, racist scares, and most definitely
sexist scares used by the government (and others) to divide and conquer,
the same's occurred regularly in China--except that in China it's
definitely totalitarian, completely backed by military suppression.  The
reduction of the kind of expression found in the modern-day US to the
power-based propaganda seen in Nazi Germany and China really misses the
reality of how much worse it could be in the US.  Saying that the US has
already gotten there is defeatist, as far as I can see.  Saying that the US
hovers on the brink seems to be the kind of thing that Pynchon says.

davemarc