pynchon-l-digest V2 #2158

[Doug Millison]

Yeah,  r/jbor/rjackson/?, they called protesters aganst the Vietnam war all
kinds of names, too.  Funny thing, the protesters turned out to be right
and the war hawks were wrong, and history has proven it so.  Turned out the
U.S government was lying to Americans and the rest of the world about that
war, covered up war crimes, destablized the entire region, the whole nine
yards.   The U.S. has a long history of putting dissenters and protesters
in jail, too, and an equally long history of intimidating all kinds of
people who don't go along with the majority. The Rev'd Martin Luther King
Jr. comes to mind, perhaps you've read his letter from the Birmingham jail.
Back in M&D times, we recently read thanks to Terrance, right-thinking
early Americans gave Quakers a hard time for being  unwilling to butcher
Native Americans. I'm no leader for peace and justice, of course, I'm just
speaking out where I can. That's still legal in this country, by the way,
although Bush and Ashcroft are doing their best to limit civil liberties in
the current emergency.  I read in the paper today, heard the lady herself
talking on the radio just awhile ago,  a group of women who have been
protesting regularly for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, against
mistreatment of Palestinians, FBI goons are bullying them now, they're
bullying a lot of people who have spent the past many years working for
peace and justice in places like Palestine.  The stance you're taking now,
r/jbor/rjackson/?,  is what defined the Red Scares of the 20th century, led
to McCarthyism, which Pynchon castigates rather artistically in Vineland,
of course.  I think I'll stick with the folks who say that when we let our
neighbors and government leaders start taking away civil liberties, and the
other freedoms we enjoy in this country, and start forcing a consensus of
thought and speech, why we might as well invite the Taliban to take over
and rule by sharia, -- so who is really doing bin Laden's work, in the
final analysis?

I don't have a premium subscription to Salon, but one prominent victim of
the same tactic r/jbor/rjackson/? is employing is talking back Here's the
gist, at least:


The "traitor" fires back
Denounced as a fifth columnist by the right, Susan Sontag blasts America's
cowlike media and scaremongering leaders -- and says she fears that another
terror attack could turn the U.S. into a police state.


By David Talbot

Oct. 16, 2001 | Writer Susan Sontag has produced many texts during her
four-decade career, including historical novels and reflections on cancer,
photography and the war in Bosnia. But it was a brief essay, less than
1,000 words long, in the Sept. 24 issue of the New Yorker that created the
biggest uproar of her life. In the piece, which she wrote shortly after the
terror attacks of Sept. 11, Sontag dissected the political and media
blather which poured out of the television in the hours after the
explosions of violence. After subjecting herself to what she calls "an
overdose of CNN," Sontag reacted with a coldly furious burst of analysis,
savaging political leaders and media mandarins for trying to convince the
country that everything was OK, that our attackers were simply cowards, and
that our childlike view of the world need not be disturbed.

Sontag spoke to Salon by phone from her Manhattan home.

Did the storm of reaction to your brief essay in the New Yorker take you by
surprise?

Absolutely. I mean, I am aware of what a radical point of view is; very
occasionally I have espoused one. But I did not think for a moment my essay
was radical or even particularly dissenting. It seemed very common sense. I
have been amazed by the ferocity of how I've been attacked, and it goes on
and on. One article in the New Republic, a magazine for which I have
written, began: "What do Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Susan Sontag
have in common?" I have to say my jaw dropped. Apparently we are all in
favor of the dismantling of America. There's a kind of rhetorical overkill
aimed at me that is astonishing. There has been a demonization which is
ludicrous.

[the article continues at Salon, in a part of the site open to subscribers
only, http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/10/16/susans/index_np.html ]