pynchon-l-digest V2 #2187

[Doug Millison]

Malign:
>And--that the people who have "enjoyed power since 1945" are "criminally
>insane" is hysterical progaganda, out of the pen of Pynchon or not.

I guess that would depend on how you define crime and insanity. To use an
example that Pynchon has also addressed, that the leaders of the world's
superpowers have strategized and planned for military engagements that
would, with nuclear weapons, eliminate tens or hundreds of millions of
people, and have at the same time call what they were doing making peace --
during the era of Mutually Assured Destruction -- certainly doesn't sound
healthy to me.  I would tend to agree with Pynchon's "criminally insane"
label.

Barbara, thanks for the pointer to the article,
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4283081,00.html.  I don't
know how many of our P-list comrades might be willing or able to conduct
this little thought exercise that  Roy suggests, but it's worth
recommending:

"Reverse the scenario for a moment. Imagine if the Taliban government was
to bomb New York City, saying all the while that its real target was the US
government and its policies. And suppose, during breaks between the
bombing, the Taliban dropped a few thousand packets containing nan and
kebabs impaled on an Afghan flag. Would the good people of New York ever
find it in themselves to forgive the Afghan government? [...] Far from
stamping it out, igniting this kind of rage is what creates terrorism.
[...]"