Pynchon and the current situation

[Terrance]

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> It's understandable that in the shock, grief, and
> depression that linger after the tragedy, people tend
> to forget recent history.  

Or re-write it. 

 Recall how the
> military-industrial machine that developed as the U.S.
> prepared for and entered WWII continued to expand and
> drive the economic boom of the 50s, and when that
> began to flag, another war (in Vietnam) kept the gears
> turning and the money flowing and the oil pumping for
> another decade or so.  

This didn't happen. The economy of the 1960s didn't flag and so it was
not bolstered by the Vietnam War. During the 1960s the USA had one of
its longest periods of uninterrupted economic growth, inflation averaged
around 2% (although it did accelerate to around 5% by the end of the
decade) and unemployment, which was 6.7% in 1961 declined to 3.5% by
1969. 




It wasn't until Reagan-Bush
> decided in the 80s to let the tycoons double-dip
> (collect profits from Pentagon contracts for weapon
> systems and supporting infrastructure and pay lower
> taxes) that we got a significant slowdown in the
> economy. 

Not true. 

What about the 1970s? 

Take a look at this article, it was much more complicated than a simple
double-dip. 

Reagan, as seems to be the case with most of what he did and didn't do,
had no idea. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ecbig/ececoeas.htm



 Sure the U.S. economy is taking a dive, but
> it's temporary, and as Bush and his buddies start
> pumping money into this new war effort we'll pull out
> of it the way the economy pulled out of the Great
> Depression with WWII.

How will this work? 

If we want peace we will need to understand that we are not living in a
Pynchon novel. 
We are living in a very complicated world. Pointing political fingers,
calling people names, re-writing history, is not a very  constructive
way to build a peace movement.