better version of Playboy Japan interview with TRP

[Doug Millison]

Here's a note from my friend Naoki and a more complete translation of the
Playboy Japan interview.

-Doug

P.S.  Great to see all my NYPL friends at McHale's the other night!


Here's the latest note from Naoki:

Attached is the translation of Playboy Japan Pynchen interview.

I think that the translated article looks funny to you. In order to
preserve every word in the original article, I tried my best to
translate all the word and sentences in Japanese to English. The
interview has gone through the process of English to Japanese and
again to English. I believe that some of Pynchen's original words have
been lost during the process. If you want to know what Pynchen told
the Japanese interviewer exactly, you have to contact the writer and
get the transcript of the interview.

Naoki





Page 32 / Playboy Japanese Edition, Dec 2001 Issue

Talk by Thomas Pynchen

[Title]

Most of The News Is Propaganda
There Might Be No Bin Laden Ever Existed.

[Text]

Right now,  New Yorkers constantly talk about whether they have already
visited the WTC attack sites or not. Some went to see the ruins and  others
have not seen them yet. It is the trendy topic of the time. I think that it
will take some time before I feel like visiting the site myself.

Since the attacks, I stopped taking subways. That's the biggest change in
my everyday life. I used to go everywhere riding the subways, but now I
never take subways because I'm afraid of chemical weapons. There is a
precedent of the sarin attacks in Tokyo and the causalities from the
biological weapon called anthrax are spreading. I will not surprised if
chemical weapons are used against us anytime soon.

CNN is the media that reports on the terrorist attacks all the time. Since
most of the Americans watch CNN, it is safe to say that all the news that
ordinary people get is the same. But, the real danger is that people
believe what they see on CNN is the news.

For TV stations, a time like this offers the best opportunity to show us
their originality. However, the anchorpersons on the TV just read the
tele-prompter in a monotone voice, or repeat the sentences that are
continuously fed from the earpieces  hidden from us. They look like they
are talking just to fill the empty airtime.

There is an adjective, "affectless". The way those anchorpersons report is
the best described as "affectless". 	It doesn't have a human touch and
there is no power of emotion in their reporting. I don't like it. When I
listen to them carefully, there is not much news. Most are propaganda.

The terrorist attacks have changed the New York Times most. I used to wake
up one hour early to buy the paper, but now it is not worth reading sitting
down. I can go through all the pages of the paper before I sit down. There
is little useful news in the Times. Most are propaganda.

Although the news that there are antibiotics other than Cipro for treating
anthrax infection is a little useful,  useful news like that is becoming
rare. The New York Times was usually the most reliable media for checking
what happened in 20-30 years ago, but no more. Today, the Guardian of
England is the most reliable newspaper that is read by the intellectuals of
today. People read it on the Internet. I think the information from the
White House also contains a lot of propaganda.

The problem is the ordinary citizen cannot distinguish the news from the
propaganda. Contrary to our belief, there is quite reliable news from
Israel.

In a time of war,  information warfare is rather important and even those
respected newspapers cannot be trusted. The founder of the Daily Mail,
which was published 100 years ago in London said "News is something
somebody wants to suppress.  Everything else is propaganda."

The information that the reporters can obtain easily is likely to be
propaganda even when it comes from the White House.

Bin Laden should be considered as a symbol.

America always looks for an enemy. The country cannot feel O.K. without it.
It has labeled Bin Laden as the bad guy who commanded the terrorist attacks
from behind the scenes, only because we couldn't feel O.K. unless we made
him. But I think Bin Laden is just somebody's rodeo clown.

My thought has been always a little paranoid. But it is not only I who
thinks like that. NSA is supposed to watch Bin Laden, but I think we are
going to see a new layer after a layer like onionskins. I cannot help
thinking it was not he alone responsible for the attacks. I have an
impression that Bin Laden is just a front man.

I wonder honestly if those photos of Bin Laden on TV and newspapers are the
his real face. Right after the terrorist attacks, I remembered someone said
" Come on, you want bin Laden? We'll give you 20 of him." Even if America
kills a Bin Laden, there will be 19 more Bin Ladens. Even there is only one
Bin Laden, there are many who want to succeed him.

If you look at the matter from a different angle, Bin Laden should be
considered as a symbol rather than as a human. It might be that no Bin
Laden ever existed.

I read this while I was surfing on the Internet. The most suitable
punishment for Bin Laden is to perform a sex-change operation on him after
catching him alive and taking him to a hospital. Then, we return him back
to Afghanistan and make him understand how they abuse women there.

We should not forget that many of Bin Laden's brothers were once the
business partners of George Bush jr. in  oil ventures. The doctor who
always stood by Bin Laden was a member of the group who killed Sadat. There
might be others who ran away from Egypt after the assassination in
Afghanistan.

People often mention that one of the reasons why they hate America is
because she is rich. I can understand this well. When I see wealthy people,
I feel anger instinctively from the bottom of my heart. It is natural for
them to feel a hatred for wealthy America, as Afghanistan is the poorest
country in the world. They just cannot help from hating her.

It is not going to solve all the problems even if America stops supporting
Israel. However, from the Arab perspective, Israel is the origin of all the
wrongs.

Finally, if I want to invest in stock aggressively now, I am going to
invest in the tobacco industry. After the attacks, those who had quit
smoking in the past has begun smoking tobacco again.

(Interview and Text by Motokazu Ohno)