Foreword "If You Want to Call that Fascism"

[Tim Strzechowski]

Momentary fascism -- when one is the victim -- is understandable, though not
condoned?

This is a great paragraph, replete with buzzwords like "homeland" and
"regime."

Does anyone happen to know -- Doug, or any others who have been published or
are close to the publishing industry -- approximately how much time span
there typically is between the writing of something like a foreward and its
actual release in published form?  I assume 9-11 had happened by the time
Pynchon wrote this, but I wonder when it was written in relation to the Iraq
situation, which (as I recall) seemed to gain serious momentum around
October or November, no?

Mr. Monroe, an excellent start to the discussion you have made (pardon the
Yoda syntax).

Mace


> With the homland in danger, strong
> leadership and effective measures become of the
> essence, and if you want to call that fascism, very
> well, call it whatever you please, no one is likely to
> be listening, unless it's for the air arids to be over
> and the all clear to sound.  But the unseemliness of
> an argument--let alone a prophecy--in the heat of some
> later emergency does not necessarily make it wrong.
> One could certainly argue that Churchill's war cabinet
> had behaved no differently than a fascist regime,
> censoring news, controlling wages and prices,
> restricting travel, subordinating civil liberties to
> slef-defined wartime necessity." ("Foreword," pp. ix-x)
>