Foreword "Orwellian, Dude!"

[RUTHSINGS at aol.com]

What I found notable in the 1984 foreward is Pynchon's preoccupation with TV 
cop shows as a form of propaganda:

"Looking around us at the present moment, for example, we note the popularity 
of
helicopters as a resource of 'law enforcement,' familiar to us from countless 
televised 'crime dramas,' themselves forms of social control--and for that 
matter at the ubiquity of television itself." 

This echoes a passage in Vineland describing Hector Zuniga:

"It was disheartening to see how much he depended on these Tubal fantasies 
about his profession, relentlessly pushing their propaganda message of 
cops-are-only-human-got-to-do-their-job, turning agents of repression into 
sympathetic heroes. Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore, no more than the 
routine violations of constitutional rights these characters performed week 
after week, now absorbed into the vernacular of American expectations. Cop 
shows were in a genre right-wing TV Guide called Crime Drama, and numbered 
among the zealous fans working cops like Hector who should have known 
better."  (page number unavailable right now).

Guess I never really thought that enough people watched these shows to 
contribute in any significant way to the widespread American indifference to 
violations of constitutional rights.  

And, of course, we note the use of helicopters as a "resource of 'law 
enforcement' " in Vineland.

Ruth