a fascist by any other name

[Malignd]

<<The foreword to a backlist classic of 20th century
literature needs to put the novel in perspective for
readers over the next many years without dating it too
badly with topical references.>>

<<Agreed. His foreword could have been written prior
to
9/11, and he wouldn't have to change one word.>>


Reading the Intro, it seems reasonable to me to
believe that Pynchon is making allusions to the US in
the present in writing about England in Orwell's time.
 That he's writing specifically about Bush's policies,
post-9/11, however, seems not borne out by the text.

He writes:

"If this seems unreasonably perverse, recall that in
the present-day United States, few have any problem
with a war-making apparatus named "the department of
defence," any more than we have saying "department of
justice" with a straight face, despite well-documented
abuses of human and constitutional rights by its most
formidable arm, the FBI. Our nominally free news media
are required to present "balanced" coverage, in which
every "truth" is immediately neutered by an equal and
opposite one. Every day public opinion is the target
of rewritten history, official amnesia and outright
lying, all of which is benevolently termed "spin," as
if it were no more harmful than a ride on a
merry-go-round."

Then adds:  "We know better than what they tell us,
yet hope otherwise."

If this is a reference (and if so, it is a curiously
(and to some, certainly a disappointingly) passive
one) to Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, post 9/11, how to
explain that "we know better"?  We know better because
we've seen it before.  It's something "we" have grown
used to; i.e., not a specific criticism of Bush et al
post 9/11.  

He adds further:  "It [simultaneous belief and doubt]
seems a condition of political thought in a modern
superstate ..."  

This is clearly general, not specific.

Similarly, he writes:

" There is always some agency like the Ministry of
Truth to deny the memories of others, to rewrite the
past. It has become a commonplace, circa 2003, for
government employees to be paid more than most of the
rest of us to debase history, trivialise truth and
annihilate the past on a daily basis. Those who don't
learn from history used to have to relive it, but only
until those in power could find a way to convince
everybody, including themselves, that history never
happened, or happened in a way best serving their own
purposes - or best of all that it doesn't matter
anyway, except as some dumbed-down TV documentary
cobbled together for an hour's entertainment."

"It has become a commonplace circa 2003 ..."  

Again, this is a description of a trend over time--"it
has become"--not an indictment specific to any named
and specific present.  


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