It's About AMERICA!!!!!!!

[Michael Joseph]

I wonder if it's useful at this stage of the discussion to recall that
within recent memory homeland had a slightly different meaning, and one
which Pynchon would certainly remember. People used it talk about the
place one had _left,_ the old country, the lost land of one's birth, a
lost primal community.  (Interestingly, it was primal communities that
American ideology was supposed to trump.)


Michael




On Fri, 9 May 2003, s~Z wrote:

> >>> Hm ...   Some 54 years later, Pynchon publishes a "Foreword" to this
> novel.  While it doesn't mention, say, President George W. Bush, The U.S.
> Patriot Act or the September 11th, 2001 destruction of the World Trade
> Center, it does raise such themes as the "fascistic" abuse of power under
> 'wartime" conditions, the cooptation of supposed resistance to same, and the
> increasing pervasiveness of surveillance, disnformation and repression, as
> well as deploying such highly-charged--in light of the aforementioned
> events--terms as "homeland."  Hm ...<<<
>
> This isn't the first time bombs have fallen on people in the world. Now that
> it has happened to Americans every time the situation is mentioned, it is
> OBVIOUSLY about U.S. Pynchon couldn't possibly be talking about when this
> happens all over the world. No. It is about us and 9/11. It is about
> America. 9/11. I have my head in the sand because I can't see that this is
> about AMERICA. I am a fascist because I cannot see that Pynchon is writing
> about the situation right here in AMERICA. Homeland doesn't mean anyone
> else's homeland. HOMELAND = AMERICA. Bush, the president of AMERICA said
> HOMELAND means AMERICA therefore fuck everyone else in every other country
> that his essay refers to and includes. IT IS ABOUT AMERICA AND THE TERRIBLE
> THING THAT HAPPENED TO US AND THE FASCISM THAT IS NOW HAPPENING TO US US US.
> Leave all those other countries of the world out of this essay OKAY?????
>
>
>