Religious Fundamentalism in Orwell and Pynchon

[pynchonoid]

pynchonoid:
> "In Bush America
> these days (these days in which Pynchon writes this
> Foreward), it would be difficult to throw a rock and
> NOT hit somebody "of fascistic disposition,"
> 
> That's a very different statement from jbor's  "2003
> USA equals Orwell's Oceania". 



<http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--reportersspeech0520may20,0,4768281.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire>

New York Times reporter booed at Illinois college
graduation

By NICOLE ZIEGLER DIZON
Associated Press Writer

May 20, 2003, 8:03 PM EDT

CHICAGO -- A New York Times reporter cut short a
keynote address to graduates at a private Illinois
college after audience members shouted down his
comments about the war in Iraq. 

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winner and author of a
recent book that describes war as an addiction, was
booed Saturday at the graduation ceremony at Rockford
College, a small liberal arts school about 80 miles
northwest of Chicago. 

"He delivered what I guess I would refer to as a
fairly strident perspective on the war in Iraq and
American policy," college President Paul Pribbenow
said Tuesday. "I think our audience (members) at
commencement were not prepared for that." 

Many audience members turned their backs on Hedges,
while others booed and shouted, said Pribbenow, who at
one point pleaded to let the speech continue. After
protesters rushed the stage and twice cut power to the
microphone, Hedges drew the speech to an early close. 
Hedges said he had given similar talks at several
other colleges on his book, but had never had such a
response. 

"I was surprised at how vociferous it was and the fact
that people climbed onto the podium," Hedges said.
 
Elinor Radlund, who attended the ceremony, said a
woman beside her began singing "God Bless America"
while a man rushed down the aisle shouting, "Go home!"

"It just got to be a very nasty situation," Radlund
said. 

Hedges' book contends that war poisons cultures and
that in wartime people suspend their individual
consciences for the conscience of war. Hedges said he
related those ideas to the war in Iraq, saying that
the capacity to wage war doesn't give a country the
right to wage war. 

Hedges, a veteran war correspondent, writes a column
about prominent people in the New York area for the
Times. 

"If I'm covering something directly, I think one has
to be very careful about the public statements they
make," he said. "I can't write a book on the culture
of war and not say something about how that culture
has infected us since 9-11." 

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, said
the newspaper is looking into the matter. She declined
to elaborate. 





=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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