'Togetherness'

[Mark Wright AIA]

Howdy Otto

I've always lived in places that would be incinerated in the first
half-hour of a nuclear war, and hoped it wouldn't hurt much. I figured
that it would be a better idea to prepare a lawn-chair than a bunker in
the basement. But I concede I never felt that this abstract Effing Fist
of God was about to strike during any special crisis.

I'm pretty sure that "peace" was not what was wanted by many interests
on either side of the cold war. Continuous managable conflict and
"victory" were the order of the day. M.A.D. doctrine wasn't intended to
keep peace but to manage conflict and turn a damned handsome buck in
the process. 

How much is different today? There is neither a Missile nor a
Mine-shaft Gap to worry about, so we sorry about Proliferation instead
and wring our hands. The Soviets cashed in an exhausted ideology and
tried to board the gravy train. Many fell beneath the wheels. Another
ideology has taken the stage and we still have lots of dangerous shit
to worry about and make worse. Fear is still effective politics.
Managable conflict is still as good for business as high-but-stable oil
prices, private militia, and untethered capital. Money is still power,
power is still an aphrodesiac, and the television is still a Glass
Teat.

I should have been on the streets across the river today. Air America
says Reuters puts the number marching today in Manhattan at some
400,000. 

We just spent ten days Drifting in the High Plains of eastern Wyoming,
the Black Hills and Badlands of South Dakota, and the mountains of
Colorado --- and in ten days of watching for them we saw three (count
'em! three!) Bush bumperstickers. I think this is hopeful. We looked on
the roads, and in parking areas. It seems that few are particularly
anxious to be seen as Bush Boosters even where his victory seems
assured.

hope hope hope
fingers crossed
Mark

--- Otto <ottosell at yahoo.de> wrote:

> Mark,
> 
> I only wanted to point to the fact that the Soviets (let's drop the
> word
> Russians) weren't the only ones making the mistake of believing that
> threatening the world with such a danger would ensure the peace.
> Pynchon
> speaks of the "succession of criminal insane" and I deeply share this
> opinion, not pointing to one side only.
> 
> As you say it's the "official" version of history. I'd bet that
> Kennedy knew
> shortly after Khrushchev had decided to give an answer to the nuclear
> threat
> on his southern front that Khrushchev had indeed taken that risky
> decision
> in May 1962, and I'm sure that Kennedy was sure that Khrushchev would
> do so
> before he'd put those US-rockets to Turkey.
> 
> "On October 22, 1962, Soviet Colonel Oleg Penkovsky is arrested in
> the
> Soviet Union. From April 1961, Penkovsky has been a spy for British
> and U.S.
> intelligence services, providing them with material on Soviet
> military
> capabilities, including important technical information on Soviet
> MRBM and
> ICBM programs."
> http://www.marxists.org/history/cuba/subject/missile-crisis/ch03.htm
> 
> It was a logical step that Khrushchev would try it. But Cuba could be
> isolated easily, and Khrushchev turned the ships around finally
> (luckily).
> 
> About the dates of my childhood memories I'm quite sure. There hasn't
> been
> such a tensely atmosphere before and my parents never have prepared a
> room
> downstairs again. Or do you remember a situation any time later when
> the US
> and the Soviets were so close at each others throats again? We were
> nailed
> to the tube watching the evening news, and when my dad came back from
> his
> 48 hours shifts on the airfield early in the morning he rested in the
> living
> room to listen to the radio-news because the only TV-channel was
> broadcasting only from the late afternoon on.
> 
> No, I don't think that there has been such a concrete fear later.
> Later we
> knew that the nuclear balance was just "deterrence," that the
> politicians
> and generals had finally understood that no side would win a nuclear
> war.
> Have you ever been really afraid of a possible nuclear war later? I
> was not.
> There have been so many crises, the USA in Vietnam, the Russians in
> Afghanistan, Angola. The military-industrial complex who benefited
> from the
> ongoing "alarm" would have destroyed itself so the wars were shifted
> to the
> Third World; substitute wars on a lower level excluding a direct
> USA-UDSSR
> confrontation.
> 
> On Nena and "99Luftballons" I admit that I've played that song too
> during my
> active time as a dj, but I've never been a big fan of her. I liked
> Nina
> Hagen's music more.
> 
> On the question of the date I know that the most likely answer is
> that
> simply Pynchon's contract had ended. But I'm sure he wasn't unhappy
> about it.
> 
> Otto
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Mark Wright AIA" <mwaia at yahoo.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 5:50 PM
> Subject: Re: 'Togetherness'
> 
> 
> > Howdy Otto
> > I know about the U.S. (our!) Jupiter missiles in Turkey. My use of
> the
> > old nickname "Crazy Ivan" was intended to be light and ironic. If
> you
> > didn't read it that way I'm sorry, I guess.
> >
> > In the "official" version of events Kennedy didn't learn about the
> > missiles in Cuba until October 15, when he was shown U-2 overflight
> > photos, which I presume must have been taken at least a day
> earlier.
> > Are you sure of the dates of your childhood memories? I'm not sure
> of
> > the dates of mine. My earliest genuine memories are of getting hit
> > pretty hard with a belt by my dad because I threw a heavy oak stool
> at
> > my little brother (and of always sitting at the table with my mom
> > between me and dad thereafter), sledding down hill and busting my
> head
> > on a concrete block buried in the snow, fighting with my younger
> > brother over *my* tricycle (there was only one), Soupy Sales, the
> > Kennedy Funeral, and of enormous waxed-cardboard cannisters of
> powdered
> > eggs and powdered milk stacked in our kitchen.
> >
> > I can't attach dates to any of it. Weren't the "continuous alarms"
> you
> > remember pretty much continuous back then? The atmosphere of crisis
> in
> > Europe must have been quite high from the days of the Berlin
> airlift
> > and before, and continued right on through the eighties, when that
> > great song "99Luftballons" was such a big hit with the kids...
> > Best
> > Mark
> >
> 
> 


		
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