Text of Playboy Japan interview

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I've been cleaning out the onslaught of e-mail the plychon list has been kind enough to unload onto my computer and ran across this and read it in it's entirety for the first time this morning at 6:14 am (pst). Have to say, it reads like English ttranslated to Japanese to English. But a line really stuck out for me, a statement about the news that is both perfectly consistant with what Pynchon has been saying about politics for years, and about as left as it gets:
 . . . In a time of war,  information warfare is rather important and even those
respected newspapers cannot be trusted. The founder of the Daily Mail,
which was published 100 years ago in London said "News is something
somebody wants to suppress.  Everything else is propaganda."
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Carvill John" <johncarvill at hotmail.com>
> For those who've been asking, I dug this out of the archives. Personally 
> there's a lot about it I find odd, even allowing for the 'lost in 
> translation' factor. But looking through the archives, what strikes me about 
> the response the alleged interview got from jbor (and others) is the sheer 
> virulence with which the possibility that it might be genuine was ruled out. 
> Anyway, here's the text of the post from Doug with the translation.
> 
> ~~~~~
> 
> 
> Here's a note from my friend Naoki and a more complete translation of the
> Playboy Japan interview.
> 
> -Doug
> 
> P.S.  Great to see all my NYPL friends at McHale's the other night!
> 
> 
> Here's the latest note from Naoki:
> 
> Attached is the translation of Playboy Japan Pynchen interview.
> 
> I think that the translated article looks funny to you. In order to
> preserve every word in the original article, I tried my best to
> translate all the word and sentences in Japanese to English. The
> interview has gone through the process of English to Japanese and
> again to English. I believe that some of Pynchen's original words have
> been lost during the process. If you want to know what Pynchen told
> the Japanese interviewer exactly, you have to contact the writer and
> get the transcript of the interview.
> 
> Naoki
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Page 32 / Playboy Japanese Edition, Dec 2001 Issue
> 
> Talk by Thomas Pynchen
> 
> [Title]
> 
> Most of The News Is Propaganda
> There Might Be No Bin Laden Ever Existed.
> 
> [Text]
> 
> Right now,  New Yorkers constantly talk about whether they have already
> visited the WTC attack sites or not. Some went to see the ruins and  others
> have not seen them yet. It is the trendy topic of the time. I think that it
> will take some time before I feel like visiting the site myself.
> 
> Since the attacks, I stopped taking subways. That's the biggest change in
> my everyday life. I used to go everywhere riding the subways, but now I
> never take subways because I'm afraid of chemical weapons. There is a
> precedent of the sarin attacks in Tokyo and the causalities from the
> biological weapon called anthrax are spreading. I will not surprised if
> chemical weapons are used against us anytime soon.
> 
> CNN is the media that reports on the terrorist attacks all the time. Since
> most of the Americans watch CNN, it is safe to say that all the news that
> ordinary people get is the same. But, the real danger is that people
> believe what they see on CNN is the news.
> 
> For TV stations, a time like this offers the best opportunity to show us
> their originality. However, the anchorpersons on the TV just read the
> tele-prompter in a monotone voice, or repeat the sentences that are
> continuously fed from the earpieces  hidden from us. They look like they
> are talking just to fill the empty airtime.
> 
> There is an adjective, "affectless". The way those anchorpersons report is
> the best described as "affectless". 	It doesn't have a human touch and
> there is no power of emotion in their reporting. I don't like it. When I
> listen to them carefully, there is not much news. Most are propaganda.
> 
> The terrorist attacks have changed the New York Times most. I used to wake
> up one hour early to buy the paper, but now it is not worth reading sitting
> down. I can go through all the pages of the paper before I sit down. There
> is little useful news in the Times. Most are propaganda.
> 
> Although the news that there are antibiotics other than Cipro for treating
> anthrax infection is a little useful,  useful news like that is becoming
> rare. The New York Times was usually the most reliable media for checking
> what happened in 20-30 years ago, but no more. Today, the Guardian of
> England is the most reliable newspaper that is read by the intellectuals of
> today. People read it on the Internet. I think the information from the
> White House also contains a lot of propaganda.
> 
> The problem is the ordinary citizen cannot distinguish the news from the
> propaganda. Contrary to our belief, there is quite reliable news from
> Israel.
> 
> In a time of war,  information warfare is rather important and even those
> respected newspapers cannot be trusted. The founder of the Daily Mail,
> which was published 100 years ago in London said "News is something
> somebody wants to suppress.  Everything else is propaganda."
> 
> The information that the reporters can obtain easily is likely to be
> propaganda even when it comes from the White House.
> 
> Bin Laden should be considered as a symbol.
> 
> America always looks for an enemy. The country cannot feel O.K. without it.
> It has labeled Bin Laden as the bad guy who commanded the terrorist attacks
> from behind the scenes, only because we couldn't feel O.K. unless we made
> him. But I think Bin Laden is just somebody's rodeo clown.
> 
> My thought has been always a little paranoid. But it is not only I who
> thinks like that. NSA is supposed to watch Bin Laden, but I think we are
> going to see a new layer after a layer like onionskins. I cannot help
> thinking it was not he alone responsible for the attacks. I have an
> impression that Bin Laden is just a front man.
> 
> I wonder honestly if those photos of Bin Laden on TV and newspapers are the
> his real face. Right after the terrorist attacks, I remembered someone said
> " Come on, you want bin Laden? We'll give you 20 of him." Even if America
> kills a Bin Laden, there will be 19 more Bin Ladens. Even there is only one
> Bin Laden, there are many who want to succeed him.
> 
> If you look at the matter from a different angle, Bin Laden should be
> considered as a symbol rather than as a human. It might be that no Bin
> Laden ever existed.
> 
> I read this while I was surfing on the Internet. The most suitable
> punishment for Bin Laden is to perform a sex-change operation on him after
> catching him alive and taking him to a hospital. Then, we return him back
> to Afghanistan and make him understand how they abuse women there.
> 
> We should not forget that many of Bin Laden's brothers were once the
> business partners of George Bush jr. in  oil ventures. The doctor who
> always stood by Bin Laden was a member of the group who killed Sadat. There
> might be others who ran away from Egypt after the assassination in
> Afghanistan.
> 
> People often mention that one of the reasons why they hate America is
> because she is rich. I can understand this well. When I see wealthy people,
> I feel anger instinctively from the bottom of my heart. It is natural for
> them to feel a hatred for wealthy America, as Afghanistan is the poorest
> country in the world. They just cannot help from hating her.
> 
> It is not going to solve all the problems even if America stops supporting
> Israel. However, from the Arab perspective, Israel is the origin of all the
> wrongs.
> 
> Finally, if I want to invest in stock aggressively now, I am going to
> invest in the tobacco industry. After the attacks, those who had quit
> smoking in the past has begun smoking tobacco again.
> 
>