Vineland/Gonzales

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Ted Rall on Fredo's long-term contributions:      

              Slippery slopes are usually cited as cautionary tales. 
              Gonzales saw post-9/11 fear as an opportunity to be 
              exploited. He pushed for the USA Patriot Act. Foreign 
              detainees, he decided, would get military kangaroo 
              courts. Using Gonzales' advice as back-up, Bush 
              signed an executive order authorizing himself to 
              declare any U.S. citizen an "enemy combatant" and 
              have him assassinated. Next came the terrifying 
              Military Commissions Act, which allows a president 
              to declare martial law, seize control of the National 
              Guard from the states, and throw U.S. citizens into 
              concentration camps for the rest of their lives.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20070829/cm_ucru/gonzalesvunitedstates

Can't help but be reminded of Vineland:

              Oklahoma City University Law Review 
              Volume 24, Number 3 (1999) 
              reprinted by permission Oklahoma City University Law Review
              THE PRESIDENT'S EMERGENCY WAR POWERS AND THE 
              EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES IN PYNCHON'S VINELAND
              DAVID THOREEN*
              Against the prevailing view of Pynchon's texts as exhibitions of 
              postmodern discontinuities, this Article posits a radical 
              continuity, contending that Vineland reflects not only the 
              history of executive aggrandizement which has accompanied 
              American expansion, but also the concomitant threats to 
              Americans' civil rights, including the imposition of martial law, 
              mass detention of civilians, and asset seizures. The context of 
              executive aggrandizement through emergency power brings 
              several features of the text into high relief. It is the fear and 
              fervor surrounding the War on Drugs, for instance, which 
              would allow the imposition of martial law to go unchallenged. 
              This context also explains details of Frenesi Gates' family 
              history, Brock Vond's PREP (Political Re-Education Program) 
              camps, and the novel's veiled reference to "half a million urban 
              evacuees," as well as several set pieces: Moody Chastain's career 
              as an MP; the predictions of Mirage, the 24fps astrologer; and the 
              Chipco episode.

                   "The illegal we do immediately. 
              The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
              1--Henry Kissinger

              [L]ong lines of civilians at the gun shops [..]. and the 
              pawnshops, and all the military traffic on the freeways, 
              more than Hector could ever remember [...] troops in 
              full battle gear, and that queer moment the other night 
              around 3:00 or 4:00 A.M., right in the middle 
              of watching Sean Connery in The G. Gordon Liddy Story, when he 
              saw the screen go blank, bright and prickly, and then heard voices 
              hard, flat, echoing. 
                  "But we don't actually have the orders yet," somebody said. 
                  "It's only a detail," the other voice with a familiar weary 
              edge, a service voice, "just like getting a search warrant." 
              VL 339

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/thoreen24.htm