VL-IV (15): This Is Not A Test, pages 339/240

[Paul Mackin]

Does the account of the drug crackdown given by Epstein undermine Pynchon's 
account (deliberately fanciful I would maintain but I'm not sure everyone 
agrees with me), or are the two parties talking about different crackdowns?

Nixon's motive seems to be to scare the daylights out of a gullible public 
so that he can better consolidate his power.

Pynchon focuses on the drug takers not as a menace to public safety, but 
rather as a force the state could find no means to control.

What do you thinik?

P




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 11:40 AM
Subject: Re: VL-IV (15): This Is Not A Test, pages 339/240


> Liddy foresaw that the heroin issue could be the very instrument
> that the White House group needed to consolidate power within
> the bureaucracy, and thereby extend its police power. To
> demonstrate how a few determined men could manipulate the
> emotions of an entire nation by invoking a few highly visual
> symbols of fear, Liddy invited his new cohorts in the White
> House to a series of propaganda films being shown in the
> National Archives that June. The "Inner circle" that Liddy
> persuaded to view these films included John Ehrlichman,
> whose Domestic Council 'had assumed by now undisputed
> control over all domestic issues; Egil Krogh; Donald Santarelli,
> who was then slated to head the billion-dollar Law Enforcement
> Assistance Administration (LEAA), which disbursed money to
> local police departments; Robert Mardian, who headed the
> internal-security division of the Department of Justice; and a
> number of Krogh's young assistants on the Domestic Council.
> The cycle of films was climaxed on June 13 by the showing of
> Triumph of the Will, a Nazi propaganda film made under the
> auspices of Hitler and Goering which graphically depicted the
> way a "national will" could be inculcated into the masses
> through the agency of controlled fear and frenzied outrage.
>
> Edward Jay Epstein: Agency of Fear
>
> http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/agency/chap15.htm