meta

[Joseph Tracy]

On Dec 16, 2009, at 3:24 AM, Richard Fiero wrote:

> Robin Landseadel wrote:
> . . .
>>         Paul Nitze—The man who brought us the Cold War.
>>         By Fred Kaplan
>> . . .
>> http://www.slate.com/id/2108510/
>
> IV is a detective novel. It might occur to a reader of IV to do a  
> little detecting rather than broadcast just anything that sort of  
> looks real. What is Slate? Who are its founders and owners? Who is  
> Michael Kinsley who worked as the moderator of William Buckley's  
> Firing Line and edited the right wing (neoliberal, cough) New  
> Republic? Who is Fred Kaplan and what payroll might he be on?  
> Perhaps the dreaded National Security Apparatus itself. The article  
> shows that Mr. Nitze was kept around for unknown reasons and also  
> basically kept in the dark One might wonder why he was kept around  
> - forever. The article shows that the Carter administration  
> certainly did not let him know what it was doing.
>
> Joseph Tracy wrote:
>>> . . .
>> In terms of alternate history , which seems to me to always be the
>> driving force of Pynchon's work, I find Hughes to be key and if
>> anyone wants to read the vigilant California post, which also points
>> to points to Watergate. . .
>
> History alternative to what?
Alternative to the mainstream media, from PBS documentaries to  
history as reported by the New York Times , the Hearst papers  ( who  
bought and published articles by Mussolini), Time/ Life, US  
textbooks. Alternative to the whole array of  historical reporting  
that passes muster as the historical record broadly acceptable for  
public consumption.
The most popular example of alternative history I can think of is  
Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The emphasis is  
simply a reversal of polarity from the normative fare which is more  
like a presidential military history of the United States.
> Alternet is sort of like a blog that lacks any thorough analysis.  
> The San Diego episode mentioned just does not make sense. Who would  
> benefit from the antics described?

  Well point me to where I can find a thorough analysis. Either the  
article is about real events or not. If you have contradictory  
evidence, put it on the table. I looked at Halverg's credentials and  
he seems to be very careful and thorough about his research, has  
written several books, and is not a blogger conspiracy theorist. The   
core story is from FBI records . What I posted was an excerpt, the  
part most relevant to Vigilant California in IV. The sense that  
Halverg makes of the story is that some members of the Republican  
party have always courted and sought to use far right groups and  
professional dirty tricksters and that sometimes it has backfired,  
not a hard premise to confirm, considering Watergate, Iran-Contra,   
Wilson Plame,  Blackwater etc.


>