Under the paving stones, the beach!

[Joseph Tracy]

On Dec 16, 2009, at 12:39 PM, Richard Fiero wrote:

> Joseph Tracy wrote:
>> On Dec 16, 2009, at 3:24 AM, Richard Fiero wrote:
>>> ...
>>> History alternative to what?
>> Alternative to the mainstream media,
>
> The mainstream media is entertainment. It has no other other  
> purpose except for large amounts of Government propaganda.

Well I certainly agree with that, but you are not including my whole  
statement.(  quotated below) I realize the word alternative can be  
used glibly , but in Pychon's case it is hard to overstate it, while  
his source material and historical research  include the popular and  
the obscure it all has a satiric edge and a sympathy for the  
displaced cultures and individuals for whom history is a steamroller,  
an assembly line, a slave ship, a bulldozer, a bomb, a Gatling gun.

"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."