IVIV page 139

[Mark Kohut]

Two related bits.

1) in that lauded book "Nixonland", the author states explicitly that Nixon learned from Reagan.....(I wouldn't have known, knowing only the publicly-available Nixon.).  So, TRP's societal insights using these two are right on. 

2) I have recently had a chance to see documentary footage about non-permit marches and protests in the 60s vs recent years. If this stuff about one city is generalizable, then it is the ratcheting up of what I will call "pre-emptive fascism", the shutdown in advance, probably unconstitutional if challenged, of legitimate dissent. Fascism here, a lower-case f, perhaps metaphoric use, meaning: Not even a verbal dissent allowed. 

This is a change in America that TRP has caught in Vineland (most) and
in the societal transition in IV.    

--- On Tue, 10/6/09, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> Subject: IVIV page 139
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Tuesday, October 6, 2009, 9:39 AM
> quick flashback:  Fascism for
> Freedom...this is a lot like
> Goldwater's "extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no
> vice", I mean a
> LOT like it....
> 
> when I was but a teen, and an artsy-fartsy stoner at that,
> I used to say, chiming in, ringing changes,
> "incoherence in the pursuit of beauty is no vice" (though
> I've
> revisited that stance...)
> ------------------------------------------------
> 
> "Doc lit up a Kool, reached in his fringe bag and found
> Denis's
> photo of Coy Harlingen."
> 
> naturally he would have a fringe bag!
> 
> Bigfoot agrees to look into the Coy situation...
> 
> he has a therapist, and has to share the chocolate-covered
> bananas.
> Now why would he be going to a therapist?  Probably
> has to...
> anger-management.  This is one of those improbable
> nodes that
> could conceivably happen, if you define "happen" flexibly.
> The touchy-feely guys occasionally do get some authority
> over
> police officers...
> 
> Like the scene with the waitress in The Belaying Pin, it's
> not any type
> of humor that I'm used to.  "Why are you telling me
> this?"
> At this juncture, the works need some chocolate-covered
> bananas
> jammed into them, I guess.  But not only that, it
> works:
> 
> So if a police officer with a solid work history gets in a
> kerfuffle
> about extra force used, and some citizen's review board
> gets involved,
> I really can see how the department would send him to
> therapy,
> and I can really see how, without jeopardizing his
> standing, he could
> send bananas to Internal Affairs, or a certain distance up
> his own
> chain of command, actually getting some smiles for his
> pains.
> 
> It's no weirder than some of the stuff they do on TV cop
> shows!
> 
> And, in a properly meditative mood, it is refreshing to
> think of
> a chocolate covered banana whizzing along in a pneumatic
> tube and falling into somebody's inbox.
> 
> 
> -- 
> --- "Can't say it often enough -
> change your hair, change your life."
> - Sortilege
>