IVIV 80

[Michael Bailey]

> contracts, LBJ airlines (according
> to several people I've talked to who were in the military, Lady Bird
> was the owner of the airline
> that flew GIs and coffins full of heroin back & forth) -

a rumor so juicy that I haven't had the heart to research it

> and, the misdirection of the word "defense" into meaning "empire"
> devalues the language,
> which in a way is the real currency anyway...

now your globalists might compellingly state that a completely Communist
Asia would be apt to align with the USSR and that would be the end of democracy
as we know it (ignoring Ho's (though he was kind of a dick too,
as noted in Vineland) initial outreach to the US, and ignoring
Sino-Soviet hostility)
and that the soldiers, at least, didn't think of themselves as Roman legionaries
and the early years in Vietnam did see quite a bit of aid efforts...

but for Nixon's face to be on the counterfeit money...well,
that brings a new set of implications beyond the strictly factual,
having to do with expanded executive power, the abrogation of Congress's
duty to determine a state of war (tho Johnson started that with Tonkin),
the cult of personality overruling principle in politics, the foul
disingenuousness
of Nixon's "Peace with Honor", all of which is harmoniously
and lovingly wrapped up in a nest of supporting imagery that is shaping up
in my mind as as relishably good as any of Pynchon's other work

>
>
> Terminal Island, just the name is foreboding...
>