Fwd: Ishmael Reed: "What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama" Keeping Cool & Caring" NYT

bandwraith at aol.com bandwraith at aol.com
Tue Dec 14 06:11:51 CST 2010



-----Original Message-----
From: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
To: mff8785 <mff8785 at gmail.com>
Sent: Tue, Dec 14, 2010 6:49 am
Subject: Re: Ishmael Reed: "What Progressives Don’t Understand About 
Obama" Keeping Cool & Caring" NYT


To me, he's always seemed like an artist and
a moralist first, and from that perch, that grace
can be had, or found, at any level of the
hierarchy. That, and the huge breadth of his
knowledge, which he manages to work into
his texts in unique ways, keeps me fascinated.

While some may claim that his vision is
leftward, and I'm not sure, I have not seen
claims that he is a prophet for Rigth-
wing private property based politics, or
conservatism. I've tried to make the point
 a few times, that his work is generally elitist,
and probably unsuccessfully, although my
definition of elite includes the likes of Ishmael
Reed, Charlie Parker and maybe Obama, but
not Oprah.


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael F <mff8785 at gmail.com>
To: Pynchon-L <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, Dec 14, 2010 12:57 am
Subject: Re: Ishmael Reed: "What Progressives Don’t Understand About
Obama" Keeping Cool & Caring" NYT


I've been a reader of Pynchon for 10 years, and have read only a bit
of academic criticism and what I find interesting on this list serve.
I need some help, where does Pynchon proclaim himself a prophet for
Left-Wing rights-based politics or progressivism?  Or even radical
anarchism?  Personally, I eschew both Modern Western "right" and
"left" wing thought(not in a revolutionary fashion), but I just don't
understand how Pynchon's writings propagate a contemporary political
view.  In all sincerity, I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but I
think the author of Pynchon's writings would laugh and/or shudder at
the political philosophy or lack of that all of our elected officials
espouse, especially Obama's pseudo-prophetic promises of immentization
of the eschaton and the idiot wind of "W".  McCarthy and Pynchon avoid
contemporary academia and media for a reason, not because they are
Underground Men or Secret Agents, like so many of us unfortunately
need them to be or hope them to be.

Mike

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I would like to comment to a larger extent at a later time,
> for now I will post what may be Gore Vidal's rebuttal....
> entitl'd "America the Great...Police State",
>
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090728_america_the_great_police_state/
> but for now, I sleep!
>







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