Quite Pynchon-related but obliquely, thematically

[Joseph Tracy]

 The ideas may be familiar or even well-worn to those who read anti-mainstream literature, but I think the article would still have a lot of bite if it was a controversial topic of debate in a mainstream venue. It would probably start a fist-fight if you published it in the Air Force Academy newspaper. The problem is not with the quality of the arguments, but the exclusion of thoughtful oppositional critiques of mainstream culture. 
What makes this particularly weird is that if you take the war in Afghanistan, which is the most obvious specific example of the the culture he describes, most citizens want us out. Which is what I think Richard is saying that plenty of  people know all this shit. But I don't see it coming directly from the news. The majority have wanted us out of Afghanistan since Bush but it is not reflected in terms of reporting or commentary on NPR or other major news venues who actively play down atrocities and drum up patriotic anecdotes, you know, the tender human side of pissing on dead foreign farmers. In fact there seems to be no discernible relation between public opinions and political positions. Rather, politics is a privatized spectacle, a celebration of markets, vicarious sex violence power and fame, a TV show.


On May 2, 2012, at 9:40 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:

> Whether tis nobler in mind to suffer the slings and darts of outrageous fortune, or to oppose, and, by opposing, end them....
> 
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 4:29 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not hep to all the academic marcuse jive the guy is bringing but I just get the sense that yeah well, so? any dipshit following the news knows all this shit. every street corner savior's got the digs on what's wrong, who's to blame, what should be done, it's all just rather tiresome. 
> 
> i've increasingly find myself very sympatico with Larry Slade, the burnt out anarchist in the Iceman Cometh, watching from the grandstand and all that, sipping my rye.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 2, 2012 at 5:41 PM, <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> While I agree with some of what he says, this essay is a mess.  I mean nothing personal (I admit, often I do), just a very different take.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, May 2, 2012 4:49 pm
> Subject: Quite Pynchon-related but obliquely, thematically
> 
> This guy is good, I think...
>  
> 
> http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8859-violence-usa-the-warfare-state-and-the-brutalizing-of-everyday-life
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> "Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant