What happens to a conspiracy revealed?

Wed Mar 12 11:01:14 CDT 2014

On Mar 12, 2014, at 8:19 AM, Monte Davis wrote:

> Luc Herman & Steven Weisenburger, _Gravity's Rainbow, Domination & Freedom_, p. 197:
> 
> . "It's eminently fair," says Roger Mexico to Jessica Swanlake early in the novel. "Everyone's equal. Same chances of getting hit. Equal in the eyes of the rocket." Roger is riffing on the phrase "equal in the eyes of the law," signifying on how the rocket has become the law, sovereign unto itself.

 I had written  this earlier: The largest consequence of conspiracies revealed and ignored is the replacement of law with violence and the replacement of original accountable individual language with ideological propaganda, self congratulation, passive acquiecence or social pleasantries. 

This Weisenburger quote has me further considering this issue of language and violence particularly in light of the way the individualized programmable robot bombers have become an actuality in the drone. Wow. The language that is deployed here is Orwellian, but the principle has been used by Nazis Romans and many others. The most effective violence is violence that goes unchallenged and gets internalized  in the minds of the population as 'safety' and is seen as  only relevant to distant anonymous shady dangerous people from an unpopular group.
 Law is no longer seen as the product of Jeffersonian ideas about the consent of the governed but the internal imperial deliberations of a benign but angry God. 

> The idea of this, as Pynchon well understood in 1973, involves other magnitudes of inquiry. The questions at stake are not only legal and moral but ontological, involving an order of quasi-beings, or programmable (even, decision-making) robots, to do Their killing. Thus also at stake are matters of political theology, entailing what if anything a sovereign power may not do, a question of just whom executive authority may count as having reached a degree-zero of humanity, a rightsless condition warranting enslavement or killing. The matters at stake are also theological, as new practices of utterly inescapable and seemingly random "death from above" tend to signify. The Calvinist Jonathan Edwards, who famously sermonized on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741), understood quite well the holy terror of such a death.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 3:31 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Sure, countries have their reasons. Why judge them? If British intelligence thinks they've spotted an al Qaeda cell in my neighborhood, and accidentally drops a bomb on my house, why judge them? Hey, it was a judgment call. Average people around the world have good reasons for doing what they do. Why judge them for murder, for rape, for torturing babies? They have their reasons. Who are we to judge? Law is a ridiculous imposition of some people's morality on someone else. Why even bother with it? 
> 
> Laura
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: rich 
> Sent: Mar 10, 2014 3:05 PM 
> To: kelber 
> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" 
> Subject: Re: What happens to a conspiracy revealed? 
> 
> when you know they have been or are actively engaged in planning terrorist operations like Awalaki? i have no problem with that frankly. russians have been doing it so has iran iraq, the UK, Israel, etc. thats what cover ops is about. is it moral? can we judge what countries do in moral terms? i'm not so sure
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 2:47 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> It is all out in the open. See: Jeremy Scahill's book (or documentary version) Dirty Wars. That was my original point: it doesn't change anything when these clandestine activities are aired.
> 
> So, Rich, when the US perceives someone's rhetoric as a threat, it's OK to go into whatever country houses them and murder them, collateral damage be damned? I assume then, that this response is also OK for Russia, for Iran, for North Korea, etc.? 
> 
> Laura
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: rich 
> Sent: Mar 10, 2014 2:33 PM 
> To: Monte Davis 
> Cc: kelber 
> Subject: Re: What happens to a conspiracy revealed? 
> 
> u expect all this to be out in the open? all we can hope for is proper oversight. and I do trust our current President on this.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, Laura, that's classified. As is the process by which the decisions were made. As is the modified revised extended FISA protocol by which you will be put under surveillance -- well, *more* surveillance -- if you keep asking. 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 1:59 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Which were warranted? 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: rich 
> Sent: Mar 10, 2014 1:45 PM 
> To: kelber 
> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" 
> Subject: Re: What happens to a conspiracy revealed? 
> 
> some of those "murders" were warranted. just saying
> Look, I get the concern here but I also think that total transparency is just as dangerous. Not sure the snowdens and assanges really get that.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 1:33 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Acceptance from the right-wing is a given. It's harder to take from people, politicians and newspapers who present themselves as thoughtful and socially progressive.
> 
> LK
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Monte Davis 
> Sent: Mar 10, 2014 1:25 PM 
> To: kelber 
> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" 
> Subject: Re: What happens to a conspiracy revealed? 
> 
> Casual acceptance, hell -- rousing ovations! Check out Charlie Pierce's coverage of star speakers at CPAC over the last few days:  Ollie North, Scooter Libby, Bernard Kerik...
> 
> http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/crooks-at-cpac-2014-030714
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 12:59 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> What happens when a conspiracy is revealed to the public? Not much. What about anything has changed since Snowden's revelations? The shadowy group journalist Jeremy Scahill was investigating, Joint Strategic Operations Command - responsible for thousands of covert murders across the globe - was revealed and publicly lauded in the midst of Scahill's investigation. What happened? Nothing.
> 
> Today, another conspiracy is cheerfully reported in the NY Times in the guise of a story about business prowess:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/business/staking-1-billion-that-herbalife-will-fail-then-ackman-lobbying-to-bring-it-down.html?hp&_r=0
> 
> Which leads to the question: is it still a conspiracy if it's completely out in the open? Isn't the excitement of delving into a conspiracy the stray hope: "once people find out about this ..."
> 
> Not sure that Pynchon answers this fully in any of his books. Sure, he points to a lot of tips of icebergs and facades: industry as the front for something much more sinister, on an almost metaphysical plane. We understand that his "They," while they may have specific servants, don't exist in any tangible form. Can't un-elect them, can't storm their chateaux. But the problem is, when "They" get too metaphysical, they start blending in with the metaphysical scenery - God, Nature, The Universe, Fate.
> 
> But what would happen if the really sinister characters were revealed? If there was a complete analysis of Scarsdale Vibe's or Brock Vond's doings on the front page of the paper of record, and it was treated as a celebration of ingenuity, rather than an indictment or a history-changing moment? To me, this is scarier than any "They" in Pynchon's writings, because this is really happening today here in our world. Pynchon's always known about these people. We all have. It's the casual acceptance of them that comes as a shock.
> 
> Laura
> 
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