It HAS happened here

[Joseph Tracy]

Would you accept that the US government is a violent, aggressive hegemonic empire which supports and empowers many fascist states? If not,  we may live on different planets and baseball, gay rights( still tenuous), and Rock and Roll or whatever is on your list will not be highly persuasive for me. Still I would honestly like to see it and even promise to simply read it without comment.

I do not hate Americans. I hate lies and drones and secret torture chambers. My core philosophy is hopefully based in the idea that humans can renounce and turn from lies and embrace friendly and cooperative ways that can include eveyone. I am a Quaker interested in the intersection of the great teachers of peace with the realities of our time. This has nothing to do with hate. I am looking at the role of the US, particularly since WW2 and I see what I find in Gravity’s Rainbow that the core pragmatisms of markets, militarism, spying, paranoia and deceit expressed in the reich and in the allies are like Werfner and Renfrew, mirrors in horrible and obvious ways. The victimization  of millions by US militarism, racism, and economic avarice reinforces this view of the meaning of WW2 and  it is horribly similar to the victimizations of the Reich or the violence of Stalin. My list is not a list of trivial “mistakes”; it is the core international policy of the US empire and its victims are as human and valuable as the European Jews murdered in the holocaust. They are victims because they are not safely coddled in the arms of the empire, safely absorbed in the latest cultural distraction. The rightward tropism is not gradually reversing  . There is no evidence for that. What we see are murders in syanagogues, threats of war with Iran, bipartisan military spending, bi partisan resistance to the Kypto protocols,  bi partisan  fracking, Brazil elects military dictator,  women and gay peope can now be hired killers for the empire, Bi partisan “clean coal” lies as recently as Obama. 

When you say people will come together, what does that actually mean?  Where is the effective political expression that marks an end to war and fossil fuel ecocide? Hillary was as violent as Trump and perhaps equally narcissistic. She expressed derision for those who opposed fracking to her secret wall street friends. She wanted to have an air war in Syria with Russia. The US support for the killing in Yemen escalated under Obama.
 
One of the key characteristics of fascism explored in Graviy’s Rainbow is that it is fundammentally and irreversibly destructive, it is the ego raging against death by inhabiting death.This is so deep that it is willing to burn itself and its followers  to cinders in its madness. This is the kind of philosophy evident in fossil fuel based corporate capitalism and imperial global military dominance. It is not actually protecting people, waiting for a rise of conscience and sanity. It engulfs itself and entertains itself with apocalyptic visions of violence, builds pleasure palaces while the planet burns and shoots Hotttentots from the balcony. There is no viable political party in the US yet that does not support this madness. Bernie showed it is possible but party leaders want only his endorsement, not the ideas that stirred so many.

 Labels don’t really matter; drawing imaginary lines that ok this or that degree of war crimes and  violent xenophobia is an exercise in self delusion. 



> On Oct 29, 2018, at 10:36 PM, jody2.718 <jody2.718 at protonmail.com> wrote:
> 
> What's this, your imitation of Billy Joel  :)   But seriously, America is and has been many things, some of them godawful, but I do not agree that America is a fascist state- at least not yet. Oh, it's still later than usual, and Uncle Zoyd is still over-sleeping (He doesn't sleep as well as he used to- he has to get up and urinate more now) and his silicon-based window is still wide open- the creeping fig has almost reached his nose. But as late as it is, there is still time to reverse what has been a decidely rightward tropism.
> 
> While the Pynchon-L has lost many a fine contributor these past years- some to disinterest, and some to fates more permanent, for what it's worth, we're still here. I could, if pressed, come up with a counter-list to yours, indexing as many  reasons why America is still a great place to be, but that's not necessary. Machiavelli may have preached that fear is a more expedient means of maintaining power than love, but hatred is boring. Call me naive if you wish, but eventually, I believe, the people will find ways to come together.
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Joseph:
> 
> "Continual growth of military budget
> Loss of privacy
> Vietnam
> Congo and much of Africa
> Chile
> Argentina
> Columbia
> Cointelpro
> Iran
> Palestine
> Greece
> El Salvador
> Nicaragua
> Honduras
> Iraq
> HUAC
> Murder of Black leaders in US and well documented racism of law enforcement and courts
> Purging black voters
> Afghanistan
> Egypt
> Use of Drones
> Pervasive pay inequity and sexual abuse of women ongoing in Universities, Military, Media, Entertainment and workplace, War on Drugs( while CIA engages in heroin traffic, and US companies sell “opioids")......"
> 
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> --
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