Re: MDMD: Lambton Worm
Paul Mackin <[email protected]> Mon, 24 Jun 2002 00:29:52 -0400
| Newsgroups | gmane.culture.literature.thomas-pynchon |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Take heart everybody. He's in the final draw-back-as-gracefully-as-possible stage. Didn't we know the whole thing was a big joke. He was funning us all the time. We're a bunch of silly boobs who don't even know when we're being ribbed.That Doug is such a scamp. P. Doug Millison wrote: > I agree with davemarc, those terrorists are bad guys and should be brought > to justice for their crimes. They should be brutal, they learned from the > best -- the CIA. et al., during the Reagan-Bush Administration. > > al Qaida takes on a mythical dimension (in the sense that I read in > Pynchon's work) as the Bush Administration II cowboys puff al Qaida up > (beyond their already brutal bad guy proportions) to make themselves look > more macho as they scare us all and win support for everything they want to > do under the name of the "war on terrorism," and as we internalize them as > mythical figures and respond to them as such instead of dealing more > immediately in the here and now. GR studies this process in some detail, > but it's a recurring theme throughout Pynchon's work. > > Hold al Qaida responsible for their crimes -- a position I've held since > September 11 -- but let's do the same for the Bush Administration and other > governments responsible for terrorism, war crimes, and other crimes > against humanity. > > Most observers agree that the results of the "war on terrorism" have been > primarily to scatter al Qaida across the globe, erode civil liberties here > in the US, kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan (and elsewhere), and > cause untold suffering in Afghanistan, as it transfers billions and > billions of dollars from the US government (taxpayers) to suppliers of > weapon systems and other defense-related products and services. Far from > eliminating evil, this war increases evil, violence leads to more violence > and suffering that will continue, I expect, down through the generations, > as in the story of the Lambton Worm that Pynchon includes in M&D.