L.4

[Mark Wright AIA]

--- Terrance <Lycidas at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>  What's the difference between a wedding dress and a first
> holy communion dress? 
> 
>  
> 
> They Politically: Corporate State, Empire, Ruling Elite,
> Degenerate Nobility or Aristocracy
> 
> Politically They are the Empire that has "no place for
> dreams" or children or innocence.  [GR.135] In fact, "In the
> corporate State, a place must be made for innocence, and its
> many uses.. In developing an official version of innocence,
> the culture of childhood has proven valuable. Games,
> fairy-tales, legends from history, all the paraphernalia of
> make-believe can be adapted and even embodied in a physical
> place, such as Zwolfkinder." [GR.419]
> 
> Enzian is, imo, the most reliable source of information
> about the political They. Like his brother Slothrop he is
> struggling to comprehend his "conditioning" and his
> "sickness" and find a way to negotiate his way through the
> zone, the War, the novel. He is, as I have noted, Moses.  
> The parallels should not be pushed too far, but the
> parallels are too many and too interesting to ignore. In any
> event, it Enzian that provides yet another perspective on
> Them: "It means the War was never political at all, the
> politics was all theatre...The real crisis were crisis of
> allocation and priority, not among firms--it was only staged
> to look that way--but among the different Technologies,
> Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are
> understood only by the ruling elite..." [GR.521].
> 
> They, the Studio, the bloodthirsty Count Draculas, are
> everywhere and their power seems unlimited. No one can, no
> one has, and no one ever will leave the firm's employ, not
> alive anyway. There is always an agent higher on the
> organization charts to take out disgruntled employees, the
> charts reach higher than anyone can see, and They make the
> charts, fill in all the Titles and Names. They can make
> deals that and arrangements to control the world, the earth,
> to cut up Europe or dismantle a President, yes even one as
> powerful as FDR. They know everything They want to know
> about the people They need to control. They know, for
> example, about Pokler's German Romanticism and his Rocket
> mysticism. They know about Pudding's, and Pirate's, and
> Truck's sexual proclivities, hang-ups, fetishes, these are
> all kept in Their files (They can also file a guy like
> Slothrop at a hotel or destroy a file, like Tantivy. But,
> this is hardly the extent of their Power, for They control
> dreams, in fact, They can plant and harvest human volition,
> emotion, even innocence and guilt. They control guilt, it's
> very useful to Them. They control history, even Time and
> Space, and even "the other side."  The most powerful and the
> most perfidious of Their strategies is telling the Truth.
> They are also able to control nature and determine history,
> so for example, Hollywood, which we know is Their business
> (see my post on how the U.S. movie industry defeated the
> German film industry) colonizes paradise. 
> 
> Paradoxically (appropriately so) THEY are also doomed,
> ineffectual, weak, full of contradictions, and at the mercy
> of chance, and such silly things as kazoos, magic,
> vulgarity, popular myth, and doubles. 
> 
> Sorry, I don't lecture unless I get paid, 
> 
> Terrance
> 
> "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet
> come." J.2.4


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