IBM, Disney, Bush: Nazis?

[Dave Monroe]

Very quickly here, but, as things have gotten so bad
on this side of the screen that I'm actually indulging
in Th' List for a little light-hearted escapism,
again, think context--historical, geopolitical;
writing, publication, reception--here.  Zwolfkinder,
those various Raketen-Stadten, cannot help but evoke
the Disney amusement parks (cf. "Tomorrowland" in the
latter case), esp. given the "prominence" of both Von
Braun (nigh unto the first "voice" in the text, and
ineviatbly associated with the pervasive engineering
et al. program of the novel) and Disney (which/who of
course had its/his own problematic associations with
Nazism, decades before giving Werner von Braun his own
children's television show).

Perhaps, as Alan Willams says of Alain Resnais' Night
and Fog, this is "a kind of historical Rorschach
test," but, given the montage of sorts of such
"prominent" elements in Gravity's Rainbow, the
perception of such associations is, if not inevitable
(I do not posit a "universal" reader here, a
particular impossibilty in the case of a text like
Gravity's Rainbow, which defies any sort of readerly
mastery in the breadth of its allusiveness), certainly
possible (and well beyond Doug and myself), certainly
probable, even (and keep in mind that Pynchon himself
is a part of this context), and, cerainly, legitimate.
 

Heck, even Rainer Maria Rilke is mentioned by name
and/or cited directly only a handful of times (if
even) in Gravity's Rainbow, and no one seems to have
any objections to bringing into contact with his works
various and sundry elements of Pynchon's novel,
quilting (nomianlly at least picking up on that
Lacanian point du capiton here) together, say, various
mentions of "angels" in that Pynchonian text not only
to each other, but to those Rilkean texts as well,
among others, not to mention to The Rocket, which
again is quilted to not only "the" V-2, but to "the"
Saturn V  and "the" ICBM as well.

Quilting, montage, trope, that contextually implied
association of items not necessarily related save that
they occur significantly in the text, context of a
particular text, context, the very process of writing,
reading, interpretation, no?  Yes ... and keep in mind
that Disney, like Coca-Cola, is also exemplary not
only of These United States, but in particular of not
only American, but of multinational corporate
colonialism, certainly of no small resonance here as
well.  Anyway, I'm waiting on a copy of Edwin Black's
IBM and the Holocaust and the occasion to read it
myself here, so ...

But, sadly, I am skeptical as well about not only
"disgust" or "outrage," but even just plain ol'
interest among the "public at large."  People, if and
when they have the opportunity and/or occasion to do
so, just don't seem to much want to think about the
(only) seemingly neutral, trivial and/or inevitable
heppenstances of daily life, and therein lie the
insidious operations of hegemony ((c) Antonio
Gramsci), no?  Yes ... 

--- jbor <jbor at bigpond.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------
> >From: Doug Millison
> <millison at online-journalist.com>
> >
> 
> snip
> > As so many of us point out so often here on
> Pynchon-L, Pynchon
> > doesn't often go for the obvious jab, such as
> highlighting a direct
> > connection between von Braun and Disneyland. I
> could make a credible
> > argument, and I wouldn't be the first to do so,
> that Pynchon does
> > "tar" Disney with the Nazi brush -- look again at
> Slothrop's E Ticket
> > Ride through the Mittelwerke, and the way that
> Pokler's superiors use
> > Zwolfkinder, with its clear echoes of Disneyland,
> as a way of keeping
> > him under control and at the service of the
> Rocket.
> 
> Be that as it may, the von Braun/Disney connection
> isn't made in the
> text(s), though both figure prominently. Further,
> Slothrop's E-Ticket ride
> is orchestrated by the Allies. And Zwolfkinder
> doesn't connect Disney with
> the Nazis in any way whatsoever as far as I can see.
> 
> > At least we seem to have gotten past -- I hope --
> the suggestion that
> > journalists and other writers -- you could number
> Pynchon among them,
> > of course -- who bring this sort of information to
> light, who have
> > uncovered these connections, are pursuing some
> sort of "hidden
> > agenda" and using the history of Nazi war crimes
> and genocide for
> > base motives.
> 
> Of course there are hidden agendas! The timing of
> the publication of the
> book on the Bushes is hardly coincidental, surely!
> And, whatever Black's
> credentials and motives, to get the book published
> there would have needed
> to be an "angle".
> 
> I'm a little more skeptical than you are about the
> "general public" reacting
> with disgust at connections made between Nazism and
> current political
> figures and corporations. Particularly when all
> Allied governments of the
> period similarly had "connections" with the Nazis.
> 
> best
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


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