The Baadass

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A bit slow, I just remembered that Seaman "Pig" Bodine (a Badass
boddhisatva, giving Slothrop his rag with Dillinger's blood) came
off of the U.S. destroyer John E. Badass.

What's that mean? Although so much of Gravity's Rainbow shows that the
power establishment is the same on both sides of the war, I suppose one
must also remember that the U.S.A. victory was in fact a good thing.

Back in that Luddite essay, Pynchon suggests that technology itself can
be the Badass, like Frankenstein's monster turning out to be more than
its creator can control. With subversive foaks like Bodine manning the
ship maybe this U.S. destroyer is not unjustly called the Badass.

(The power establishment may occasionally be "caught flat-footed" but
they spring back soon enough: they "hire the hackers" so to speak.)

And if the U.S.A. war force is one Badass, then Blicero on the receiving
end is another one for his side: knowing that his Reich is ending he
makes a last grand gesture as the victors close in. And then the good
guys race each other to sweep up as many of the bad guys and their
machines, that is, the real power moves back in after letting the Badass
out for the occasionally necessary run . . .

--
Eric R