the post-911 Situation, Vietnam & Pynchon

[Doug Millison]

Quail:
"I think you are being reductionist. But the causes
of the conflicts and our military involvement  in Vietnam and the
current so-called "War against terrorism" are, well, very different. "

Are they really?  The U.S. fought in Vietnam in part to "contain" Communism
within a broader strategy of seeking to eliminate or contain Communism; the
U.S. fights in Afghanistan for similar reasons, substitute "terrorism" for
"Communism".  The U.S. fought in Vietnam in part to keep oil flowing;
certainly this is lies at the heart of the strategic concerns the U.S. has
in Central Asia and the Middle East at present. Some historians have
argued, convincingly, that the U.S. fought in Vietnam in part within an
ongoing U.S.  imperialism project that began in the19th century; just as
clearly in the present Situation, the U.S. has now taken up again the Great
Game that imperial powers began in the 19th century.   So there are
meaningful parallels. We see a direct line of descent from the politicians
and military strategists who planned and executed the Vietnam War (at least
one of them -- Kissenger -- we see on the Tube, explaining why we need this
war and why it must go on indefinitely) to  the politicians and military
strategists who now plan and execute the war in Afghanistan, as well as the
fact that many of the corporations that will profit from supplying weapon
systems, other goods, and services to the U.S. military remain the same,
albeit perhaps reduced in number due to mergers and acquisitions in the
generation since the Vietnam War.  Much, much more could be said about
this, but it is an email discussion after all, and the P-list limits
individual posts to 10K.

One way -- just one way, and certainly not the only way -- to read Vineland
is to see it relating Cold War politics and illegal machinations of the
U.S. government (the Justice Department; references to CIA dirty tricks in
the war on drugs; etc.) to a successful effort to wreck the anti-Vietnam
War protest movement in the '60s.  Pynchon also links this to the Red
Scare, McCarthyite politics of the 50s, as well as to earlier
corporate-sponsored (with the help of elements within the U.S. government)
actions to suppress the labor movement. Is anything like that happening
right now, or in the context of the post-Gulf War strategy to contain or
eliminate terrorism (at least the terrorists who don't support U.S. foreign
policy).  GR also alludes to this,  but the text is far more complex, and
open to many more interpretations,  one of the reasons, I believe, that
some Pynchon scholars prefer it to Vineland.  One way -- just one way, and
certainly not the only way -- to read M&D is to see it going straight to
the heart of the genocide and profit motive that underlie the development
of corporations in the first place and the role they play in the European
imperialism project in Africa, Asia, and America; here lies a middle ground
between the sometimes obscure and often arcane GR and the rather explicit
politics of Vineland.  Disregard such readings as "propaganda" if you will,
but in so doing surely you realize that you must also disregard the work of
serious Pynchon scholars who have written about the political-historical
worldview that Pynchon's work expresses.  Or, are you among the Pynchon
readers who prefer to ignore the political and historical content of his
work and read it in a vacuum, not seeking to relate it to the world in
which we live?

Quail, you said the other day that you thought that Pynchon would be
opposed to the current war.  Assuming you still think that, I wonder,
instead of spending your time pontificating and excoriating Barbara, why
don't you challenge rj/rjackson/jbor/?'s assertion that Pynchon would
approve of the Bush's war on Afghanistan? Do you think, based on what we
read in V., GR, Vineland, M&D, that Pynchon would really aprove such a
venture, as rj/rjackson/jbor/?  seems to be arguing, with all its trappings
of uncritical flag-waving chauvinism, the cowboy vengeance rhetoric, the
perversion of language that permits a Secretary of Defense to dismiss the
killing of innocent civilians (in the hundreds now, according to many
reputable sources outside the U.S.) by saying they have been warned and
saying that if they're still near U.S. targets they must be working for the
Taliban (this he said, on TV, with a straight face; maybe he wasn't
thinking about the two-month old baby bombed in the village of Karam , but
I was)?  In my personal opinion, and based on a close reading of Pynchon's
novels as well as a small library of critical works relating to Pynchon's
work, I don't see how anybody could argue, from the evidence in the novels,
that the author (not the human being who lives in Manhattan, and not an
"ideal author" constructed from textual evidence) would support the current
war.  Do you agree?  If so, do you think that rj/rjackson/jbor/? is
off-track to assert that Pynchon would support it?




Doug Millison - Writer/Editor/Web Editorial Consultant
millison at online-journalist.com
www.Online-Journalist.com