MDDM Ch. 50 An American Golem

[Dave Monroe]

   ""An American Golem.  They thought the Black Boys
who fought them at Fort Loudon were danegrous,-- those
were benevolent Elves in Compariosn.  Here as in
Prague, the Golem takes a dim view of Oppression, and
is ever available to exert itself to th Contrary.'
   "Out the Window, great Mud Feet are seen to stir,
tall as the Eaves.  The Countrymen raise Tankards in
their direction.  'A sovereign Deterrent to Black
Watch plaid,' declares Mr. Tox.

   'This Forest suffers not the Bag-Pipe's Scream,
   To stay away, the Brits it wiser deem.'" (M&D, Ch.
50, p. 490)

Fort Loudon, a.k.a. Fort Loudoun

"The date that would be carved on the monuments and
printed in all the histories and textbooks was April
19, 1775. On that day Americans in arms would march
out to face British regulars across the village green
in Lexington, Massachussetts. But they would not be
the first Americans to march out for that purpose.
They would not be the first by ten years, one month,
and eleven days. The day on which James Smith's three
hundred men marched down the muddy road to Fort
Loudoun in Pennsylvania was March ninth, 1765." 
Swanson, N., The First Rebel, Farrar & Rinehart, 1937

http://www.innernet.net/longhunter/fortloudoun/

http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~flhs/

Black Watch Plaid

"The Black Watch, the Senior Highland Regiment, was
originally raised as six independent companies in
1725. Their task was to watch over and maintain law
and order in the Highlands after the first Jacobite
Rebellion in 1715. In 1739 these companies were
embodied as as a Regiment of the Line and in early
1740 paraded for the first time on the banks of the
River Tay at Aberfeldy, Perthshire. In the early days
due to a combination of their role and the very dark
tartan which they wore they became known as The Black
Watch; this name has remained."

http://www.army.mod.uk/blackwatch/history.HTM

http://www.army.mod.uk/blackwatch/

http://www.scotland.com/culture/tartans/b/

http://www.house-of-tartan.scotland.net/house/nf_b.htm

And cf. ...

"... Ned Lud's anger was not directed at the machines,
not exactly. I like to think of it more as the
controlled, martial-arts type anger of the dedicated
Badass. 

"There is a long folk history of this figure, the
Badass. He is usually male, and while sometimes
earning the quizzical tolerance of women, is almost
universally admired by men for two basic virtues: he
is Bad, and he is Big. Bad meaning not morally evil,
necessarily, more like able to work mischief on a
large scale. What is important here is the amplifying
of scale, the multiplication of effect.

"The knitting machines which provoked the first
Luddite disturbances had been putting people out of
work for well over two centuries. Everybody saw this
happening - it became part of daily life. They also
saw the machines coming more and more to be the
property of men who did not work, only owned and
hired. [...]. What gave King Ludd his special Bad
charisma, took him from local hero to nationwide
public enemy, was that he went up against these
amplified, multiplied, more than human opponents and
prevailed. When times are hard, and we feel at the
mercy of forces many times more powerful, don't we, in
seeking some equalizer, turn, if only in imagination,
in wish, to the Badass - the djinn, the golem, the
hulk, the superhero - who will resist what otherwise
would overwhelm us? Of course, the real or secular
frame-bashing was still being done by everyday folks,
trade unionists ahead of their time, using the night,
and their own solidarity and discipline, to achieve
their multiplications of effect. 

[...]

"... modern Luddite imaginations have yet to come up
with any countercritter Bad and Big enough, even in
the most irresponsible of fictions, to begin to
compare with what would happen in a nuclear war."

[...]

"If our world survives, the next great challenge to
watch out for will come - you heard it here first -
when the curves of research and development in
artificial intelligence, molecular biology and
robotics all converge. Oboy. It will be amazing and
unpredictable, and even the biggest of brass, let us
devoutly hope, are going to be caught flat-footed. It
is certainly something for all good Luddites to look
forward to if, God willing, we should live so long."

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-luddite.html

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