pynchon-l-digest V2 #2760

[Doug Millison]

>
>I think the immediate answer is tell as many people as we can about the real
>business of war.  Then when we have peoples' attention, we can ask again,
>collectively, what the answer is.


Barbara,

We could choose peace instead of war, too.  Both these action-oriented
responses, however, undercut the ironic, world-weary,
there's-nothing-we-can-do-about-it, the-Devil-made-me-do-it,
just-let-the-War-go-on-and-we'll-all-profit-from-it-somehow-attitude that
enables Americans to sleep-walk from one war into the next.

-Doug


"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The
murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to
non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways.
It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It
provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be
taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more
prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just
ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while
they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of
markets."
Gravity's Rainbow p. 105