Pynchon as propaganda

[Paul Mackin]

On Thu, 2003-04-03 at 22:00, Mutualcode at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 4/3/2003 2:28:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> paul.mackin at verizon.net writes:
> 
> 
> > The time for questions as to the futility of war or the justice of
> > war 
> 
> are in the 
> > past. We are viewing (reminiscing) the scene from a point 
> 
>    at which war
> > and all the atrocities that inevitably flow from war have 
> 
>    long since 
> > become a given.
> 
> Only if one has already decided one must fight and there are no other
> alternatives. War may be inevitable as long as there are people who
> believe that to be the case. However, and this is to the point of the
> passage, fighting is an individual choice. So, for any given
> individual,
> making war is not inevitable. Quakers are one example of a group that
> support the individual decision not to participate in war and see such
> behavior as the antithesis of cowardice and disloyalty. Quakers do not
> "work for the army," as the clergymen in the passage, but for God.



Just one question, however. There's no implication in the passage (or in
real life) that removing army chaplains from the payroll would have any
appreciable effect on carrying out or not carrying out the war.

p.