VLVL (6) Sasha

[jbor]

>> Frenesi recalls Sasha defending the way she had sold out on her own ideals
>> during WWII (75.12-16),
> 
>> From being involved with "the
>> anticonscription movement at Berkeley" (77.15) Sasha began to undergo a
>> change of heart when the war actually began (77.22), and finally ended up
>> marrying a soldier boy, "Electrician's Mate Third Class Hubbell Gates".

on 28/9/03 8:54 PM, Mike Weaver at mikeweaver at gn.apc.org wrote:

> There was a whole generation of left wingers like Sasha who swung behind
> the war effort after initially opposing it. The knowledge we now have of
> the evils of the Nazi ideology and atrocities of Stalin's rule was not
> available at the time. Initially the war was seen as a fight between
> capitalists. Loyalty to the (aspirations of the) Soviet Union on the part
> of many meant that they accepted that line,  until June 1941 when Hitler
> opened up the Eastern Front. Other socialists, like Sasha, changed their
> attitude when they realised the enormity of the Nazi threat.

No offence to you, but this isn't in the text. Sasha's change of heart seems
to have begun right from when the war broke out:

    Somewhere Sasha had also found time to work for Tom Mooney's
    release, fight the infamous antipicket ordinance, Proposition
    One, and campaign for Cuthbert Olson in '38.
        "The war changed everything. The deal was, no strikes for
    the duration. Lot of us thought it was some last desperate
    capitalist maneuver, a way to get the Nation mobilized under
    a leader, no different than Hitler or Stalin. But at the same
    time so many of us loved FDR. I got so distracted I quit
    working for a while. ... " (77.18-29)

More than anything else she becomes distracted by the "rivers of uniforms"
in the clubs (78.10). Eventually, after the U.S. enters the war, she joins
up with "the Hotshots", most of its "personnel coming from Army bands", and
the narrator points out that her engagement with the band occurs "in a way
that may've been sexually, though not otherwise, innocent" (78.13-4). So,
she goes from being an anticonscription activist to entertaining the troops.
And she even recalls the time she sang 'Star-Spangled Banner' in her junior
year (78.20-1). Just like her supposed genetic predisposition to uniforms,
the instinct towards patriotism seems to've been deeply-entrenched as well.

And what *is* in the text is the comparison and connection which Sasha
herself makes between her own "helpless turn towards authority", the "dismal
possibility that all her oppositions, however just and good, to forms of
power were really acts of denying that dangerous swoon", her sexual
attraction to men in uniform, and Frenesi's similar "fetish", or, indeed,
her tragic flaw (83.20-34).

If you can find evidence in the text, apart from the baggage you're
bringing into it, to support the assertion that there are "qualitative
differences", by all means point it out. I don't think that it's there, but
I'll keep an open mind.

best

> Do you really find significance in her finally ending up marrying a soldier?
> 
> I think that you and Terrance both want to define Frenesi's betrayal as
> comparable to her parents changes of attitude, hence your emphasis on them
> 'turning' and 'selling out'.  I think P is doing the opposite, highlighting
> their qualitative differences. Sasha and Hub simply adapted to new
> circumstances - Frenesi completely changed sides.