was Re: VLVL (6) Brock

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: was Re: VLVL (6) Brock


> on 29/9/03 8:43 PM, Otto at ottosell at yahoo.de wrote:
>
> > The dictionary definition leaves out everything that would explain the
> > motivation of the hippies or rebel students in the 60's. These are
explained
> > by the novel quite well on p. 38.18-20:
> >
> > "War in Vietnam, murder as an instrument of American politics, black
> > neighborhoods torched to ashes and death (...)."
>
>     War in Vietnam, murder as an instrument of American politics, black
>     neighborhoods torched to ashes and death, all must have been off on
>     some other planet. (38.18-20)
>
> The hippies and/or student radicals in Pynchon's novel aren't motivated by
> these things. In fact, what this passage and quote are emphasising is
their
> unawareness of these things.
>

Yes, but only on that wedding day, there's a big *as if* in that sentence.
Of course the movement was mainly motivated by the war. Without it there
wouldn't have been a hippie resurgence. Even the negative side of the
movement, the Manson-Family, was motivated by it:

Van Houten: "This is all such a big lie. I was influenced by the war in
Vietnam and TV."
(Bugliosi, "Helter Skelter," p. 439)

> > I know a lot
> > about the history of the Vietnam war, which has been in fact taken over
by
> > the USA from the French. Nobody can deny that like nobody can deny that
it's
> > been a genocide.
>
> Yes, I've read your lop-sided views on this.

Are you justifying the Vietnam-war, calling it a good thing?

> I disagree strongly with your
> contention that South Vietnamese refugees are like escaped Nazis.
>

I never did say so, that's just the spin you're applying to it. I was only
questioning the objective truth or historical correctness of oral histories
of people from Nazi-Germany now living in South America or people from South
Vietnam now living in Australia or the USA who may have good reasons to tell
things the way they do.

> > The Sloth-essay calls the
> > Reagan-Bush years a semi-fascist time ("not
> > far behind"), something the blue-collar workers weren't aware of.
>
> No offence, but it doesn't describe the Reagan-Bush years as a
semi-fascist
> time, and it doesn't mention blue-collar workers or call them ignorant.

Only the hippies and left radicals called the US-government fascist, so the
working class supporting the war was unaware of what it was doing was
financing the illegal war with their taxes. And "not far behind" the
"worldwide fascist ascendancy" can be fairly called semi-fascist, don't you
think so too?

> Actually, it's one time when Pynchon does use the word "fascist"
correctly.
> He describes "the Vietnam era" *and* "the Reagan-Bush years" as "not far
> behind" the 20s and 30s "*worldwide* fascist ascendancy" (NB "worldwide").
> According to Pynchon, all three are examples of "a failure of public
will",
> where "the introduction of evil policies and the rise of evil regimes" was
> allowed to happen.
>
>     In this century we have come to think of Sloth as primarily
>     political, a failure of public will allowing the introduction
>     of evil policies and the rise of evil regimes, the worldwide
>     fascist ascendancy of the 1920's and 30's being perhaps Sloth's
>     finest hour, though the Vietnam era and the Reagan-Bush years
>     are not far behind.
>
> http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_sloth.html
>

So he's calling the Reagan-Bush years years of an evil regime, in their
fascist tendencies comparable to the nazis. Just like Zoyd does in the
novel, and just like many of the real people did back in those days. I think
calling the USA in the Vietnam and post-Vietnam era a fascist state defines
down the "real" Spanish, Italian and German fascism. If the USA indeed were
fascist Brock Vond's camp wouldn't be a novel fantasy but would have been
reality.

Otto