VLVL Brock and PREP

[jbor]

Terrance: 
> Back in the book Vietnamese and Salvadorians are replacing the kids in
> Brock's Camps. So many kids were joining the army of justice, the Reagan
> administration did a study and  shut down the Camps. But the refugees
> from Vietnam and El Salvador are flocking to the Camps. Why do the
> refugees go to the Camps? Not a question most readers here want to
> discuss. But there it is, in the book.

Hector tells Frenesi what happened to "Brock's own baby":
    
    "Yeah, PREP, the camp, everythín, they did a study, found
    out since about '81 kids were comín in all on their own askín
    about careers, no need for no separate facility any more, so
    Brock's budget lines all went to the big Intimus shredder in
    the sky, those ol' barracks are fillín up now with Vietnamese,
    Salvadorians, all kinds of refugees, hard to say how they even
    found the place. . . . " (347)

There's certainly dark irony in the fact that refugees from U.S. imperialist
conquests are finding their way to Brock's camp (cf. Blood and Vato hooking
up with "Vietnamese bitch" at Pendleton in 1975, p. 182), but more
interesting is the way the kids are lining up to join the program, which is
pretty much how Brock diagnosed the situation (269). It's a bit reminiscent
of those "docile" students back at College of the Surf listening to Mike
Curb Congregation records and running off to ring the police at the first
whiff of marijuana (204-6).

And, of course, Nixon's landslide win in the 1972 election is another
critical piece of historical data which provides context for Pynchon's
depiction of the failure of the '60s student movement in the novel.

best