VLVL Rex Snuvvle

[Terrance]

> 
> We find ourselves agreeing, in outline, at least,
> again, Mr. Jackson and I.  Maybe at least up until
> this point: again, recall that "dissident Left" ...

Pynchon is an unsympathetic historian of the New Left's departure from
their initial populist faith in the need for individual participation in
decision making processes (Participatory Democracy, again, for an
example of the departure see SDS's  Port Huron Statement). After people
failed to follow the student lead, the radicals became apologists for
putschist action by a small student led elite, which, using
guerilla-type violence, attempted to impose its will on the recalcitrant
majority, and on the American people. They believed that they were
emulating the political tactics of Lenin, who led a minority in seizing
power in Russia for the good of the workers even if the latter did not
appreciate the efforts. 

Examples: 

After the June 1968, SDS and the Revolutionary Youth Movement advanced
the orthodox Marxist-Leninist goal of a revolution to establish a
dictatorship of the proletariat in the USA (the goal of Lenin and his
Bolsheviks more than half a century earlier). 

The revolutionary rhetoric of Che (Pisks and 24fps), the militant and
romantic ideologies of Fourth International,  Malcolm X and the BPP (Rex
and Eliot X ), factionalism and polarization resembling the old left of
the 1930s (of course the direction was reversed, Communists
flip-flopping as the War in Europe shifted but controlling American
Labor, were purged from within and by the government).