VLVL II: FDR

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 2004-02-20 at 06:06, lorentzen-nicklaus wrote:
> 
> * "And other grandfolks could be heard arguing the perennial question 
> of whether the United States still lingered in a prefascist twilight,
> or whether that darkness had fallen long stupefied years ago, and the
> light they thought they saw was coming only from millions of Tubes all 
> showing the same bright-colored shadows. One by one, as other voices
> joined in, the names began --- some shouted, some accompanied by spit, 
> the old reliable names good for hours of contention, stomach distress,
> and insomnia --- Hitler, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, Hoover, Mafia, CIA, 
> Reagan, Kissinger, that collection of names and their tragic interweaving
> that stood not constellated above in any nightwide remoteness of light,
> but below, diminished to the last unfaceable American secret, to be 
> pressed, each time deeper, again and again beneath the meanest of random
> soles, one fermenting leaf on the forest floor that nobody wanted to turn
> over, because of all that lived, virulent, waiting, just beneath." (371f)
> 
> 
> .... Last sentence sounds like an appealing mixture of Lovecraft and 
> Proust ... What interests me here this cold sunny morning is the novel's
> construction of FDR ... Must admit that I did not quite get it ... One
> thing to note in the passage itself is the fact that the first and the 
> last of the given names are of German origin ... (btw, is it true that 
> people in New York speak the first syllable in the New Deal president's
> name not like rooster yet like rose?)

The family pronounced it like Rose and I remember being taught in
elementary school that this was correct. It sounded quite illiterate
when someone would pronounce it like in rooster. Like it was to hear
people pronounce Los Angeles as Los Angle-lus.
 

>  ... Another that the text diagnoses
> "their tragic interweaving": though this doesn't make sense for all the 
> names (what's so 'tragic' about the CIA?), it perhaps does for FDR, whom 
> Thomas Mann called the "Anti-Hitler" who, wrote Mann, "combines the kindness
> of the dove with the snake's smartness". So, in what regard could one call
> Franklin D. Roosevelt a "fascist"?  For leading Amerika into the war against
> Nazi Germany and Japan (cf. 77)? Hardly, imo. More sense the labeling might 
> make regarding the concentration camps FDR did let build for Japanese Americans; 
> taken the novel's interest in Japan it's strange that - correct me if I'm 
> wrong - these do not play any role at all. A-and labor? Here the left legend 
> about the fascist character of the New Deal simply has it wrong. "If large
> corporations came out of World War II benifiting from a stable ordered, and
> rapidly growing economy, that was no evidence that the New Deal was simply a 
> 'corporate liberal' plot to extend the corporate hegemony. The NRA, banking
> and securities reform, and deficit spending --- all seen by radical critics 
> as devices to perpetuate conservative and business strength --- were all at 
> the time bitterly opposed by their supposed beneficiaries. The war, rather than
> the New Deal was responsible for the restored popular legitimacy of corporate
> leaders and the close alliance of the industrial-military complex./ It is not
> easy to see how the New Deal could have pursued more radical or effective 
> policies. The economic emergency of 1933 created constraints as well as 
> opportunities. The chance to nationalise the banks was largely illusory when 
> the nation's capital and cash ressources had to be unfrozen as quickly as 
> possible. Corporation with businessmen in the NRA was inescapable if NRA codes
> were to be implemented quickly in the interest of recovery (...) The New Deal
> may have failed to disturb the basic structure of American business, but it did
> appear to have facilitated the formation of a countervailing force in the trade
> unions movement. The 1930s saw the largest ever growth in union membership in a 
> single decade in both absolute and relative terms: trades union membership 
> trebled ..." (Anthony J. Badger: The New Deal. The Depression Years, 1933-1940. 
> New York 1989: Hill and Wang, pp. 116ff). So if someone can explain to me what
> FDR's "unfaceable American secret" is and where the "prefascist twilight" does 
> come from....this would be really helpful --
> 


In the thirties and forties it would have been more likely to hear FDR
called a communist than a fascist.

However any latter-day use of the terms fascist or pre-fascist to apply
to the harsh and unwarranted use of central government power by, say,
Nixon or Reagan, DOES have a definite connection with FDR. He was the
American Present under whom American Power in the world and federal
centralized government power within the country first came really  into
flower. Firstly the federal government assumed powers it hadn't had
before in the development of social welfare and employment programs to
fight the depression of the thirties--social security, unemployment
insurance, dam building, etc. Then there was WW II. The very act of
defeating fascism in Europe put America in a position to act
"fascistically" according to some lights in the post-war world. 

I never actually ever heard the term "pre-fascistic twilight." Pynchon
is a great word smith. Joyce might have called it "pre-fascistic
twalet."



>  +
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> "The spits were joined by a bridge, as was the inner of the two, Old Thumb, with the
> city of Vineland, which curved the length of the harbor's shoreline, both spans being
> graceful examples of the concrete Art Deco bridges built all over the Northwest by the
> WPA during the Great Depression. Zoyd, who was driving, came at last up a long forest-
> lined grade and cresting saw the trees fold away, as there below, swung dizzily into
> view, came Vineland, all the geometry of the bay neutrally filtered under pre-storm
> clouds, the crystalline openwork arcs of the pale bridges, a tall power-plant stack 
> whose plume blew straight north, meaning rain on the way, a jet in the sky ascending
> from Vineland International south of town, the Corps of Engineers marina, with salmon
> boats, power cruisers, and day sailors all docked together, and spilling uphill from 
> the shoreline a couple of sqare miles crowded with wood Victorian houses, Ouonset 
> sheds, postwar prefab ranch and split-level units, little trailer parks, lumber-baron
> floridity, New Deal earnestness. And the federal building ..." (316f)
> 
> 
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