VLVL the collapse of the Youth Movement

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/21/04 9:06:14 AM, ottosell at yahoo.de writes:

<< I'm wondering why you always leave out the state's agents role. Here we 
have

an example of "murder as an instrument of American politics" -- without

Brock Frenesi wouldn't have become a traitor and Rex wouldn't have killed

Weed. So we can add to the above list of crimes America's war against her

own children. >>

Brock is a United States Attorney, a federal prosecutor with
almost unimagineable power and resources compared with
Frenesi. He, or people like him, have made the the life of the
Gates family miserable for as long as Frenesi can recall, and
still have Sasha under surveillance. They can pop her anytime
they want to, like Zoyd gets popped.

Brock doesn't ask Frenesi to take an unmarked gun and put it
within Rex's reach, in so many words, he tells her to do it, just
like he forces her hand down on it against her will. It's against 
her instincts, but she's trapped- nothing left to negotiate with- 
and she's hoping her faith in the magical ability of the camera 
to transcend the falsity of Vond's creepy vision of reality will 
somehow save the day- make Weed come clean and control Rex. 
At the crucial moment, when Rex returns earlier than expected 
and provokes a confrontation with Weed, Frenesi is indisposed, 
on the phone with DL. She doesn't even get the chance to allow 
Weed to come clean on camera and then include Rex in the frame. 
By the time she gets back, it's too late, the confrontation is out 
of her control.

Most likely she and her faith in the camera's magic would have proved 
to be inadequate to save Weed, but motivation is important.


<< The real *real* issue of the day was Zoyd's and Frenesi's famous hippie

wedding, not politics. Zoyd has no idea that he's just a disguise and it

wasn't Frenesi that made the guests forget about Vietnam & Watts:


"the visible worls was a sunlit sheep farm." (38) -- this, followed by the

part you've quoted sounds to me like a paraphrase of the later

Bhagwan-motto: Be Here & Now (ganz entspannt im Hier & Jetzt).


So in my opinion Pynchon here questions what had become of the movement 
when the hippies had married the revolutionaries that had betrayed the

revolution. It has become obvious that the movement will be unable to stop

the war and the repression. Love & Peace -- that doesn't fit well into a

violent revolution, and so the marxist terminology by and by was exchanged

for esoterics. Karmic explanations instead of political analysis. What would

old Osho (Bhagwan) have said: how can you dare to try changing the world as

long as you're unable to change yourself. How can you speak of peace as long

as your heart is full of hate.


Otto >>


But "heroes" like John Kerry returned home disillusioned to find 
the streets filled and the campuses in upheaval, and joined the 
people, and the war did end. NIxon, pretending to be oblivious to
the growing protest movement, turned out to be deeply obsessed
with it, monitoring its every aspect, becoming more and more
paranoid, and setting into motion a series of illegal activities which
would finally result in his disgrace and departure.

rspectfully