VLVL Rex and the BLGVN

[jbor]

otto
> Wimpe is talking about the Marxian idea of history, Rex about the
> imagination the "Puritan Capitalist Faith" has of being "immune to all the
> history the rest of have to suffer."

Note how you need to change Pynchon's text to maintain your argument; it's
the "Christian Capitalist Faith" Rex refers to (232). I agree that Rex's
analysis is similar to Wimpe's in _GR_; I've said all along that it's a
general Leninist-style rant against Christianity and Capitalism rather than
a specific critique of Puritanism and American democracy.

> He's talking to Weed and Frenesi about the thing going on in the USA at that
> time, about the PR3. He's not talking about the international proletarian
> revolution he's going to seek in Paris.

Actually, it's a flashback to an earlier conversation he had had with Weed
(and not Frenesi). In the present time Rex knows there's no point in
"issuing warnings" about "infiltrators" (i.e. Frenesi, and it's interesting
that Rex knows that Frenesi is an infiltrator), or "sunshine
revolutionaries" (i.e. the "citizens of PR3" who cheered when Rex gave away
Bruno to the BAAD boys), nor does he have any illusions about the inevitable
"fate of PR3". But, "[o]nce he said" (i.e. prior to this moment he warned
Weed) what is recounted there in the text. His warning to Weed is to bail
out because in this situation, as in many others throughout history and
across the globe, those who hold the reins of power are going to prevail.

> The historical crusades hardly belong to the era of capitalism.

So, on planet otto, the word "crusade", which is in the text and does
definitely relate to Christianity, which is also referred to in the passage,
cannot possibly refer back to the historical crusades (which were an early
manifestation of Western imperialism and as such most certainly paved a way
for the rise of capitalism later on); and yet the word "homeland", used by
Pynchon in reference to England during the Blitz in WWII in the Orwell
'Intro', must definitely refer to the US Homeland Security Act of 2003? See
what I mean about double standards.

> But still no evidence from the text that Rex is dreaming of the Khmer Rouge.

208.3-7

Meanwhile you keep ignoring the passage which describes how the 500 BLGVN
cadres sent to Vietnam disappeared because they were not politically-aligned
with Ho Chi Minh (207), avoiding a specific piece of the text etc etc.

best