VLVL2 (15): Red Christer Pins

[Dave Monroe]

"But why right now?  What did it have to do with Brock
Vond running around Vineland like he was? and all
these other weird vibrations in the air lately, like
even some non-born-agains showing up at work with
these little crosses, these red Christer pins, in
their lapels ...."  (VL, Ch. 15, p. 339)


"red Christer pins"

Cf. ...

"And by then DL was able easily to sit attentive,
pressureless, through the Christer commercial that
followed, one she'd already heard more than once over
the phone...." (VL, Ch.   p. 121)

>From David Thoreen, "The President's Emergency War
Powers and the Erosion of Civil Liberties in Pynchon's
Vineland," Oklahoma City University Law Review, Vol.
24, No. 3 (Fall 1999), pp. 761-98 ...

The "red Christer pins" are another reference to FEMA
and Rex-84. According to Ben Bradlee:
 
There had been considerable anxiety within the agency
about the legality of the Rex-84 exercise. [One FEMA]
official said he had never seen such security around
any other activity inside FEMA, and that agency
General Counsel George Jett had ordered the
installation of a special metal security door into the
hallway of the fifth floor of the FEMA building in
Washington where all planning for Rex-84 was
conducted.... FEMA officials with the highest security
clearances had been prevented from going into the
restricted area.... only Giuffrida, Jett, and FEMA
Deputy Director Frank Salcedo--all of whom were
inexplicably reported to have been wearing red
Christian crosses or crucifix pins on their
lapels--were allowed in.

These red crosses appeal to Pynchon for several
reasons. Like the "silver lapel-swastika[s]" worn by
prominent Nazi sympathizers and mentioned in Gravity's
Rainbow, the red crucifix pins identify their wearers
as having fascist impulses. More importantly, the
crucifix pins are a parody of the puritan belief in
predestination, for what are they but the outward and
visible signs of election? Secure in the innermost
inner circle of FEMA, these men--Giuffrida, Jett, and
Salcedo--can count themselves among the saved.
Hunkered down in the FEMA-administered Continuity of
Government (COG) complexes, they will be safe from all
worldly harm. Pynchon's pun hinges on the fact that
these men have been chosen neither by God nor the
American voter; they have been appointed. 

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/thoreen24.htm

Citing ...

Bradlee, Ben, Jr.  Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall
   of Oliver North.  New York: Donald I. Fine, 1988.

And note also ...

Guts and Glory: The Rise and Fall of Oliver North
(1989) (TV)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097469/

Some of you might wnt to update yr hyperlinks, by the
way (Otto, Quail, Michel).  And see as well ...

Thoreen, David.  "The Fourth Amendment and Other
   Modern Inconveniences: Undeclared War, Organized
   Labor, and the Abrogation of Civil Rights in
   Vineland."  Thomas Pynchon: Reading from the
   Margins.  Ed. Niran Abbas.  Madison, NJ:
   Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2002.  215-33.


	
		
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