the draft

[Mark Kohut]

I might want to suggest we generalize Joseph's ending this way (re Pynchon's 'vision' in VL):

TRP seems to have this "direct declaration of independence" [JT]; this effort to not be tread on 
underlies VL in some way?........That is, Don't betray and don't be a Thanatoid (in LK's meanings).....

Not prescriptive by TRP in VL, of course, but the pattern in the vines, so to speak.....the pattern
in the sunlight between the vines, so to overspeak.



----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 12:35:20 PM
Subject: the draft

I think I misstated my intended argument by using the word draft. That is too narrow. What I really meant was the power of a nation to compel compliance with its military aggression. This includes taxes, media propaganda, and the draft or other recruitment tools. In this case it was about Vietnam. The Nixon statue in VL is in black and white marble and faces inward. Pretty loaded imagery.  At the same time we were properly criticizing the Soviet countries for trapping their citizens, the US had elected a man associated with mass fear mongering about "the enemy within". Vond reveals this binary good vs evil mentality when he calls the PR3 a mini Marxist state, a patently absurd characterization  . What I meant about the draft card burning was that it was a direct declaration of independence:You don't own my ass; I am not going to be a weapon for the empire.  To assert these things is as American as Yankee Doodle and Don't tread on me and as
 revolutionary as ever.