Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

[rich]

a bit but you do learn abit of things you hadnt known if not abiding by his
conclusions. i think the fault may lay in the fact that Hollander's
critique seems to work more when  talking about post-war America/Vietnam
and not specifically with the WW2 generation. at least I read GR that way;
others may differ

rich

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

>  On 1/5/2012 11:05 AM, rich wrote:
>
> is this the conventional wisdom re: GR. I'm not so sure anymore myself. It
> doesnt factor in the motivating ideology that allows one small section of
> humans to place another larger section of humans into gas chambers or shoot
> women and children into hastily dug ditches. men plotting in small rooms
> did this and it most definitely had a name
>
> I like the literary aspects that Mr. Hollander instigates; as history
> though it falls short
>
>
> Hollander makes Pynchon quite nutty sounding.
>
> P
>
>
>
> the carbon democracy book does sound very interesting. thanks for that,
> dave
>
> rich
>
>  On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:44 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>> wrote
>> :
>> > Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
>> > by Timothy Mitchell
>> >
>>  > http://www.versobooks.com/books/1020-carbon-democracy
>>
>> For Pynchon, World War II was a monstrous holocaust, a cataclysm of 40
>> million souls, resulting from a competition among technologies. The
>> old dynasty, the J. P. Morgan dynasty, was built on the technologies
>> of coal, steel, and railroads; the newer Rockefeller dynasty on the
>> technologies of oil (petrochemicals, plastics), aluminum, and
>> aircraft. Pynchon says that World War II was a corporate war
>> reflecting those technologies, that for many their “first loyalty,
>> legal and moral, is to the estate [corporation] she represents. Not to
>> our boys in uniform [the nation-state], however gallant, whenever they
>> died” ( Lot 49, 53).
>>
>> In Gravity’s Rainbow, Pynchon has to bring up the long ago
>> relationship between Standard Oil and the I.G. Farbenindustrie.
>> Standard Oil and I.G. Farben did arrange to share world markets in
>> 1936, and as an act of good faith, they exchanged some 2,000 patents
>> just prior to World War II. Their multinational character forced them
>> to make arrangements for the contingencies of war.
>>
>> When World War II erupted, their loyalties were so strongly with each
>> other that the US government had to bring legal action against both
>> the Standard Oil Co. (NJ) and I.G. Farbenindustrie (see Pynchon’s
>> list, Rainbow 538) for illegal monopolistic practices involving
>> gasoline, toluene, and synthetic rubber patents. The US government
>> seized many of these patents ultimately. Standard Oil, it seems, also
>> gave Farben the technology, personnel and equipment for the production
>> of tetraethyl lead, without which there would have been no high octane
>> aircraft fuel, no luftwaffe, and no war. Then Sen. Harry S. Truman,
>> the investigating committee’s chairman, viewed the relationship
>> between these multinational corporations as treasonable.
>>
>> By referring to this multinational liaison as “the century’s master
>> cabal,” Pynchon is suggesting more than corporate cooperation. He is
>> suggesting that World War II was part of the “Plot Which Has No Name,”
>> the concerted effort by the new dynasty to bring down the old
>> dynasty....
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/inferno.htm
>>
>
>
>
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