Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

[rich]

Yes, I'm with you. I would just point out that on a more granular level
there are differences between say Nazi imperialism and US forays on the
world stage during the post-war. The latter lacked the ideological
foundation for mass murder (though in many respects they were goosed by
economic concerns and pressures) or if you will US foreign policy was
politically-driven whereas the Nazis were mostly concerned with race.Of
course the results were equally gruesome for millions

rich

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I've always thought he was talking about both , that summoning the image
> of living in dread of the rockets  mapped naturally onto American imperial
> warfare and the use of aerial bombardment in Vietnam. These can all be seen
> as surrogate resource wars by the cartels.   The spirit behind it moves
> around, Jews become Viet peasants, Central Americans, Chechens, Muslims,
> pretty Thai 12 year olds. Always the same lies, the same profits accrueing
> to the informed investors and  industrialists. Oil being the ultimate in
> fungible liquidity, an erasure of the past to control the future.
> On Jan 5, 2012, at 1:50 PM, rich wrote:
>
> > 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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