Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Fri Jan 6 17:19:00 CST 2012
On 1/6/2012 5:05 PM, rich wrote:
> It was 50 million. we shouldn't plop a corporate/capitalist
> explanation for Germany's expansionist foreign policy with post war
> American policy I think. it had economic aspects sure but the eastern
> war with the Soviets was above a beyond a racial war (to the Germans).
> None of America's interventions postwar could be claimed as such
> (arguably the race war was simmering at home)--think we can all agree
> it was lead by economic concerns tinged with a political ideology of
> anti-communism that could never reach the level or inspire such a
> thing as genocide. overpowering technology was the devil working
> here--the US military when in doubt blew a lot shit up and lots of
> people, too. it wasn't personal (and I say that in the most of
> blackest comedic way)
> I would argue that the territorial expansions into the Ukraine by the
> Germans was part and parcel a result of the racist ideology of the
> Nazis; it underpinned everything that happened and was the flame which
> ignited such horrific atrocities
Maybe it was a chicken or egg thing.
Does self-interest follow from ideology or ideology from self-interest?
The Marxist answer would be clear.
Karl, that it.
Groucho would say, I don't have the least ideology of what you're
talking about.
:-)
P
>
> rich
>
> On Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 4:29 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> On 1/6/2012 1:26 PM, rich wrote:
>> 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
>
> The Germans were MOSTLY concerned with territorial expansion,
> gaining "living space" or Lebensraum. And they weren't at the time
> interested in colonial acquisitions as other European nations
> earlier had been but rather in conquering lands immediately to the
> east where Germans could live. This would require the removal of
> indigenous occupants. Racial and inferior peoples theories were
> useful in justifying these foreign policy goals. The internal
> policies entailing the removal of Jews and others I believe
> historians pretty much agree were secondary to the territorial
> expansion aims.
>
> But in the end, 20 or was it 50 million people were dead.
>
> P
>
>
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 5:43 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net
>> <mailto: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 <mailto: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
>> <mailto:against.the.dave at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> >> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 8:40 PM, Dave Monroe
>> <against.the.dave at gmail.com
>> <mailto: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
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120106/5d75baf9/attachment.html>
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list