Late capitalism a quote

Sun Dec 26 06:45:36 UTC 2021

So, let me recap by saying I took Joe’s logic for the *lack of Union
turnout at Webb’s funeral* further than he stated it (because I thought he
was trying to be MORE logical than he intended).  And I included others’
previous illogical reasoning for no funeral turnout as if Joe had adopted
them.  Before I made my case for my interpretation of Webb’s  last days,
below, here is the no-funeral-conjectures made earlier:

1.  Rich:  Webb’s mayhem was disliked by the Union.

2.  Joe:  Rich is probably right that the Union disliked Webb’s violence.
       The Union and Pinkertons would have both have kept a list.
       So, Union rank & file, afraid of both above lists, didn’t attend.

3.  Mark:  Maybe Pynchon is expressing via this fiction  his personal
      dislike of violence in the support of Unions.  He later changed that
      to be Pynchon showing Unions not good at meaningful human (?)

4.  Joe:  Webb kept his “connection to the Union” mostly undercover
       Until just before his murder, and he was moved to a distant locale
       at the same time that he made public connections to the Union.
       *So, no Union peeps knew him enough to go to his funeral (?)*....
        .....Also, another reason Webb kept his Union support on the
        down-low was “his union endorsements may have been mostly
        directed at his children.”  (And I have no idea what that’s
        supposed to mean)
       .....Also, the local Union found Joe’s neediness “too intense,”
       so they “moved him” off far away from their sorry asses.  Which
       is why nobody knew him when he got murdered, except for
        His Murderers and Their Employer, Scarsdale Vibe.
       So much for Union Brotherhood.  (Pynchon must hate Unions)

So I don’t think I need to restate or revise my previous explication of
Pynchon’s description of Webb’s last days.  It’s just that I overstated
what I thought was Joe’s logic about Webb’s last days.  And I think Mark
and Rich were just shooting from the hip, without looking at the text at
all.

David Morris

On Sat, Dec 25, 2021 at 9:14 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> OMFG!  GMAFB! and ILMFAO!
> Joe’s characterizations, below, are almost completely of his own
> invention, and they even run contrary to how the text portrays Webb’s final
> days as a Union Member. * It sure would be nice if Joe presented some
> actual text (as I have been doing) as support for his statements, instead
> of stating his interpretations as if they were declarations of self-evident
> facts.    *That sure would be nice...
>
> BTW, it sure is lucky for Joe that Mark briefly thanked me for sending
> this earlier email that Joe is now responding to, because he has strictly
> forbidden himself to read any emails directly from me.  So, Mark?  Maybe
> you should *spare Joe having to read my emails INDIRECTLY *next time*, *
> by *erasing my content before you respond to the P-List.*
>
> Or you could put a big  ****MORRIS SPOILER ALERT**** in front of what
> he’s told us he wants to avoid at the cost of his serenity.
>
> On Sat, Dec 25, 2021 at 3:59 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
>> Pg 193 ATD
>> Lake said Webb only loved the Union.
>> I"F IT WAS LOVE, it was less than two-way. With no more respectable
>> family-man dodge to hide behind, Webb sought the embrace of Local 63,
>> which, alarmed at the vehemence of his need, decided there ought to be some
>> distance between him and the Union, and suggested he shift over into the
>> Uncompahgre for a while, to the Torpedo workings."
>>
>> So a couple things. Webb’s connection to the union had until soon before
>> his murder been purposely distant because he was keeping a low profile to
>> continue his private anarchist activities
>
>
>
> I don’t know if you really want to dive into ATD with me, but if you do,
> here goes:  Let’s start with page 189:
>
> 1. “By the end, Webb Traverse had worked his way up to shift boss at the
> Little Hellkite workings.”  So, “working his way up” to a higher than
> previous Union position doesn’t seem to be at all like “purposely keeping
> his connection to the Union distant” and a higher Union position is sorta
> the opposite of “keeping a low profile” with the Union.
>
> 2.  The text doesn’t support the timing that says he sought and achieved
> the shift boss position only AFTER Mayva and Lake left [BTW, all the rest
> of “his children” had already left long before].  In fact, in the context
> of having gotten this promotion, “It seemed like he could get along with
> everybody theses days [like, for example “Veiko and his squarehead
> compadres who were giving him a party to celebrate”] except the two women
> in his own family,” who left in days probably not long after the [ ?”low
> profile “?] celebration.
>
> 3.  *Nowhere* is it said nor implied in this chapter or previously, that
> he was concerned about his Union job status as being a potential threat or
> danger to his family.   I’m sure will try to imply that the text is clearly
> implying **something** about Webb being concerned about the hidden/unstated
> threat to “his (all-but-Lake long gone) children.” But that it that
> implication-convolution will only be clear to him (because he wants it to
> support his political posturing.)
>
> 4.  Nowhere in the text is does it state that Webb had plans to “continue
> his private anarchist activities” after getting the shift boss position.
>
> It does state that he “sought the embrace of Local 63” after the departure
> of Mayva and Lake had “left him with no more respectable family-man dodge
> to hide behind.”  I guess one could *stretch* that to mean that he now
> sought higher Union position as cover for future terrorist attacks. But it
> never comes close to saying that.  The *context* is having just lost the
> last two of “his own family, the ones [the women] that ought to’ve mattered
> most,” but that it seemed “as if with the boys all out there in the wind
> [already] his place was now [“now” meaning, *“now, having been left alone
> without the women”] *out there in the wind too.”
>
> His dream of being “out there in wind” was to be with the boys, NOT stated
> nor implied to mean he wants to continue terrorism.  The text says that he
> figured that [now] his “chances of running into each other [the boys] again
> were better out there than in some domestic interior [as he’d been with
> Mayva].” And his being “out there in the wind” is also NOT an analogy
> (nowhere even close) to his now being a Union shift boss.
>
> In this context, his having played the “respectable family-man dodge to
> hide behind” was him *dodging from himself*, not the Company.  His “real
> love” WAS the Union, and it WAS being a free and wild man “out there in the
> wind” like his sons.
>
> So maybe, now being alone, he *might* have considered future explosives
> jobs, but the Union promoted him BEFORE he became more “*needy*” for
> Union embrace. *And you can’t change that chronology without putting in a
> HUGE **non-existent **separation between paragraphs one and two on page
> 189*.  And those two paragraphs flow together like a gentle stream.
>
> Equally important, theorizing that the Union was now distancing Webb,  now
> that he was now being single and needy, and that thus they had new fears
> that he’d start new terrorist jobs makes no sense at all.  According to
> that logic they should have been fearing him at least as much as when he
> had “family-man” cover.  He was no-less a Union man then (and was now a
> boss).  And if Webb had thought that he had an effective “family-man”
> cover, then he wouldn’t have had reason to wait for Mayva to leave before
> starting terrorist actions. There’s a circular logic being played here that
> needs breaking.
>
> *And going all the way back to our first introduction to Webb in ATD, when
> he was a VERY active terrorist, he NEVER had opposition from the Union
> about his explosives actions.*
>
> But really the PARAMOUNT textual fact to consider is that *ANY Union fear
> of (or opposition to) any terrorist pro-Union actions is completely outside
> anything in the text*.  If there was ever a real historical documentation
>  of the Unions at any period covered in ATD being opposed to support by
> terrorism, it isn’t even hinted at in ATD.  So to use that extra-textual
> hypothetical as a major pivot for the actions and motives of the main
> characters of the novel is *a stretch way too far*.
>
> David Morris
>
>
> Blah, blah, blah...
>
> without close surveillance and his union endorsements may have been mostly
>> directed at his children. Only with them gone did he try to get more
>> involved and they found him too intense, even moving him. So there was no
>> chance for bonds to form and he was murdered soon after he started working
>> at a new location.
>
>
>
>
> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>