The Crying of Lot 49 Group Read 2024

[Mark Kohut]

If we reasonably want to extend the meaning of USPS
to other things besides letters that go by mail, as Joseph
nicely suggested, then I think THIS American context is
also relevant. The Stamp Act and The revolutionary ideals of America
assumed and embedded in Pynchon's work.....I might argue that this
is another time when the Tristero entered Western history.

>From Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American substack column:  "
In 1765 they enacted the Stamp Act, which placed a tax on printed material
in the colonies, everything from legal documents and newspapers to playing
cards.

The Stamp Act shocked colonists, who saw in it a central political struggle
that had been going on in England for more than a century: could the king
be checked by the people? Colonists were not directly represented in
Parliament and believed they were losing their fundamental liberty as
Englishmen to have a say in their government. They responded to the Stamp
Act with widespread protests. "

"In 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but linked that repeal to the
Declaratory Act, which claimed for Parliament “full power and authority to
make laws and statutes…to bind the colonies and people of America…in all
cases whatsoever.” This act echoed the 1719 Irish Declaratory Act, which
asserted that Ireland was subordinate to the British king and Parliament.
It also imposed new taxes."

as she goes on to say, led right to the tea party acts in Boston Harbor,
Paine's pamphlet and the beginning of the war with the Brits shooting and
killing first, of course...