He found himself out by factory fences breathing coal-smoke, walking picket lines in various of W.C.I.'s thousand disguises, learning enough of several Slavic tongues to be plausible down in the deadfalls where the desperate malcontents convened, fingerless slaughterhouse veterans, irregulars in the army of sorrow, prophesiers who had seen America as it might be in visions America's wardens could not tolerate.
* * * * * * * * * *
I know this book was written in 2006 but it fucking hurts my heart that Pynchon is describing the world of 1893 and, aside from maybe many of the people picketing being fingerless, nothing much has changed. America's wardens have done a pretty good job of simply giving out enough slack to quiet enough people so that things hardly change at all. And when things do change, you can bet the pendulum will eventually swing back—maybe not quite as far—to take back much of what they resented giving away. What do you think Reagan's 80s were? It was the pendulum swinging back as far as they could get it. And what do you think is happening right now? The rich and powerful have once again stoked the powers of racism and xenophobia to get the white poor and working class to help push the pendulum back as far as they can get it.
"prophesiers who had seen America as it might be in visions America's wardens could not tolerate"
These days, you don't even need America's wardens to shut down the prophersiers. Now all it takes is a bunch of moderate centrists to tell anybody who'll listen that a better world isn't realistically possible. Centrists are Goddamned dream killers. I suppose they always have been. It's the people who are comfortable in the current status quo who don't want to make any waves even if making waves is necessary for the lifting up of all the boats chained to the bottom that can't, for traditional, systemic, and racist reasons, rise with the tide.
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