L.4

[Terrance]

 What's the difference between a wedding dress and a first
holy communion dress? 

 

They Politically: Corporate State, Empire, Ruling Elite,
Degenerate Nobility or Aristocracy

Politically They are the Empire that has "no place for
dreams" or children or innocence.  [GR.135] In fact, "In the
corporate State, a place must be made for innocence, and its
many uses.. In developing an official version of innocence,
the culture of childhood has proven valuable. Games,
fairy-tales, legends from history, all the paraphernalia of
make-believe can be adapted and even embodied in a physical
place, such as Zwolfkinder." [GR.419]

Enzian is, imo, the most reliable source of information
about the political They. Like his brother Slothrop he is
struggling to comprehend his "conditioning" and his
"sickness" and find a way to negotiate his way through the
zone, the War, the novel. He is, as I have noted, Moses.  
The parallels should not be pushed too far, but the
parallels are too many and too interesting to ignore. In any
event, it Enzian that provides yet another perspective on
Them: "It means the War was never political at all, the
politics was all theatre...The real crisis were crisis of
allocation and priority, not among firms--it was only staged
to look that way--but among the different Technologies,
Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are
understood only by the ruling elite..." [GR.521].

They, the Studio, the bloodthirsty Count Draculas, are
everywhere and their power seems unlimited. No one can, no
one has, and no one ever will leave the firm's employ, not
alive anyway. There is always an agent higher on the
organization charts to take out disgruntled employees, the
charts reach higher than anyone can see, and They make the
charts, fill in all the Titles and Names. They can make
deals that and arrangements to control the world, the earth,
to cut up Europe or dismantle a President, yes even one as
powerful as FDR. They know everything They want to know
about the people They need to control. They know, for
example, about Pokler's German Romanticism and his Rocket
mysticism. They know about Pudding's, and Pirate's, and
Truck's sexual proclivities, hang-ups, fetishes, these are
all kept in Their files (They can also file a guy like
Slothrop at a hotel or destroy a file, like Tantivy. But,
this is hardly the extent of their Power, for They control
dreams, in fact, They can plant and harvest human volition,
emotion, even innocence and guilt. They control guilt, it's
very useful to Them. They control history, even Time and
Space, and even "the other side."  The most powerful and the
most perfidious of Their strategies is telling the Truth.
They are also able to control nature and determine history,
so for example, Hollywood, which we know is Their business
(see my post on how the U.S. movie industry defeated the
German film industry) colonizes paradise. 

Paradoxically (appropriately so) THEY are also doomed,
ineffectual, weak, full of contradictions, and at the mercy
of chance, and such silly things as kazoos, magic,
vulgarity, popular myth, and doubles. 

Sorry, I don't lecture unless I get paid, 

Terrance

"Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet
come." J.2.4