VLVL2 (3): The Snitch System (part 1)

[pynchonoid]

> N. Katherine Hayles, in her essay "'Who Was Saved?':
> Families, Snitches, and Recuperation in Pynchon's
> Vineland" (The Vineland Papers), examines this
> theme, thus:
> 
> [...]  Running
> in a contrary direction are networks of government
> agents that seek to gain information, incarcerate
> dissidents, and control the population -- the snitch
> system.  The snitch system, implying a skepticism
> about the government typical of the sixties, is
> likely to gain ready assent from ex-hippies but may
> strike younger readers as bizarre.

One side effect of the war on Iraq is to radicalize
young people again. Almost every kid at my son's high
school walked out to join the protests in downtown San
Francisco the day the war started, and they take it as
a given that the government is lying to them about the
war. I recently had a chance to hear from a bunch of
teenagers from all over Northern California and
Nevada, including small towns and rural areas, enough
to know that it's not just the private school SF &
Berkeley kids who feel this way. It's a promising
sign, imo.


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