Don't forget the real business of the war is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-profes… - Thomas Pynchon

There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation. Decisions are never really made – at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery.

"if you think you see no slaves in pennsylvania," replies capt. zhang, his face as smooth as suet, "why, look again. they are not all african, nor do some of them even yet know, — may never know, — that they are slaves. slavery is very old upon these shores, — there is no innocence upon the practice anywhere, neither among the indians nor the spanish nor in the behavior of the rest of christendom, if it come to that."

I haven’t sold my soul yet — well, maybe a couple bars of rhythm and blues here and there,