“The Hopi wouldn’t mind; they’d wait. The Barefoot Hopi’s entire philosophy was to wait; a day would come as had not been seen in five thousand years. On this day, a conjunction would occur; everywhere at once, spontaneously, the prisoners, the slaves, and the dispossessed would rise up. The urge to rise up would come to them through their dreams. All at once, all over the world, police and soldiers would be outnumbered”. - (Silko 616)

In Almanac of the Dead, we see elements such as the poor and the descendents of displaced Indians getting ready to bring down a rotting, decadent government, which is shown to be brutal (the killings of starving Mexicans (631)), corrupt (“cocaine smuggling was a lesser evil than communism” (648)), and incompetent, at least economically, with poverty and discontent spreading through all strata of society - “Calabazas had noticed an important difference: this time the rioters did not loot or set fires in black neighbourhoods. They had set fire to Hollywood instead...hundreds of both black and white youths had blocked firefighters and fought police on Sunset Boulevard” (630)

In Bedwin Hacker, as well, we also see Kalt and her compatriots attempt to expose weaknesses in the government’s control over information. While projecting the image of a camel holding a placard saying “We are not a mirage” cannot quite be called a revolution on the scale of those planned in Almanac of the Dead, the spirit is the same.

At one point, we see Chams warn Kalt “they’re more powerful than you. They’ll always be more powerful”. To which she responds, “in my world...you need courage. You have to want to resist”. While it is true that courage is required, (something that Kalt has in abundance, we see her having to comfort her male compatriot when he falters by pointing out that the border, and safety, is close by), there is a similarity between Hopi and Kalt’s strategy in that they attempt to use subversive, unconventional techniques to overcome the obvious advantage the government has in sheer resources and power. Kalt’s weapon of choice is cyberspace, while Hopi believes in reaching his followers through dreams; “the help of the spirit world” (620). Hopi believes that the weapons of the government would be useless, because “the power lies in the presence of the spirits and the effect on our enemies’ morale” (626).

We are never told the outcome of the uprising of Indians under Barefoot Hopi and La Escapía. However, you get the feeling at least, that given the realistic setting of this book, the hopes of a revolution based on spirits damaging enemy morale and “earthquakes and tidal waves [wiping out] entire cities and great chunks of U.S. wealth”, caused by “angry earth spirits, are rather unrealistic hopes.

In the end, while the Bedwin Hacker evades the clutches of the police, it is at the expense of successfully spreading her message. It seems that to some extent, Chams’ words have proved true, that the government is always going to be more powerful, regardless what methods or avenues one takes. In both these imagined settings, opposing the Man seems to be a futile endeavour.