sorry, Richard

[Paul Mackin]

The freedom Richard might have had uppermost in mind is the fourth of the four freedoms described in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous January 1941 speech to Congress, which was FREEDOM FROM FEAR ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.  He laid out four freedoms the world might look forward to after WWII was over. See below.  America had of course not yet officially entered the fray. Another freedom not specifically mentioned by FDR but relevant in the current situation is freedom of assembly. Some struggle is clearly required at the present time to keep this freedom from degrading both as a civil liberty and as a practical matter. The civil liberty type freedom FDR  DID specifically mention was freedom of speech but its does not take much imagination to know that American freedom of speech and freedom of assembly (in the civil liberties sense) have always depended on a certain degree of freedom from fear. America has been relatively lucky in the freedom from fear department. At least up to now. Time will tell the outcome. 

        P.




"We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--

everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear . . . anywhere in the world.

--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress, January 6, 1941
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: barbara100 at jps.net 
  To: pynchon-l at waste.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:24 AM
  Subject: sorry, Richard


  I'm sorry Richard. I'm was just overcome with frustration.  Fight for Freedom--the phrase that I gag on the most. We flock to in in blind patriotism, without question. We don't even ask what it means.  He died on the Cross.  Okay.  Fight for Freedom, for Peace. Okay.  
  How come I'd feel a lot more free if I was friends with my neighbors and not enemies? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out! Why do we take them at their Word? 

  The reason I write again, though, is to say something about Freedom.  Upon my reading and 'reading up' on Gravity's Rainbow, I stumbled across the "paradoxical freedom in the complete dissolution of the ego." It's haunted me in my reading ever since, a sentence fragment writ on a scrap of paper and stuffed between the pages. There's a paradoxical freedom in the complete dissolution of the ego..........War is all ego......

  She should not be a mystery to you, Gottfried. (GR  Pre-Launch)
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