Misoneism/

[Joseph Tracy]

This is principally in response to Otto 's excellent post of 3/6/2004
2:01 pm. First I agree that the eruptions of the 60s were not an
isolated student movement but had deep roots in the fundamental
arguments shaping american history. Also this movement was not by any
means destroyed.  The radicals of that time were not all "reconditioned"
by Reagan. Neither was Frenesi , a  child of the progressive history
of the the nation,   so deeply turned by Vond. We see her near the end
of the novel refusing to cross a picket line in an airport . Later she,
along with her new family(Flash, Justin) is  being redrawn into the
bosom of her extended family which seems to represent the
counterculture in all its motley diversity.

Though the appeal of Fascism/ Totalitarianism/ imperialism is deep and
real and evident in todays Neocon leadership, the appeal of   a
non-belligerant  participatory  democracy  is also alive and evident in
the populist rheoric of the Demoratic primaries and the feisty Gay claim
to expanded civil riights.

It is interesting that Frenesi's turn toward Vond really started when
she realized her own mortality and the danger she was in as a radical
leader. Reminds me of the country's reaction to the 9/11 suicide atacks.

In trying to embrace an abslolute authoritarian security she found
herself losing  her self respect , her friends, her child and finally
even the finacial security of working for the state.  But she comes to
her senses  and heads home, where Vond goes on to lose his sanity and
his life and enter the Thanatoids version of a reconditioning camp.