Atta (9): 242: Today's kick-ass question

[Bryan Snyder]

That is slightly comforting... 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf Of kelber at mindspring.com
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 12:03 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: Atta (9): 242: Today's kick-ass question

This is a huge, Pynchonesque (multi-layered, multi-dimensional) world.  Sweeping statements about the end of democracy, the coming age of theocracy, miss the nuances.  Consider the following link, for example:

http://www.tehranmoca.com/collection/collection.htm

There are enagaged, involved free-thinkers around the planet who, for the first time, thanks to the internet, reach out to each other.  Human rights activists, labor activists, artists, environmentalists, and anti-corporate types are all out there fighting the good fight.  They form their own Shambhala-like nation.  I like to think we're part of it.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Daniel Harper <daniel.e.harper at gmail.com>


>I've gotta head to work in a sec, but in my darker moments I worry that this
>concept we call liberal democracy is basically coming to an end. Right now
>it's really only Western Europe and parts of North America that even pay lip
>service to things like freedom of speech and the like, there's been a
>gradual creep towards oppressive religion even in this country, and the
>forces of good can't hold off the powers of totalitarianism forever.
>
>I'd only be mildy suprised if we aren't living in a de facto theocracy
>before my natural life has ended. And Western Europe isn't that far
>behind....
>
>On 5/17/07, Monte Davis <monte.davis at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>  Mike Bailey writes:
>>
>> > actually, don't you think it's really the coming thing, and that
>> lopsided power relations are
>> > gradually being phased out systemwide as unsatisfactory to all
>> concerned?
>>
>> Umm.... no. I'm somewhat sanguine about reductions in "lopsidedness" on
>> racial, sexual, and imperial lines -- but on a 50-to-500 year time scale, I
>> don't see that nation-states, corporations, religions -- or political
>> systems advancing claims akin to those of religions -- are in much danger
>> of "being phased out."
>>