Von Braun

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

          Laura:
          Certainly some of this was caught in Dr. Strangelove.  
          But there has been a resurgence of "Best Generation" 
          rah-rah we're-the-good-guys patriotism.  You'd think, 
          though, that the Iraq Invasion would be clobbering the 
          hell out of it.

There is real hunger for a master narrative where we [us decadent
Americans] can be the heros, the good guys. Those who've drunk 
the Kool-Aid buy into the 'Greatest Generation'. The general opinion 
of Joe Sixpack is that Gravity's Rainbow is like Kryponite, it's just 
too much brainpower to expend on a novel. The po-mo dissertations 
add to that impression of inaccessibility. But at the bottom of it all, 
you'll find that "we blew it moment' from Easy Rider, at the bottom 
of it all is a human being with feelings and he's aghast in the wake
of all this wreckage.