[Andre Jute]

paul packer wrote:
On Tue, 12 Sep 2006 12:38:21 -0400, "Soundhaspriority"
wrote:


"Andre Jute" wrote in message
roups.com...
The excellent Robert Morein wrote in the thread "America has a great
new concert hall"

When the Towers stood, I had ambiguous feelings toward
them. I never went inside. Crossing the WTC plaza, they affected me with
inhuman scale, failing to warm the neighborhood, which relied still on
decrepit old buildings on side streets to provide the amenities that make
even a workday existence bearable.

But now they are gone. I miss them the way I miss the other trademark
aspirations to greatness that this country made before encountering the
limits of growth. I'm not sure why. It brings to mind all the
contradictions
of being American: opportunities, some real, some virtual, some
imaginary.
Patriotism that tries to imply kinship with strangers, yet cities full of
neighborhoods in which I cannot walk. Usenet newsgroups of vicious,
hostile
people. Invitations to kindness, or evil. Real heroes who don't know they
are, and people who imagine themselve such.

On a day like this, I define myself by the illusions I choose to keep,
the
hopes I cherish, and willing blindness toward omnipresent evil.

Bob Morein
(215) 646-4894

This is superb writing, from the heart. The President should hire you
to write his State of the Union address, Bob. Man your phone!

But I want to address just a single thought in this, which has also
been exercising my mind. Actually, it is both liberalism and
libertarianism that in different ways try
to imply kinship with strangers, yet cities full of
neighborhoods in which I cannot walk. Usenet newsgroups of vicious,
hostile
people.

The essence of liberty is free speech. I therefore welcomed the
Internet and the Usenet as free, uncontrolled and uncontrollable
communications channels for Everyman. I had long thought it inequitable
that a rather tiny percentage of well-educated and articulate people
should have so much control over what Everyman learns, consumes and
thinks, and expected to welcome an explosion of democracy. Instead
Everyman turned out be a petty, vicious, nasty little control freak
motivated not by the aspiration to better himself but by such blind
envy of his betters that his only response is to try bringing them down
to his own level. The equivalence between the Usenet and the ghetto
where any outsider (automatically assumed to be superior...) is not an
example to aspire to but merely a target to be brutalized, is a
brilliant insight, Bob. It is also a deeply saddening observation.

Andre Jute
The rat is the paradigm -- Tom Sharpe

Thank you, Andre. Your expansion is welcome. Our mutual observation

This is a very nice thread. Everyone agreeing with everyone else and
handily expanding on their reflections. I think this won't catch on.

was anticipated in Lord of the Flies.

Ah yes...pig's head on a stick....Simon torn to pieces...Ralph hunted
through the forest. Certainly reminiscent of RAO.

I think it is a particular problem with
usenet due to the tradition of anonymity, which implies no accountability.
Usenet is a universe of Dark Matter, of sparring ghosts, of which many, in
their behavior, resemble the demons of the Afterlife, endlessly repeating
the obsessions held in the moments of their deaths.

Don't be afraid to name names, Robert. You shouldn't just tantalize.

Bob is paying you the compliment of assuming that you are as well read
as he is, and as imaginative. It would spoil the thrill of this, for
instance:
Usenet is a universe of Dark Matter, of sparring ghosts, of which many, in
their behavior, resemble the demons of the Afterlife, endlessly repeating
the obsessions held in the moments of their deaths
after giving you so many clues, to label it a Dantean vision from the
inner rings of Hell.

Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/THE%20WRITER'S%20HOUSE.html