Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 21:14:15 -0600
Subject: (urth) More on "Hour of Trust"
From: Adam Stephanides 

Further thoughts, taking off from my last post:

If it is indeed the case that the rebels' sole "pitch" to prospective
suicide bombers is broadcasting footage of those who have already committed
themselves (and the "emcee" in the broadcast we see attempts no other form
of persuasion), then American society, not just the government, is in
terminal decay: there must be hundreds, maybe thousands, of people ready to
throw their lives away, who only need to be shown an example to trigger them
off.  It's all the more likely, then, that Clio is not in contact with the
rebels, but was inspired in the same way by earlier broadcasts.  Nor need
she share any beliefs with the rebels, since the suicide bombers we hear
don't seem to have any beliefs in common.

Pushing the argument further, we can surmise that the reason we hear nothing
about the rebels' ideology or program is that they don't have one, just a
general desire to change things and a countercultural milieu.  The rebels'
troops are the same sort of people as the suicide bombers, just a little
less aimless.  On this reading, then, the rebels are not a new society being
born, but a symptom of the old society's decay: in mantis's analogy, they're
less like the barbarians than like the Roman mob.

--Adam


--