From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   My generation can be called the Fooled Generation. Every sentiment that is   
   natural to young people had been steered into precisely the wrong direction   
   when I was young.   
      
   The anti-establishment sentiment has been steered into attacks against the   
   Clinton Administration and against "statism" and "socialism." There is no   
   statism in America. Soviet Union had statism; America does not. The real   
   offenders in America are not    
   public, they are private. Groups like the Church of Scientology and Jehovah's   
   Witnesses; corrupt networks in law and medicine; corporate criminals - whether   
   overt criminals like Enron or corrupt oil companies that tell people a load of   
   lies in order to    
   keep them hooked on destructive technologies; gangs and the organized crime;   
   and the men who like to rape their children and beat their wives; are the true   
   offenders in this country. The government is elected, official, accountable,   
   checked and balanced.    
   These entities are no such thing. And this allows them to get away with   
   greater abuses than what is allowed the American government.   
      
   The radical anti-Western civilization sentiment was also steered into   
   precisely the wrong direction. It was turned into attacks on the Western   
   Romantic literary and intellectual tradition. In this was attacked the   
   greatest artwork and literature that has    
   come out of the Western civilization. Also attacked were the best   
   relationships. My generation through this was denied the experience of its   
   youth.   
      
   The feminist sentiment was steered into attacks on beauty and love. A claim   
   was made that such things were patriarchial, degrading to women or destructive   
   toward their self-esteem.  There are many reasons why this is wrong. First,   
   women are more    
   naturally gifted with beauty than are men, and denying them the right to   
   beauty destroys an area of their superiority, putting them at a disadvantage.   
   Secondly, there are many things - such as money and intelligence - that can be   
   used to destroy people's    
   self-esteem that are in no way bad themselves. That some people get D's does   
   not mean that nobody can get A's, and that some people are poor does not mean   
   that nobody can be wealthy. Anything with appeal to people will see some   
   people using it for wrong.    
   This does not damn what has the appeal; it damns the people who use it for   
   wrong. Further, many of the people who championed beauty and love - both in   
   the West and elsewhere - were women, and not stupid or weak ones either. We   
   see this with everyone from    
   Sappho to Murabai to Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Dorothy Parker to Anna   
   Akhmatova to Ayn Rand. Finally, women being robbed of beauty is more, not   
   less, oppressive to women than women being encouraged to be beautiful. There   
   are plenty of independent-   
   minded people - especially in places like Sweden, where feminism is more   
   advanced than it is in the United States - who willfully choose to be   
   attractive - and not out of any kind of insecurity or patriarchy but out of   
   good taste and as an expression of    
   who they are as women.   
      
   The anti-religious sentiment has been steered into an abomination known as   
   skepticisim: Malicious attacks against anyone reporting spiritual experiences   
   or taking part in spiritual practice. According to these people, the bulk of   
   humanity is stupid or    
   insane. I have news for these people. There are many people much smarter than   
   they are, who are neither on drugs nor schizophrenic, who have had real   
   spiritual experiences; and there are many others who have very good reasons   
   for believing what they    
   believe. The skeptics think that they are the only sane and intelligent people   
   on the planet. Some even regard spirituality and religion to be narcissism. I   
   can think of no more narcissistic, arrogant or - yes - stupid stance than   
   their own.   
      
   And of course the anti-older people sentiment has been steered into attacks on   
   "the 60s generation" - the generation that started out seeing what was wrong   
   with the world and sought to correct these wrongs.   
      
   My generation has been the Fooled Generation. And while many are perfectly   
   comfortable with that state of affairs, I for one am not.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)