Subject: (urth) "Hour of Trust" all the hues of neil

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 15:35:14 +0000

There I was, writing about Nihilism ("Nile-izm," as I pronounce it) and I
mentioned the helmeted astronaut in passing (probably Neil Armstrong; with
that whole thread created or reported by Geoff Cohen that "Nilammon" in
TBOTNS is a corruption of "Neil Armstrong"), and it occured to me that,
yes, nihilism can be pronounced "Neel-izm," and how odd that is.  Peters is
trying to research "where it all began" and he gets the image of Chesire
Cat/Neil Armstrong--and that is all he gets.

A more important point which has not been articulated (though it may be
well known): the corporations of "Hour of Trust" are not generic
mega-corps, say McDonald's or Ford Motor Co, who have somehow acquired the
Pentagon, etc.  The corporations are specifically the military/industrial
complex, the weapons makers, who have amassed enough wealth and power as to
consume their socially decadent host, yet they are incapable of fulfilling
their new roles. So they can produce such durable goods as warplanes, for
example--not that they have also picked up these war factories for cheap,
but rather these war factories have been their cash cows in the 50 years
after WW2.

=mantis=

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