X-Message-Number: 25840
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 08:47:15 -0500
From: Thomas Donaldson <>
Subject: for David Verbecke

For David Verbecke:

Rather than list all of political and social movements in Europe 
that give Americans feel caution about cryonics there, 

As someone who is an American and has spent a fair bit of time
there, a lot of the religious stuff feels like background noise
to me. The President, as is not the case in a parliamentary 
system, cannot simply impose his views on the country, whatever
they may be. He must have a majority and sometimes even a 
2/3rds majority of Congress behind him to do anything significant
to the US at all.

I'll also add that religion has not disappeared in the US,
unlike Europe. I refer not just to conservative religion but
religion of all kinds. Although its hardly very loud, it's
easy enough to set up your own religion that one cryonicist
has done so, just to deal with the possibility of religious
opposition to cryonics.

Moreover, so far and despite lots of noise, the religious
right has not succeeded in revoking major changes. The right
of a woman to an abortion remains, for instance. As for other
religious movements, you may well see most of the Catholic
congregations in the US seceding from the Universal Catholic
Church, not because they're more conservative but because
they're a lot less conservative: they'd like to see women
as priests, for instance.

It may sound too optimistic to you, but fundamentally I don't
believe that religious or even patriotic conservatism
(I think the patriotic branch has a lot to do with the 
US response in the election and the Iraq war) will do 
anything fundamental to the US. And remember that unlike
many European countries, and unlike Australia, Americans
are very loud and showy politically. You don't get ANYONE
who takes a quiet political stance. You have to have horns
tooting and firecrackers exploding if you want to do politics.

I'm not saying that I believe in any of this, simply saying
that it happens. But I will tell you a little story of how
I first went to Australia. It was in the Vietnam War, as it
was ending. And I remember an incident at the University of
Illinois in which young national guardsmen faced young
demonstrators, and shot one of them dead. I was hardly very old
myself, with much experience of societies or politics, but
I thought then that the US was in for a civil war on the
Vietnam issue. So I thought of ways to go elsewhere.

But an interesting thing happened. It was really as if the 
young national guardsmen and the young demonstrators, and
all those who supported either side, really looked at what
they were doing with the shooting of this girl demonstrator.
Somehow things cooled down a bit. Still rough, but it 
was as if afterwards everyone had an internal barrier holding
them back from going too far.

Does this say anything about the current state of the US?
You have to decide. A trip there might be helpful, and 
even more, a trip which included visits with US religious
conservatives. Yes, that's what I said.

         Best wishes and long long life for allllllllllllllllllllll
         Best wishes and long long life for all,

               Thomas Donaldson

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