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Anton paused for a sip of water and then pointed out that; unfortunately, much of humanity behaves like they were cockroaches, indeed. Cockroaches do not think. They act on impulses. "People live for the pleasure of the moment," she said. "The cultural optimism is missing that should cause people to take up the responsibility to develop their still unrealized potential that lies at their feet. The dynamism is gone. There is no vitality left. It appears as if the oligarchs are winning. They have managed to set up a stage of pessimism and self-denial on which their cockroaches can become engaged in a process by which they are bound to exterminate themselves, aided by ecological demands and a powerful anti-scientific counter-culture."
She told the audience that all this created a link to Tony's girl watching speech. She told the assembly that she had checked out the discovery and found that, indeed, a wonderful phenomenon can be observed there at the pub. She said that the people she saw there were proud of themselves, male and female. "One could see it in their faces, and in they way they walked and were dressed. That's what makes a person beautiful. How can one possibly stoop so low as to compare those people to cockroaches? They are human beings. They are alive, valuable and beautiful, and according to all evidence they are highly intelligent human beings."
She paused, then smiled, adding emphatically that the future of humanity rests with people like those that she had seen. "They are still free as human beings should be. Not many people are still free, these days."
She said that she, too, felt proud of herself, in this same sense. "Nobody owns me," she declared, "not even the ghost of my family whose name I continue to bear. I am Antonovna Valentina Lisitov, and I am determined to make this name shine that my ancestors had once so badly soiled with blood. The past cannot be undone, but the future is ours. We can determine the state of our civilization, and we can determine that we will not be cockroaches in somebody's game. We are human beings with the capacity to reason, to explore, to discover, to develop complex ideas with a scientific understanding of ourselves and our universe. As human beings we have the capacity to utilize this understanding in the form of technological and cultural development, with which to create industries and infrastructures that increase the effectiveness of our labor, which free us from having to grope in the dust of the Earth as some lowly beats, or serves, or slaves."
She said that she found hope at Alberto's pub in the rich sense of honor and respect that the people display there to one-another, that is all too rare nowadays, so that we should learn from them.
Antonovna received some applause, but not the ovation that Tony had received. Evidently she had hid a raw spot with many delegates. Many of the delegates were chosen from among the ranks of the modern elite, the cultural gentry that had been cruelly indoctrinated in the sphere of the imperial paradigms, the old southern culture in which scientific and technological progress is defined as evil, and human toil, albeit not their own toil, is defined as intrinsically good. They represent the kind of thinking, if one can call it that, which glorifies the murdering for depopulation or in the name of profit, not as an evil, but as a progressive act. I told Anton to be careful in this regard, because people with this kind of mentality invariably regard the very idea of morality as a hindrance to their ideology. "They will kiss you and stab you in the back all at the same time," I said to her. "At the very least, they will despise you and slander you. You mention to them nuclear power, and they will slap you in the face."
Anton agreed, and said that some people have indeed called her a traitor and made veiled threats. "One woman even swore at me and said that I had violated the sacred family trust and wasn't worthy to bear my name. She spat on the ground before me and walked away." Anton said astonished that she thought this kind of mentality had died out, or had become very rare.
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