Subject: Re: Hello
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 17:13:40 -0700


Hmmm, well put.

But do you really think the Myth of America died, or do you think it's being
resurrected for the purposes of steeling you (and me I suppose) for the
horror, oh the horror, that some crazed corporate industial-military complex
perpetuates?

When I listen to my canadian TV appropriately (called "global" 'cause it
ain't Canadian fasure) all I see is God Bless America our Home Sweet Home
and I am reminded of all the good things that AMERICA (some of us canadians
and mexicans really have a problem with THAT one) means, you know.

I mean, golly gee, I even had one of your AMERICAN pals tell me that your
country was FOUNDED on ideals (the ones I was uhhhh questioning as uhhhhhh
abstraction and ideology and rhetoric) like FREEDOM and JUSTICE and LIBERTY!
Yes indeed, and these God-blessed values are EXCLUSIVE to, yes, AMERICA.

And then he, bless his wee god-fearing heart, said that indeedy-doo the US
does infact have a few domestic probbers--like drugs and gangs and poverty
and crime.

BUT, he continues, these perpetrators have made the CHOICE to be like that
because the FREEDOMS that you have in your country--as good as they
are--allow those people to make choices to pull up their socks (should they
own a pair I guess) and make good in this great democracy of yours, and ours
I assume.

And someone else said that they thought WE (they meant the USA but were
forgetting that it's a GROUP INVITATION, errrrr, COMMAND PERFORMANCE) should
go to war just like our fathers and our grandfathers and our
great-grandfathers.

A moment of silence please.  I had to say that I was pretty sure said person
had not been around for a war, cause if they had been, that glib shit would
not come off the tongue or the keyboard so easy.  And I am damed sure that
the fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers wouldn't be saying,
sure, send in another generation of your youth.........

for they would not say with such high zest
to children desperate for some ardent glory
that old lie: dolce et decorum est
pro patria mori

(I am just paraphrasing that as I don't have time to find it right now.....)



----- Original Message -----
From: "JEAN BAUDRILLARD" <semanticterrorist-AT-home.com>
To: <baudrillard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: Hello


> >And all I did was question the equation US military might=universal
> >right.
> >And then, to make matters worse, I asked (and continue to wonder)
> >why people
> >who spout chapter and verse of this Big Bible Book do not appear to
> >question
> >their own belief systems--especially when confronted with what i
> >thought
> >might be a conflict brought "home" in the most horrible, literal and
> >figurative manner.
>
>
> I agree completely.  Previously, we liked to believe we were seperate
> from the rest of the world, and could dabble here and there in the
> world without it coming back to bite us.  Well, now it has, and the
> US is paying the price.  What really died that day was the myth of
> America.
>
>
> --
> JEAN BAUDRILLARD, semanticterrorist-AT-home.com on 09/16/2001
>
>
>