[iDC] Re: Inventing America

[Ryan Griffis]

> Who else could have imagined the last decade, where
> the American people finally gave up their outrage at the Bush coup
> and the lies, killing, and global destruction in their name?

What "American people" are you referring to? Lots of people in the  
Americas have not "given up" any outrage, and do not accept what is  
going on as being "in their name".
We should be careful of reproducing the consensus myth, or that the  
situation is one wholly explainable through a representational analysis.

> You need to see America while driving a Ford Galaxie on an  
> interstate at
> night, the neon glow of the city lights reflecting the low-hanging
> clouds on a sultry steamy summer evening. If you do not see this,  
> if you
> cannot imagine it, you do not understand America.
>
> Everybody understands that America is an illusion, a wonderland of  
> pink
> flamingos and purple velvet.
>
> But it's /their/ illusion. It belongs to the people; it was created by
> the people. They /do/ remember driving their cars on the interstate,
> listening to the DJ, their futures riding on four wheels and a dream.
> They /made/ this; everything in America was /made/.

The other side of that "illusion" would be the memories of the  
thousands displaced and ghettoized by those interstate highways.  
These "illusions" belong to us/US as well.
Don't so easily invoke an image of "America" as a slick surface of  
shiny, shifting mobility. Even as an "illusion".
Not in my name.

(Also, using America as shorthand for the US, i thought, had been  
problematized via postcolonial theory... apparently not for  
"Continentals")