[Reader-list] American Builds A Dream World -- And Moves Into It

[Are Flagan]

Re: 1/15/03 16:47, "t byfield" <tbyfield at panix.com>:

> no offense, are, but this kind of caffeinated dystopian rant

Wow, and I don't even drink coffee (can you imagine, if I did). The point is
not whether America the beautiful, as it is sung, holds true, or if the
country has preserved its pockets of natural innocence. Ever since Ansel
Adams lobbied congress with his idealized photographic views of Yosemite
valley, and "won," the ideological machine has realized the power of nature
to reproduce its myths, hence the afterglow of the sun in the industrial
body of every SUV ad. (Re: to drill or not to drill in Alaska.) I can calmly
say that the reason Silicon Valley did not go surfing across the hill (but
inflated the real estate market in SF to above mere mortal levels instead),
is due to made in china, made in mexico, made in malaysia and made in india
and so on. The environmental cost and human sacrifice that goes with
capitalist industrialization expanded abroad long ago and the "frontier" is
now global, as far as the US etc. is concerned. They recycle your toxic
circuit boards in China to avoid a landfill where surfer dudes carve their
turns, across the hill from Silicon Valley. Rebecca Solnit also wrote a book
that looked at a geographical watershed -- the idealized Yosemite and the
nuclear testing grounds across the Sierras in Nevada. Bigger mountains,
bigger perspective.

-af