Monday, September 19, 2005
Don Arbusto
Today's announcement by NASA to go to the moon again by 2020 has me wondering if the great broken record of our universe has skipped another beat--as in the leap of desperate fanaticism from the fourteenth century to the present--or is merely mocking credulous Americans. I mean, what next, a reenactment of the Emancipation Proclamation?
But then, in the age of image in what Guy DeBord called the society of the spectacle, perhaps we won't actually have to send astronauts up in rockets, but rather just have them pose in their outfits by a launch pad in Florida one week, then after playing clips from Appollo 11 on FOX News for a few days, show the heroes standing on an aircraft carrier with the President.
The Congressional budget item for the mission can then be recycled into numerous heroic film productions or into the offshore bank accounts of GOP operatives, providing us with a continuous (and inspirational) feedback loop of never-ending American triumphs forever thwarting disbelievers in the inevitable progress of the American entrepreneurial spirit.
But then, in the age of image in what Guy DeBord called the society of the spectacle, perhaps we won't actually have to send astronauts up in rockets, but rather just have them pose in their outfits by a launch pad in Florida one week, then after playing clips from Appollo 11 on FOX News for a few days, show the heroes standing on an aircraft carrier with the President.
The Congressional budget item for the mission can then be recycled into numerous heroic film productions or into the offshore bank accounts of GOP operatives, providing us with a continuous (and inspirational) feedback loop of never-ending American triumphs forever thwarting disbelievers in the inevitable progress of the American entrepreneurial spirit.
