Acquired By Eminent Domain ...

I am blatantly ripping off the entire text of Lt-Smash's March 29th post. It is a must read and I can't even come close to capturing it any better than he does. He is truly an amazing blogger.

So here it goes:

Looking in the Mirror

PORTUGUESE POET Paulo José Miranda reflects on what "America is."

1. The duty of every American is to make America grow. And every one who makes America grow is American. In Europe, it doesn’t make sense for a citizen of a country to immigrate to Germany, for instance, and become German, but to come to America and become American makes total sense. Coming to America is in itself already being American. To come is not to visit; those who come don’t go. America is not a natural country. It’s a created country; an invention of human beings. Since World War I, the story of the world is to come to America.
[…]

5. If Europe is the past of America, the former USSR was a reaction to America. USSR was also a human invention, but it was an invention against-time, it was an invention against-America. The USSR wanted to change the world. The USSR wanted to change history. The USSR tried to be a floodgate against the course of history, it tried to be a floodgate against the course of the world. The USSR wanted to be what America already was: the comprehension of the world.

6. It doesn’t make sense to say, unless in medieval terms, that America wants to rule the world. It doesn’t make sense, because America is the world. It is the world not for having conquered it; but because the world lives from, for and against America. The term New World also doesn’t make sense anymore.

7. The terrorist act against United States of America and its people, on the sad day of September 11, 2001, wasn’t an act against civilization – as some later said – it was an act against the world. Terrorism is the world against itself.

8. One can be American never having been to America. To be American is to wish well for America. Whoever wishes well for America makes it grow? To want to go to America is what there is more of in the world; this craving is an overwhelming good. To wish well for America is to make the world grow.

[…]

13. Japan is the Orient of America. It certainly is so since it lost the war. While the bomb was still in the skies over Hiroshima, Japan was already becoming America.

14. Shanghai is China being America (China Americanizing itself). Today, this is China’s greatest problem; to know how it can Americanize itself without ceasing to be itself. But this extreme problem of identity isn’t just a problem for China: it is a problem for the world. How can the world be different, being equal? How can one be and not be American? What is it to be an Americanized country?

15. Hollywood is a satellite of Earth.

16. The internet Americanized the world more than Hollywood had already done. Wherever there’s Internet, there’s America. Wherever there was Roman Law, there was Rome.

Does Miranda understand us better than we understand ourselves?

Very awesome if you ask me!

Stay Cool and Safe!