haunted by fire (2)

it is in the essential separation or empty heart of a modern nation (ie, the fact that we are not directly connected to other americans but through imagination) that media can dwell, inhabiting our minds. but it is the controlled nature of our lives within this national system -- the suburbs, the work discipline, the surveillance of all sorts -- that makes us need to imagine, to consume, unimaginable horrors. and this addiction, which i don't believe exists in less separated societies, societies where the everyday violence of daily life, the need to kill animals, for instance, was not hidden from us -- this addiction is used to manipulate us american people into imperial wars. wars against distant countries become wars of defense.