Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
The scene is now familiar. The cities of the world are in ruins. The Empire State Building obliterated. The White House reduced to rubble. The remnants of humankind gather in the desert, scrounging together what remains of their air defence systems for one last effort to repulse the alien invaders. Haggard but determined, the last American President prepares to lead his motley crew of resistance fighters into the fray. He takes the hand mic, tests it once or twice, and his voice crackles over the speakers. "In less than one hour," he announces, "aircraft from here will join with others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us. We can't be consumed with our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interest. Today is the Fourth of July... and should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night, we will not vanish without a fight.... Today we celebrate our Independence Day!" The music swells on a tide of oceanic strings. The thin veneer of self- reflexive irony and the playful quoting of earlier cinematic doomsday scenarios suddenly disappears behind a cloud of patriotic cheering. This is our Independence Day.
Repository Citation
Keep, Christopher. "Of Technology and Apocalypse, or Whose Independence Day?." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 4, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1–11. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol4/iss1/5
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