MADE IN THE USA: A LITTLE SLICE OF HEAVEN
You’re Marc Andreessen and you’re in Palo Alto and you’re riding your $35,000 ebike to work. The bike is MADE IN THE USA. All the cars are electric, and all of them are 100% MADE IN THE USA. The sun is out, it’s 80 degrees — a perfect cloudless day. The lawns are green and perfect, too. There’s not a weed in sight — that’s because all the pesticides are MADE IN THE USA. Everyone waves at you as they drive by, and you wave and smile, too. They know you and you know them. And you’re all 100% MADE IN THE USA. You think to yourself, this is how things should be. We’re Americans. We still have the can-do spirit. We’re the best country on earth. We’re the best people on earth. We really turned things around — and quickly, too.
Your head, perfectly shaved with a MADE IN THE USA razor and moisturized with a MADE IN THE USA aftershave and dabbed with MADE IN THE USA sunblock, is starting to develop some wetness but you don’t mind. It’s a short ride and the breeze is nice. And then you feel the breeze in your groin area — a gentle, soothing MADE IN THE USA breeze — and you think, “Wow these MADE IN THE USA bike shorts I bought off MADE IN THE USA Amazon are really great. I hardly feel any dampness. All the sweat just gets wicked away. It’s like I’m riding around naked — actually better than naked because I benefit from UV protection and from the short’s advanced anti-rash netting that’s keeping moving. That’s MADE IN THE USA quality.” You think that yourself and you smile.
You get to your office and you leave your MADE IN THE USA bike right out on the sidewalk. You don’t lock it up. Why would you lock it? Ever since everything and everyone was MADE IN THE USA, there’s been no crime. You walk into your building and head straight for the cafeteria. You punch in your order: a coffee banana peanut butter smoothie. A minute later, woooosh, a big plastic frosty cup comes out of a cubby. You take a sip and go “aaaaaah.” So good. All ingredients — MADE IN THE USA. In the old days coffee and bananas didn’t grow in the USA (😢) but then we annexed Ecuador (😀) and renamed it the MADE IN THE USA DUNKIN’ FREE ENTERPRISE ZONE. And the problem was solved. You take another sip of your MADE IN THE USA smoothie, the plastic cup and the plastic straw all MADE IN THE USA, too. “That’s some strong grade-a MADE IN THE USA polyethylene terephthalate,” you think to yourself. “Indestructible and forever. Like the USA.”
There was a day when this cafeteria was staffed by various Joses and Mateos and Marias, and it was nice sometimes to chat about this or that like the weather or how the 49ers were doing, but sometimes you didn’t understand what they were saying on account of their NOT MADE IN THE USA accents, and that made you angry and sad. How inconvenient. How inefficient. How wasteful to make you ask them to repeat themselves. But that’s all over with now. You look around and marvel at the gleaming robotic cafeteria. The plastic paneling, the stainless steel tubes. All automated. All sleek. All cutting edge. All MADE IN THE USA. Every order now comes out perfect. No burned toast. No runny eggs, when you didn’t ask for them. No someone forgetting to put the butter on the side. All scientific. All exact. And you smile. That’s USA ingenuity. That’s MADE IN THE USA. And then you notice the small print: PROUDLY ASSEMBLED IN THE APPALACHIAN FREE ENTERPRISE ZONE. And you feel pride. That’s MADE IN THE USA.
Yeah, this office sure is quieter now. Not so long ago there were all sorts of NOT MADE IN THE USA employees, not just the lowly cafeteria types from Central America or wherever but secretaries and junior partners, the engineers, the programmers, even the big top executives from all over. India, Russia, China, France…all nice people and even friends…your very close friends. And you remember how all of them were constantly making a ruckus with their not MADE IN THE USA talk. Of course they weren’t happy to learn about the BIG MADE IN THE USA CLEANSE. And of course they’d object. They’re not MADE IN THE USA. Were they even loyal? Could they be trusted? You think to yourself, “If I was working in another country, say France or China, I wouldn’t be loyal to that country. I’d still be loyal to the USA. That would be my #1 priority, the USA. How could I not be? I was MADE IN THE USA.” And so they had to go. Where are they all now? Who knew. It was for the best. Best for the USA and best for them. Everyone should be where they belong.
How did that campaign jingle go?
If you were not MADE IN THE USA You got only five days to stay Pack your bags and go away Never come back — or we'll make you pay
Or what was the other one? Ah yes, you recall it now…
If you weren’t MADE IN THE USA You’ve got just five fun days to stay! Grab your hat, don’t miss your flight — We like our borders extra tight!
Yeah those were catchy tunes. You feel a pang of nostalgia for that time — a time of purpose and resolve when the entire MADE IN THE USA nation pulled together, worked as one. So you decide to look up some stuff from that time…listening to the tunes, tapping your foot along with music that was 100% made in MADE IN THE USA. You like those MADE IN THE USA border patrol dance vids the most — those MADE IN THE USA patriots with their MADE IN THE USA guns and their MADE IN THE USA German shepherds all dancing in sync, their little armed MADE IN THE USA drones wizzing overhead, everyone singing along. Haha. Caused quite the panic…quite a stir…when they started broadcasting that one. All those NOT MADE IN THE USA types started scurrying around, not sure what to do. Haha. That was something to see.
Great stuff. Brilliant even. You could tell all this culture was MADE IN THE USA because there’s real MADE IN THE USA talent behind it. All 100% MADE IN THE USA — run on 100% MADE IN THE USA silicon, powered by 100% MADE IN THE USA coal. It was your system they used. Well, not “your” system. But you owned about 21% of the stock — a nice little chunk.
You swivel your chair and look out your window. The gardeners are out in full force trimming the shrubs, mowing the grass — all of them gleaming, all plastic and metal, all of them MADE IN THE USA. A chine sounds on your MADE IN THE USA smart watch. It’s your coworker, Bob. He’s MADE IN THE USA, too. Bob’s a nice guy and you go out for beers every Friday after work at the MADE IN THE USA beer hall in Los Gatos, where you both live. Bob sure was upset for a while when they shipped off his NOT MADE IN THE USA wife back to China or Singapore or wherever she was from. The kids stayed, though. And that was nice and proper — and they had a right to stay. They were MADE IN THE USA. They were legal. They were ok. Yeah Bob was upset at first but it was just a passing phase. We fixed him up with a nice new 100% MADE IN THE USA wife from that new MADE IN THE USA FINISHING SCHOOL out in Georgia. A genuine MADE IN THE USA Georgia peach, that girl. What was her name? Kimberly or no, Madison. Yes, Madison. Very respectful, very demure…very MADE IN THE USA. And of course, in not very long the two had a cute little 100% MADE IN THE USA baby on the way. Bob’s been happier than he’s ever been, that’s clear.
Anyway, you see that Ben sent you a message and a link. “Thought you’d like this one. 🇺🇸👊🔥” You click the link and watch the video — you can tell right away it’s from a MADE IN THE USA DRONE . “One of ours,” you think. “We have what…a 55% stake in the company. Something like that anyway.” You watch a woman from way up high like a bird would see. She’s carrying a backpack and walking briskly along a desert landscape. She’s slowing down now, feet dragging, clearly tired, making her way towards some big rocks just a few hundred feet away. You chuckle to yourself. She think they’ll protect her? “Wonder what her deal is?” you wonder. “Probably one of the sad cases — a NOT MADE IN THE USA mom trying to sneak in and steal her MADE IN THE USA babies away. Well, we can’t have that. She knows that. She knows it all too well. She knows she’s breaking the law. And a MADE IN THE USA law is more than a law. It is a MADE IN THE USA promise. And a MADE IN THE USA man always keeps his MADE IN THE USA promise. That’s why we’re MADE IN THE USA.” The woman suddenly looks up and the video zooms in on her face. Now you can see her face clearly — it’s smudged with dirt and her expression has turned to fright. “She knows,” you think to yourself. “She knows that this is the end.” And you chuckle. She throws her backpack to the ground and runs fast — as fast as she can. She makes it to the rocks and slips under the lip of a large boulder. A second goes by. Then another. And then suddenly the spot where the woman was turns into a a ball of flame. “Great shot! Right on target!” you yell out to no one in particular, jumping out of your chair. You settle down and then watch the fire slowly recede. And it takes a while for the flames to subside — because this is a MADE IN THE USA missile hit and a MADE IN THE USA hit packs a punch…a MADE IN THE USA punch. Slowly a smoldering crater is revealed where the woman and the rocks once were. And in the center of the pit stands a big red, white, and blue flag. “A MADE IN THE USA PROMISE,” it read.
“That’ll teach these NOT MADE IN THE USA types to try to sneak back,” you think to yourself. Then you swivel around to your MADE IN THE USA keyboard and your MADE IN THE USA computer monitor and you check the financials of the MADE IN THE USA DRONE CORP. Doing great. Another assembly line opening up in the APPALACHIAN FREE ENTERPRISE ZONE. You make a mental note: Time to think of an IPO soon. The MADE IN THE USA STOCK EXCHANGE is gonna love this one. Pure quality. Pure MADE IN THE USA.
The AI-generated art and music take this to another level—makes the whole thing feel way more alive, eerie, and unsettling in the best way.
Love the nice "AI" generated cover photo. Perfect.