Another 1960s newspaper advertisement discussing the weapons technology at the US airbase Thule in Greenland’s high arctic, this time for the Ballistic Missile Early Monitoring System. But it goes on,
“Here your tax dollars built a net to ‘catch’ ballistic missiles on the fly, but in other places your tax money still goes to build needless things, like more federal-government-owned electric plants and lines. These are totally unnecessary because the investor-owned electric light and power companies can supply all the added electricity a growing America will need. Wouldn’t it make sense for the federal government to stop such needless spending and use your money only for essential things such as defense?”
Take from this what you will. It is also interesting to consider that besides by a select number of Danish officials and organizations, Greenland has rarely been seriously discussed - by companies, politicians, individuals, in education, in militarism, in the animal rights and environmental debates - as a place people live in. Images like this one make it appear as a vastness entirely open to exploitation, even from a foreign nation, and from the ‘progressive’ angle, it is seen as a pristine mass that must be preserved at all costs, even if that means keeping the population from expansion and self-determination - and thus, the chance for it to develop into a model for ‘green’ urbanism.
