Naomi Klein tells Charlie Rose “It’s Time to Put Away the (Obama) T-shirts
On his May 11th show, Charlie Rose asked Naomi Klein, the critic of corporate globalization, about the state of the economic crisis and the next steps President Obama should take. Naomi said that “the love of Obama is so over the top and this thing that happens to us, particularly in times of crisis, where we almost regress and we want to believe our leaders are going to take care of us–I think that’s unhealthy–I think it’s time to put away the t-shirts and all the memorabilia. He is the president of the most powerful nation on Earth and the superfan culture of the campaign has to be replaced with an engaged citizen culture that puts respectful pressure from below.”
David Peat comments, “the most powerful nation on Earth” has become such a cliché when referring to the United States. But powerful in which sense – size of its army, influence on global markets, population size, moral leadership, use of new technologies? The word “powerful” has both negative and positive contexts and what adjective would apply to India or China?
Any comments?
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By John Craig, May 17, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
the notion of America being the most powerful nation on earth is a cliche? WOuld you prefer we “problematize” such a truism and replace it with the banality of global pluralism? Whether its the hierarchical structures of international bodies (IMF, UN, etc), its unchallegeable military, or even the size of GDP America is still–unequivocally–”the most powerful nation on earth”. What a silly comment.
By Gordon Shippey, May 18, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
Aside from brute Force, it is only powerful even if we hate the system of the world we believe in it and therefore that reality is protect towards to the world, and by world I don’t really mean the earth (although it can be directly affected by it) but that of a paradigm or constructed set of abstractions we mistake for being concrete, and therefore a power relation develops or can be imposed in which one country is more powerful than another in the U.S. case mostly via military power. however corporation mirror this and State-capitalism in that they can become via out belief system to be more powerful than some nation-states. there is no Abstract America or China or McDonalds etc…these are deadly illusions or abstraction design to create power and control and illegimate authority for the purpose of wealth and power…its an old story.