[lbo-talk] RE: Slavoj rounds bend, celebrates Bush's victory

[kjkhoo at softhome.net]

At 12:16 pm -0500 6/11/04, Doug Henwood wrote:
>Lieven argues in his new book that U.S. nationalism today is rather 
>like the European nationalisms of the late 19th and early 20th 
>centuries that led to several decades of war & depression. (A more 
>satisfying parallel than the fascism one so many people default to.) 
>I hope we're not going to repeat that history, only with far more 
>firepower.

It's Zizek's perverse way of putting things, I think. But isn't he 
suggesting the same thing with his "Act globally, think locally". 
Perhaps even a dig at "Empire" -- for 19th century imperialism was 
precisely built on European nationalisms acting globally, and 
thinking locally.

Maybe I misread, but more than anything else, this is what irks me 
most about Hardt/Negri. They've introduced Empire as distinct from 
imperialism. It's hard enough getting one's head around contemporary 
imperialism; don't need all this additional confusion of terms.

kj khoo