>
> On May 5, 2008, at 6:09 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
>
> > Hanks thinks an Obama presidency could bring
> > about a "seismic shift," and "live up to the
> > great promise once shaped by our founding fathers."
>
> Ah yes, men of property, many of them slaveowners, all of whom
> aspired to an empire!
>
> Doug
To be fair to po' Tom Hanks, it is the kind of cliche that all of these people say without thinking. It is part of the unthinking civil religion of patriotism, and saying things like "the great promise of America's founding fathers" is like crossing yourself and genuflecting before the altar in church. It signifies obeisance but means nothing beyond that signal of ideological interpellation (to use an over-fancy Althusserian term).
I think though, taking Doug's point about empire seriously, it is good to ask what would happen if Obama is elected president. He would immediately become the main enemy as the administrator of the current version of the U.S. empire.
But more important for the U.S. rulers and owners and the rest of us he will inspire plenty of illusions and false hopes in the world. He will be (at least briefly) a legitimizing face of U.S. imperialism. I think, more so than Hilary Clinton, Obama will inspire false hopes in the world, because there is already some amount of Clinton fatigue in the world. I do wonder if some of the money coming to Obama by way of Wall Street and big law firms has something to do with a cynical calculation that Obama will simply, and almost immediately, repair some of the damage done to "the image" of the U.S. among the ruling classes and elites of Europe, Japan, Latin America, India and Africa. Whether this calculation is true or not I don't know.
Jerry
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-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and browsing http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/