News+and+politics religion philosophy the cynic librarian: Worlds Apart, but Oh So Close: Radio Interviews with Zizek and Phillips

Friday, June 16, 2006

Worlds Apart, but Oh So Close: Radio Interviews with Zizek and Phillips

I listened to Slavoz Zizek's interview with Doug Henwood [clicking on this link starts the audio of the interview at low hi-fi, which I found works well with slow Internet connections] at the Left Business Observer this morning. Interviewed in 2003, Zizek's points are still pertinent today. His accent is pretty thick, so you might want to read a condensed version of the interview transcript; read it first and then listen to the interview. ...

In the interview, Zizek notes:

What I'm really afraid of is that when we left-wingers ask, "is America aware that in this way they are only creating new tensions?" they miss the point. What if the aim is to introduce instability to the entire region and then to brutally impose some kind of universalized emergency state or new order? But even if the U.S. is consciously counting on the global disorder, it will not be able to control it. My only hope is that American interventions will give rise to some kind of resistance. My big hope - as an atheist, praying night and day for it - is that the resistance in the Middle East will not be simply kidnapped by the so-called fundamentalists. That this resistance will have at least secular socialist wing. And I think there is a fair chance at it. Look at Iran. There is hope.
There's always hope, Slavoz, and it doesn't always come in the form of anarchy or police states; but thanks for the pep talk. Be that as it may, he is a major political thinker, even if he has attained some kind of "rock star" status," something I'm sure he dreads hearing.

I also listened to part of a Kevin Phillips interview on Minnesota Public Radio. Phillips, former front-man for the Republican Party and major political strategist in the 80s and 90s, is quite frank in his assessment of the emerging religious theocracy in the Republican Right. He's also quite blunt in popping any balloons about the "humanitarian" rationale for the Iraq War. It's all about the oil--did you think anything else?

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