Michael Hardt and Charlie Rose

I woke up from a nap and turned on the tube to the PBS network around 
ten after eleven. Thought I was having a nightmare. There was Michael 
Hardt being interviewed by Charlie Rose, the obsequious, slack-jawed 
host of a talk show that usually features interviews with corporate 
CEO's, Hollywood stars, US State Department officials and 
professional athletes.

Most of the interview consisted of pleasant chatter focusing on how 
important it is to understand that there is no such thing as American 
imperialism, only this diffuse network of global powers called 
"Empire" that resembles the Internet. Proof of this is institutions 
like the WTO, which presumably allocates as much weight to Fiji as 
the USA. Of course, this must have been reassuring to the powers 
behind PBS, namely Mobil-Exxon and Chase-Manhattan bank.

Rose wanted to pin down Hardt on this "communism" thing. He assured 
the PBS talkmeister that this had nothing to do with what they tried 
in Russia, but is more like St. Francis of Assissi, Baruch Spinoza 
and Charlie Chaplin. At this point I could imagine the PBS producer 
dialing up the FBI to tell them that they have dangerous conspiracy 
on their hands.

Not one word was spent discussing the concrete manifestations of 
imperialism, or Empire, or whatever you want to call it. Nothing 
about war. Nothing about racism. Nothing about economic injustice. 
Just idle chat about how to bring about "good" globalization. If 
anybody has confusions about the kind of role that these "communists" 
are playing, it should have been allayed by this performance.

A true communist would have gotten this reaction from Rose:

On a PBS talk show (January 22, 1998), host Charlie Rose asked a 
guest, whose name I did not get, whether Castro was bitter about "the 
historic failure of communism". No, the guest replied, Castro is 
proud of what he believes communism has done for Cuba: advances in 
health care and education, full employment, and the elimination of 
the worst aspects of poverty. Rose fixed him with a ferocious glare, 
then turned to another guest to ask: "What impact will the pope's 
visit have in Cuba?" Rose ignored the errant guest for the rest of 
the program.

(Michael Parenti, "Monopoly Media Manipulation")

-- 
Louis Proyect, lnp3@panix.com on 07/25/2001

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