Here we go, Folks!
Naomi Klein is on the show today. I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted to talk to her. Since way back when I had a show on Air America. She is one of the great public intellectuals and activists. She’s written several groundbreaking books like No Logo and The Shock Doctrine and now she has a new one out tomorrow, Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World. Amazing.
I’ve always been impressed with her mind and her ability to execute big ideas through her acute, educated, progressive perception. She makes sense of the world we live in through a leftist intellectual lens. She has blown my mind with her ideas and revelations and she has done it again with this book. Which I read cover to cover and underlined, a lot.
If you understand politics and how they go hand in hand with the corporate takeover of every available space including our minds and how late stage capitalism will not stop feeding itself until we and the planet are totally depleted, you will enjoy her work.
I talk about a lot of the stuff that we covered but I am no intellectual. I am not a great progressive. I’m lazy and a bit selfish and a bit detached from real activism. Heading into the conversation I was struggling with my own shame and inaction. I think, sadly, this is a familiar mental space for many heavy hearted, terrified liberals. We may even like it.
I think the great service a public intellectual provides is context and connection. So many of the threats that are pressing down on us may seem disparate and fragmented but what Naomi does is find the connections. Connections between capitalism and climate change and the underside of capitalism and fascism. Also how the age of the branded self fits into fascist ideas.
I was excited talking to her.
On a lighter note, my fridge is still broken. The guy put the door back on the freezer and the ice machine was actually working for a few days but then it stopped and started making the noise that caused me to call the repair place initially. Full circle. Did it even really happen? Three months of intense visits and texting. I imagine a new fridge is going to happen soon.
See, even that little story makes me feel like a fraud. Like an ice maker is important with fascism on the horizon and the warming earth.
Ice would be nice though. A nice cold drink on a hot 128-degree day is good. See, rationalization is a powerful tool that helps us get through life but also easily exploited by consumer capitalism.
Ice cold drinks are pretty great though.
As I said, I talk to Naomi Klein today and on Thursday I talk to Hannah Einbinder. She’s a comic and one of the stars of the show Hacks. (She’s also Laraine Newman’s daughter).
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
Context and Connection.
