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The American culture industry exports an anti-American spectacle to an anti-American world and makes a killing:
On the foreign front, Avatar grossed an enormous estimated $133 million, down around 13 percent from last weekend, and its total soared to $666.7 million in just 21 days, which is the fourth biggest haul ever. Throw in domestic's $352.1 million, and the picture's worldwide take crested the billion dollar mark. With $1.02 billion, it's the fourth highest-grossing picture ever worldwide, surpassing The Dark Knight, and, in a matter of days, it will leap frog over The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest to claim second place behind Titanic's $1.84 billion.

Obama watched Avatar. Obama must have seen the writing on the wall. True, the film imagines the future as a meeting point of European colonialism (1492-1914) and American militarism (1940 to 2012), but it's really all about American power and its decline. According to this movie, America is over and done with—the thrill is gone, the glory can not be restored. All that is left for it (its broken body) is total transformation. The movie ends where Rilke's poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" ends: "You must change your life." Does Obama read Rilke?