Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 November 2010 15:09:43
Adbusters 92 lay on the shelf of the railway newsagent. It nestled ironically amongst the business titles. The shiney cover was not out of place, neither was the £4 price tag. This wanna be coffee table publication had as its theme "canivealesque rebellion". Apparently this is scheduled to occur November 22-28th, coinciding with this years Buy Nothing Day (27th Nov). Within the pages lay a combination of anarchist propoganda and anti-capitalist wishful thinking, along with the odd bible verse, (Matt 16:26). I gained some useful information: Gandhi is the "in" soundbite this season and Memewarriors.org are promoting the rebellion. (Apparently on Day 1 we see the awakening, Day 2 the divestment, Days 3 and 4 the meme war, Days 5 and 6 the plunge and on Day 7 we rest). Page after page gives a high quality version of those flyers you pick up on demos or at festivals which make you smile as they urge you to consume less, buy local and avoid Nike, Starbucks and MacDonalds. The Economics departments of unis come into focus as a potential space for dissent. Some group called kickitover.org apparently taking responsibility for this bit. I'm over halfway through before I hear a woman's voice. Kitty Werthermann's article "After America, There is No Place to Go" is an interesting account of life under Hitler in Austria. The message here is interesting, if not more than a little unnerving in places. The paragraph which was most telling about this article was: "Totalitarianism didn't come quickly. It took five years - from 1938 to 1943 - to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead we had creeping gradualism. Now our only weapons were our broom handles. The whole idea sounds unbelieveable that the state, little by little, eroded our freedom." This was an article effectively arguing the dangers of gun control and state controlled health care amongst other things. Simon Critchley's article on The New Language of Civil Disobedience was as dated as the average "new worship song" seeking to catch the contemporary sound, a decade out of time. The "contemporary" language he refers to goes back, atleast to the situationists and probably in reality further. As the magazine develops we enter the world of the black bloc and spikey anarchism for a moment, before an inoffensive cartoon ending. So by the time I reach the back cover proclaiming "I love you" I discover the truth. If you pay £4 for shiney subversion in a chain store it will, must, ultimately disappoint. Oh sure your appitite for moral self-righteousness will be fed and you will smile at its clever subversions of corporate logos but it will still be a male-dominated media creation feeding the stereotypes and appitites of a niche market willing to pay for it. Think I'll be back to Cosmo next month.