the shock doctrine.

First, the capsule review: the book is damn good, changed my opinion on Naomi Klein, and is highly recommended to anyone who wants to better understand the dangers of ideology being more important than evidence.  Go read it, and talk to your friends about how screwed up unregulated (or fundamentalist) capitalism is.

Now, what I actually learned from the book.  I've detested Klein's previous work.  No Logo bothered me for a lot of reasons, mostly the idea that there was something wrong with powerful, recognizable brands that resonated with large swathes of society, and influenced behaviour on a global scale.  If the point of the book had been that mis-using this power is wrong, it would have been obvious, laughed at, and unpublished.  By pretending that the danger somehow came from brands itself, it was edgy and revolutionary.  To most people, at least.

The Shock Doctrine however, attacks a specific brand of capitalism, and a specific type of behaviour.  The dangers of unregulated, unchecked behaviour is a reasonable target by any measure.  The book isn't an attack on capitalism in general (Libertarians may disagree), but an attack on an extreme form.  Most importantly, incontrast to Klein's earlier work, I could actually empathize with the victims.  Foreign economies that have been ruined by the greed of intervening governments are very different than disaffected upper middle class children protesting against the companies that employ their parents.

If you are going to condemn something, put together a narrative that shows you understand your target, the victims, and the reality of the situation.  Don't just decide that an entire branch of thinking or strategy is somehow evil, regardless of application or intent.  You have to creat a narrative that supports your opinions, whether in a book, or in a campaign.

To disregard unfairly is to be disregarded summarily.

[I'm still amused at how many of the people I know who read 'No Logo' did so because it was part of their Marketing / Advertising course readings in University or College.]

redefining a personal experience (OYP)

I've been spending a lot of my spare time considering how to update a conference that has meant a lot to me over the years, basically an attempt to make politics, and faith (specifically Christian faith) more relevant to 14-21 year olds in Ontario. As a raging atheist, the Christian part is a hard sell for me, excepting the core values (golden rule, etc) that I think most people can agree are good ideas, at least when removed from the confines of a faith system. So I've been focusing on how to make politics interesting enough for youth to want to join a model parliament with religious components.

We have a socially aware and active youth base, but they aren't interested in politics in isolation. The point that keeps popping up in my head is that youth care about issues - you can see them proving it in Nathan Phillips Square every couple of months - and a political outreach program for youth, even a model one, has to be issue based to tap into that. The current model we use is based on getting cabinet ministers to write legislation on various issues they care about, debate it, amend it, and surround that time with structured social activities, fundraising, and spiritual reflection. (note: I think this is great, and that is backed up with me spending 9 years involved in an organisation partially based on a religious tradition I actually have disdain for).

I think the solution is to take the entire experience issue based. If the core issue for a session is, say, Darfur, as an example, then have everything focus on that. Draft legislation relating to banning trade with nations who condone genocide, or reinforcing Canada's lagging UN Peacekeeping commitment. Have the charity (we usually have one local, and one international) be directly related. Have workshops that educate kids on the issues before debating legislation. Screen a documentary or two. Make the religious component, bible verse, etc, complement the theme, and deal with the core moral violations that make it something that needs to be challenged. Create a framework for people to get involved when they get home. Make that issue live beyond the weekend - go as far as to organise meetups, a letter writing campaign, anything to create actual results from the effort.

The problem isn't that kids don't care about politics, it's that they've gotten used to actually doing things, rather than talking about them.

This is likely going to be one in a series, as I figure this out. I realise it's not overly accessible, but I hope it will become clearer as I come closer to a final product.

i am fully impressed.

I don't know that anyone outside of Toronto has been covering this, but it is by far one of the most effective forms of activism I've seen in recent memory. When I say effective, I mean that it is notable, interesting, below the irritation threshold, and gathering wider media attention. While there are been some debate about the numbers, it manages to inform, and to cause interaction with both the issue and information around it.

Go ahead, tell me a hundred people yelling in Nathan Phillips Square would have been better.

This is the kind of thing I was rambling about, both in Ground War, and the Fixing Protest posts. Dissent is Advertising. Why not have talented graphic designers working on your solutions rather than just asking them to create a new logo for your sign or site?

This day just keeps getting better, I swear.

ground war: fixing protest.

The pdf magazine is shoddily done, and I (yet again) have a new found respect for designers. If only I could be like you, you talented, aesthetically gifted few.

Well, by done I mean the version to be handed in to the prof is finished. The version for me, however, is going to go through several revisions before it is released. The first step in these will be for me to actually learn to use indesign WELL, as opposed to semi-adequately.

Anyone who knows me, and wants the ugly, but livable version, say the word, and I'll email it. Anyone who doesn't know me will have to be convincing.

Now to write a 6 page paper about a 22 page mag-ifesto.

ground war snippet.

In general, subcultures worry about co-optation. Gramsci, Subaltern classes, etc. The issue, however, is not being co-opted, but what would be co-opted.

Subcultures are more or less defined publicly by the visual / auditory cues they throw out there in an attempt to 1) keep people of other groups at some distance; or 2) attract people of their own group. By this I mean that the clothes, hair, music, slang, and so on that is integral to the identity of a member of a subculture is the way they let people know they are special, different from the mass, and part of a group. It's a statement of value.

However, when co-optation happens, the only things that get taken are the clothes, hair, music, slang. This still manages to either damage or devalue the subculture in question, stripping it of it's cultural relevance and it's esteemed place among the hipster cognoscenti. People taking the outward cues kills the thing, at least incrementally. Sure, people will talk about the 'real' thing, and how it was ruined, but really, we live in a world where someone, somewhere, considers the first Avril Lavigne album punk, in some capacity. Punk, as a label, has been devalued in the public consciousness.

I find this interesting, because it either means that the ideology of a subculture is of less importance than the visual cues associated with it, or that there's no ideology to begin with, beyond 'we like this grouping of interests'. Ask someone within a subculture, and they will probably disagree with you on that point. I would have, at other points in my life. But I think it rings true, at least somewhat.

I base at least some of that on my inability to think of a subculture that doesn't separate itself in terms of appearance, but instead ideology. I guess there is a communist community out there, but most of the ones I encounter seem more involved in mentioning Marx constantly and adopting a brooding, minimalist, doomed, chain smoking aesthetic than anything related to the improvement of the human condition in their society. Oh, and often, bad haircuts.

Subversivity is most likely impossible if you are screaming 'I'm not like you' at the top of your lungs. And yet, the people who most want to change the system are usually the loudest voices in the chorus.

The interesting thing, is that if there was no outward sign that you were of a given group whose ideology is to affect change, you would be co-optation resistant. It would be hard for someone to sell a watered down version of 'I will play the game, but my goals are different.' Or, even better, co-opting an ideology would be the dream, because it means that people are actually listening, rather than just salvaging fashion.

The clothes and the hair and the music get taken. They get repackaged and sold with the same gloss, but with none of the ideas. So why let them be part of the message at all? The only people they are going to convince are the ones you don't want on your side in the first place.

[Maybe this will clarify some points of the 'conversation with singha' post. Anyways, I should probably try to clarify with my prof tomorrow that I'm exploring some of these points on my blog, lest he thinks I'm plagiarizing this 'broken gentleman' character. Academia really doesn't fit well with the new self-publishing paradigm.]

ground war (update).

I was planning on expanding on the ground war philosophy, and what was laid out in fixing protest (2), but that is going to have to be delayed until the end of the month, as I may use the ideas in an assignment for a class this term.

At the same time, if all goes well, at the end of the month I'll have the base ideas and theory down in a PDF magazine for easy (and slightly more attractive) reading. This will also, I hope, be a chance to put some of my ideas on selective infodensity into practice.

So that, and stress, have led to the radio silence. Regularly scheduled programming, go.

Oh, and I'm slowly working on a LinkedIn profile. Ignore the mess, if you find it.

fixing protest (2).

The major flaws with protest, when considered as a medium:

• Inability to attract and keep attention.
• Very little information is shared with those who DO end up paying attention.
• At the end of the day, it’s still a bunch of people talking about someone else’s problem, in terms that in no way make it your problem.

Using the African AIDS epidemic as the issue in question, this is what I would suggest:

Juxtaposition: If people do not respond to someone else’s problem, you present it as theirs. By this I don’t mean to suggest that you can teach someone to value the life of people they have never met. Instead, you alter the terms of the conversation. Present the facts of AIDS, lack of access to treatment, and the relative prices of retroviral medications, and in no way embellish them, EXCEPT, frame the conversation as about West Nile Virus, or the Bird Flu, or whatever current health scare is active in the imaginations of the target people, the target society. I am going to assume that this will be in a fairly large metropolitan area. The important thing is to not lie about what is being said. Talk about the disease, how many it kills, and then inform the individuals you speak to that there is treatment, but pharmaceutical companies aren’t willing to negotiate price. Tell them how much it would cost for someone to get a needed supply of the medication, adjusting prices for the average income of a North American, rather than an African individual. Talk about how the government refuses to bypass the patent. Talk about anything you can find a reference point for, speaking about AIDS in Africa under the guise of Bird Flu in North America.

Present to someone the mortal threat of another, as though it was their own. Let them know, even for a second, how stupid and how hopeless the situation would be.

Presentation: Faux man-on-the-street interviews. Two person teams, both dressed the part as cameraman and interviewee, providing the information, and taping responses. These interviews will be actually taped, and will be under the pretence of an independent website talking about this ‘impending’ insanity. Hopefully, this will both make it easier to convince people that it isn’t a ruse. Each interview ends with giving the person spoken to a business card, or possibly a pamphlet, with little to no real information, other than a website to be open to the public in a short time.

Assuming even 50 people acting together in the ‘protest’, the video interviews could make a pretty interesting addition to a website that would reveal the hoax. Visitors would come to get more information, and find out that what they were afraid of was actually happening to someone else, and they were ignoring it. On the website could be included information on what can be done, more facts, as well as petitions, the ability to donate to relief programs, and links to other organisations, etc. Information on how to help, and people who will actually have a reason to seek it out.

In the plus column, this idea could be almost entirely volunteer-driven, with little in the way of expenses other than the website itself. Enough people have video cameras now that volunteers could borrow them, or use their own. As well, this is massively scalable, and could work with nearly any sized group that would be small enough not to break silence. It personalises tragedy, is based on actual interaction, and presents options for actual positive direct action, as opposed to attempting to guilt the world into changing. As well, something like this is pretty ripe for coverage in the mass media.

I recognise that this is somewhat dishonest, but I think it is excusable, considering the cause, and the fact that even minor research, such as looking at the site, sets the record straight. Luckily, ground level protest and dissent doesn’t have to maintain a squeaky clean public image; not everyone is Bono, trading on near universal appeal. This doesn’t actually hurt anyone. It’s disinformation with a purpose, and not based on personal gain.

Inspiration for this approach came in chunks, from sources including an abandoned short story of mine called The Artificials, The Yes Men, and an Artificials related idea for ‘performance art’ that was in part abandoned for the ethical concerns of screwing with people for personal gain / entertainment only.

four points on fixing protest.

1a) pick a battle. by this i mean several things, but i think an example is in order. have any of you attended a protest recently? i did not too long ago (i think canice was taking pictures) and i couldn't tell you what it was about. there were signs and speeches on everything from palestinian apartheid, to genocide in darfur, and i think i remember conversation about islam, somalia, and probably foreign aid. all of these are important problems with the modern world, and there is no real arguing that. but at the same time, if protest is to be at all useful, you can be generalists on dissent. if someone comes up to you, and asks 'what is it about the world that you are trying to change?' your answer needs to be short enough that there is a chance they will listen. pick a battle. fight like hell for your one battle.

1b) pick a battle. there is no place in this world, sad though it is, where you will be able to both challenge the acceptability standards for appearance, and the workings of governance. i am sorry. this is unfair, it's discriminatory, and it is undeniably true. if you desperately need to drive home the point that you can look however you want and still be successful and smart, then your appearance is your cause. you are sacrificing many things to that altar, and one of them is the ability to have controversial opinions taken seriously by mass groups of people. this isn't some kind of pro-conservative dress rant. but if the people whose minds you are attempting to change dismiss you out of hand, it doesn't matter if they are wrong. it only matters that they have stopped listening.

2) don't be a fucking child. do you want to know what killed the anti-globalisation movement? the battle of seattle. not because the sheer power of the activist mindset so scared the foolish capitalist that they went crazy with security, but because the entire movement was discredited with every smashed window, and every store that was closed afterwards. it got harder for protesters to show up to summits, because the police were waiting with teargas and riot gear. reading press from the time, the activist explanation was that they had done so much already, that they had the bad guys running scared. wrong. they had the completely harmless people, the ones they might have convinced, horrified that the anti-globalisation movement was really just a bunch of young, militant psychos who were going to trash their mini-mall. if you throw your fucking tantrum, if you attack goods and services in a misplaced outrage at CEOs, the people are going to see you, rightfully, as a threat. if the counterargument is that non-violent protest isn't working, then refer to the first sentence of this point. only children resort to violence against those who are merely ignoring them, not acting directly against them.

3) pick a battle you can win. you will not eliminate capitalism in north america, and then worldwide. you won't. impressive goal, i see your reasons, i've read naomi klein too, i get it. but it isn't going to happen, at least not by your hand, for many reasons. first, you haven't presented a good alternative yet. if ethical capitalism (yes, it IS possible) isn't an option for you, if all capitalism is evil, than you need to start your own society, because you are asking for the dissolution of this one. when you try to change something that has become intrinsic (i am not saying natural) to the state of the world, you are essentially asking everyone who is on the working side of the equation, to throw away the system they know and work within, for no guaranteed gain. i understand fears of being co-opted by those in power, and why working within the system is ideologically abhorrent to many. regardless. if you want to change things, you need people on your side. if you are going to try to win them over with the promise to tear down their house, without any blueprints for a rebuild, they aren't going to listen.

4) don't do it for you. i don't mean to suggest that protest is inherently selfish. i'm just making the point that almost every protest is designed in a way that appeals to those who agree, and further alienates everyone who doesn't. if your numbers were so great that you didn't DESPERATELY NEED to bring those on the boundary into the fold, the would would be the way you want it. don't throw a protest that, at best, serves to recruit more people who are either identical in ideology to you, or, at worst, a mass of idiot teens who are rebelling simply for the temporary buzz of stepping outside the mainstream. the design of an act of protest is usually why most people walk by with half a glance and a chuckle at the one last true believer from the vietnam era, shaking his ponytail as he screams into the 11th grade masses.

i would be more than happy to work with someone to create a more viable, and less self-defeating plan for an act of organised dissent, if and when anyone contacts me to do so. i respect ethics and hard work aimed at a desire for a better world. i don't respect the way protest has become a dead horse race.