Adbusters Takes Credit Where There Ain't No Credit

Truth be told, I didn't get very far into the article that the above screencap came from. I didn't need to get very far into it to realize that Adbusters, a group I've respected in the past, has stopped being a discerning, critical voice speaking against hegemony and has become part of the problem.

In a blog post from ten days ago (here: http://www.adbusters.org/…trike.html ) they make the claim that they are, in fact, behind the spending slowdown America is experiencing. They claim it all started with their "Buy Nothing Day" and "Turn Off TV Week" and it slowly grew from there.

"Culturejammers" they claim, took things further and began "advocating a General Consumption Strike as the appropriate tool for reshaping the basis of our economies."

Someone even wrote a manifesto that was "printed in the pages of Adbusters, emailed to friends and discussed in cafes."

Wow, cafes, you say? WOW. That's like SERIOUS distribution!

Then they say:

And now, at the brink of an economic collapse, increasing numbers are joining the Consumption Strike. Already our actions are having profound consequences. The New York Times reports that consumer spending is down sharply, the first quarterly decline in two decades link and that consumer borrowing fell for the first time in a decade. And according to the Wall Street Journal our general decrease in consumption is putting retailers out of business and pushing mall vacancy rates to their highest level in seven years.

Pardon me while I ROFLMAO.

Guys at Adbusters, I hate to break it to you, but people aren't rejecting capitalism. They're not following your proud teachings.

People aren't buying stuff because of one simple reason:

SHIT IS EXPENSIVE.

They're not turning off their TVs because you guys told them to. They're doing it because the INTERNET IS COOLER.

I didn't sell my car in 2003 because I was moved by some campaign organized by a bunch of activist types. I sold it because I got tired of spending hundreds of dollars a year on a vehicle that spewed toxins and wasted space.

I didn't stop watching TV because of "Turn Off TV Week", I stopped watching TV BECAUSE TV IS STUPID.

Seriously, what you guys have done is become part of the problem.

You guys bitch and moan about how lame the system is--how everything's shallow and consumption-oriented. You tell the system to stop telling you what to do.

But how do you do it? By telling all of us what to do.

You want to replace someone else's hegemonic "ism" with your own. Why not let us all decide for ourselves what is best for ourselves?

Claiming credit for influencing people, is just trying to capitalize (!) on the misfortune we're all experiencing. It's like at the Wall Street rally I went to a few weeks back where people were handing out communism flyers because clearly the ONLY alternative to capitalism is communism!

Fight isms with isms. Good plan, guys.

Ever worry that maybe your ism isn't the one, true ism?

Ever worry that one ism doesn't fit all?

Ever worry that you might be full of shit?

Ever worry that pulling the same old cliched, holier-than-thou crap liberals are famous for might cost you the support of people who actually support your cause?

You should worry...

...because that's what's happened with me.


You guys are just as bad as anyone else trying to get their way. Trying to determine what's right for everyone is simply wrong--even if you insist that it's for our own good.

And this lying you're doing to your own followers, that's just wrong, too. Man, I never even heard of "Turn Off Your TV Week" before reading that article and you want me to believe you're responsible for people watching less TV?

Screw you guys.

Thanks for getting greedy and missing the point of your own existence.

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1 in 100 Americans are in Jail

The screencap comes from the headlines of the February 29, 2008 edition of Demoracy Now (get the rest here: http://www.democracynow.org/…/headlines ). Here is the blurb so search engines can read it:

"A new report has found that a record 1-in-100 American adults are behind bars. According to the Pew Center, the prison population has grown by 25,000, even though the rate of violent crimes has decreased. 1-in-100 black women are jailed, compared to 1-in-350 white women. 1-in-36 Hispanic men and 1-in-15 black men are in jail or prison. The US has the highest rate of prisoners in the world, with more than 2.3 million people behind bars."

I think there's something seriously wrong with a society that has one-hundredth of it's population in jail. I know some people want to just blame only the individual criminals for this, saying that these people have a choice to commit crimes or not. While I agree that they do have that choice--I do wonder about a society that produces people that allows such choices to be acceptable.

I sometimes feel like we're the inverse of the Soviet Union--but in a bad way. There was a case of a Soviet serial killer. If I recall correctly, there was just one cop who was treating a string of murders as serial killings by one man. However, he got no support from authorities because "The Soviet state does not produce serial killers."

Obviously, they were in denial and I think if we only lay blame for crime at the feet of the criminals we may be guilty of the same crime the Soviet "authorities" committed.

And I'm not even going to get into the fact that minorities make up the majority of jail populations because CLEARLY it's their fault. I mean, COME ON--you just KNOW it's in their genes!

/sarcasm
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Student Punished for Web-Based Douchespeak

The above screencap comes from: http://apnews.myway.com/…BKM00.html

Does this bother anyone else? I don't see what a kid says about a school administration or official or teacher has to do with anything. I know they're kids, but don't they have the right to speak their mind?

Sure, the parents have the ultimate say, but forcing kids to muzzle themselves seems like we're training them to be passive and silent when they become adults. Too many passive and silent adults are what allowed the Iraq war to happen (not to mention other things, not quite as bad).

When you consider the tameness of the student's words, it gets even more oppressive sounding. It's not like she dropped the F-bomb or called anyone a C-word--the last time I checked, the words she used could be heard on latenight TV.

Perhaps I'm biased since I'm not sure why people get so hung up about "swear" words. Words are just words, folks. They're not magic spells, they don't put a curse on you, they only have the power we give to them.

I understand that certain words are inappropriate in certain circumstances and I understand the social rules, but I don't understand the legal ones. Dick Cheney told a member of Congress to "fuck off" for crying out loud. Our leaders are setting these examples and we get mad at a teenage girl for calling someone a douchebag?
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