Intoxicating Happiness
THE PEOPLE VS. THE CORPORATE COOL MACHINE
from Adbusters
The next revolution will be waged inside your head. It will be, as Marshall McLuhan predicted, a guerrilla information war fought not in the sky or on the streets, not in the forests or around international fishing boundaries on the high seas, but in newspapers and magazines, on the radio, TV and in cyberspace. It will be a dirty, no–holds–barred propaganda war of competing world views and alternative world visions of the future.
There's a clear parallel between "soma" - the pleasure drug issued to citizens of Brave New World - and the mass media as we know it today. Both keep the hordes tranquilized and pacified, and maintain the social order. Both chase out reason in favor of entertainment and disjointed thought. Both encourage uniformity of behavior. Both devalue the past in favor of sensory pleasures now.
this may not be nice, it may not be considerate, it may not even be rational–but damn it, I'm going to do it anyway because it feels right. Direct action is a proclamation of personal independence. It happens, for the first time, at the intersection of your self-consciousness and your tolerance for being screwed over.
Guy Debord, the leader of the Situationist movement, said "Revolution is not showing life to people, but making them live."
a corporation has no soul, no morals. It cannot feel love, or pain, or remorse. A corporation is nothing but a process - an efficient way of generating revenue. We demonize corporations for their unwavering pursuit of growth, power and wealth. Yet, let's face it: they are simply carrying out generic orders. This is exactly what corporations were designed - by us - to do.
the only thing missing is a perceptual shift – a tantalizing glimpse of a new way of being.
posted by undersign @ 12:50 PM
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