Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Surfing waves of change
The fantabulous Alan Moore asked me to write an article for his blog the other day…
“As cumbersome institutions creak in the wake of recent economic and political shake-ups, we’re left with a choice: whether to deem the wave of change a lethal tsunami come to wipe us out, or surf it like the greatest wave of our lives.
Disorientation is an unavoidable symptom of the status quo being disrupted; and disruption is both inevitable and necessary.
In camp tsunami lie flailing agencies, publishers, record companies, governments, educational establishments and other intermediaries struggling to stay relevant and guard the floodgates, as networked surfers form tribes and leverage their power to organise without organisations.
We’re square pegs in round holes, operating within industrial revolution legacy systems. Mass production, mass marketing, mass broadcasting; co-existing with ultra-connectedness. The truth is out there. Google it. Then apply your newly honed bullshit filter to weed out the facts from the crap…”
You can read the full thing here.
The revolution will not be televised
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
by Gil Scott-Heron
Landmark victory for Adbusters
Adbusters Media Foundation, the publisher of Adbusters magazine, has won an important appeal in its case against the CBC and Global Television Network. Adbusters initiated a landmark legal action against the media companies for refusing to sell airtime to Adbusters for its social marketing television campaigns. Read in full on the Adbusters site here.
The vast majority of media companies decided not to report the victory. Hmmmm.
The Pirate Party
The Pirate Party, a party that supports free internet downloads and file-sharing, was on track to win a seat in the European Parliament, an exit poll said Sunday.
The Pirate Party has a strong following among younger Swedish voters, scoring 7.4 per cent, public broadcaster SVT’s exit poll said, and were the strongest party in the 18-30 age group.
Swedish voters elect 18 seats to the European Parliament.
Check out their agenda and pass it on.
The future isn’t what we predict, it’s what kids do. Resistance is futile! Talking of which, my good friend and fellow Scrmblr Danny talks about futile marketing (not necessarily a bad thing) here.
Lie down dead at Canary Wharf
Capitalism – The Musical
Danny Aronson from Tel Aviv has been working on Capitalism – The Musical, releasing songs and videos like his latest, The Sissy Cheats. Hats off to Danny and anyone else who decides to get up and go create something. If Capitalism – the Musical, works towards exposing and bringing down the morally objectionable at the top of the pyramid… I’d like to see a sequel celebrating the success (in time) of the bottom-up we-society… Punk Capitalism – the Musical. What do you reckon Danny?
Punk Capitalism
Listen to these distinguishing features / central axioms of Capitalism:
Each person owns his or her own labor and therefore is allowed to sell the use of it to employers [Take this a bit further forward along the curve and companies don't tend to have employees, just pools of talented people who do stuff]
The best allocation of resources is achieved through consumers having free choice, and producers responding accordingly to meet collective consumer demand [Yes, we like free choice... so much so that we're kissing goodbye to the mass and saying hello to the long tail. Again, pools of talented producers / citizens of the world meet collective demands of the people]
And…
Globalisation in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones. It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. [Now that's not so bad, is it?]
Looks like we need to redefine a few things. We humans are frighteningly susceptible to the power of suggestion. As Malcolm Gladwell illustrated in Blink, if you ask a bunch of people to walk down a corridor, sit a test and walk back up the corridor – the fact the test contained hidden references to old age will make them walk back much more slowly. Imagine what we’ve anchored to words like ‘Globalisation’ and ‘Capitalism’, evidenced by those irritating grown-ups who rant like freshers, contradictions galore, without actually doing anything.
Matt Mason talks about Punk Capitalism in his book The Pirate’s Dilemma. He says, ‘Punk’s independent spirits spurred a DIY revolution, encouraging us to reject authority and hierarchy, advocating that we can and should produce as much as we consume. Since punk, this idea has been quietly changing the very fabric of our economic system, replacing outdated ideas with 21st century upgrades of Punk Capitalism… There is a misconception that all changes we are experiencing as a society are the result of new technologies… the changes are profoundly cultural.’
So there we go. Punk Capitalism is the new way.
Copyright ResonanceBlog 2009
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