Comments on: Harbingers of revolution: economic crisis or General Consumption Strike?

By: Mario C

Mario C — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 22:54:38 +0000

“…spend less, live more. Consider doing without your high-speed internet, cell phone service, beer or wine, restaurants, gasoline, new clothes, fancy electronics and tourism. Think of the money you will save, the fewer hours you’ll need to work, and the more time you’ll have to live.” Well, thanks Captain Obvious, but I thought I was doing that. I am sorry, but whoever wrote this is a naive rich kid who doesn’t understand what regular people go through to live and is a little confused about how to make this world better. Me, I’m down to the essentials and I’m still hurting. What now?
Besides, I think readers of this blog would agree things like the internet are not luxuries. How to get a better job, connect with like minded people, learn and grow without it? Likewise travel is vital to the growth of one’s cultural IQ, something this country is sorely lacking.
So before we all end up in shanties or on junks, hunting the local marsh for food, we should be working on reinventing the tools and building our own garage workshops to satisfy these means. And look at advertising as the background noise that it is, and learn the value of turning it off. Now I’m turning into Captain Obvious…

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:29:23 +0000

Shop until you drop! Spend every cent you have and borrow until the absolute limits are reached! Be patriotic and support the system now it needs you most! Fill the pockets of the high-rollers until they are satiated and retired in Dubai! Buy Chinese products, we owe them! Go bankrupt, and then suffer the consequences, it really doesn’t matter, your government will print fiat based money until the dollar is worth less than toilet paper! The Great Depression is imminent!
We are locked in to a doomsday scenario, ending with two classes in our society, Those who live in Dubai and only visit America to inspect their work-camps, and the rest of us! At the crux of the matter is our oil addiction. We must resolve this either by annihilating the populations of the oil rich countries and taking the oil, or by getting off of oil in our society and using Solar, wave, wind, nuclear etc., Those are our choices: pay off the oil barons and enslave ourselves to a dwindling resource or make the change to new means of transportation in our society!

By: MW

MW — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:14:20 +0000

Consumption Strike Grows
Retail sales declined sharply in September as the General Consumption Strike gains mass participation in the United States.
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot/consumption_strike_grows.html

By: Chris Nakashima-Brown

Chris Nakashima-Brown — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:35:43 +0000

I think Doug is on the right track here. Adbusters always seems like great diagnosis (funny and sharp, albeit shooting at easy targets) but devoid of any viable prescription. They are definitely right about the crisis representing a massive opportunity for real change (though as of yesterday’s stock market recovery there seems to be a big collective “that was a close one” sigh of relief). I fear that change will just be a further consolidation of power in an autocratic (and increasingly privatized/nationalized) executive adept at strumming the hopes and fears of the masses, whether the figurehead be the cranky tortured hate monger or the every-race Kwisatz Haderach. Revolutionary rhetoric will be as important as ever as the pace of change accelerates, and science fiction needs to do its part to frame the debate by spelunking imminent utopias and dystopias. On that point, Doug, you might enjoy parts of this riff published in these pages last year: http://futurismic.com/2007/02/01/rpm-by-chris-nakashima-brown/

By: Douglas Lain

Douglas Lain — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:51:02 +0000

Rereading the statement from the Adbusters crew I see that much of my prescription is also theirs. I would just ad that their emphasis on the positive aspects of an economic decline smacks of their security in the system as it was. Many are struggling to make rents, buy food, and so on, and while false needs don’t help, the drive to consume and participate in the images of a spectacular society is a trap, the starting point must be understanding the real material needs of people, and how the collapse of the false economy will have real and dire consequences.