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The new futility...

  
  

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Tom Coates
11:24 / 15.10.02
Where to start... A good while ago now, the Berlin Wall fell and I think that for a while after that pretty much everyone of my generation felt dramatically positive about the capacity of the world to just ... I don't know ... improve... I think it was probably the first time that had been genuinely felt by large groups of the world population since the end of the second world war. This faith kind of emerged that maybe our leaders weren't complete hypocrites, that maybe there was something to aspire to with a decent chance of actually happening and that we were all working towards a more open, peaceful society.

I don't know when it happened, but I think that's all gone again now. I don't think that 9/11 did it, but I think the cynicism of some of the actions since that have helped it go. I currently have little or no faith in the ability of individuals to be able to do anything valuable or useful. I feel impotent, jaded - genuinely disinterested even, in what's going on in the world. There's too much information to be able to comprehend. There's too many interpretations. There are too many lies, too many agendas. Could this decade become known for the new futility?
 
 
w1rebaby
11:45 / 15.10.02
I think it's increased access to information that does it; it's becoming increasingly clear that those who try to portray themselves as acting on our behalf still frequently tell us direct lies and act according to their own agenda, and that there really is no limit to this. There's no matter so serious that someone won't lie and cheat about it, even if it involves the deaths of millions of people. It's always been like that but it's been hard to tell; democracies are vulnerable to this sort of expose and the governments have found it easier to conceal in the past.

You could look at it from the perspective that we're in something of an in-between stage. We have the increased information but the governments haven't caught up. They think they can still act like that. Gradually, as long as access to information and the ability to remove rulers from power is maintained (or achieved), it will not be in their interests to act like that any more. Okay, we're a long way off there.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
11:47 / 15.10.02
Whoah! You really know how to cheer up a guy's day!

Seriously, I think you've got a point, though I don't think it's quite as bleak as you make out. There is an incredible amount of cynicism about politics, but young people ARE still politicised- maybe a minority, but enough to keep the flame going.

I think "futility" is a good choice of word- not the apathy of the 90s, but a sense that whatever we do it may not be enough. And yes, I've pretty much lost faith in all politicians, even more so in recent months. Think we could persuade Tony Benn to come back?
 
 
The Natural Way
11:48 / 15.10.02
I felt the same positivity when apartheid collapsed in S Africa and (to a lesser extent) when the Tories were ousted from the top spot. Yep...it's all gone now. It's not just the lies, etc. though, is it? It's the fact that, whatever way you look at it, everything seems sooo fucked. The enviroment: "oh, fuck that, the american public/economy comes first". Terrorism: "it's everywhere and we can go to war on it! Hooray!" War, generally: "we just LOVE that!" Everyday the tabloids encourage ignorance, hatred, misunderstanding and bigotry... And I DO check. God, I've got a real profit of doom thing going on. Just when we should all hang togther because it's becoming increasingly lethal not to, and when the most drastic, mature action needs to be taken to heal the rifts between disparate countries/worlds, ideological or otherwise, we seem further away than ever from sorting anything out and communication appears to have completely broken down.


Aaah....catharsis. Feel better now.

Now I can get on w/ living in my blissful bubble.
 
 
illmatic
11:55 / 15.10.02
Tom - I've had similar thoughts myself. I would say the optimism of the last decade also tied in with a pretty steady run of economic expansion especially in the 'states and it's knock on effect over here.

It's also the sense of having had no visible enemy for so long. I'm old enough to remeber the nuclear threat and the Cold War (brings back memories of hearing the phrase "the Iron Curtain" on Raido 4 while sitting in the kitchen with my mum, so not that old). When Bush began his al-qadeia coampaign,and then with Saddam as public enemy no 1, I've been thinking "ah, this is what it's like" ie. a flip back to that sense of global adverserial conflicts, along with the feeling maybe this is how the world always runs.

Naomi Klein mentioned something related in an article in The Guardian last week. It's well worth looking at, I can't find it on the website but considering what you've been thinking it merits a trip to the library. It takes as it's theme as fences and barriers, the increasing erosion of shared goods and spaces by private companies. She finds great cause for optimism in the collective oppositon that comes together to oppose these acts.

More later.
 
 
The Natural Way
12:06 / 15.10.02
I agree w/ that, BUT I think our anxieties are generated by a variety of different sources. (as I've mentioned above) It's no longer big bad America and Russia w/ their big bad guns - now it's big bad India and Pakistan and big bad Israel and big bad hatred between the "civilised" West and the Moslem world. Basically, there IS more to worry about.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
12:21 / 15.10.02
In a way, this is a good thing. The glamour of political action needs to fade - making a better world, sadly, is just hard work. And we still have to do it. Every last person on Earth.
 
 
The Falcon
13:31 / 15.10.02
I think this is partly responsible for the rise of magick in the counterculture, interestingly enough. People (well, I know I) feel disempowered, and lack any faith in political solutions. Remember Bill Hicks': 'All politicians are liars and killers'?

It's true. I used to believe in Socialism (and that doesn't even exist anymore,) I used to believe in the Labour party - I remember when they won that first election how delighted everyone was. I remember Robin Cook's (aye, right!) 'ethical foreign policy' noises. And then I remember we (the UK, that is) sold weaponry to Indonesia, so they could massacre East Timoreans.

It makes me fucking furious.
 
 
illmatic
13:56 / 15.10.02
Duncan: Could you elaborate on your comments on Magick? Do you think it's a response to disempowerment, and if so is it effective or a just a delusion, IYO? If this gets in a big thing, we'll start another thread. The interchange between personal and political one thing that inspires optimism in me. (threadrot:In the early 90's I think this happened for me with raves and E, perhaps now it's happening with this place, amongst other things - end rot)

Nick and me dear old Nan: yeah, wars and conflicts on a mulitude of fronts and the Islamic "threat" such as it is, make an interesting contrast with the monolithic "Iron Curtain". I don't know if it's more or less to worry about though - ecological disaster and al-qaedia vs mutually assured destruction? It's more that we don't have anyone to put our money on anymore - no left wing in politics worth a shit to speak of, no sense of a popular voice (maybe something emerging with the anti-war protests though??).

One thing I didn't get into above was the whole PFI/buyout of public services thing. This seems to be a global trend, not just Tony Blair's personal Holy Grail. One of the most depressing things lately, though it's more subtle than the thousands dead in NY/Afghanistan/Bali is the way Blair managed to spin the mass sell off of public services as a brave new step at the Labour conference. My impression is that this whole thing is so couched in legalese, no one can tell what the fuck is going on, let alone fight it - see how fucked Ken's been over the whole Tube thing.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
15:37 / 15.10.02
I think Blair has a lot to answer for in this respect- I mean, with Bush et al, you get what you expected. Nobody's slightly surprised that he's a warmongering bastard.

But to finally kick out the Tories (and yes, that was euphoric) and replace them with a RIGHT-WING Labour government- that's fucking Edward Lear stuff, that is.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
16:43 / 15.10.02
Yeah, think the 'Labour' govt. might be a major factor in UK posters 'futility', given the age of alot of us. I can remember sitting in my ex-student union pub on election night '97, with it rammed to the rafters with people as the results rolled in, and a geniune feeling of excitement/joy/fulfillment at having contributed to the Labour election win. Geniunely elated.

Campaigned/leafleted for the labour candidate in my home town, as I knew enough about the situation there to feel that I wanted to actively support her, as well as out of a loathing (on personal and political grounds) for Nicholas Soames. Ugh. So was fantastic to see her beat him. Watching Portillo lose his seat, also fantastic.

Was talking with someone who was there recently about how disillusioned those of us who were there are with the govt. we *helped* to put in power, and this makes futility hard to fight at times. If I'd been a bit older, (22 at the time) I'd have been more cynical/realistic about it, if i'd been younger I probably wouldn't have been as involved/invested in it (ie was the first election I voted in, and came just post university for me, therefore after the most politically-involved period of my life.)

Suspect this demographic might apply to quite a few people around here.
 
 
w1rebaby
17:19 / 15.10.02
I'm thinking about my personal reactions to politics and world events, and they're more linked to my own moods than anything else. Sometimes the world seems wide open, with bad things to be challenged, good things to be celebrated, but always full of possibilities. At other times it seems like an endless crushing swamp of corruption and cynicism. There doesn't seem to be any actual difference between the external events that bring on these two attitudes. Personal details, though, do.

Maybe we're looking more in the mirror than through the window sometimes.
 
 
Perfect Tommy
17:37 / 15.10.02
January 1, 2000 is represented in my head by an aquaintance wearing a blue metallic shirt shouting, "We're living in the sci-fi age!" So what the fuck happened?

I want to point at that whole "stealing-of-the-US-presidential-election" thing as a big signpost. November/December 2000, I felt a sort of giddiness at how surreal the whole situation was, not knowing who the president was. A land without a king! It was great! But once they swore in "President" Bush, it wasn't any fun anymore. Enter apathy and futility.

At least, here in the States. Looks like my theory goes out the window if it's everyone in the world feeling disempowered at once.
 
 
grant
17:52 / 15.10.02
I think it's the cyclic thing - the end of the rave decade, just like punk/new wave grew off the decline of disco. Republican administration, dusting off my old Alternative Tentacles sampler album - and it's still relevant!
Freaky.
 
 
Kit-Cat Club
18:08 / 15.10.02
George Monbiot on the new GATS negotiations which will make it practically impossible for anyone to stand up against privatisation of services anywhere in the world.

Slightly curious as to how he imagines this 'global democratic revolution' is going to come about...
 
 
Shortfatdyke
19:16 / 15.10.02
I would agree with Fridge that perhaps we have too much information about too many things to be that optimistic. I find I've stopped reading about a lot of political stuff because I feel rather overwhelmed with it and incapable of changing the world in the way I thought I could/would when I was younger.

Is this, though, also a result of getting older? To understand more of why the world is at it is, that the good people are often crushed.

A lot of people in all areas of left-wing politics feel terribly let down by 'New Labour'. I recall the '97 election, people were singing in the streets. I'm older than many on this board, and I remember the day Margaret Thatcher came to power and all the misery of those years and I had major reservations about Blair but I was quite hopeful that there was finally light at the end of the tunnel. The disappointment that many of us feel may never go away. And of course Bill Clinton seemed like a breath of fresh air after the likes of Reagan and Bush Snr and look who's President now. Bad times.

This is one of the reasons I'm leaving London for the wilds. It's a deliberate step away.
 
 
Murray Hamhandler
20:52 / 15.10.02
After refusing to vote in what eventually was proven to be an even more pointless election than I originally imagined it would be (Bush v. Gore, if it needs to be said), I decided that the responsible thing to do would be to increase my awareness (which, although by no means prodigious now, was pretty much nil at that point) of politics in my own country and in the world at large. Which, as you can probably imagine, left me shocked and reeling. But also angry and more determined to learn more. To get involved.

When 9/11 occurred, I was shocked but not surprised. I'd put enough twos and twos together to figure that something like that was going to occur in the U.S. at some point. Unfortunately, I also fairly accurately predicted the possible impact of those events on this country and the world at large (especially given our current "leadership"). If anything, though, I erred on the side of caution. Things are much, much worse than I thought they would be. And it seems to be getting worse. And far, far too many people are unquestioningly accepting of it all. And there seems to be no end to how bad things could get. And now I wish I had no knowledge about any of this. I generally don't subscribe to the "ignorance is bliss" philosophy, but in this case, I have to wonder, "Why not?". Why not die w/a smile on my face as the Empire comes crumbling violently down around me and everyone else? I don't want to think about world issues because I feel helpless and it just depresses the hell out of me.

On the other hand, though, I want to make the personal more political. I'm studying to be a teacher. I want to be a father someday (at least if the world doesn't go too much to hell before then). The thought of someday being able to make smaller but hopefully positive impacts on individuals and their approach to the world around them makes me feel a little less hopeless about my inability to change the world at large. I guess that's all any of us that don't have access to weapons of mass destruction can hope to do.
 
 
Murray Hamhandler
20:56 / 15.10.02
Enter apathy and futility. ...At least, here in the States. Looks like my theory goes out the window if it's everyone in the world feeling disempowered at once.

I don't think so. I'd wager that a lot of that worldwide sense of futility has at least a little something to do w/all of the fingers that the U.S. has in the pie that is the world at large. We're at the center of the cyclone here, but...well, I always heard it was calmest in the eye of the storm, yeah?
 
 
The Falcon
23:11 / 15.10.02
Mr. Illmatic, it's a fairly simple point that I was making, and one that occured while looking at Grant Morrison's work - it's blatantly obvious that at one point he believed in some kind of Socialism (not that I've any desire to put words in his mouth.) He's also from a backgroun in Glasgow, which Labour has a history of overwhelming majorities in.
Whether magick is a rationalisation/defence mechanism that the mind chooses to/has to revert to when you realise just how fucking appalling the people who tell you what to do are, and how happy the majority are to do just what they're told, I don't know. It seems like the only semblance of hope to me - I was an idealistic child, once.
Lots of people don't believe in protest marches anymore - I don't. Not really. And leftist groups tend to dissolve in squabbles over minutiae, leaving these fragmentary parts that don't amount to awful much. Anyone with an interest in Labour policies, rather than the icon that is 'the Labour Party' should long ago have abandoned them for (in Scotland) either a)the SSP, b)the SNP or c)the Lib Dems. But, of course, they haven't, because Labour provides that middle-class bubble of comfort for so many.

That's what Tory voters used to say: 'We've done all right under them." I'm all right, Jack, fuck alla you, etc. That mentality sickens me.
 
 
Nelson Evergreen
00:41 / 16.10.02
It's true. We're all fucked. But never mind. There'll surely always be a place for idealism, even as a heavily downgraded version of whatever form it's taken for previous generations, ie: you can't "make the world a better place", but you can make it a slightly less miserable one. A very slightly less miserable one. If you're prepared to get together in your dozens / hundreds / thousands / whatever, and bust your guts endlessly in pursuit of it.

Tommy and Deric: the Florida vote counting debacle was, I'm sure, a "last straw" for people all over the planet, not just in the U.S.

Little did we know then how many more "last straws" we had to look forward to.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
14:58 / 16.10.02
Ironically, I feel more depressed and listless the more information I feel I have, a few years ago I'd watch the Breakfast News on telly, buy a paper and watch at least one of the evening news programs. Now I get the headlines once or twice a day and only watch on if there's something attention grabbing. I feel better. Arguably I'm less well informed (though I do browse a few news sites of different flavours during a quiet work day) but I don't feel so bad about things and my relative inability to affect change.

I find that news media, especially the BBC, tends to bludgeon you down with the 'great tide of history', despite their ads, I've never seen anything exciting on the news. The fall of the Iron Curtain, massacres in Rwanda... even something completely out of nowhere like September the 11th, within half an hour the television has it packaged and presented and is explaining the history and what has led to this, at least with the MBC news feed the presenters were occasionally having to go off-mike because they knew that people they knew were dying in the WTC...

Anyway, this is probably veering off topic. Blame your TVs!
 
 
Fist Fun
16:20 / 16.10.02
Ironically, I feel more depressed and listless the more information I feel I have, a few years ago I'd watch the Breakfast News on telly, buy a paper and watch at least one of the evening news programs. Now I get the headlines once or twice a day and only watch on if there's something attention grabbing. I feel better. Arguably I'm less well informed (though I do browse a few news sites of different flavours during a quiet work day) but I don't feel so bad about things and my relative inability to affect change.

That might be more to do with changes in your life rather than in the outside world. Obviously I don't know about you but for me life changes, basically going from student to full time work, have completely changed the extent to which I do/can focus on current events, the world, etc. Or perhaps the focus has just changed.

Perhaps the growth of the internet is a factor as well. Previously we would buy a paper or watch television for news. They are both quite deliberate acts. Now we increasingly get news via the web but in a less premeditated, deliberate way. Perhaps you will spend a couple of minutes every hour or so checking a news site while you are at work. You've probably looked at a lot of news during the day, read a few articles but it doesn't seem as real as sitting down with a newspaper. Accumulation by stealth rather than deliberate act.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:25 / 16.10.02
I think a lot of this comes down to how you view your own idealism... (oh, and btw, Nick- I see where you're coming from in terms of activism as fashion statement being a bad idea, as in supermodels who'd "rather go naked than wear fur" now wearing fur just cos it's fashionable... but I think the fact that, while hard work, it can be fun, should be stressed... I dunno about anyone else, but I've always worked hardest at jobs I've enjoyed...)

As an anarchist, I know that my ideal society is not going to occur in my lifetime. It may well never occur. But should that be a reason to give up? One day, maybe in hundreds of years' time, if the human race is still here, it may have learned to take responsibility for its actions. Does the fact that I'm not gonna be here to see it mean I shouldn't try to facilitate that?

Fuck no.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
17:02 / 16.10.02
I have not fought through this whole thread, so apologies if I duplicate someone's views.

Tom, I think you were fooled by optimism when the Wall came down. Why should the collapse of an ideological system have any particular effect on the balance of 'bad stuff' in the world? It wasn't a victory for liberty, only a transition from one tyranny to another, because ANY system of governance is, to some extent, tyrannical. I had a similar glowy feeling listening to Bill Clinton's inaugural speach and I found it profoundly disturbing. There are degrees, I guess, but in terms of personal power and liberty, these broad strokes are pretty meaningless.

There are only two ways, I think, to have a direct effect on the direction of world affairs. One is to become a policy maker of some sort, and the other is to become an entertainer. Any other path allows only very small opportunites for very small changes, which must be built up slowly and carefully, and with great patience.
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
19:10 / 16.10.02
Tom, I understand your initial feelings, and maybe it's just because I regard all the cynical moves in the past year-plus as being those of a powerful minority, but a minority nonetheless, but when I look around and talk to people about current events I get the feeling that people are thinking much more about the state of society that we have allowed ourselves to get to this point. Perhaps it's just that I live in a generally progressive town and travel within fairly progressive circles, but I've seen people speaking out against the downward spiral that I normally would never have figured for humanists, while people I regarded as the hippy archetypes are whooping it up for World War. Still, I think there is a feeling gaining momentum that standard operational procedures are simply not creating a world that the mass majority feels is adequate any longer, be it in areas of energy, human rights, basic needs, education, security or governmental powers. With every day now that we sink into bleaker days I become more sure that the upswing of that trend will be something utterly unprecedented. Coincidence that a reasonable timeline would place such a time around 2012? I don't know whether I hope so or not. But now is the time to channel that frustration into thought and demonstration that those of us who know better will not be shut up just because the driver of the car has decided it'd be quicker to drive off a cliff than find a bridge.

I am not discouraged. I have never felt more correct in my life, and to fuck with them who'd try any lie to make me think otherwise.
 
 
Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes
22:02 / 18.10.02
none
 
 
Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes
22:05 / 18.10.02
What used to make me feel a sense of futility is the constant criticism and undermining of all ideology. I also think that there is a distinct lack of decent theorising in modern left wing and even anarchist thinking. However I was reading an article in Flux magazine by Alexander Bard and Jan Soderqvist (writers of a book called Netocracy), they suggest that it is “time to write, read and spread ideology, rather than throwing ourselves into the far sexier limelight of the physical fight itself.”

We need to identify obsolete methods of achieving change, abandon nostalgia, realize how modern power structures work and ascertain how to effect constructive change in a constantly shifting world. But first we need to lay the foundations with well thought out ideology. We need to temper our own ideologies and agendas. I believe that the scope of this website to create not only ideology but also full on change, is immense.

Nick is right when he says it will be hard work. It is liberating to believe that we need to think of our own solutions, no matter how hard it will be. We have a job to do.
 
 
Baz Auckland
22:42 / 18.10.02
It seems that the mood of change goes up and down in cycles. It's seemed a bit down since last September that anything will change for the better, but I think that if Iraq is still standing by the spring than the world is heading back to better things...

A friend of mine is convinced that the way to change the world is to make your life the example and try and get friends and family to make small changes in their lives.
There was an interview with David Suzuki in the student paper here the other day in which he says that the way to save the environment now is to just get a million people to make a small change, and the rest will follow.

(he was referring to the last election in which one of the parties said that anyone could hold a national referendum on anything as long as they got 300,000 signatures.... within a month, there was an online petition with 1.5 million signatures to get the leader of this party, Stockwell Day, to change his name to Doris. Suzuki said that if we can get 1.5 million to sign a petition like this, we can get 1.5 million to change their lives to save the environment)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
01:07 / 19.10.02
Panarchy: "Nick is right when he says it will be hard work."

Of course it will. As far as I can tell, the only point where I disagree with Nick seems to be that hard work can also be fun. And, yes, dammit, glamourous.

This has (and I'm not meaning this in reference to Nick, as I don't know what his politics are, and, to be fair, it's probably UNfair of me to use his post as an example, so, Nick, apologies in advance, yeah?) long been my problem with the left (and a fair few anarchists too, it must be said)- people forget that making life better should be a FUN activity. Otherwise it defeats the object, hence the majority of socialists these days being horribly miserable though well-meaning.

Of COURSE it's hard work. Most things worth doing are. But there's no reason why it shouldn't be seen as a "cool" thing to do. In fact, there's probably EVERY reason. I mean, that's how the other side works, isn't it? Hearts and minds. I'm optimistic enough to believe that given time, and information, people will generally come down to their OWN point of view. Which could be something I despise.

Shit. Sorry, I'm rambling now, and have forgotten my original point. But the stuff I did manage to get out coherently, I stick with.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
01:29 / 19.10.02
I suppose that the first thing that I really want to address here is age. I grew up in a severely left wing household, a house of outspoken labour supporters through the 80's and 90's right until Blair became leader of the party. My parents had a sixth sense about Blair and unfortunately they have been proved right.

Yeah, think the 'Labour' govt. might be a major factor in UK posters 'futility'

As a twenty-one year old I see this everyday, not just here but everywhere, there is no credible left wing. I have never been able to vote for a party that I would wish to be a member of. After much humming and haaing a friend has joined the labour party with a view to change it from within. I won't join because every single member of the cabinet makes my skin crawl. We both know that right now a vote for labour is a vote for major policies we disagree with. We carry on voting because a vote for labour is not a vote for the current tory party... just about. However this doesn't antertain my views on our Tony as you will see below.

[I feel] incapable of changing the world in the way I thought I could/would when I was younger. Is this, though, also a result of getting older? To understand more of why the world is at it is, that the good people are often crushed.

When Thatcher's government was in power there was this resigned feeling that it was going to happen anyway but the left had some kind of strength behind it because it was being systematically destroyed by the bitch. Now it has been through her destruction and it feels like the futility comes from that. Maybe I'm wrong, I wasn't there for the Poll Tax riots and the extent of my active politial involvement in the 80's happened in a pushchair. From this perspective it feels like it.

What I really mean is that it all feels damn futile and I'm hardly out of my teens and so I think it's actually part of the social makeup rather than simply a result of experience.

Lots of people don't believe in protest marches anymore - I don't. Not really

Everytime I see a march I get this fleeting moment of hope. It doesn't matter how much it changes, to see people say no, divorce themselves from the power struture just that little bit. It's an important comment on our society and - trapped within this ludicrous and imperfect system - we need that.


Yeah this decade could be known for futility, after all Tony Blair's thrown his weight behind a murderous madman, Thatcher's true heir runs the UK and we have to be very careful to remember that. Futility though is something we should try to ignore and we should try and change this world, try and try again despite it. After all we do have to live here and some of us have or will have children and I'd like to see them able to vote for the party that I can't when they get to my age so I'm going to carry on trying to make it better even though I don't think that it will work.

Say - I fancy being education minister, a political party by the name of Barbelith anyone? Anyone?
 
 
Strange Machine Vs The Virus with Shoes
02:45 / 19.10.02
Stoatie, I’ve got nothing against glamour. In fact I think that Decadent Action had a lot going for it. But I think that buying into a traditional idea of revolutionary chic is a major downfall.
Cool at this point in time is so wrapt up in commercialism that it has become redundant in revolutionary terms. Enjoyment has not. Cool seems to be linked with a striving to gain acceptance from a cultural elite. Even if you redefine culture and become the new cultural elite, cool is still a source of insecurity. I can see a direct sense of liberation by abandoning “cool” ideology. Diesel clothes are currently cashing in on the protest vibe. Even if we redefine “cool” the marketeers have become so savvy in representing this that they will be able to recuperate it into their scheme. Maybe it is time to reread Lenin (after all he did succeed, and was a brilliant strategist).

I believe we need to undermine the sense of “cool” but maybe adopt some of the tactics of the maketeers, and pull the rug from under their feet. The power is no longer held by government/traditional politics and the current market strategists have nothing on the left/anarchist capacity for dialectic. We need to aim at the market agenda, subvert it; they are the new power structure.

I’ve probably contradicted myself in many ways, but people are less concerned with fun than they are with security.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:13 / 19.10.02
"Cool" was propbably a bad choice of word- it implies fashionable, and therefore something which dates very quickly. (Hence my supermodels/fur comment earlier). And yes, security is much more important than fun. But I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive. Look at Crunchy's thread about the WTO mini-ministerial spin-the-bottle thing. There's fun in (direct) action.

Of course, even when it's not fun, you have to do it. But I personally would like to make it fun wherever possible.
 
 
Pepsi Max
13:55 / 20.10.02
Panning for some gold amongst the misery.

Tom: This faith kind of emerged that maybe our leaders weren't complete hypocrites... I currently have little or no faith in the ability of individuals to be able to do anything valuable or useful.

What's missing guys?

Leadership?
Vision?
Support?
Hard cash?
Will?
More information?
Less information?

Are we all gonna end up bitter and cynical at 40?

What do we need to make the world a "Better Place"(TM)?

Chairman Maominstoat: Of course it will. As far as I can tell, the only point where I disagree with Nick seems to be that hard work can also be fun.

Hell, yeah. Not all it's going to be fun. But let's enjoy what we can.

Barry: A friend of mine is convinced that the way to change the world is to make your life the example and try and get friends and family to make small changes in their lives.

Hallelujah!

Brothers and Sisters, I wanna testify:

The fall of the Berlin Wall was a great event. And it reminded us that change on a global scale is possible. Not all the outcomes from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe were good (been to Russia recently?) but if it happened once, then it can goddamn happen again.

Blair/Clinton - yeah, well, I was glad to see the back of the Tories in the UK. But I didn't expect too much. I don't think we can trust our elected leaders anymore (could we ever?). Screw 'em.

So waddya gonna do?

[Personal rant]

I've been sitting on my arse in Sydney for the last month, getting more and more down, finding solace at the bottom of beer glass and whiling away the time with Tetris on my mobile. But no more, ya hear, no more. I wanna feel alive again. I wanna connect with the people around me. My time here is limited (it says so on my visa). Every second counts. I renounce futility and all its (lack of) works.

AAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[/Personal rant]
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:23 / 23.10.02
Barry - think your friend has a brilliant point.

and Pepsi - bloody right.

The individual example is as valid an action as anything else, and a damn fine response to so much stuff that seems geared to get us to lie back and be passive.

Small steps and quiet strength are a damn sight more powerful than setting up our own over-arching structures to replace the ones that grind us down. Harder to do, but potentially alot more earth-shattering. Gettting a lot of people to do manageable things, take on the world one step at a time is a fucking powerful thing to do.

Setting attainable goals, and achieving them, no matter how small, starts a process in the other direction, and snowballs with every action. Attacking the feeling of 'not doing enough' by doing *something*. If the way the world works makes you miserable, do things for yourself that make you happy.
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
15:25 / 23.10.02
And on the protest front, small steps again. Doing a small thing - writing to a leader, for example - is *not* turning your back on the bigger picture. It is taking responsibility for your place in the world, and what you can do for the world. And accepting your own limits and strengths, that any kind of force for change needs all sorts of people at all sorts of levels involved.
 
  

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