RE: <nettime> how to defeat activism

["N Jett" <njett@hotmail.com>]

>It is indeed an example of the success of their
>tactics, and the ludicrous failure of ours, that the world's protest
>movement now amounts to not much more than yet another Americanized,
>Starbucks-style, middle-class lifestyle choice based on the consumption of
>aggressively marketed fad products.

Corporate media is designed to sell... process activism through it and you 
end up with "commodified dissent"... is that your argument? Perhaps it's an 
attempt at subverting pop culture? "Infiltration" as you mentioned elseware 
in your essay.



>And what on Earth is so appealing about
>"negative critique" ideologies that glorify permanent marginalization,
>permanent poverty, permanent failure?  That refuse to advance any positive
>recommendation for fear that one may actually succeed through
>"co-optation"? That view even being called to the negotiating table by
>one's opponent as a destructive act of hostility that must be refused?
>That in fact glorify "The Great Refusal" as an end in itself?
>

I think you might of answered your own question:
"yet another Americanized,
Starbucks-style, middle-class lifestyle choice based on the consumption of 
aggressively marketed fad products."

But one manufactured by groups which seek to maintain a certain form of 
monopoly/oligopoly on the production of the "lifestyle choice". Maybe it 
really is all just about being "cool" and not "selling out"?


_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net