ADBUSTERS! アドバスターズ！

(日本語は真ん中から）
Adbusters,
contain quite fiery radical ideas and calls for Culture Jamming that are probably illegal in many countries...maybe even in the US, a country where peace activists have been treated as "communists", criminal, anti-American, and even "terrorists". I do appreciate the freedom that exists in the US, after all, considering places like China, Libya, Burma, North Korea, Palestine, I enjoy an amazing amount of freedom. But, there is still a lot of work to do, for ourselves, our brothers and sisters, and for the future.

Challenging existing power structures is probably one of the most risky things you can do, hence the tolerance of gross oppression throughout history. Those structures can be a dictatorship, a voter "elected" government, the mafia, the military, the police, powerful corporations (e.g. United Fruit Company, East India Company, DuPont, Monsanto, Fox News, Coca Cola, Halliburton, Philip Morris, Big Oil, Big Bank, etc), organized religious institutions, the list goes on. BUT! without engaging with entities that consolidate and abuse power, we will not have democracy, freedom, justice, and peace. I will end my rant here:)

I recently finally read through a full Adbusters, The Big Ideas of 2011 Capitalism's Terminal Crisis. Really good and not as intense as Adbusters usually seems to be. Very interesting and thought provoking ideas that I wanted to share with whatever virtual audience I have.

Have you heard of "Culture Jamming"? It's an interesting concept and movement that warrants a pause and perhaps your attention. Here is my lazy wiki-link.
Culture is ultimately what needs to change, and Adbusters have grasped an important approach to engaging with the type of culture/mental environment that is destroying those things we really need: nourishing food, clean water, breathable air, a safe resilient positive community, and a love for life.



About them from their website:

The Media Foundation アドバスターズ・メディア財団

私たちは情報時代の中、
新しい社会活動運動を推進する
アーティスト、活動家、作家、いたずらっ子、学生、
教育家、起業家などの国際ネットワークです。

私たちの目的は、
現在の権力構造を打倒し、
２１世紀の生き方を大きく進化させる事です。

Adbusters Magazine
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Adbusters is a not-for-profit, reader-supported, 120,000-circulation magazine concerned about the erosion of our physical and cultural environments by commercial forces. Our work has been embraced by organizations like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, has been featured in hundreds of alternative and mainstream newspapers, magazines, and television and radio shows around the world.

アドバスターズの雑誌と運動については、
以下のホームページに細かく書かれているので、
呼んでみてください。
ラジカルで面白いですよ！
http://adbusters.cool.ne.jp/info1.htm
あなたもカルチャージャマーになってみませんか？

今回読んだアドバスターズは
２０１１のビッグ・アイディア特集：資本主義のターミナル（末期的な）危機。
そこで幾つか紹介したい文がありました。
何かのいい刺激になればと思います。

日本語訳は少々お待ちください。

In the most likely scenarios, climate change would cause some kind of regional or continental disruption, like a major crop failure; this disruption would cascade through the world's tightly connected economic and political systems to produce a global effect... -Thomas Homer-Dixon (Author of The Upside of Down, one of my favorite books, really awesome!)

Imagine the problem is not physical.....Imagine it goes deeper.....that no one outside of ourselves can effect real change, that our civilization, our government are sick and that we are mentally ill and spiritually dead - that all our issues and crises are symptoms of this deeper sickness. The problem is that we cannot imagine a future where we possess less but are more. -Charles Bowden

We're only truly secure when we can look out our kitchen window and see our food growing and our friends working nearby. -Bill Mollison (co-founder of the Permaculture movement)

1,147 is the number of former members of congress, congressional staffers, Treasury Dept. and other federal employees hired as lobbyists on behalf of the financial services sector since the beginning of 2009. Why do the people of America put up with this level of corruption at the heart of their democracy? -Adbusters (Source: Center for Responsive Politics and Public Citizen)

...At its most fundamental level, an economy is a system of production of at least some useful outputs. When so much labor is devoted to the buying and selling of pieces of paper, with the sole aim of converting money into money, something profoundly irrational is taking place. -Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates "The ABCs of the Economic Crisis"

What does it mean
to be Human?
What matters
in a life?
What matters
in a death?
How to Love?
How can we be of service to
one another?
And the world?

人である事は如何なる意味を持つのだろう
人生においてが何が大事であろう
死ぬ事において何が大事であろう
如何に愛すか
如何にお互いを助け合えよう
そして、如何に世界の為に尽くせるのだろうか

From its modest beginnings, advertising has grown into a one trillion dollar a year worldwide industry and the single biggest psychological experiment ever carried out on the human race. -Adbusters

The society that abolishes every adventure

makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.

全ての冒険を抹殺してしまった社会は

　それ自身の抹殺を唯一の冒険と化してしまう

A meme is a unit of information - a catchphrase, a concept, a tune, a notion of fashion, philosophy or politics. Memes pass through a population in much the same way genes pass through a species.
Memes can change minds, alter behavior, catalyze collective mind-shifts and transform cultures.
Whoever has the memes has the power. -Adbusters

...Only one economist, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, has had the common sense to point out that, even at zero growth, the continued consumption of scarce resources will inevitably result in exhausting them completely. The point is not to refrain from consuming more and more, but to consume less and less - there is no other way of conserving the available reserves for future generations.
This is what ecological realism is about...
Lack of realism consists in imagining that economic growth can still bring about increased human welfare - and indeed that it is still physically possible.

I'll stop there for today.
I hope some of that inspired a new thought or two.

Check out the actual magazine and their website.
http://www.adbusters.org/