Adbusters chooses sides

Remember George W. Bush's speech after 9/11, in which he said "you're with us, or you're with the terrorists"? Adbusters magazine, darling of the anti-globalization left, appears to have thrown in its lot with the terrorists.

This article on Jewish "neo-conservatives", for example, would be right at home in the most militant segments of the Arab media (and ten bucks says it will be reprinted in Middle Eastern newspapers - in countries which normally wouldn't allow anyone to read a magazine like Adbusters - before too long):

A lot of ink has been spilled chronicling the pro-Israel leanings of American neocons and fact that a the disproportionate percentage of them are Jewish. Some commentators are worried that these individuals – labeled ‘Likudniks’ for their links to Israel’s right wing Likud party – do not distinguish enough between American and Israeli interests. For example, whose interests were they protecting in pushing for war in Iraq?
[...]
Here at Adbusters, we decided to tackle the issue head on and came up with a carefully researched list of who appear to be the 50 most influential neocons in the US (see above). Deciding exactly who is a neocon is difficult since some neocons reject the term while others embrace it. Some shape policy from within the White House, while others are more peripheral, exacting influence indirectly as journalists, academics and think tank policy wonks. What they all share is the view that the US is a benevolent hyper power that must protect itself by reshaping the rest of the world into its morally superior image. And half of the them are Jewish.

The magazine's "carefully researched list" includes the likes of Gary Bauer, Rupert Murdoch and William Bennett as "neo-conservatives" - and also features a little mark next to those who just happen to be Jooooooos.

Then there's this passage from an article titled "World War IV", which describes how the masses can rise up and beat the "evil forces of capital". (If I sat down and tried to write a parody of Marxist nonsense, I really couldn't do better than this.)

We, the people, the multitudes, can win this war. Our power comes from our numbers There are more than six billion of us. If we organize ourselves, weave myriad networks and learn how to use them, if we invent an Internet voting system that can hold billion-person plebiscites, if we begin a slow march towards global governance and a world parliament, nothing can stop us.

To get the ball rolling, we initiate persistent, low level civil disobedience on all fronts. A pissed-off global population can force capital to retreat by:

hacking websites
jamming broadcasts
placing organic stink bombs in bathrooms, offices and stores
plugging up toilets
crashing spy surveillance systems with spoof emails
refusing to pay fees and taxes
obstructing and sabotaging

In time we will learn to modulate our resistance — to raise it to the point where airport-type security systems are needed just to let customers into stores, until the daily pain and cost of doing business as usual becomes simply too high to bear. Then, at our pleasure, we will lower our resistance to reward the concessions being made. We don’t have to get the shit kicked out of us like we did in Miami. Instead, we grow the power and sophistication of our networks and rachet up our disobedience. We attack in the dead of night and under the noonday sun. We hit them before, during and after world events. Bit by bit, hit by hit we bend them to our will.

Strategically, the tables have turned. Military might does not count for much anymore. The global capital machine is now so finely tuned, so delicately balanced, that just one virus, one blackout, one bushfire, one mad cow, one hand-held rocket launcher, one gram of plutonium, has the potential to crash the whole deal. From now on, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to keep it together.

That’s the dirty, anarchic, kick-ass side of World War IV. [emphasis added]

Can we please start calling these people what they really are: fascists?

(via Michael Totten)

Posted by damian at February 25, 2004 07:35 AM