Adbusters #94: Post Normal

OR Y IT L? AR AL U L TF NG GH SI NI

adbusters 路 journal of the mental environment

post normal

NORTH AMER

8.95 ICAN edition $

march/april 2011 路 #94 路 volume 19 number 2

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E O Y pos t

JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

t s e g g i b th e -ti me l a re o h c y t ps n e m i r e p x e n a m u h in y r o t s i h

Brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing ... the worry is that we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently.

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JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX

TEXTEr

GamEr

FaCEbOOK aDDiCT YOuTubE pOTaTO

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The conditions in which children develop have been so corrupted and troubled over the last several decades that the template for normal brain development is no longer present for many kids. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University, actually says that the neglect or abuse of children is the number one public health concern in the United States.

There are about half a million kids in this country receiving heavy-duty antipsychotic medications such as are usually given to adult schizophrenics to regulate their hallucinations. But in this case, children are put on these medications to control their behavior. So what we have is a massive social experiment of the chemical control of children’s behavior, with no idea of the long-term consequences that these heavy-duty antipsychotics will have on kids.

In other words, what we’re doing is correcting a massive social problem that has to do with disconnection in society and the loss of nurturing and we’re replacing that chemically. These stimulant drugs do seem to work and a lot of kids are helped by them. The problem is not so much whether they should be used or not. The problem is that 80 percent of the time a kid is prescribed a medication and that is all that happens.

Nobody talks to the family about the family environment. The school makes no attempt to change the school environment.

Nobody connects with these kids emotionally.

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Canadian statistics just last week showed that within the last five years there has been a 43 percent increase in the rate of dispensing stimulant prescriptions for ADD or ADHD, with most of these going to boys. In other words, what we’re seeing is an unprecedented burgeoning of the diagnosis. More broadly speaking, what I am talking about is the destruction of American childhood, because ADD is just a template. It is just an example of what’s going on. In fact, according to a recent study published in the States, nearly half of American adolescents now meet some criteria for a mental health disorder.

There are parts of the brain in the prefrontal cortex, right in the front of the brain, whose job it is to regulate our social behaviors. They give us empathy. They give us insight. They give us attuned communication with other people. They give us a moral sense. Those are the very conditions that, according to a Notre Dame study, are now lacking. So a lot of kids today are growing up without empathy, without insight into others, without a sense of social responsibility.

Bullying is just one example of that.

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YO! ADBUSTERS, I am an adbuster/activist from Christchurch, New Zealand.

Recently my flatmate and I organized a breakin to the Christchurch Christmas parade. We gathered a group of people from our network of student flats and broke into the parade to hold up our own signs against the commercialization of Christmas. It was awesome. We managed to stay in it for the whole length without getting kicked out – to our great surprise!

From the success of this, we now have an activist base here in Christchurch, and are planning more actions against the corporate rule of Christmas: promoting Buy Nothing Christmas, postering, questionable stuff in malls, billboard jamming, etc.

Next year the plan is to really kick off the mischief, starting a bit of a student movement at the university, and mobilizing our footsoldiers into acts of defiance, reclaiming public space, guerilla gardening, billboard jamming (including abseiling to subvert a couple of huge building sized billboards) and postering.

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A long-term goal is to appeal to the NZ government to create a body that investigates where our imports come from, what is the social, environmental cost of the products we buy. We have a bunch of political science students who know what’s up and how to effect social change.

Next year our network is all moving into the same neighborhood. We’re setting up a community called 8053 (it’s the postcode!), where we will have a community garden, shared resources, potluck dinners … the plan is for everyone in the community to know their neighbors and to help out wherever we can.

We are fired up about this movement, and ready and willing to act to change people’s minds and get them thinking and changing their way of life.

What kinds of actions are you at Adbusters envisioning for the future? Do our schemings have a place in your plan?

Cheers, Riaan Daglish

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Ed Cr Art

As Co

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Fo Ad Ad

HEY ADBUSTERS, I was visiting the Grand Canyon last year when I saw this kid ... I was torn between the urge to snatch his phone away and hurl it into the canyon or just go ahead and pitch both him and his phone into the void. I suppose I made the better choice and just took a picture instead.

Love your work, Derek Burns

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Editor: Kalle Lasn Creative Director: Pedro Inoue Art Director: Will Brown Assistant Art Director: Ellen Lee Contributing Editors: Roland Kelts Andrew Tuplin, Micah White Copy Editor: George Atherton

Production Manager: Lauren Bercovitch

Email:

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editor@adbusters.org artdirector@adbusters.org

Web Manager: Kevin Marsh Subscriptions Manager: Nicole Moisey Accounting: Kenn Lackner

campaigns@adbusters.org subscriptions@adbusters.org Telephone:

Publishers: Kalle Lasn, Bill Schmalz Volunteers: George Atherton, Kelsey Blake,

tel: (604) 736-9401 toll-free: (800) 663-1243

Kate Brown, Kevin Church, Wendee Lang, Alysa Lechner, Mike Rae, Allison Thompson

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Newsstand Services: Coast to Coast Printing: Quad / Graphics

Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 1B7 Canada

For reprint permission, contact reprints@adbusters.org. Portions of the magazine may be photocopied for educational purposes.

Adbusters magazine is published by Adbusters Media Foundation. GST# R127330082, ISBN/ISSN 0847-9097. ŠCopyright 2011 by Adbusters Media Foundation. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the USA.

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Cover Design: Pedro Inoue, coletivo.org Cover Photo: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP

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Saeed ahmad/Xinhua

>> nightfal l a stark choice, Humanity now faces find salvation says Morris. Either we l n of our technologica through the expansio wisdom enabling abilities and collective vigate the path of us to successfully na ll be left to wander "Singularity," or we wi an apocalypse “Nightfall.” Nightfall is Five Horsemen brought on by the old complices. For the aided by their new ac win out, "everything Singularity scenario to s says. But for the has to go right," Morri n, only one thing Nightfall scenario to wi Morris points out, needs to go wrong. As od. His conclusion: the odds don't look go ll be the most “The next 40 years wi story.” important in human hi

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n to eat wild sushi. A We may well be the last generatio l Programme released report from the UN Environmenta of fish stocks have ent in May 2010 states that 30 perc we alter our fishing ss unle that s “collapsed,” and it warn ctively out of edible practices, in 40 years we’ll be effe Four Fish: The Future fish. Paul Greenberg, author of globally we catch that s write of the Last Wild Food, wild fish per year, of ds poun n billio 170 and consume to the entire human an amount “equivalent in weight points out that we would rg nbe population of China.” Gree t the appetites of the need four or five oceans to mee world’s seven billion humans. n of wild fish stocks If a human controlled demolitio even more so to previous seems shocking, it would seem nberg, seemed “a Gree e generations. Wild fish, to quot ically grew itself mag that sea, the crop, harvested from r required planting.” back every year. A crop that neve us humans fishing the of For our ancestors, the very idea seem preposterous. ld wou pse colla ocean to the point of years, to sail across. The The oceans took months, even of vastness. But when oceans were the very definition $10,000, market over h fetc a single bluefin tuna can our oceans’ most that ent curr dly dea a forces become nst. Can we agai ggle delectable creatures must stru late now? too it is Or ? ehow reverse that current som Kenji Aoki

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Ralph Lauren. Vanity Fair. October 2010.

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Paradigm PlAnet Society econoMy

FinAnce

There’s a tectonic mindshift underway right now in the science of economics, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to the likes of Martin Wolf, Paul Krugman, Andrew Sorkin, Lawrence Summers, Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and others.

These old-school practitioners of neoclassicism know only one language: the language of pure, unadulterated money.

As oil reserves dwindle and climate tipping points loom, they babble on endlessly about liquidity, stimulus, derivatives, bond markets, sovereign debt, AAA ratings and investment banker bonuses. They never say a word about melting glaciers, eroding coral reefs, rising sea levels, fizzing oceans or the methane that’s bubbling out of the arctic tundra. Like medieval theologians who argued endlessly about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, today’s economists argue incessantly about how economic growth can be sustained forever on a finite planet. Ten years from now, as the blowback from the externalities of their way of doing business repeatedly hammers us and global warming kicks in with a vengeance, we’ll look back in shock and awe – and wonder what it was about these logic freaks and their money narratives that so mesmerized us.

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FinAnce econoMy Society

Shift Five hundred years ago astronomers following Ptolemy’s geocentric model of the universe were tearing their hair out trying to make sense of all their calculations of the sun, moon and stars moving around above us in the night sky. It was only when Copernicus pointed out that we are not the center of the universe – the sun does not revolve around the Earth but rather the other way around – that all their convoluted calculations fell magically into place.

PlAnet

Infographic from Whose Crisis, Whose Future? by Susan George

Today something eerily similar is happening in the science of economics: Economists and lay people alike are realizing that our human money economy is a subset of the Earth’s larger bioeconomy rather than the other way around. Over the next few years, as this monumental shift of perspective kicks in, all the economic, ecological and financial craziness of the industrial era will evaporate, and a new sustainable way of running our planetary household will fall magically into place.

Economics students, especially PhD students, in departments around the world have a crucial role to play in ushering in this new paradigm. Go to kickitover.org and join the movement.

Kalle Lasn

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n A r I n I t A t É ’ d p U o C C IA

Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister until he was deposed in a CIA-backed coup d’état.

Yes, my sin – my greater sin, and even my greatest sin – is that I nationalized Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire ... This at cost to myself and my family and at the risk of losing my life, my honor and my property ... With God’s blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.

If we’d had WikiLeaks in 1953, we may have been able to stop the US-backed coup d’état in Iran and avoid half a century of deadly and continuing enmity between the two countries.

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E L I H C S ’ r E G K I SS I n

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On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, gave this speech on live radio, with gunfire and explosions audible in the background, following the US-backed coup d’état against him led by General Augsto Pinochet.

He died moments later.

If we’d had

Surely, this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The air force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes. My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. May there be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath ... Given these facts, the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign!

Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. Force can dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history.

Workers of my country, I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had ...

The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either.

Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, great avenues will again be opened, and through them will pass the free man, to construct a better society.

Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!

have been able

WikiLeaks in 1973 we may to stop nixon and Kissinger’s secret vendetta against the legitimately elected government of Chile and the brutal rule of General pinochet that followed.

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roBerto salomone/afP/getty Images

hite

By Micah W

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In 1848, from Paris to Prague and Berlin to Budapest, Europe was on the brink of revolution.

Behind the surprising strength of the uprisings was a novel technique of street protest that gave the people a tactical advantage over their governments.

To all observers it appeared as if the old order would be overthrown.

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I AM WIKILEAKS IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING

adbusters.org/wikileaks

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