Kalle Lasn, the founder of Adbusters and the source of the call that set off Occupy Wall Street, discusses his recent book, a manifesto for world revolution. He recounts being born in Estonia and fleeing with his family when the Soviets arrived, growing up in Australia, studying pure and applied mathematics, working three years for the Australian defence department on early war-simulation software, then abandoning a trip to Europe to stay in Japan, taking up Zen, and emigrating to Canada in 1973. He describes founding Adbusters more than thirty years ago and writing Culture Jam, Design Anarchy and Meme Wars. Occupy, he says, grew from an Adbusters brainstorm inspired by the Arab Spring and by indebted graduates without work, with the September 17 date chosen as his mother's birthday.
Guest: Kalle Lasn
In brief
- Lasn argues that reactive movements cannot win, and that both 1968 and Occupy Wall Street failed because they had no vision to present to the world.
- Lasn says Adbusters originated Occupy Wall Street, modeling it on the Arab Spring and aiming it at Wall Street as the iconic heart of global capitalism.
- Lasn maintains that designers are among the most powerful people in the world and that his book Design Anarchy was an attempt to turn them away from corporate work.
- Lasn predicts that heat, worsening summers and disappearing jobs will make conditions steadily harder, and that a spark set in those conditions could catch in a way earlier attempts did not.
- Lasn is recruiting founding members through Adbusters for a new bottom-up political party in America aimed at Gen Z, arguing that roughly a hundred thousand committed people would be enough to begin.
Full text
That's the one big lesson I've learned. You're not going to win by being reactive. You have to be proactive. You have to have a vision that you can present to the people. If we had a vision to present to the people of the world in ' 68, there may have been a world revolution. If Occupy Wall Street had a vision to present to the world in in 2011, we may have done something incredible. And and now we may have a third crack at it. And we'd better get our together. Hey everybody, welcome to the Limal News podcast. Uh, today I'm delighted to be here with Cali Lassen, the uh, publisher of Adbusters and the author of a recent book on World Revolution.
Uh, so Cali, maybe just tell us a little bit about you, about your background, how you ended up um, being this uh, provocator and uh, all the good things you do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, I uh I'm the guy who started that Busters magazine. Uh my god, it's like I think it's 30 plus years ago now. And I've I've been putting that out now. And and and uh uh and uh over the over the last 30 years, I I've I've sort of noticed how the world seems to be sinking into a deeper and deeper funk. and and I've become more of a more of a rabbit kind of angry activist, you know, who's constantly looking for for ways to to sort of change things.
Um, and uh I've also published a bunch of other books. The the very first book I published was called Culture Jam. It came out uh about 25 years ago and it it it was a bestseller and it it it showed me it taught me that that if you've got some really big ideas like like cult jamming revolution then then people will respond. So that gave me a huge boost. And then after that I published another book uh uh called design anarchy which was uh which was focused on on the design community trying to tell them to sort of stop kissing corporate ass and start doing something something good you know because designers are the most powerful people in the world and if they can design a future that computes then then wonderful.
Then after that I published another book after the um after Occupy Wall Street uh called Meme Wars and this was all about economics. Uh anyway so that's that's that's who I am a publisher of Adbusters, author of a few books and and uh and that latest book manifesto for World Revolution. This is my blueprint for for how we can work our way out of this this incredible funk that we're in now. Uh just out of curiosity, I want to rewind a little bit further and just ask you like where you grew up and what you studied and what kind of work you did before you got into Adbusters. Yeah.
So I uh I was born in Estonia and when the Russians came in, my family escaped and we finished up in in Australia and I grew up there, went to university there. Um I uh I studied uh uh pure and applied mathematics uh and um and I worked for the Australian defense department there for 3 years after university because they paid for my university and I owed them three years and and uh and and I was actually using some early software in those days and and fighting fighting wars, you know, virtual wars for the Australian Defense apartment. Uh um and then after that I I uh I felt like I had to go back to uh to Europe where I was born and find my roots there and but I was hijacked by by Japan. My my boat stopped off in Japan there and and I had three days to spend in in in Tokyo. And when the three days was up, I just I just couldn't get back on the boat.
So I just I finished up just saying to hell with Europe, you know, and and I just stayed in in Japan and and my whole life was you were just fascinated by the culture and by the vibe or uh it was it was just it absolutely blew my mind. I couldn't believe it. I I liked the food. I liked the the the the the sexual atmosphere. I like the women. I I I liked the the culture. And I started reading all all the the the literature there and and getting involved in Zen and and and it totally hijacked my life and I finished up marrying a Japanese woman and um and then uh after that I realized that I could never really play politics in Japan because it's a very closed kind of a a society that uh that doesn't really allow west you know outsiders gajin as they call them to come in.
So, I decided that I have to leave. And then my wife and I, we immigrated to Canada. Uh, this was back in 1973, long time ago. And and I've been strutting my stuff here ever since. You have been struting your stuff, that's for sure. Um, I mean, the magazine is great. Uh, very influential. Uh, I was very happy because I kept seeing quotes from my work kind of in the front pages, but we never had a direct communication. And then I was a little bit it was sort of kind I people would say oh your quotes are written adbusters but nobody ever like sent me a copy or anything.
So it was very like a Sam's dot kind of experience but I I was happy to see yeah generally the kind of ideas you guys were working with and I I know you got involved with um Occupy Wall Street. So so so how how did that come about? Yeah. Well, we were the people who sparked it, you know. We were the people who who came up with the uh the idea that that uh we were inspired by the by the Arab Spring and and it felt like a incredible moment in human history at that time and and and also the the young people in America at that time were also sort of disillusioned and very similar to the situation now actually.
uh they you know all kinds of graduates who who had spent a lot of money and owed a lot of money they they couldn't find jobs and and and meanwhile the Arab Spring was churning away with revolutions happening in the Middle East. Um, and then one day in one of our brainstorming sessions here at Adbusters, we we sort of said, "Hey, you know, why not if they if there's an Arab spring, then why not an American spring, you know, let's do something wild and see if we can trigger something." And and we came up with this idea of uh occupying the iconic heart of global capitalism, which is Wall Street. and and uh uh and somehow we started talking to a few people in in New York and and Hallelujah on the 17th of September which I carefully chose because it was my mother's birthday. Uh and I had this incredibly deep profound relationship with my mother all my life. Uh and uh yeah and all of a sudden on the 17th of September u a few thousand people actually did exactly that.
Uh uh there was this moment and and then it grew and grew and then and and and uh you know there was a that moment on Brooklyn Bridge when when when all of a sudden a few uh very young teenagers were were pepper-sprayed or something and and and thousands were were arrested. And so the police and and the authorities made some bad mistakes and gave us a lot of publicity and and before we knew it, it occupy Walt, it spread to other places, LA and other other Chicago and other places. It went across the border to Canada. Uh and then all of a sudden it started popping up in Europe and and for the for the second time in my life, I could feel that this was the beginning of a what could possibly turn out to be a world revolution. The first time this happened to me was in 1968 when a when a small uh uprising in the in the Latin quarter of of Paris all did the same thing as occupy was it suddenly sort of grew and grew and young people around the world were disillusioned and and and and in 1968 1969 there was thousands of universities and and and and uprisings happening all over the world and for a a few brief moments it actually felt like my god if this keeps on going then this could the the first ever World Revolution.
Uh, and Occupy Wall Street for me felt like our second crack at world revolution. Uh, and now um this this book uh that I uh this book that we just put out, I got to show it to you. This Yeah. This this this book is sort of bit of a blueprint for possibly a third a third crack at world revolution. Yeah. I mean, were you in in Paris in ' 68? I wasn't in Paris, but I was there soon after. But I was traveling around the world at that time. Uh, and uh and I caught the vibe. It was the it was the one political vibe that uh that uh my first sort of uh wake up moment when I became politicized when I suddenly realized that the world wasn't just you know having a good time and reading nice books and drinking nice lattes but it was actually about uh about politics it was actually about changing the world and and at that time uh I was actually traveling in in India I was traveling in Mexico in Central America uh and I saw the the poverty that existed around the world especially in India I never forget in Kolkata you know seeing the people literally dying in the streets there I mean India has changed a lot since then but but in those days traveling around the world uh it was just it was an incredible wakeup call to realize that that life isn't like Australia it isn't like uh like America it isn't like Canada that actually a lot of the people in the world are living uh dire lives of of of of deep poverty and and and and then on top of that there was that 1968 kind of a world revolution that was bubbing up bubbling up and and and anyway that was the moment those those years after 1968 uh into into that's when I became politicized as a and and and yeah and yeah I had a good friend who was a he's a poet but he was at he passed away but he was in Paris in ' 68 And the way he described it is basically the the radicals had won.
Uh the the police and soldiers had had given up but there wasn't really any plan of action to how to re recreate society under better terms. So it kind of just like fizzled out and and the and the and the old forces just moved back in. Yeah. Yeah. because there was that was the well that's the mistake that we've made uh in 1968 and also with Occupy Wall Street that uh we had the energy we had the anger we had the rage we knew that the world had to change but we hadn't figured out our memes we hadn't figured out our narrative we didn't have a vision that we could present to the world that people could jump on board and that's why 1968 eventually fizzled out uh and when winter came in in 2008 1.
Same thing happened to Occupy Wall Street. All of a sudden, the all those 2,000 uh occupations all around the world. They they all sort of disappeared as the cold weather came in and ultimately we were we were left with a a few slogans like, you know, 1% 99% and and and we never we were never able to push the ball over the line. And this is this is the big mistake that I think that that we activists uh have to sort of think about, you know, right now. If we sort of expect there to be some sort of a political resurgence and some sort of a real meaningful change in the world, then I think that we have to figure out what our narrative is.
We have to figure out what our vision is. Um that's one of the reasons why I was so sort of pissed off at at no kings, for example. you know, there they go. 7 million people running around pointing their fingers being reactive, you know, and and all they were really doing is is pointing their finger at Trump and saying, "Oh, you're a bad guy. You're not a king and we don't like you." But those 7 million people who who who are there protesting, I mean, it's wonderful that they're protesting. It's nice to be in a protest and to be rubbing shoulders and having that camaraderie. So, I have nothing against that, but where's the vision?
you know, where's the narrative? Yeah. I mean, actually, they stand for I listen to one of the Yeah, I listen to one of the leaders of Indivisible, Ezra something. And they do have a they have a model. They have a vision uh that would lead to larger protests as things get more dire then that leads to like national strikes and so on. Uh and then a and then a um you know, they haven't done their homework. They haven't done they what we really need to do is to uh is to say instead of running out and then sort of having a no kings why don't we have thousands of little brainstorms all around America why don't we get together in small groups and try to figure out what we really stand for what is our narrative what is our vision what's the plan that we want to produce that and and present to the American people that's better than what Trump is doing and and we haven't done that we haven't done the homework we we keep on thinking that that somehow Trump will crash if we keep on, you know, saying that he's a king and fighting against but reactive.
That's the one big lesson I've learned. You you're not going to win by being reactive. You have to be proactive. You have to have a vision that you can present to the people. If we had a vision to present to the people of the world in ' 68, there may have been a world revolution. If Occupy Wall Street had a vision to present to the world in in 2011, we may have done something incredible and and now we may have a third crack at it and we'd better get our together. So, tell me a little bit about what you propose in the uh the manifesto. I mean, what what do you have a plan of action for everybody at this point?
Uh yeah, I think that uh I mean I for me at the moment it's it's all about uh somehow getting rid of the old uh the old sort of left right dichotomy you know like all my life and even before I was born you know the politics has always been about the left versus the right and and and you know one side wins then the next side wins and somehow politics always unfolds as this battle between the left and the right and I think that for us to to have any kind of a future for us to make it through the 21st century. I think we have to sort of jump over the dead bodies of the old left and right. Uh I I I think that uh I I call it the third force. I think that the the young people, the Gen Z and the generations after Gen Z, they have to come up with a new kind of politics that that that is not so much about left versus right, but about how do we make it through the 21st century? How do we fix climate change?
How do we change the the the global financial architecture? Uh how do we flip the paradigm of of neocclassical economics? How do we change the the the capitalist vibe of of of the world that we all live in? Um uh so so we have to so this is like a like a fundamental shift in politics where where the young people of the world instead of being caught up in this left right thing they they've got some sort of a vision about how they can live how they and their children and the future generations can can can have some kind of a viable future. So, so, so the plan is in the the plan that I present in the in this manifesto for world revolution book is that uh uh that we have to the young people you know we have to uh start brainstorming and asking ourselves what what are the big ideas what are what I call them I call the meta memes what are the meta memes that uh are so big that that we can't imagine living without them uh like like what are the big ideas that that are so that that that that are so powerful that you cannot imagine a future without those big ideas being implemented and then uh we do have the the big difference between uh you know uh 1968 and 2008.
We we really we really have an internet now. we we have this incredible power to to to sort of get things done uh on the internet and and we on the we the activists haven't quite learned how to use that properly. But if we have our ideas, if we have our big ideas, if we have our meta memes, if we have our vision and our narrative together, and then if we learn how to use the internet to launch this kind of a global third force where the all the activists around the world who who believe in some new kind of a politics, uh we all get together and we start fighting for our meta memes and and and I think this to me this is the formula for how the young people of the world, you know, need need to sort of operate from now on. They have to jump over the old system and and come up with something totally new. Yeah.
But I mean, wouldn't a lot of the um approaches to make the situation better kind of eventually tilt more towards leftist ideas like progressive taxation or reducing the power of corporations and billionaires? Get rid of left and right. But I mean it still seems like, you know, the the the right is is fighting for oligarchy and in America authoritarianism and Christian nationalism and the left wants people everybody to have a particip participation in society and generative econ, you know, ecological systems and so on, you know. Yeah. Well, I think that I agree. I mean, I think the the vibe will still be sort of a bit of a lefty vibe, but I think there's going to be some new ideas that we have to implement like like for example uh uh we when it to fix climate change, maybe we need to to jump over all the stuff that we've done so far, you know, to try to fix climate change, maybe we need to come up with a new idea like uh like one of the ideas in the book uh is is this idea that we need two cost markets, you know, that that at the moment the the big problem with with climate change is that we have a global marketplace where like 99% of the literally billions of transactions that happen in the global marketplace every day, they're unpriced.
You know, you you buy a car for $35,000 and and and and uh and then you finish up creating, you know, $100,000 worth of uh damage to the to the environment with your carbon emissions. And now who pays for that? who pays for that $100,000 of the damage that you that that should be internalized in the cost of the car. And likewise, if you buy a Big Mac, you know, then then the the full price of of creating that beef and and giving you that Big Mac, that should be included in the price of a Big Mac and that avocado that you buy, you know, from Mexico, the the cost of transportation of getting that avocado, you know, into your hands, that should be included in the price of that avocado. Uh and so if we if we if we sort of use the power of of of uh of the market uh that Adam Smith marketplace you know that we all know has a certain magic to it.
If we can if we can sort of come up with two cost a true cost global marketplace where the price of every product tells the ecological truth, you know, and and then all of a sudden uh all those bogus uh transactions that happen every day that are pushing us deeper and deeper into the deeper and deeper into into climate uh uh apocalypse uh all of a sudden that would stop, you know. So this idea that a reform of the global marketplace into a twocost global marketplace to me this feels like a nonviolent soft power way of of of re-engineering the whole global system in a way that could actually start to solve climate change. uh and this is a sort of idea that at the moment we're not talking about you know and and I know it's a long shot you know like I know we we we presented this I mean I mean the whole the whole kind of ethos of capitalism has been to um you know hide externalities because you know that's how you have cheap consumer goods for you know a mass population in the west and so I mean you know that would be a very leftist you know kind of idea I think from a from a right right-wing perspective. They don't even want to admit that climate change is real. And um yeah, I mean you have like like you know last year all these um you know African guys from the Ivory Coast were flooding into New York City out like what they were doing here, why they came here.
And I learned, you know, I was sitting at my local fancy cafe where it's like $14 for a chocolate cissant and a latte, you know, doing my morning work and reading about, you know, Ivory Coast where um a lot of the world's chocolate is produced and um two two main American companies, Nestle's and Hershey's are basically have corrupted the government and um they've deforested the country. So it's like 50% deforested and uh people make an average cocoa farmers make an average of 78 cents a day. And now that the that the the country is deforested, they can't survive anymore. So they're like sending one young man maybe to Brazil or somewhere in South America. walks for months and months and tries to get across the US border so he can work as like a delivery person here for Uber Eats or something and then make you know $12 an hour under um which is way more than he could get per day and he sends a lot of that back home.
So yeah, I mean what you're describing fair cost accounting is something I've heard about many times but it it feels like it goes against the ethos of capitalism at this point. Nobody wants to eat a $30 hamburger in America, you know, or Yeah. Yeah. I think that activists in general, especially leftwing activists, we don't think big enough, you know, it's it's, you know, that idea that there should be carbon taxes or that we should raise prices. That's been around for a long time. But the idea that maybe in a sort of a Trumpian way almost, you know, that Trump has pulled off these incredible heavves and done stuff that we thought was un unimaginable what he's done to universities and what he's done to the law firms and what he's doing to the whole of America and now he he has had this sort of incredible power to show that big heaves in our culture, big heaves in our in our system can can change.
But but somehow we on the left we don't have that sort of a that feeling that my god you know the two cost global marketplace this is an idea that can actually save humanity. Let's fight for it. Let's start a third political party called the bottoms up majority party. Let's put that on our platform. Let's get that party elected in and and let's implement uh two cost markets around the world. I mean that sort of big time metaimetic thinking is something that that we on left seem to we've lost that ability. We had it when I I was in university 50 years ago but we don't have it anymore.
It's gone and and we need to rejuvenate that. Who are some of the uh thinkers these days that you're really excited about in terms of the magazine in terms about mapping out these big uh meta ideas and and and meta memes? I must admit there aren't that many. Uh there's a recent book that came out that got me really excited. I haven't read it yet, but I I read about it and it's called Pirate Care and it's it feels like it's like a bit of a manifesto for the for Gen Z and uh about that. Yeah. So, uh I I I don't quite have that, but uh uh I must admit I like a lot of people's writings.
Like, for example, I like I like your writing. I love your writing. I I mean you you take issues and you you you talk about them in a beautiful way and and writing like like that is very hard to come by these days. I I struggle every issue of Adbusters to find you know writers who can write in a compelling beautiful way that that really seeps into the brain. Um but I must admit I at the moment if you ask me you know who are my my heroes my activist heroes I I don't have too many. How do you feel about like Yanos Varafakus and the whole technofudalism idea?
He's argued that capitalism is kind of done and now we're in a different regime which he defines as technofudalism. Well, I think it's a good idea, but I must admit that after uh I listened to him a lot, you know, after that uh stuff that was happening in Greece there and and somehow there was something frivolous about some of the stuff that he does and I I I I think it's I think there's a lot of good ideas around and that's one of them. Uh but somehow it doesn't really feel to me like it's going to going to be one of the huge big meta memes that helps us uh you know navigate the 21st century. Have you looked at uh Audrey Tang and the plurality movements? No.
Uh she's one of the people I find most interesting right now. So Audrey Tang was a was a transw woman who was part of a student protest movement in Taiwan, the Sunflower Movement. And the government decided to work with the students rather than suppress them. And she ended up becoming the digital minister of Taiwan. And then she created all these digital kind of tools to help government be more accessible and responsive to people. So for instance um he created a platform where if anybody in Taiwan sees something they believe needs to get done they can say you know we need this to happen and if 5,000 people you know agree that that's a good idea the government actually has to formally consider it.
Um yeah there's a book called plurality. It's a whole bit of a movement around how to use technology to redesign government so it's more participatory. Um, but I kind of like in a weird way I share a little bit I mean as as horrible as Trump is uh a little bit of your admiration for because everything just seems stuck for so long like you know in a way that you can just break apart these structures and and grab and move and I don't know exactly the word you used was very good actually. Um uh and I I I agree with you that's something the left needs to to adopt at some point. Yeah.
So the interesting thing about Trump is that he's got all the wrong ideas but he's got the right style. you know, he's he's the guy that that uh that sort of just by the sheer power of the people he's put around him, by the sheer, you know, power of his of his being, you know, he he's able to push things through and scare people and so on. Uh and we on the left desperately need to have that same kind of a feeling like like he, you know, he can do tariffs and and he can, you know, scare law firms and universities or whatever. He can get stuff like that done. Uh But we on the left, you know, we can push through two cost markets.
We we can pass a, you know, if we if we in power, we can pass a law that says no corporation should ever hold more than 25% of the market in in any industry. And that one law, if we pushed it through with the same ferocity that uh that Trump has pushed through his stuff, then that one law, this idea that no company should ever have more than 25% of the pie, that would change everything. And we we we soal we the people on the left side, we could do that, but but we are not doing it. We're not thinking that big. And and we also need to shift the the the neocclassical economics paradigm.
We need to sort of point out that economists don't really know what they're doing. They don't know how to measure progress. They keep on talking about growth even though growth is sort of being, you know, hurting us now. And and we need to have a paradigm shift in the science of economics. And and we on the left could push that paradigm shift through, but we're not doing it. Uh and and uh yeah, so so there's a there's a lot of really big systemic heaves that need to happen. I think I think we the most exciting thing for me right now is this idea that is it possible to have a third political party in America.
Is it possible to to come up with a with a a bottoms up majority? thumbs, I call it, and a party that that starts to make a bit of headway uh in in in, you know, in the in the midterms and suddenly gets a few percentage points in 2028 and then somehow the young people of the world get behind it and and started build this party up into this this party of systemic change that America really needs and and somehow, you know, wins the the 2032 election just like in a big surprise just like the Trump won the won the current election. And it seems to me that uh that one of the really big ideas that could fire up the the Gen Z and the generations after that is this idea that we need our own political party. We need a party of systemic change that can can pull off all these almighty heavves that can actually give us a future, can actually give us hope. Yeah.
And I think our concern more in the US right now is that there actually are not going to be uh free elections ever again. Um I mean not only because of the gerrymandering and the kind of use of military in cities to but also because of direct control of the voting system. I mean there's you know some indication that 24 was already uh meddled with but now one of Trump's allies has bought Dominion which is the main voting system for 27 states. And so there since their party, excuse me, doesn't really believe in um fair elections. Yeah, that that's Yeah, but of course if uh uh I have a feeling that we need to do that.
But again, that's something that trying to stop Trump from I I'm I have a feeling that he really is making a play for for for some sort of a killing off of the the the constitutional system in America. I I I do believe that he's trying to do that and it's a it's a dangerous moment that we're living through. But again to fight back against that is is reactive and I think we should we should fight back against that. But that and I'm surprised actually that that there's hardly a Democratic politician or hardly anybody who really has taken Trump to task for the fact that he he thinks that climate change is a hoax and that he won the 2020 election and and the fact that he's daily almost daily when I read the New York Times every day I can see all the semifascist that he's pulling off. You know, we should fight back back against that.
We have to be reactive. But at the same time, what what are we going to present to the people instead of what Trump is doing? We need a third political party. We we need to sort of uh start winning elections again and putting all our energy into the Democratic party and hoping that somehow that they will win the next election and fix things again. Even if they win the next election, they're not going to fix nothing. America's caught up in a tweedle dumb tweedled D kind of a situation where whichever party wins, they never pull off any systemic change. They just make sure that they get try to get reelected again next time around.
We need a third political party that stands for systemic heav systemic changes and and that's the only thing that can get us through the 21st century. Uh, another thinker that I've found somewhat interesting recently is this guy Kohai Sat from Japan. Oh yeah, I love him. Degrowth communism that's um Yeah. And so I noticed that you're mainly focused on u America it seems like. What about uh in Canada? Is Canada, you know, in a in a good state in terms of having a sort of level of socialization, socialism, you know, good social welfare or would would you want to see a revolution there too? But but that cohes he's he's one guy who really understands what has to happen in economics and we did an interview with him when his book first came out and so so he's he is actually you asked me earlier you know who's somebody that I really believe in he's one guy that I think really has something important to say but in Canada you know Canada is a a tenth of the size of America we're always living in the shadow of America uh at the moment I'm bitterly disappointed that uh that, you know, uh we're sort of trying to fight back against the Trumpian arrogance, the fact that he's talking about us becoming a 51st state and and and recently, you know, he fought back against this this ad that uh uh that uh that we put out, you know, that that showed uh um you know, saying something profound about tariffs, you know, and then Trump, you know, somehow fought back and say you can't do that.
And now all of a sudden all the politicians in Canada are saying, "Oh yeah, sorry. You know, we'll pull the ad. We'll be nice from now on, you know, just don't put any more tariffs on us." And so, you know, in Canada, the politicians are a bunch of pipsqueaks, you know, who uh you know, who who uh who don't really have all that many big ideas of their own. I think if there's going to be a world revolution, then it has to start in America. uh and uh only of course it's already happening in like for example I'm one of the wonderful things that's happened recently in in my life is is that the Gen Z not in America not in Canada not in the in the western world not in the rich countries of the world but in Madagascar and and and in Nepal and and in in in Thailand and and and in in in in a dozen countries in the Middle East and in Africa.
they have actually pulled off revolutions in their own nations in their own countries there. So in a way they have set the scene somehow that it feels like like Gen Z right now is at the beginning of of that third revolution that I'm I'm yearning for. Uh so uh so but but uh but they you know all those little revolutions that happening in the Middle East and other places that's going to help that's going to maybe set the scene. Maybe we have something to learn from them. But I think if there's going to be a world re revolution, it has to start in America. America is is is the only dynamic country that's big enough to be able to pull this thing off.
Um I mean I guess the question with those Gen Z revolutions is what happens next, right? Because like look at what happened with Arab Spring. It ended up being, you know, kind of tragic. I don't think any of those countries did very well coming out of that. Well, I think it made some progress. It it certainly inspired Occupy Wall Street and it it it generated an u you know a worldwide like like those millions of people like me who were politicized during 1968. You know they were politicized in the aftermath of Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. So so we did something. We created a a new generation with new energy in a new generation.
I mean that of course that was 15 years ago now. That's quite a while ago. But but I I keep on getting phone calls and emails every morning from people who were involved in the Arab Spring and in Occupy Wall Street who said, "Yeah, that's the moment I woke up. That's the moment I became politicized. That's the the moment I became an activist." So So I think, you know, let's not discount what happened with Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. It it all fizzled out, but it did a lot of good, too. Fair enough. And what about Tell me a little bit more about the book then.
What else do you propose in the book going forward? So, I like this idea of getting people to have small meetups. In fact, years ago, I had a thing called the Evolver Network, and we were cultivating local community groups. We're meeting up every month, but we just couldn't figure out how to get enough capital to have enough runway to to grow it. Uh, which is often a problem with leftist groups. When you look at somebody like Charlie Kirk at Turning Point, I think he had like 12 mill million dollars when he was like 18, 19 years old. They saw him as a rising star. They fully capitalized him.
whereas the left obviously doesn't have that opportunity. So a lot of things fizzle out because people just have to make a living somehow. But how do how do you imagine this uh this idea of these sort of like distributed uh groups that are really looking at what's the problems and proposing solutions? How do we make that happen? I'm all I'm all in on that one. Yeah. Well, yeah, I I think that uh I think we have to sort of go small. I think that it's wonderful to have 7 million people prancing around uh being reactive, but I think we need to sort of sit down in in in groups like the brainstorming groups that we have at Adbusters, you know, three or four times a week where five, six, seven people sit around the table and and they ask themselves, you know, what can give us hope?
What are the big ideas without which we cannot uh imagine a future? and uh and and and and to what extent are we you know do we have the power and how do we actually carry these things out. So I think that that having some sort of a feeling that that we the left have sort of lost the plot and instead of going out and trying to act as if nothing has happened and and and do something on a 7 million level. I think we should sort of say okay we've lost it a little bit. We need to rethink everything. Let's retreat. Let's go back into ourselves.
Let's have a bunch of small meetings. Let's start figuring out what our vision of the future is. I think that's the step number one that has to happen and then out of all those thousands of little brainstorms something will emerge and and uh and then then once it emerges you know and we all with it if we suddenly come up with you know the seven big meta memes the seven big ideas you know like true cost and and like like a 25% rule for for for for corporate market share and and like the idea of a of of instead of just sort getting angry at at the mind lords and and Facebook and and and and Twitter and all the rest of it. Uh you know, why don't we launch a mental liberation front, you know, that's got the same kind of energy like the Black Liberation Front had many years ago and and let's go after those mind lords and and just just get rid of them. Just vanquish them.
Vanquish the mind lords. what you know uh this idea of a a mental liberation front that can can fix this the internet that can basically give us a a new way for us to talk to each other. I mean how can we possibly get anything done if we have to talk through the algorithms of the mind lords? It's it's impossible to to imagine any kind of a future given the the current communication system that we have. And another idea is this idea that there's something fundamentally wrong with the the global financial architecture. We need to we need to sort of stop these money boys, you know, from running around and and and and uh we basically need to sort of a Trumpian way of demolishing the current global financial system.
Uh getting rid of tax havens uh and and and imposing holding rules like like from now on if you want to buy a share, sure you can buy it. But once you buy it, you have to keep it for 24 hours before you can sell it again. And that would eliminate, you know, this flash trading that's happening right now that's that's creating havoc. And so so uh and then above all, you know, my my favorite thing is this idea that uh that capitalism has given us a a vibe. It's given us a a feeling. You know, there's a certain way that you feel when you walk down the street of a of a capitalist city.
you know, it's with our ads everywhere and people whatever and and and somehow, you know, we need to we need to reform, you know, the internet and we need to come up with two cost markets and we need to change the way corporations behave and our relationship with them and and then we need to do all those things that I've been talking about. But above all, you know, we have to change the way it feels to be alive today, you know. And I think that we we we need to sort of uh one of my favorite quotes of all time is this guy Frederick Hunter Vaser. He long long time ago, I think he's dead now. He he said an incredible designer.
The designer and painter designer. Yes. Fantastic designer. Yeah. But but he said this thing that I heard this at the beginning of Adbusters, you know, 30 years ago. He said the straight line is godless and immoral. And when I heard that, it sort of seemed to it seemed to be a sort of a culmination of everything I've believed in all my life. You know this idea that that capitalist straight line that forces you to do things in a certain way that hyperrationality that we in the west have always had you know I think therefore I am and all that stuff you know that somehow the you know the western civilization somehow went wrong you know when it believed too much in rationality and straight lines and and what really has to happen on that vibe level now on that ambience level on the level of how it feels to be alive today is that we have to learn how to wobble again.
We have to step off the the the straight line and learn how to wobble again. And and that that new vibe, that know that new feeling of what it feels like to wake up in the morning and what it feels like to to to navigate the internet, what it feels like to watch TV, what it feels like to walk around in my city. That we have to learn how to wobble again. And and and and if we continue on a straight line, then we're destined for for doom. We're destined to fail. But if we learn how to wobble again and there's a lot we can learn, you know, from other cultures like like when I traveled around the world, then then all those places I visited, you know, in in in Africa and and and and uh in in me even in Mexico and and Central America, people there, they were wobbly.
They they weren't straight line people. They were people who were who had human connections and and they had weird ideas and and they smelled, you know, and they they weren't, you know, they weren't using old spice, you know, and and and and and they they they they they were real human beings, you know, with everything that that that entails. And uh so I think that's the big lesson that uh that we in in especially the rich countries of the world. I mean I don't think that America will be able to pull off a world revolution unless it learns how to wobble. I love it. It's a very nice that was a nice riff.
I enjoyed the wobbling concept. I like the mental liberation front idea a lot too. Um well I mean in a way some people would say that what's happening in America now is a second American revolution just in the opposite direction. And there's also some theories around um you know when Trump met with Putin in Alaska it was actually about agreeing to maybe like you know hegemonic control where Trump is just letting Putin do whatever he wants in Europe and East Europe. you know, China will do whatever it wants in Asia and Taiwan and you know, America, US will do whatever it wants in Canada and Greenland and South America and Central America.
Do you have any concerns about uh America trying to invade or annex Canada in the next few years? Well, I have concerns about everything that America has done for the last 30, 40 years, you know, given its twe twe political system. Uh I think that uh that uh I mean the Vietnam war was a disaster, the Iraq war was a disaster, the Afghanistan was a disaster and somehow the the right wingers in in in in the Democratic party are now, you know, stirring up the same old pot again, you know. Um I uh uh I I don't know what to do about that. I I mean I don't think it's hard.
I don't I don't think it's possible for us to sort of really fight back in a meaningful way against that. The only thing that I would say is that let's get rid of Trump. Let's let's come up with our own political party and let's get as as as long as Trump is in power, as long as he's able to do what he's doing every day now, you know, going on TV and being this foxy guy who rules the world, you know, the king of the world. If we if we just have to stop him, that's all. And and after that, you know, the wars will still go on.
You know, Russia will still, you know, Putin will still want to be the, you know, the the, you know, the big uh the big king of his territory there. And and and and China will still want to sort of beat America uh at its own game. But I think that uh like I think we should uh we so-called the people on the left, you know, we should put all our money into figuring out what our vision is and and and and coming up with a third political party and and and getting it elected no later than 2032. And if we can do that, you know, then a lot of the stuff that you're talking about will automatically heave in fresh new directions. And how do we go about that practically?
I mean, you have the idea, you put out the book. Uh, are you going to try to make that happen as you sort of inspired um Occupy Wall Street or what do you what do you what do you see as the as the act the action plan? We'll try to I will try to sort of spark it same as way same way that we did Occupy Wall Street. You know, we we didn't uh we didn't organize, you know, we were not the leaders of Occupy Wall Street, but we sparked it. And I think that it's possible in the current geopolitical moment that we're living through. I think it's possible.
I think the young people of the world are pissed off enough enough, hopeless enough, feeling lost enough. uh and and and I think that it's that the the current uh psycho uh condition the the the way the neurons are working now in in the young people I think that the young people of the world are ready for a some sort of a big heave some sort of a heave where we jump over the dead bodies of the old left and right and just worry about how we're going to make it through the 21st century and that requires sort of a a whole new way of thinking about politics and and and and and if we can do that then there'll be a whole new way of thinking about wars. There'll be a whole new way of thinking about you know how many people should be on the security council of the United Nations. There'll be like if we can if the young people of the world can come up with a a new political power base using the internet you know then nothing is impossible after that. We can do anything we want after that as long as we have the internet, as long as we have our big ideas, as long as we have a little bit of that that that Trumpian it all attitude.
So, all we need is a is a big heave and then we get back to the wobble and we're good. Yeah. You know, I know it's easy to make fun of that, but No, I'm I was enjoying it. I wasn't making fun of it. I liked I think, you know, I'm not you know, like we're a small organization. you know, we have like seven or eight people working for us and we're struggling every moment, you know, to survive. Uh, and we are capable of creating sparks, but I don't think that we have that unless somebody gives us a couple of million dollars, then then we're not in a position to sort of actually launch that political party.
Although you can go to the adbusters. org and you can become a founding member of the bottoms up party of America. You can do that and that could be the beginning of something. If we can get if we can get, you know, let's say we can get a 100,000 people say, "Yeah, I want a bottoms up party of America. I want a bums party and and and and I can start doing it, you know, in my state or whatever." That could be the beginning of something. And and and as the So, what's going to happen over the next few years is that the the the human condition around the world is going to get worse and worse and worse.
It's going to get it's going to get hotter. uh summers are going to be harder and harder to live through uh and and and jobs are going to be harder to find. Everything will will start tanking in a big time way. And when that happens, you know, then a spark like this idea of a of a Gen Z new political party that rises up in America and changes everything. That's sort of an idea. That sort of a spark could actually light a fire. Cool. Okay. Well, it was wonderful to to meet you in chat for a little bit. Uh let's let's maybe let's maybe do it again.
Um I I I forgot to mention this will be on You Tube and if um well, first of all, if they want to find Adbusters at Adbusters. org, they can join the Bottoms Up Political Party in America. And they can also like and subscribe and share this video. It would be helpful. And yeah, let's stay in touch. And uh really appreciate your work and your vision. And uh hopefully we uh we see the uh the heave. Yeah. and you keep on writing good stuff. I want to keep on reading more of your good stuff. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate it. We'll talk soon. Adios, amigo.
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.