Adbusters 79 East and West

Adbusters #79 SEP/OCT 2008

East and West

East and West

Hipster: The Dead End of Civilization

We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality, and is leaving a generation pointlessly obsessing over fashion, faux individuality, cultural capital and the commodities of style.

A Bill of Rights for Future Generations

We, the people of the future, like the multitudes who came before us, have the right to air that smells sweet, to water that tastes pure, and to land that is fertile, unsoiled and green.

The Temple of Heaven

Almost all visitors to Beijing make the pilgrimage to the Temple of Heaven, whose lantern-like profile rises like a spectre over the Chinese capital, offering its citizens an iconic glimpse of the afterlife.

Bolton Dodges War Crimes

They started a war with doctored evidence and without United Nations consent. They tortured prisoners, paraded them around naked and subjected them to waterboarding. They held suspects in prisons for years without ever charging them...

Selected Articles Btn Rss Small

Selected articles from the print edition of Adbusters Magazine.

Excerpt

Unrestricted Warfare

China is using a creative and unorthodox strategy to undermine its adversary.

Excerpt

Resilience Or Survival

As a consequence of our inaction, we are starting to see the concept of resilience replacing sustainability as a goal.

Excerpt

How Can We Prevent The USA From Declining Too Quickly?

Chinese academics discuss a framework for managing the waning of American power.

Commentary

A Flowering of Meaning

The international audience finds it's own media, free from western bias.

Fiction

Somewhere To Go

"The dry mouth and sweaty palms I hated so much are starting to return, and I think of the Ativan in the car with its promise of no more questions. My heart is beating fast enough for me to remember how much I hated having to be aware of it, every hour of every day, until I took the Ativan and I could forget about it."

News

Most Wanted War Criminals

Profiles of the most infamous war criminals of our time: Bush Cheney, Rumsfeld and Aschroft.

Editorial

The Twin Towers of Civilization

"At the height of the uprising, people marched in Bonn, Rome, London, Tokyo, New York and dozens of other cities around the world; students in universities revolted..."

News

Economic Money Games

There is a danger that people will simply charge ahead unheeding, assuming that America’s economic problems will disappear, and clinging to the delusion that everything will be all right in the end since America is strong and “God is on our side.”

News

Micro Costs of War

These costs are real and are not going away. You can’t continue to sweep them under the rug. Like your credit card bill, the costs only grow greater if you ignore them.

News

Bolton Dodges War Crimes

Environmental Journalist George Mombiot attempts a citizen's arrest of former Under-Secretary of State, John Bolton.

Life at the End of Empire

Peak oil, mass extinction, catastrophic climate change. With every passing day, the signs are becoming more and more difficult to deny. But we deny them anyway. We swear we’ll curb emissions. We pledge to actively pursue an alternative energy policy. We don’t believe we have a problem. We can stop anytime we want. Just not today.

Essay

A Modern Tupperware Tale

The modern woman prefers hi-tech weaponry to cute plastic food containers.

Essay

We Grew Up Too Comfortable to Take Risks

What if Japan, the face of the future, is showing us who we are becoming – as a kind of proverbial 'canary in a coal mine,' a Cassandra of our trans-cultural futures.

Cover Story

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

We've reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality. (Cover story of Adbusters Issue #79.)

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