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Usually exclusive to our physical magazine, we’ve treated non-subscribers to a selection of some of our best print pieces.
Every revolution, every authentic revolution, promises to redeem the failures of its predecessors. This is what Walter Benjamin thought — or at least, this is what Slavoj Žižek says Benjamin thought at the end of The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012). Paraphrasing Benjamin, Žižek says in the film that all the unsettled ghosts of the past will at last find rest in the new freedom born out of the true revolution to come. Yet he warns the path to this freedom comes with no guarantees. There is no train of historical inevitability that can be ridden to the safe harbour of emancipation. Getting there all depends on a fickle crowd of free riders, a ragtag huddle of the flighty and the faithless. They should be a familiar bunch because, it turns out, they are us. Our liberation rests on nobody’s shoulders but our own.
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The UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the liberal international order sought to guarantee rights on an individual level. These promoted freedom of thought and expression, of religion, of movement and association and of sexual orientation, whereby ‘any particular freedom is to be respected only insofar as it does not violate the equal freedom of others.’ Within a liberal international order, such ‘rule by the people’ encompassed freedom of political participation, representation, expression and association. It also included having regular free, inclusive and equal elections, the presence of accountable and transparent political institutions to guarantee the individual liberties and rights of citizens, and access to competing information. At its core, the US endorsed electoral democracy as the central and unquestionable pillar of its preferred international order. Such social and political rights are seen as being generalizable to the internal basis of all countries, and hence the whole international system. They also produced a sense of solidarity among Western countries concerning the preservation of a common social and political basis.
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Scientists used to think there were only six human emotions — anger, surprise, disgust, enjoyment, fear and sadness. We now know there is a seventh: awe. Awe is the feeling, registering more in our body than our mind, that we’re in the presence of something so vast and deep and powerful that it swamps our present understanding of the world. A skyful of stars in the middle of nowhere. A soaring piece of art. An act of wild kindness, fugitively glimpsed. Or an existential threat.
Read More...Dive deep into long form features on everything from smartphone addiction to what a True-Cost global marketplace would mean for the economy.
I passed a guy the other day, maybe 16, 17 years old. And as he gota little ways down the street I heard him holler at the top of his lungs:“I hate my fucking life and everyone in it!” (I guess that included the defeated-looking woman I took to be his mom, who was walking 20feet behind him.)I felt sorry for this kid, and I hope he gets help. But I also found myself giving him a little private salute. At least he’s facing it. Bellowing his sad truth to the heavens must have felt like a bit of liberation.Who hasn’t felt a hint of that existential frustration? Maybe you even feel it now. Like: Really? This is the life I have settled for? Starbucks, Safeway, smokeshop, home. Bang, bang, bang, marching to the drumbeat of capitalism.In the car you catch the news that the UN has declared a “red-alert emergency” for humanity.
Read More...Do you have any sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic or fat-shaming thoughts?
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Khaled Hourani is a critical, peculiar institution. His prolific artistic practice encompasses painting, sculpture, writing, curating, and conceptual art, but he is also a part of the Palestinian collective body — crossing boundaries and limitations and constantly engaging in dialogue, the rule of art, and the possibilities of the present moment.
Read More...Our fingers are on the global pulse, counting beats as we stutter towards the throes of death. If you want to know what Adbusters thinks about the news, this is where you find it.
We're in the middle of a guerrilla marketing war for the future of the planet. Conventional weapons are useless — all we have are ideas. These are the best of our culture jams.
Listen to the voice of Adbusters proffering sweet ASMR vibes about the end of capitalism and where Occupy Wall Street went wrong.
Memes can be cinematic too. Turn up the volume and watch the chaos of the world unfold and disintegrate before your very eyes.
As the remaining shreds of Myanmar's long-troubled democracy disintegrate, atrocities are being committed against civilians. But where is the rest of the world?
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On Wednesday, imprisoned activist Alexei Navalny began a hunger strike to protest the unfair treatment he has received as an inmate of a penal colony outside Moscow. But while Navalny's hunger strike highlights the shameful handling he has been subjected to, there is much that can be done from...
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What do the dictatorial Mugabe regime, the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, the Sudanese junta, and now Myanmar's genocidal military government have in common — that is, besides a shared taste for blood and brutality?
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