CNN’s recent re-branding effort, “Go Beyond Borders,” presents a bit of a conundrum for me. On the one hand this is a brilliant marketing campaign that is also educational and interactive. On the other hand, it really bleeds the line between marketing, history and interpassivity–designing carefully controlled parameters of interactive media that are “free” in aesthetic only.
Here CNN re-brands itself as “borderless,” yet it’s not just any border. It carefully chooses an event whose symbolism as the triumph of capitalism cannot be ignored. At a time when capitalist ideology should be challenged by media, CNN intrenches itself as the premiere network of capitalist dogma, incorporating the various signs and trademarks of the system’s triumphs– the fall of communism, art, marketing and networked technology–to bundle them into their own nifty little neoliberal package.
Is this something to be concerned about? Commercialism has penetrated every aspect of public life. I know I’m old school when I argue for a clear line between the public good and corporate interests, whereas others would say, what’s the big deal? Maybe it shows that corporations are responsive to the public good. Yet, as is the case with BP, it’s one thing to brand yourself and side with a particular outlook, it’s another thing to practice it. Given a choice between CNN and Fox, I would certainly prefer CNN, but I would hardly call the network virtuous. It certainly remains a primary propaganda arm of global capital. This is not a conspiracy, just business. After all, which “side” do you think Time Warner Inc. is on? Wall Street’s or yours?
I suppose the world is more nuanced than my cartoon, punk rock version of it, yet it’s still hard for me stomach this marketing ploy couched as a history lesson.
19
Dec 09
Losing Hopenhagen?
Former Vikings, contemporary Danish are better known now for windmills, bicycles and excellent rain gear. Like many of the social democracies of Europe’s northern frontier, to some the Danes are actually Europe’s modern hippies, which they hoped to leverage with the “Hopenhagen” brand. History, it was hoped, would show that Copenhagen and its COP-15 UN Climate Change conference had saved Earth. But just as the witch is the shadow of our abandoned body, the transnational police state that now follows global leaders around the planet is the shadow of our abandoned democracy. When it comes to the global family, would we tolerate thugs at the Thanksgiving table clobbering the kids whenever they protest eating factory farmed turkey? Even a feel good slogan like Hopenhagen can’t shake off the reality of global climate negotiators and their roving police state, because a real solution ultimately means the dismantling of the current imperial system of carbon-based economics.
Ostensibly led by the United States, it appears that “Hopenhegan“– like Obama’s “hope” campaign–was a smiley-faced rouse to rebrand neoliberalism. For the conference organizers it’s apparent that the initial plan would be photo ops outside, while inside the only legally binding climate agreement in existence– Kyoto– would be dismantled, and the air would be subdivided into commodities that can be bought and sold on a global cap and trade market exchange. Whoever dreamed up the idea that pollution should be commodified was on the same genius page as those who thought up private prisons and subcontracted war, thereby creating new business opportunities that can only be fueled by more pollution, criminalization and violent conflict. You have to hand it to these guys for the brilliant ways they have figured out how to capitalize on misery.
Case in point. One of Hopenhegan’s “partners” is DuPont, who claims on the Hopenhegan official Website that they have always been good ecologists (“DuPont has long been a leader in the area of climate change, calling for policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a way that’s both environmentally effective and economically sustainable.”). Of course they have, in particular the kind of sustainability of the Agent Orange and napalm variety. And then there is “water neutral” CocaCola, whose Indian production facilities have fouled and devastated community water sources all over the subcontinent. Or take the branding of climate change news by Chevron (see screen grab above) through its strategic ad placement on Website news linking economic development with carbon reduction. I could go on.
I’ve never been a fan of hope anyways. In my spiritual work I learned long ago that visualizing change and a brighter future is not facilitated by hope. Hope is a desire that can never be fulfilled; it is a kind of cosmic panhandling. It is far better to intend, to place a specific goal into the future and to work for it, rather than expect a handout from the overlords of destiny. You can be sure that Goldman Sachs and the military industrial complex do not hope for anything. They strategize, organize and seize opportunities. How is it that, for example, the hidden agenda of the Copenhagen talks is that 20% of the global population gets to control 60% of the atmosphere, as Lumumba Di-Aping Chair of G-77 has pointed out? This is what global capital is planning for. As Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, stated, “The bottom line is we have global economic apartheid and essentially what we are seeing here is a sort of climate apartheid.”
Meanwhile, the rest of us can either just hope that the Empire decides deescalate, as Copenhagen police finally did during one protest, or to organize as many are now doing. Small island nations, indebted countries and citizen groups have disrupted and stopped what would have been a global disaster of an agreement (what was announced yesterday is not bindiing). We have to hand it to civil society for frustrating the World System’s bogus consensus– for now. I suspect it is a bit of what Paul Hawken talks about in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming– disparate and diverse groups working locally, but collectively form the greatest movement in human history. It may be getting its sea legs now, as the contradictions of Copenhagen are too stark to bear.
The US media, unfortunately, continues to provide a disservice to the public by not covering the issue from an egalitarian point of view. But that is to be expected. Any student of political economy would predict this kind of coverage. Not surprisingly, in my international culture and media courses, it is only the Americans who are clueless about climate change. PR has certainly earned its top dollar for confusing the issue. So it is a legitimate concern that Obama’s hands are tied back at home. No doubt, if Congress can’t pass a decent, even totally watered down, health care bill, it will surely fail at supporting any meaningful climate treaty.
Paying for carbon reduction is not charity. It’s a moral obligation. We (that is, those of us born in the global economic “core”) have produced 60% of the historical CO2 in the air right now. Whatever treaty the rich countries of the world want to push is going to kill millions of people because by settling on a 2 degree increase in global temperatures it is surely signing a death warrant for the colonized world. The word from African activists is that $10 billion a year is only enough to buy coffins. Never before have the contradictions of the system been so open and transparent. Whereas in the past we could justify the abstraction of land ownership and property because it was fixed and concrete, air is ephemeral and obviously belongs to all equally. The concept of owning and selling it should be too absurd to past muster. But then again, we also take a lot of absurdities for granted.
This is our endgame. Either we are a global family with real democracy, or illegitimate Empire that will continue to treat the world as a chess set. We already know the agenda of one set of players, what is ours?
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There are many great posts out there processing the situation. I suggest starting with Adrian J. Ivakhiv’s blog post at Indications. It will lead you do many other excellent links, too many for my tattered mind to grapple with right now.