From Adbusters:
Tactical Briefing #27 – #LAUGHRIOT
Alright you wild cats, nimble dreamers and jammer tacticians,
In a sudden about-face, the United States has conceded a victory to Occupy and moved May”™s G8 summit to Camp David, an impenetrable military base in rural Maryland. Wow! Looks like the specter of 50,000 occupiers ready to swarm with a list of demands has turned the climactic Showdown in Chicago into a humiliating G8 Backdown. Bravo! Splitting the G8 and NATO summits was a deft move”¦ but now we”™ve got a major tactical rethink on our hands.
The big question is do we follow Mao”™s advice (“when the enemy retreats, we pursue”) or Sun Tzu”™s (“Do not pursue an enemy who simulates flight”)? We”™ve heard persuasive arguments on all sides. Some occupiers say the movement should lay chase and go for #OCCUPYCAMPDAVID against all odds “¦ a month of tree-sits, lockdowns and nomadic encampments in the woods and nearby Thurmont. Others believe it”™s best to up the ante with #OCCUPYCHICAGO: an even bigger mobilization beginning with the May Day General Strike. Still others advocate an unpredictable everywhere-at-once global insurgency of anarchic swarms throughout the month of May.
When Ben Ali first attacked then tried to hide from his people, he was toppled. When Mubarak refused to negotiate and tried to beat his people back into line, he was deposed. Now the White House and the G8 are repeating the mistakes of last year”™s autocrats “¦ first they try to scare us with tough talk of repressive anti-Occupy ordinances, crowd suppression technologies and paramilitary policing, then they make a hasty retreat to the safety of Camp David.
The world”™s leaders flee from us “¦ so what do we do? Maybe we just laugh at them?
On May 18, the day the G8 leaders meet in Camp David, why don”™t we, the people of the world have a #LAUGHRIOT. Let roars of laughter rise up from towns and cities everywhere at the spectacle of the world”™s leaders trying to crisis manage the economy from behind closed doors and razor wire fences.
Laughter is one of the most powerful tactical weapons of memewar “¦ it signals supremacy and loss of fear. So let”™s pull off the greatest comedy of howling flash mobs, riotous street parties and hysterical pranks the world has ever seen. May 18 could be a monumental tipping point”¦ an ahahaha! moment when the people of the world have a collective epiphany, and from that point on start thinking differently about how the world should be governed.
Jammers, whatever we do this Spring, let”™s float like butterflies and sting like bees! Let”™s bend the G8 and NATO to our will with shock tactics and audacious culture jams that capture the imagination of the world. We may be far closer to a Global Spring than any of us has so far dared to imagine “¦
for the wild,
Culture Jammers HQ
campaigns@adbusters.org