No Passengers

My 7-year-young son is up with the birds, and his Dad, this morn­ing. He’s at the PC next to me, googling Poke­mon and end­less­ly ask­ing when I’ll be done so I can tell him a Poke­mon sto­ry. (Which is actu­al­ly a call-and-respon­se kind of nar­ra­tive in which I lay down a basic sto­ry­line and he fills in the Poke­mon char­ac­ters and what they do, as I’m clue­less about the intri­ca­cies of Chowazar train­ing issues.)

Which brings me to games and activism.

Any aging dig­er­ati out there remem­ber the first Whole Earth Soft­ware Cat­a­logue (1984)? I think I’ve still got mine kick­ing around in the base­ment some­where. It was the dead-tree Tucows of its day, list­ing cool stuff you could buy on 5 and a quar­ter inch flop­py disks to run on your (in my case) 286 Com­paq Sewing Machine portable with 10 megabyte hard disk mon­ster rig.

Chap­ter One was games.

Stew­art Brand made a com­pelling case for why, at a time when the PC was infest­ing account­ing depart­ments all over the plan­et and becom­ing some­thing that every office had to have, he chose to lead with fun, say­ing that games are the way we first learn as chil­dren, and play­time learn­ing remains one of the best ways to mas­ter a com­pli­cat­ed new task like DOS-based Per­son­al Com­put­ing. And indeed, the ear­ly adopters I knew in the days of the Kaypro II, where I cut my teeth, all had a child-like streak of curi­ousi­ty and gee-whizzik­ers-ness.

I’m remind­ed of that every time I look at the stats over at the Green­peace web­site and see that among the many fine 50-page stud­ies and painstak­ing­ly researched infor­ma­tion, it’s still the Games sec­tion which rules the mousepa­ths. Which has been dri­ving some thought about how we can bundle cam­paign mes­sag­ing into fun-filled deliv­ery pack­ages. Top on my list: How to inform kids today that all that stuff about how the nuclear weapons threat is not sim­ply a mat­ter of rogue states or a bygone of the Rea­gan era, and that thing called Cher­nobyl and what it was all about.

So I’m hap­py to provide you with a sneak peak of our lat­est Pain­less Activism Edu­ca­tion Device: Duke Anti-Nuke.

We bun­dled a hun­dred Fun and Fear­some Facts about nuclear weapons and nuclear pow­er into a plat­form game fea­tur­ing our hero, Duke, as he strives to con­vert nuclear pow­er plants into wind­mills and solar farms and dis­arm those pesky WMDs before the evil ter­ror­ists get to them. The facts about all things nuclear have been shred­ded by a smarmy Nuclear Indus­try pub­li­cist, and it’s Duke’s job to gath­er them up.

Rich Salter and Denise Wilton put this togeth­er. I’m real­ly lame at plat­form games, so in order to test some of the high­er lev­els and see the win screens, I need­ed some­body who could actu­al­ly get past that nasty place in screen three where the radioac­tive waste starts leak­ing and you have to dodge guards, falls, AND radioac­tive drops.

So I sat my son down, (he could mouse around by the time he was 3) and we went head to head on our two pcs in the base­ment in a week­end-long Duke chal­lenge. I haven’t had so much damn fun in ages.

But while at 7 years old Doon could appre­ci­ate the game­play, he cer­tain­ly missed the mes­sage. The son of a peace activist had one improve­ment sug­ges­tion: Duke should have a gun, so he can shoot the guards.

We didn’t imple­ment that par­tic­u­lar change request.

What’s *your* favourite game with a mes­sage?

= Martha and Doon in MY idea of a sports util­i­ty vehi­cle­Woo hoo… the Chevy Appren­tice anti-ad cam­paign cross­es over into “the news.” Here’s an arti­cle from CNET. Calls to Chevy for com­ment were not returned. I bet.

At the moment there’s prob­a­bly a real con­flict going on over there of the “there’s no such thing as bad pub­lic­i­ty” kind — do you keep run­ning this com­pe­ti­tion when it’s get­ting used to tar­nish your well-fund­ed brand, or do you fig­ure the more the mer­ri­er and all that “Tahoe Tahoe Tahoe” mantra going out on the ether will make con­sumers for­get they have any envi­ron­men­tal ethics when it comes time to plunk down the ready for the ride?

The Detroit Free Press, in a piece about the ad cam­paign before it was launched:

“Because the aver­sion to adver­tis­ing seems to be grow­ing, con­sumer engage­ment is a key way adver­tis­ers are try­ing to get peo­ple to inter­act with their brands. From spon­sor­ing major sport­ing events to air­ing ads ordi­nary peo­ple cre­ate, com­pa­nies are find­ing ways to make the their pitch­es less like ads and more enter­tain­ing.”

But seri­ous­ly, is let­ting even a hard-core Tahoe fan stitch togeth­er an ad from a pre-assem­bled set of puff pieces going to be any fun unless you’re spoof­ing it? I am *defin­i­tiely* not the tar­get audi­ence here given my pri­ma­ry means of trans­porta­tion is my bike and my bad-ass, two-kids and gro­ceries truck­in’ “bak fiets,” but I just can’t imag­ine any­one of sound mind get­ting a kick out of con­sid­er­ing with a straight face where to stick the pro­mo about how the seats fold back.

Then again, I haven’t lived in the Unit­ed States for a long, long time. And you know how the­se things are, you miss out on a few brain­wash ses­sions, you cut a cou­ple imag­i­na­tion labotomies, and before you know it, you just can’t keep up.

(By the way, the sam­ple ad they post at CNET is pret­ty good, but I see bet­ter below!)

In oth­er SUV news — who says slap­ping a stick­er on an SUV isn’t an effec­tive form of action????

“THANDIE New­ton, the British star of the Hol­ly­wood hit film Crash, has become a cru­sader again­st gas-guz­zling cars after a Green­peace activist slapped stick­ers on her vehi­cle accus­ing her of adding to glob­al warm­ing.”

–b

So much for trans­paren­cy. Nei­ther Exxon nor Pub­lic Inter­est Watch would share a podi­um with Green­peace USA chief Trou­ble­mak­er John Pas­sacan­tan­do and the Wall Street Jour­nal reporter who broke the sto­ry on the IRS audit­ing Green­peace at the behest of PIW, an Exxon front group.

There’s a tran­script here from Democ­ra­cy now of the dis­cus­sion.

Why is it scary is that Exxon isn’t account­able for any of this? Because fun fact num­ber 123, kids: Exxon’s prof­its last year were big­ger than the annu­al bud­gets of 123 coun­tries. Coun­tries are, in the­o­ry, account­able for their dirty tricks. Fat cat cor­po­rates like Exxon can sim­ply buy the demo­c­ra­t­ic process. They’re not even account­able in the mar­ket­place. As Karma­ban­que points out, their retail sales form such a tiny frac­tion of their income that we the peo­ple can boy­cott them to our heart’s con­tent, and it won’t real­ly dent a toe­nail on the T-rex.

Exxon­se­crets keeps track of who Exxon pays to deny cli­mate change and glob­al warm­ing. Per­son­al­ly, I think there ought to be a “Cor­po­rate Crimes Court.” We can already count deaths attibutable to glob­al warm­ing, and that num­ber is going to soar in com­ing years. There are indi­vid­u­als behind the poli­cies Exxon, and they deserve to be behind bars just as much as any war crim­i­nal.

Dai­lyKos pal Plu­to­ni­um Page wrote a great blog on the WSJ sto­ry when it broke.

= Marten Lindquist, Peace Poster Pro­ject­In dis­cus­sions yes­ter­day in the Porn Lounge in the Green­peace office (so called because of the ornate faux-18th cen­tu­ry faux-gold thread­ed freecy­cled fur­ni­ture) a cou­ple of us talk about Iran and the ulti­ma­tum that the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil is going to deliv­er. Is there, real­is­ti­cal­ly, any way that this won’t amount to a dec­la­ra­tion of war? Isn’t the ques­tion now what form that war will take rather than whether it will hap­pen? And what, as peace activists have we got to say about this?

I know what I say: Ban it all, dammit. Iran has no “inalien­able right” to nuclear pow­er any­more than I’ve got an inalien­able right to send my kid to school with a luger. The US won’t have the right to play good cop until it sets an exam­ple by shed­ding those 30,000 nuclear weapons they’re still hold­ing up their sleeve (and which don’t, by the way, seem to be deter­ring a damn thing). The Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil is bank­rupt for the same rea­son — recall you buy a veto in that club with nukes.

The geopoltics of this par­tic­u­lar cri­sis may be com­pli­cat­ed, but the big pic­ture answer is sim­ple. A fis­sile mate­ri­als ban for all. We have a choice: a world where there’s a nuclear weapon for every man, wom­an and child on the plan­et, or one where they’re 100% pro­hib­it­ed. No nukes. Peri­od. Now, how do we get 30 mil­lion peo­ple out in the streets to say that with one voice?????

And as to what form this war will take — here’s a chill­ing bit of spin­drift from the ocean of email I wade through every day. I find this a fair­ly cred­i­ble analy­sis of why Israel will front the attack, though I dis­agree in some details (the US doesn’t real­ly care what the world thinks either, but they will build a coali­tion around this one for the sake of domes­tic pol­i­tics):

Some thoughts on whether the US or Israel would hit Iran first (IF they do, let us hope not) — there is sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle pub­lic dis­cus­sion. I would sug­gest the US would not jump first — it would be a diplo­mat­ic dis­as­ter as the whole
world would con­demn a new uni­lat­er­al war, and also it would imme­di­ate­ly invite the still-silent Badr brigades in Iraq to attack the US occu­piers, and it would give the Democ­rats a secu­ri­ty issue to be dif­fer­ent from the Bush admin­stra­tion about, some­thing the Dems des­per­ate­ly need.

Israel on the oth­er hand:

• open­ly con­sid­ers that Cheney has given them the green light to do a pre­ven­tive strike;
• is pub­licly com­mit­ted to a ‘point of no return’ in the next weeks or months — so doing noth­ing would be a sign of weak­ness and ques­tion their acknowl­edged ‘be like mad dog’ mil­i­tary pos­ture.
• will have a new Kadi­ma gov­ern­ment that may need to prove it’s tough-guy cre­den­tials in the absence of Sharon, espe­cial­ly as it soon wants to “sell out” a few ille­gal set­tle­ments in the Occu­pied Ter­ri­to­ries to make a per­ma­nent
  bor­der.
• Israel has announced it wants to take out Bushehr as well. The Amer­i­cans would may­be like to do, but can­not real­ly jus­ti­fy it because they admit Iran has a right to nuclear pow­er. Israel will not sat­is­field with a diplo­mat­ic
  solu­tion to end Ira­ni­an enrich­ment — it’s said it can not tol­er­ate ANY civil nukes pro­gram.
• unlike the US, Israel has no con­cern about what the rest of the world thinks
• unlike the US, Israel con­sid­ers Ira­ni­an nukes to be an ‘exis­ten­tial threat’… a grave, total threat to the exis­tence of the state. So they have to act, some­time.

Not every expert in the US thinks this way, indeed the Army War Col­lege pub­lish­es papers about learn­ing to live with the Ira­ni­an bomb being a bet­ter idea than bomb­ing Iran.

From the US point of view, it is not only much more con­ve­nient if Israel strikes first, but the end result would be sim­i­lar — if Iran strikes back at either Israel or US forces, then Bush would have a legit­i­mate causus bel­li of
defend­ing an ally or of self defence — and could bomb what­ev­er it liked in Iran.

If you find that scary, go get a heap­ing help­ing of more bad news over at Pete’s blog, Don’t Bomb Iran. Then talk it up — there’s a train start­ing to roll down the tracks, it’s gath­er­ing steam, and it’s name ain’t peace.

–b

If you love a good rant (and who doesn’t love a good rant?) check out the pod­casts from Max and Sta­cy of Karma­ban­que. I wrote a pro­file on this “Bon­ny and Clyde” of Karma­ban­que some time ago, and in the inter­im they’ve launched an out­ra­geous set of audio spews which take a kilo of eco­nom­ic smarts (Max is ex-Wall Street) adds a truck­load of activist atti­tude, a train­car of col­or­ful lan­guage and mix­es it into an explod­ing cake of fast-paced screed and invic­tive again­st the “Stu­pid­oc­ra­cy” of the west­ern gov­ern­ments and their cor­po­rate sock-pup­peteers. No holds barred, in your face, get-out-in-the-streets stuff. They have swum with the pira­nhas. They know how they work.

–b

“Some­body ought to build an appli­ca­tion that lets peo­ple visu­al­ize pre­cise­ly what a 2 meter sea lev­el rise might mean” we said a few years ago around the Organ­ic Water Cool­er at Green­peace Inter­na­tion­al in Ams­ter­dam as the lat­est pre­dic­tions on Glob­al Warm­ing impacts came out.

“Some­body ought to build an appli­ca­tion that lets peo­ple visu­al­ize pre­cise­ly what a 7 meter sea lev­el rise might mean” we said last year when the news of the poten­tial Green­land Ice sheet melt came out.

And now, given the new data on Antarc­ti­ca, I expect we would have been say­ing “Some­body ought to build an appli­ca­tion that lets peo­ple visu­al­ize pre­cise­ly what a 12 meter sea lev­el rise might mean”…

If some­body hadn’t already done it.

From one meter all the way up to 14 — a Google Map that uses NASA ele­va­tion data to show pre­cis­ley what the lat­est sea-lev­el rise pre­dic­tions might mean for your favorite beach location/mangrove full of endan­gered species/sub-sea-level neigh­bor­hood in Amsterdam/island nation/teeming mil­lions of low­land dwellers.

Thanks to World­Chang­ing for spot­ting this one.

It was three years ago on Feb­ru­ary 15th that 30 mil­lion peo­ple took to the streets to say that a pre-emp­tive inva­sion of an aggres­sor sus­pect­ed of hav­ing weapons of mass destruc­tion was a real­ly bad idea. And it was three years ago today that the pow­ers that be thumbed their noses at world opin­ion, and invad­ed Iraq.

I remem­ber think­ing what a great leap for­ward that ral­ly felt like — I remem­ber the incred­i­ble out­pour­ing of webac­tivism, of peo­ple unit­ed by a sin­gle pas­sion­ate­ly felt objec­tive.

Well, we may need all that ener­gy again if things con­tin­ue the way they are going in Iran. The “We told you so” T-shirts we’re wear­ing today just might might serve sec­ond-hand if we don’t head this one off at the pass. Because Rum­my and Bush and the Cheney Boys all appeared to have learned a lesson about protest avoid­ance from the last round. They’re not going this one alone — they’re work­ing to build a UN man­date to go after Iran, and instead of bas­ing it on the principel that The US knows whats good for the world, it’ll be The US knows whats good for the world dis­guised as the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil knows whats good for the world. I.e. The guys with the grip on the nuclear weapons that ain’t about to let go.

The mil­i­tary machine has been once-burned. And while it may only have been a tiny scorch, the fact is they have to reck­on with the sec­ond super­pow­er of pub­lic opin­ion.

The pic­ture at left is my son Doon out show­ing the flag three years ago. Last night as I put my 18 mon­th old son, Dylan, to bed, my good­night wish to him was that he’d live in a wis­er world.