Adbusters founders cheer their Occupy idea

With roots that reach as far as Cairo's fertile Tahrir Square, the Occupy protests roiling Wall Street will finally come full circle this weekend as they blossom in Canada, where they were conceived by Vancouver-based Adbusters.

Just a few short months ago, staff members at Adbusters' magazine — one of the seminal agents of the modern-day culture-jamming movement — watched, rapt, as scores of ordinary  Egyptians took to the streets to depose a dictator and end decades of brutal repression at the hands of their government.

"We had sort of a communal, 'Aha!' moment," Adbusters co-founder Kalle Lasn recalled in an interview.

"We started wondering whether the same kind of tools that were used in Egypt, and the sort of regime-change philosophy, couldn't be applied to America."

The ensuing conversation eventually led to the Occupy Wall Street movement, an international uprising against economic inequality and corporate influence on the U.S. federal government.

The campaign, which began on Sept. 17 as an occupation of Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, has generated waves that have engulfed dozens of American cities and spread to countries around the world.

On Saturday, it arrives in several Canadian cities, including Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Watching the phenomenon come full circle has been both surreal and exciting, Lasn said.

"I kept on wanting to go to New York, and now instead of me coming to the occupation, the occupation is coming to me," he said.

"This idea of occupying the iconic centre of global capitalism ... there was something magical about that right from the start, so I knew something very special would happen there on Wall Street, but I had no idea that it would spread to hundreds of cities all around the place and become this possibility of a global mind shift."

Even to a publication for which subversive trends are its stock in trade, the momentum has been surprising.

Adbusters came on the scene 21 years

Adbusters has been a staple of the counter-cultural scene since Lasn and co-founder Bill Schmalz put out its first issue in 1989.

The inaugural issue challenged ads of the day that promoted the British Columbia logging industry, using spoof advertisements and articles to raise awareness of environmental issues at a time when the environment was hardly the mainstream topic it is today.

The magazine has gone on to embrace other social causes, adopting the slogan, "Cultural revolution is our business." Its following is largely based in the U.S. — American readers account for 60 per  cent of the bimonthly magazine's circulation of 100,000.

'What they've done is miraculous. Without leaders, without demands, they've been able to launch a national conversation the likes of which America hasn't seen for a couple of generations. It doesn't get any better than that.' —Adbusters co-founder Kalle Lasn

Adbusters tries to challenge mainstream thinking through culture jamming, a process of replacing common messages with alternative narratives. Kate Tilleczek, Canada Research Chair of Child and Youth Cultures, said Adbusters quickly emerged as a leader in the culture jamming movement that found its niche in a specific demographic.

"It was a voice. They created a space. Young people were really, really moved by it, especially the strong visuality of it," Tilleczek said. "It probably plays its part in so far as it set a culture among the left and the young of feeling fine about jamming the culture."

The desire to overthrow the lobbyists and corporations that exert the most influence on the U.S. government galvanized Adbusters staff to reach out to the magazine's network of activists around the world, Lasn said. Those contacts helped stir up interest over the summer.

The message was originally targeted at Americans grown weary of economic imbalance between the rich and poor, as well as an economy that has foundered for the past three years.

Activists soon found that the issues ran deeper, Lasn said. The ongoing financial crises, coupled with escalating environmental disasters such as last summer's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, have left people feeling the need to take control of their collective destiny.

"Young people are looking at this sort of black-hole future, and they're saying, 'Unless we stand up and fight for a different kind of future, then we're not going to have a future."'

Adbusters spread word of the fledgling idea in its July issue by publishing a poster depicting a ballerina poised atop the charging bull statue that has become a Wall Street landmark. Social media helped to leverage the message, as did the support of subversive forces like the computer-hacker community in the U.S.

The support of self-proclaimed "hacktivist" group Anonymous, known for its defiant and decisive attacks against mainstream corporate brands like MasterCard and Visa, gave the movement the "street cred" it needed to truly flourish, Lasn said.

Over the past month, dozens of rallies emulating the New York protest have sprung up in major cities across the U.S., as well as major centres in Europe and Asia. At least 10 Canadian cities will be holding protests on Saturday, including Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Halifax.

Lasn said he anticipates a more muted response to the movement in Canada, which has been somewhat spared the economic battering that has wreaked havoc south of the border. But the same impulses of anxiety and pessimism remain strong in Canada, he added.

"I think our movement can energize the political left," Lasn said.

"In Canada we have Harper so strong, the Conservatives so strong because there is no energized opposition. Over the next few months, and possibly one year, it's possible for fascinating, exciting new ideas that the political left has had for a long time, for those ideas to push up from the grass roots and start having an impact again on Canadian politics."

Tilleczek said youth organizers in Canada have been trying to galvanize the movement, criticized by some for lacking a clear expression of its demands, by invoking the image of former New Democrat leader Jack Layton, whose death in August from cancer touched off a remarkable display of national grief and affection.

'What they've done is miraculous'

It may not be enough, however, said Andrew Potter, co-author of the anti-culture-jamming book The Rebel Sell, who warned that the unstructured nature of the protest could be its demise.

Potter pointed to the Tea Party, which evolved from dissatisfaction with the government's fiscal management and quickly coalesced into a powerful right-wing movement that has been absorbed into the political mainstream.

Protests based on culture jamming must also adapt themselves to the very systems they hope to overthrow if they want to effect any meaningful change, he said.

The message of higher taxation for the rich and financial reform is valid and worthy of praise, Potter said, but risks falling on deaf ears unless it's communicated more effectively.

"The left has consistently stayed outside the system, to see the system as part of the problem, not part of the solution," he said. "What you've seen is a lot of people who would much rather take to the streets and leave it in the streets.... If they don't successfully institutionalize themselves within the American political power structure, it's not clear what's going to happen."

However the movement evolves, Lasn said Adbusters will not be leading the charge. The magazine has done its part, but will continue to support the movement and play an active behind-the-scenes role.

Its flexibility and lack of structure is its greatest strength, he added.

"What they've done is miraculous," Lasn said.

"Without leaders, without demands, they've been able to launch a national conversation the likes of which America hasn't seen for a couple of generations. It doesn't get any better than that."