Adbusters Archive

The (almost) complete archive of all the stuff that Adbusters has ever made - Articles! Podcasts! Spoof ads! - in one convenient place for your viewing pleasure.

Articles

Usually exclusive to our physical magazine, we’ve treated non-subscribers to a selection of some of our best print pieces.

"Violence and Activism: Five Variations"

Does violence have a place in art? Whether it does, it has featured to a growing extent in the “actions,” or protest-performances, of Petr Pavlensky. The Russian-born provocateur first made a sensation of himself when, in 2012, he sewed his lips shut and stood in public protest of the jailing of members of Pussy Riot. (They were convicted of hooliganism for their punk demonstration, within the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, against the Russian Orthodox Church’s support of then-candidate Vladimir Putin.)

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Flames of Renewal - Part 3

As for circumstances. When mismanagement and corruption lead states into ruin; when the many are immiserated for the benefit of the luxuriant few; when the multitudes are treated not with basic dignity, but like swine at slaughter — first, a warning; then, with trepidation, a call to arms.

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Flames of Renewal - Part 2

Where the state and its affairs are so far beyond redemption, or where change is made impossible due to the state’s calcified limitations, that the last of these — what might signal revolution — is decided, the question of “how” invariably follows. Violence, in the form of warfare, may seem the natural answer. Yet, on occasion, solutions (nominally) barring violence have been known to achieve radical outcomes.

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Deep Dives

Dive deep into long form features on everything from smartphone addiction to what a True-Cost global marketplace would mean for the economy.

Kalle Lasn on the spirit of Occupy

Just as Adbusters’ worldwide circulation climbed beyond 100,000 and our NGO was becoming a geopolitical force to be reckoned with, a strange thing happened. I became disillusioned. Or rather, I became profoundly disappointed with politics of the Left. I felt that we had lost our way.We Lefties just weren’t . . . making things happen. A protest could draw a million people, but then everyone went home and resumed their routines. Internet campaigns whipped up great anticipation, but a week later you hardly even remembered what they were about.We whined a lot. Read many books. Knew what was wrong with the world but had no idea how to fix it.

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Western WEIRDness

Hot off the press is the newest report of the Global Flourishing Study — an ongoing project managed by Harvard and Baylor which checks in with hundreds of thousands of folks in 22 countries to see how they're doing. "Flourishing" might best be described as truly crushing this thing called life. You're happy, you're healthy, you're at peace. Once again this year, the Scandinavian countries came out on top.The big surprise was who came out on the bottom: Japan, the UK, and the United States. Countries with among the highest GDP in the world.

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The Virtue of Defiance

Young guy in a vest, holding a clipboard, came to the door.His timing wasn’t good – we were busy. “Thanks, sorry, can’t today,” I said through the crack in the door.“One minute, max,” he said.“Sorry, man, no.”It wasn’t clear what he was canvassing for, and I didn’t have time to find out.But he wasn’t leaving. My No hadn’t registered. He’d actually stepped forward. He was half inside the house. Only his hind end stuck out into the cold.“Listen, man. No! Look at me: No!”He looked me in the face. Blinking like a carp.I felt my fist wanting to go somewhere I’d regret. I redirected it into my pocket and found a ten—here, bugger off.The guy didn’t take it.“Sorry, can’t do a one-time payment,” he said. “We’re asking for a commitment of a small monthly amount.”“What? Nooooo!”

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Spoof Ads

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.

KalleCasts

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.

Hummingbird

Media

Listen to the voice of Adbusters proffering sweet ASMR vibes about the end of capitalism and where Occupy Wall Street went wrong.

The BlackSpot Collective

The Pulse

Memes can be cinematic too. Turn up the volume and watch the chaos of the world unfold and disintegrate before your very eyes.

Unprime Day

Prime Day, Amazon’s yearly deal-hawking hoopla for its swindled subscribers, begins on June 21. And there’s never been a better occasion to cancel your Prime membership and boycott Amazon and all its subsidiaries (which include AbeBooks, Amazon Studios, Audible, Book Depository, ComiXology, Goodreads, IMDb, Twitch, Whole Foods, Zappos, and dozens more).

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Why Don’t We Put the Head of the Sackler Family in Jail for Life?

For two decades Purdue Pharma peddled the falsehood that OxyContin, the painkiller at the heart of the deadly opioid epidemic, was safe and non-addictive. “More people in the United States died from overdoses involving opioids in 2017,” in Nature’s account, ”than from HIV- or AIDS-related illnesses at the peak of the AIDS epidemic.”

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Who Will Win the Planetary Endgame?

Our world is being carved into two spheres of influence. For now, those spheres are limited merely to economic competition. But as the the tension mounts, there is a real possibility that the China-vs-U.S. face-off could spill over into an all-out war — a global fight for worldwide hegemony — maybe even World War 3.

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