Situationism V. The Spectacle (Crosspost from Dreamwidth)

Watch this video. I'll wait, but you need to watch it...

OK, The Spectacle is this world of manipulative media. Stochastic terrorism, where a "freely speaking" celebrity, with millions of fans, wishes a type of people dead, out loud on TikTok. Distraction, where a minor public figure is shamed to hide the atrocities of a national leader. An ugly court case, hearing domestic violence accusations, becomes a public trial, shaming the victim/accuser and praising the purpetrator. We take sides, we hold opinions, yet we have barely even a parasocial connection to the respondents. Meanwhile, something crawled out of the slime of a dark Scottish Loch next to a golf course and becomes president of the self appointed "most powerful nation" on earth, while his idiot grin offsider wants to take us all to Mars. This was all predicted in 1967. Not literally, but Debord is screaming, "I TOLD YOU SO!" from his grave.

We the people are asleep at the wheel. "Oh, by the way there's this... Sorry what, oh yes I saw the big game... what was I going to say? Can't have been important. Oh, I thought I was due a payrise, now I get less?" Then we the people are blamed for the climate crisis, Israel's genocide against Palestine, China taking "our" jobs. All things over which we have no control.

What we do have control over, are the small decisions we can make. We can choose to ignore Johnny Depp, but acknowledge violence as wrong. We can be good citizens and still throw bricks at power. We can light fires, metaphorical or real is your choice, but light them, like I am trying to strike a fire here in a wet, dark forest, away from the busy streets, on this isolated blog. But, how do we start fires with wet matches and no dry fuel? What Situations distract onlookers from The Spectacle?

This question is the beginning of a Situationist uprising. Facebook is not the distraction, it's The Spectacle, it's the focus, it's what's expected of you as a good "Prole." Youtube, too. All of these distractions are not distractions, they're what Capital wants you focused on. The distraction is action.

As I watched the last line of the video, the thought occurred to me, stickers on trains that urge the viewer to, "Talk to the person next to you." If you talk to the person next to your on your public transport ride home, that's situationism. You're not "in your device" you're back in your community! Elon wants you to believe in robots and holidays to Mars. He's a liar. Sure, these things are possible, but they're not for you, they're for him, his ego and his wallet. What you get is distracted by the irrelevant garbage the rich tosspots spout and you forget to go to the union stopwork meeting. And your vote was the decider for the payrise, it was that close. That's the Spectacle at work.

So, as you leave work, turn your phone off, get on the public transit that takes you home and talk to the person next to you. If it feels like you've got their attention, ask them if they think they're fairly paid. Ask them why they think their answer is what it is. Now you're both ignoring the Spectacle. Then talk about clever political street art.

That is revolution. A tiny pocket of it, but many such conversations become change. Ignore the Spectacle. Be the distraction. Start a revolution.