So I guess you would rather see just photocopied sheets with exactly the "correct" line handed out to a few mates and the usual suspects then...

Hey that would be self righteous and down with the anti-brands eh, oh and pretty bloody useless.

That said I dig some of what you say but think a wider analysis would be better including the likes of riot chic fashion on the high street and the general trendiness of brand bashing as a climate (which nologo really helped kick into consciousness) that the activist and campaign movements are failing to take advantage of.

Btw why not post your comments on the nologo website at www.nologo.org

Yep, we have to be carefull of people with big ego's and
larger than life personalities. unfortunately they will very shortly be leading this new protest movement, right about now
Genova is full of them. Until two months ago when they lost the election to Berlusconi the so called Italian left, the
Democratic Sinistra, greens ect, were busy carrying the exact same policies of gloabalisation that the G8 protest is all about . They also had a cosy relationship with the mafia.
Now they have jumped on the G8 bandwagon and are supposedly protesting about the event and the security precautions which they themselves arranged.. Politicians seem to have an special ability that allows them to get lower than the rest of us .

G W

Joanne Bradley is, I beleive, mistaken in her analysis. Starting with the provocative statement that “Naomi Klein is worse than the corporations she supposedly fights against” she argues that by participating in institutions of power, such as in newspapers and the publishing of a book, she is serving egotistical values rather than being “truly conscious of society’s interests” as Joanne clearly believes that she herself is.

If we were to return to the planet Earth for a short period of time, we may see that what Naomi Klein has done, is use a platform that she has created for herself via journalism, to express opinions that are not often expressed to large numbers of people.

I just don’t think this idea that to be a social reformer or socialist (or what ever you call those who are “truly conscious of society’s interests”) you have to live in poverty (Engels springs to mind) has any validity. The important thing is to inform as many people as possible with the most accurate analysis of modern capitalism.

Joanne is at her most incorrect when she states “Naomi’s motivations stem from her selfishness more than any truer benevolence she might feel for humanity. If her motivations were pure in nature and her instincts as sharp as she thought, she would rescind any and all freedoms associated with capitalism”

Unless we live in a commune entirely cut of from mainstream society we all participate to some extent within capitalism. The point is to understand that and do something about it. I think publishing a book read by thousands of people all over the world on the subject is more than most of us will do.

Whilst I don’t agree with Klein on all issues, I believe her work is an important one and does not deserve this sort of unfair and fuzzy-minded criticism.

I am afraid I have to disagree with Joanne that only people with pure motives can make a difference.
This has long been an issue with me I am a vegitarian and have been for a long time, a lot of my Vegan friends consider this in some ways to be worse than being a "Meat Head" and say if I wont go all the way why bother.
I normally say to them what I will say to Joanne, if 1 person goes as far down a path as they can, that is very admirable but wont make a great difference and a lot of people may dismiss them as extreemists. On the other hand if several million people take one small step in the right direction it makes a huge difference.
So if No-Logo, makes enough people say "Oh well I try, I dont shop at Gap or McDonalds anymore" then it will have been worth it, even if she does make a profit and help some global corporations by publishing it.
(Oh and I suspect you arnt so pure either, if you have ever gone to a pub, a supermarket, paid rent, bought clothes you have propped up the capatalist society we live in (as have I, Im not happy about it but I dont really have the choice).
So small steps, she is on our side, save your anger for the real targets (G8, Bush, Coke etc)

when i glanced at NO LOGO i thought id seen something similar before, which turned out to be THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS by VANCE PACKARD written in 1958.
What troubled me was the way in which klein dismissed vance as a mere critic of advertising techinique (subliminalism, depth ads, etc) when he makes it clear that his concern is that these very techniques will be used by the governments too. "Persuading" us as consumers will develop into "persuading" us as citizens, vance reasoned.
he lived into the late 1980s, and reaffirmed his thesis several times. pity he didnt live to see the rise of the new-new left...

A similar issue is with bands like Rage Against the Machine. This band is signed to one of the biggest corporations in the world, i.e. Sony, and make millions of pounds from their records, and yet they tout a decidedly anti-capitalist agenda. Being a fan of alternative-punk, I was trying to tell one of my metal-head friends this, and pointed out that bands like Fugazi talk about a similar agenda but without selling out, and said well yes, but Fugazi won't reach the sort of audiences that Rage do. So what do we do, do we sit around hoping to be as pure and saintly as possible and never get our message heard, or do we compromise a bit, and wake more people up to the issues?

Sometimes being an absolute purist can be self-defeatist.

At the same time, we must bear in mind films like Fight Club. This also has a very subversive, anticorporate message, yet stars people as popular as Brad Pitt. My mate said that this was Hollywood's way of keeping us happy, making us believe that it was being a bit rebellious and different, and stopping us from effecting any real change. Its almost as if being "anti capitalist" was another form of consumerism, you know, just getting a tattoo, shaving your head or getting dreads and wearing a hood, facemask and combat trousers, just another sort of conformism, just buying into the image without actually trying to change anything. I even heard that the catwalk designers were coming up with new designs called "riot" and "anticapitalist".

Still, at the end of the day, perhaps all this is good, positive proof that the message of the movement has got through to people. I'm undecided as to whether its a good thing or not.

I think we’re getting on to some big issues here. And dare I mention the name Foucault in relation to them on this website?? Guess so, but I’ll keep it very brief! The whole anti-capitalist thing is in grave danger of becoming, in his terms, a new “subjectifying discourse”, a new source of pre-packaged identity which does practically nothing for the cause of emancipation from domination, exploitation, discipline and ideology. Indeed, it may even be (literally) self-destructive, providing the illusion of autonomous and progressive action, and hence yet another distraction from the powerful forces which shape our very consciousness and deny us the will and capability to act freely and shape our own lives.

Quite how anti-capitalism/globalization deals with such problems... I’ve yet to figure out. Maybe it's all too easy to become cynical once it starts being fashionable. And of course very few people can choose to just stop living under capitalism. But any genuine challenge to the values of the system which shapes each and every one of us must surely attempt something more radical than a handful of one-off demo's and a new range of "anticapitalist" t-shirts. Hope this is sufficiently provocative – it’s definitely an issue which concerns many lefties I know and one which should be seriously addressed (in a bit more detail).