*Two Orange Revolutions* By Steven Laffoley CommonDreams.org
Wednesday 15 December 2004
*/We truly live in revolutionary times./*
I watch CNN's latest reality television program: the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. The bleach-blond host reports on the subplots: a stolen election, a peasant blockade, and a poisoned would-be president. When she finishes her opening, she delivers the reality television cliffhanger: Who will be the winner? Victor Yanukovich the pro-Russian reactionary? Or will it be Victor Yushenko the pro-Western revolutionary? She smiles and tells me to stay tuned for the talking heads. Maybe they'll tell me who gets voted off this post-soviet island.
When the commercial begins, I press the mute button then head to the kitchen where I make popcorn. The package promises me revolutionary new butter flavoring. I toss the package in the microwave and press start. While the popcorn package rotates and expands, I make a coffee in my single serving Bodum. The Bodum is old now, but when I bought it, it also promised me revolutionary flavor. For a moment, I consider that my tongue is lucky to "be tasting" in such revolutionary times.
Popcorn and coffee made, I head back to the couch and press the mute button again. The commercials show me revolutionary new drugs for my erectile dysfunction, my heart disease, and my nagging arthritis. I eat some popcorn and, for some reason, I think of the days when only my laundry soap was revolutionary. It claimed to make my "whites even whiter." Some revolution.
I sip my coffee. The bleach blond is back. She is trading serious words with a serious looking, dark-haired Ukrainian. He is predicting a truly revolutionary outcome in Kiev. After a while, the CNN theme music begins. The bleached blond thanks the man and signs off. The screen now returns to the Main Square in Kiev, to the cheering crowds with their orange flags and orange scarves.
I wonder: do the folks waiving those orange flags and orange scarves know they are part of my cable news/entertainment revolution? Do they know that the likely outcome of their pro-western, market economy, Orange Revolution will be a primary-colored, video streaming, cell phone revolution? Or a natural, hair care product revolution? Probably not. And why ruin their nice orange revolution, anyway.
Popcorn and coffee finished, I leave the couch and head for the bedroom where I sit at my desk and playfully google the word "revolution." Among the 27,000,000 hits, I see the big names, of course: the American, French, Russian, and Industrial. And the smaller ones are there too: the Mexican, Haitian, Iranian, and Bolivian. But these old-style revolutions of "ideas" are quaint trivia now.
The "ideas" revolutions are lost in the many new revolutions that scroll down my screen: game revolutions, radio revolutions, and audio-video revolutions. Raelian revolutions, clothing revolutions, and no name pet food revolutions. Popcorn, peanut, and coffee revolutions. Colored revolutions in green, red, and orange. Quiet revolutions and velvet revolutions. Ours is a cornucopia age of revolutions.
But what happened to old-style revolutions? What happened to the good old days of street fighting, blockade building, government overthrowing, out-with-the-old-guy, in-with-the-new-guy revolutions? What happened to the revolutions of meaningful ideas, of "isms" that promised a better life for all?
What happened was this: the corporate world simply bought the television rights to revolution. And they replaced great ideas with green iPods? But don't get me wrong. This revolution runs deeper than simple, glib consumer choice.
Consider: Che Guevara on a tee-shirt is not the sell out of revolution - it is a revolution. It's the new personalized revolution. You just sit down, plug in, pony up your credit card - and the revolution comes to you. No. Better yet: the revolution is you.
Call it the consummate consumer revolution. This is the Age of I, a revolution that allows each person to call up and shape a personalized universe according every whim and change in self-image. In this revolution, the self becomes self-image. Nothing more. The Buddha once said, "We are simply our thoughts." Perhaps the corporate world got Zen.
To play with this idea, I compare trivial, individual names to important, old-style, "ideas" revolutions. I discover that Justin Timberlake gets as many google hits as the French Revolution. And his old girlfriend, Brittany Spears gets more google hits than the Russian Revolution. And I laugh out loud when I discover that that my own name gets more google hits than the Bolivian Revolution. I stop to consider: what does it mean when Brittany Spears is bigger than the Russian Revolution?
I return to the couch to watch more CNN. The new host with the brush cut beard gives me hard news about the Orange Revolution. And while he talks, I flip through my home-style magazine. On page three I read an advertisement for a "revolutionary new juicing system." Amazing, I think. Two orange revolutions. These are truly revolutionary times.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/Steven Laffoley is a freelance writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. You may e-mail him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>./
-------
_______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
