Diatribe (94)

Editors' Diatribe:
Strategic Interventions

Beatniks, hippies, yippies, Mods, Punks, Rockers, Rastas... X. What the? Over-defined, undermined, boring, bored and banal - OK, calm down, this isn't a Douglas Coupland collectors' edition (although we reserve the right to all future dividends...) But let the narratives/credits/joints roll...

Too much whining, too much hype, too many people talking about us (X) and not enough of us talking. So in a funky fourth edition the tribe's back!

In trying to determine what we wanted to do with this issue, we stumbled, in a sort of roundabout way, into something called strategic interventions. Greeted by a chorus of "whaddya mean"s, we dug even deeper to define this elusive concept and to now, as we go to print, we think we've got it. Yessss!!!! (Wasn't it Michael Boyce who called us the Vague Generation?...)

In our struggle to become successful mediators, we are constantly redefining ourselves and our relationship to this media thing. Without attempting a revolution, we feel a distinct need for (to coin last issue's term) a re-positioning. We use media, see media, are defined by media... we are the media, and we are the message. So fuck Gen-X, get a grip...

Strategic Interventions means standing up and taking a subjective/pro-active swing at things; taking our media in our hands and giving them a critical kick in the butt. This issue is about empowerment, about breaking down systemic structures, understanding them, and finding oppositional voices within/out them. Sub/counter-cultural voices can emerge in unlikely places (see Ro's 90210). But it all comes down to individuals - Tetsuo Kogawa and Annie Sprinkle are two people dedicated to opening eyes and shaking things up. Technologies such as the Internet are providing unprecedented venues for individual and community empowerment - get wired!

Strategic (stre te'jic) also strategical adj.
1. Pertaining to or marked by strategy. 2. Important in or essential to strategy. 3. Intending to destroy an enemy's war-making capacity: strategic bombing. 4. Essential to the conduct of a war: a strategic metal.

Intervention(s)(in"ter ven"shen), n.

1. The act or fact of intervening. 2. Interposition or interference of one's state in the affairs of another.

No "apple-sauce" please.

The Editors

T'cha Dunlevy
Greg Elmer
Genviève Napier
Lainie Knox

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