Counter Hegemony CounterHegemony Counter-Hegemony Newsletter

CounterHeg
News for the everyday struggle

CounterHegemony Podcast

As of September 3, 2005 the CounterHegemony podcast is available for public consumption. I hope to keep each episode informative and useful for activists interested in social change. I encourage listeners interested in the operating philosophy behind CounterHegemony to review the first two episodes about Hegemony and CounterHegemony respectively. Continuing episodes cover other philosophical and background issues for social change as well as a series on Activist Methods.

The CounterHegemony Blog is where I'll blog and post information about each podcast. And the Podcast is available directly from http://counterhegemony.libsyn.com/.

Welcome to the newsletter. I'll start by explaining the name: CounterHeg. CounterHeg is short for Counter Hegemony -- counterhegmony and counter-hegemony are acceptable, as are pronouncing the "g" either way, though in Italy its the "j" sound).

The news I'll be listing here is not the whole picture, it does not claim to be an objective picture, but it is a challenging picture. This is not The Truth, but it is not The Lie either. It subjective, constrained, and it uses every tool available to tell a different story.

Utah Phillips has said, "We all assign blame in our own best interest. So one of the most important functions in society is who controls the blame patterns. Why is that so many workers in my country assign blame downwards towards a few welfare chisellers who want to get a little something for nothin', instead of upwards towards a whole bunch of big-time chisellers who steal a whole lot of something for doing nothing at all?" He goes on to criticize the school system, the profit driven media system, and other institutions for arranging our priorities against our interests. Why isn't free universal health care at the top of our agenda? Why are we more concerned about the costs of social welfare than corporate welfare? Why were we more concerned with Clinton's cigar than with his foreign policy? Why and how was United States and Britain able to go to war with minority support internally, and barely any support internationally?

Counter Hegemony challenges to this organization. It challenges the underlying assumptions and priorities of our lives. It can be artistic, political, spiritual, entertaining or tear-jerking, but it is what it is, and it doesn't disguise its intent: to challenge.

CounterHeg, for the moment, is this website, basically a newsletter published regularly between 2002 and 2003, and very sporadically since then. But, conceptually, CounterHeg is actually part of a bigger scheme called Counter Hegemony. Counter Hegemony is a different way of characterizing the rapidly growing and coalescing movements from around the world. Yes, this is what most call the "anti-globalization" movement, but any one involved in the movement is fully aware that its a particular (neo-liberal economic) form of "globalization" that most of the world is anti-. Counter Hegemony encompasses the whole bit, though. Its a cultural movement conscious of the validity of economistic Marxist arguments and is also very aware that feminism, environmentalism, critical race theory, and humans' every day experience sometimes come into conflict with each other in irreconcilable ways under the current power structures. We know about these contradictions and are willing to press on, with each other, building a new hegemony (i.e. a Counter Hegmony - get it?); one bent on freedom for all, with equal rights for women, men, blacks, whites, everyone; with genuine respect for the environment; with workers democratically controlling every aspect of their labour; with all parents able to provide for their children; with all people free to travel across political borders; with meaningful access to mass media channels; with votes that actually count in a political system that actually cares; and with a consciousness that understands that a (r)evolution doesn't happen overnight, but it does happen, and does need people fighting for it.

Last updated: December 3, 2004

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cheers,
Dan

Also note: CounterHeg.org is also available for private campaign, social, and cultural research. Send all project proposals and inquiries to: dan at counterheg.org.

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