This is a rough draft. Contructive comments would be nice.
What is necessary today is the formation of collectives dispersed across the Geist. Collectives are the coalescing of people into an organization. They share a common project or goal. Each individual is an element in the collective and together they form a single entity, the collective. Collectives are like corporations but personal. Each individual in the collective has their own projects, what they aim to create for themselves. Within the collective the individuals' projects come together to form a collective project. This is the goal or aim of the collective which guides its movement into the future. It is what it pro-jects into the future as a guiding principle to be fulfilled in the development of time. A collective's project is oriented by the situation or situations which the collective operates in. For example the DoLab's situations are music festivals. This being the case their project is defined by music festivals. Their project is to spark creativity and strengthen the bond between people. This project develops only within the situations of music festivals. Based on a collectives project and situation(s) there are definitive means to achieve their goal. These means are art (creativity[poesis]) and science (technical/knowledgeable know-how[techne]). Thus the collective has a project, or a goal, a situation, or a domain of operation, and means to achieve that goal in that situation, art and science. The measurement of this all is how effective the collective executes its project in its situation with its given means. In order for the collective to effectively execute its project it must have a solid communal basis, a clear understanding (knowledge) and vision (aesthetic intuition) of its project or goal, a sufficient comprehension of its situation, that is the elements which make of its domain of operation (for example take the situation to be a class room, in this case the elements would be students, professor, desks, blackboard etc) and adequate abilities with artistic creation and scientific understanding.
This is a formal definition of a collective and its mode of operation. What is essential is the actualization of this formal definition. It is the case that this formal definition is being actualized independent of the formal definition. This is apparent from the existence of such collectives as the DoLab, BeeHive and others. A further essential point is to define one's own project and find the others who share a common project and to form a collective of one's own. It is a firm belief that the formation of collectives dispersed across the Geist is what is necessary to create an over turning of the status quo. The over turning of the status quo is the project of 'ideological warfare'. Thus the formation of collectives, on a concrete level (whether that be with street art that is on concrete or with net-art in cyber space), is what is necessary to carry out an effective 'meme war.'
A possible, and perhaps necessary, project is to fight back corporate ownership in all of its modes. This project takes place in the situation of the media because the socio-politico domain has moved into existing in virtual media space in the form of particularly TV and internet. Thus how corporations operate in the situation of the media must be taken into account. Their modus operandi here is what Walter Benjamin called the aestheticization of politics. This is where corporations instead of targeting a persons rationality to convince them to purchase their products they rather target peoples emotions. They attempt to establish an 'unconscious' association between product x and a feeling of happiness or whatever (see 'The Century of Self' by Adam Curtis). Thus the situation is a media environment and the 'enemy's' means are the aestheticization of politics via the attempt to create unconscious associations between their products and positive feelings. This being the case of the situation and the project being to change this state of affairs what is necessary is an effective counter tactic. This tactic can be found in the enemies tactic (a very Taoist approach if I may add), that is, since their means are to associate product x with a positive feeling y what must be done is to associate product x with a negative feeling z. This is the tactic of 'brand attack' and has been employed effectively for a number of years now. A paradigmatic example of this is what happened with 'big tobacco.' What is necessary to make this tactic effective, to actualize it, is to form a collective and execute the tactic to the best of ones abilities.
This is a form of media based direct action. What is necessary for this tactic to be effective is media coverage. This requires press advisories and the like such as news coverage in newspapers, on television and the internet. Corporations employ ads as their means of communication and operation. Ads exist to sell products and products come in brands. Brands compete for purchasing power in a population. Brand ads bring in the possibility of self-choice because there are various brands of the same product and thus the consumer must choose. In order to secure the choice of the consumer the corporation of a given brand attempts to associated with its brand positive feelings. This is the corporation's tactic, to form unconscious positive associations with their brand in the mind of the consumer. This tactic can be used against them by forming negative associations with a targeted brand. An example of this being employed is a media based direct action campaign against the office supply industry. What is also essential to this tactic is leveraging one corporation against another, attack Staples such the Office Depot gets the business, this puts financial pressure on the corporation. It is also essential that the campaign has demands such as installing a CEO level sustainability adviser. The message that one is propagating, the meme if you will, must be easy to get across to the desired audience, that is the consumers of the corporation's products. It is also important that connections be made with other organizations such as student groups so that auxiliary help in the attack is had. It is necessary that groundwork be laid, that is, the development of a message, connections, etc. After the groundwork is laid it is necessary to plan a day of attack. It is on this day that media coverage must be sought, if this is not achieved then that attack will be futile. An example of action on the day of attack is flying banners at the targeted location, holding signs, spamming the web, blocking the doors. In this day of attack it is necessary that there be a united message. Again it is stressed that media advisories and press releases are absolutely necessary. This is because the situation, the domain and terrain of the battle is the media. Without the media one is not even on the battlefield. It is through the media that recognition on a collective scale is gained. In other words it is also through the media that the Geist is germinated with the collective's projects message. It is through the media that the message gets out and it is through the message getting out that the collective turns the corporation's tactics on its head by creating negative associations with the brand. The purpose of the day of attack is to damage the brand. It is possible that years of attack are necessary but this mantra must be kept in mind: “it takes years to build up a brand and days to destroy it.” The attack on the office supply industry took a total of three years. Imagine the energy of 'Burning Man' directed into media based direct actions. The tactic of brand attack is a form of Taoist media activism because it works to use what is available, the corporate logo/brand and turn it on its head. It is a kind of media judo. Again it is necessary to access to the media. This requires media connections. Facebook and U-Tube should be exploited, becoming friends with famous people is extremely helpful, local celebs and art can be utilized. It should also be noted that art is the backbone of activism. Music festivals are perhaps the new form of politics. Art is also crucial to getting across a message, to as the song goes “cross the river.” Another thing to note is that it would be helpful to create and capitalize on events unfolding in the media. This is another way in which media based direct action can be Taoist in form.
