Re: <nettime> "We Wont Fly for Art" pledge has only one day left to run.

[Flick Harrison <flick@flickharrison.com>]

I'm reminded of an exchange in Platoon.  A black man asks Charlie  
Sheen's character why he dropped out of college and joined the army,  
being a white boy and all.  Sheen replies that he felt the need to do  
his part, that he shouldn't let the poor do all the fighting.

"Sheeit," says the black man, "gotta be rich in the first place to  
think like dat."

That's a bit of the feeling I get with this kind of "don't fly for  
art" campaign.  I WISH I could afford / get invited to so many  
international art events that I could do my part against global  
warming just by refusing to go.

Dude.  I am on board the global warming crusade.  I don't own a car, I  
bike everywhere.

But crippling international artistic communications seems extremely  
counter-productive.  Especially when the opposition will continue to  
network against us, racking up frequent flyer points as they go.

Travel is an extremely vital part of communications.  I refuse to bike  
to Ottawa, say, for the Cdn Film Studies Conference - it's like 4500  
kilometres.

And yes, you could get George Monbiot to address your conference by  
web-cam, but then he wouldn't meet anyone local who wasn't already  
plugged-in to his network, wouldn't experience the local flavour and  
culture that deepen our understanding of local struggles as they  
relate to larger campaigns.  "Think Globally, Act Locally" isn't  
possible if you never venture outside your neighbourhood.  I know  
there are other ways to travel - train or bus - but a train going the  
same distance would cost me double and take 4 days.  And I can't even  
afford the plane fare in the first place.

Read this before buying into this pledge:  Gwynne Dyer on the  
distracting nooks and crannies of the larger Climate Change battle,  
and as a bonus, how air travel could be "fixed."

http://tinyurl.com/dkxcea



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