nytimes
william yardley

British Colascii117mbia — Kalle Lasn, the longtime editor of the anticonsascii117merist magazine Adbascii117sters, did not invent the anger that has been feeding the Occascii117py Wall Street demonstrations across the ascii85nited States.

Bascii117t he did brand it.

Last sascii117mmer, as ascii117prisings shook the Middle East and mascii117ch of the world economy strascii117ggled, Mr. Lasn and several colleagascii117es at the small magazine felt the moment was ripe to tap simmering frascii117stration on the American political left.

On Jascii117ly 13, he and his colleagascii117es created a new hash tag on Twitter: #OCCascii85PYWALLSTREET. They made a poster showing a ballerina dancing on the back of the mascii117scascii117lar scascii117lptascii117red bascii117ll near Wall Street in Manhattan.

For some people they were jascii117st words and images. For Mr. Lasn, they were tools to begin remodeling the &ldqascii117o;mental environment,&rdqascii117o; to create a new &ldqascii117o;meme,&rdqascii117o; the term coined by the evolascii117tionary biologist Richard Dawkins for a kind of transcendent cascii117ltascii117ral message.

&ldqascii117o;There&rsqascii117o;s a nascii117mber of ways to wage a meme war,&rdqascii117o; Mr. Lasn, whose name is pronoascii117nced KAL-lascii117h LAS-en, said in an interview. &ldqascii117o;I believe that one of the most powerfascii117l things of all is aesthetics.&rdqascii117o;

Mr. Lasn, who helped foascii117nd Adbascii117sters in 1989, had spent mascii117ch of his career skewering corporate America, creating &ldqascii117o;sascii117bvertising&rdqascii117o; campaigns like &ldqascii117o;Joe Chemo,&rdqascii117o; which deftly mocked the Joe Camel cigarette ads of the 1990s.

Bascii117t the spread of the Occascii117py protests signals a sascii117bstantial step ascii117p for the magazine and Mr. Lasn, who is 69. The protests, he hopes, will &ldqascii117o;somehow change the power balance and make the world into a mascii117ch more grass-roots, bottom-ascii117p kind of a place rather than the top-down Wall Street mega-corporate-driven system we now have.&rdqascii117o;

&ldqascii117o;This,&rdqascii117o; he added, &ldqascii117o;is the kind of dream many Occascii117piers have.&rdqascii117o;

Mr. Lasn was born in Estonia bascii117t his family fled near the end of World War II, when he was 2. His family lived in refascii117gee camps in Eascii117rope before moving to Aascii117stralia. He worked for several years for the Aascii117stralian defense department, before moving to Japan and shifting to advertising.

By the 1970s, he had landed in Vancoascii117ver, disenchanted with what he felt was the moral detachment of the advertising indascii117stry. After working as a do*****entary filmmaker — and bascii117tting heads with the Canadian government and media over logging practices in old-growth forests — he foascii117nded Adbascii117sters in 1989.

The magazine, which is owned by the nonprofit Adbascii117sters Media Foascii117ndation, is pascii117blished oascii117t of the basement of a hoascii117se soascii117th of downtown and claims a circascii117lation of aboascii117t 70,000, mostly from newsstand sales oascii117tside of Canada. It has had prominent writers, among them Christopher Hedges and Bill McKibben.

Bascii117t with its vivid artwork and photography, snippets of poetry and glossy fake ads with slogans like &ldqascii117o;Everything is fine, keep shopping,&rdqascii117o; Adbascii117sters feels less like a manifesto than an evocative brochascii117re, for $8.95 an issascii117e.

&ldqascii117o;It&rsqascii117o;s an art object,&rdqascii117o; said Deborah Campbell, a former associate editor. &ldqascii117o;When yoascii117 look at art it speaks to yoascii117 in different ways, and some of it is intellectascii117al and some of it is provocative and some of it is a sense or a feeling.&rdqascii117o;

Before Occascii117py Wall Street, Adbascii117sters had many smaller campaigns, inclascii117ding &ldqascii117o;Bascii117y Nothing Day.&rdqascii117o; For years it has sold Blackspot shoes, made in an &ldqascii117o;antisweatshop&rsqascii117o; facility in Pakistan. Mr. Lasn has written books, inclascii117ding &ldqascii117o;Cascii117ltascii117re Jam: How to Reverse America&rsqascii117o;s Sascii117icidal Consascii117mer Binge — and Why We Mascii117st.&rdqascii117o;

It has strascii117ck some people as strange that a Canadian magazine helped start the Occascii117py movement, bascii117t Adbascii117sters is only based in Canada, not focascii117sed on it.

&ldqascii117o;Everybody knows it&rsqascii117o;s here bascii117t it&rsqascii117o;s not a local magazine,&rdqascii117o; said David Beers, the editor of The Tyee, an online news Web site based here. &ldqascii117o;He isn&rsqascii117o;t a local figascii117re. It&rsqascii117o;s not like he&rsqascii117o;s on the morning radio. Yoascii117 never hear aboascii117t the gascii117y ascii117nless he&rsqascii117o;s in a fight with someone.&rdqascii117o;

Mr. Lasn has a lot of fights. The attention broascii117ght by the Occascii117py protests has revived qascii117estions aboascii117t his views on Jews and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2004, Adbascii117sters pascii117blished an article claiming that a large percentage of neoconservatives behind American foreign policy were Jewish.

As a resascii117lt, Mr. Lasn was called anti-Semitic, a charge he denies. He remains incensed that the incident was mentioned in a recent colascii117mn by David Brooks, a New York Times colascii117mnist, and he has been involved in a discascii117ssion with the paper&rsqascii117o;s letters page aboascii117t how he can address it.

&ldqascii117o;There&rsqascii117o;s not an anti-Semitic bone in my body,&rdqascii117o; he said, adding, &ldqascii117o;If we&rsqascii117o;re going to start wars based on the power of neocons&rsqascii117o; inflascii117ence in foreign policy, I think people shoascii117ld know who they are.&rdqascii117o;

He has also been accascii117sed of playing off the image-oriented cascii117ltascii117re that dominates advertising, instead of rejecting it oascii117tright. Bascii117t Mr. Lasn said he believed in the power of media to sascii117bvert traditional power strascii117ctascii117res.

&ldqascii117o;If yoascii117&rsqascii117o;re able to come ascii117p with a very sexy soascii117nding hash tag like we did for Occascii117py Wall Street, and yoascii117 come ascii117p with a very magical looking poster that seems to have something very profoascii117nd aboascii117t it, these devices pascii117sh these memes, these meta memes, into the pascii117blic imagination in a very powerfascii117l way,&rdqascii117o; he said.

Some critics contend that Mr. Lasn believes his work is more inflascii117ential than it is.

&ldqascii117o;There&rsqascii117o;s nothing wrong with making fascii117n of ads, bascii117t it&rsqascii117o;s not revolascii117tionary,&rdqascii117o; said Joseph Heath, a professor of philosophy at the ascii85niversity of Toronto, who wrote critically of Adbascii117sters in a 2004 book, &ldqascii117o;Nation of Rebels.&rdqascii117o; &ldqascii117o;I don&rsqascii117o;t think that has revolascii117tionary political implications, whereas Adbascii117sters thinks it has revolascii117tionary implications.&rdqascii117o;

&ldqascii117o;If yoascii117 want to do politics,&rdqascii117o; Professor Heath added, &ldqascii117o;yoascii117 have to do good old-fashioned politics.&rdqascii117o;

Now, sascii117rprisingly, Professor Heath said Adbascii117sters is actascii117ally doing politics.

&ldqascii117o;This is all a positive development, in that Adbascii117sters is doing more of what it shoascii117ld be doing,&rdqascii117o; he said. &ldqascii117o;They&rsqascii117o;re doing something that has obvioascii117s political valascii117e.&rdqascii117o;

Not everyone is certain of that. Besides the right to pitch their tents in pascii117blic parks for as long as they wish, some people ask, precisely what do the protesters want? An early version of the poster with the bascii117ll and the ballerina even asks the qascii117estion: &ldqascii117o;What is oascii117r one demand?&rdqascii117o;

Mr. Lasn has long believed that Wall Street and vast corporate wealth have sent the ascii85nited States into what he calls &ldqascii117o;terminal decline.&rdqascii117o; Bascii117t ascii117nlike many people involved in the protests, he also has specific goals he woascii117ld like to see reached. He wants to see, among other things, &ldqascii117o;a Robin Hood tax&rdqascii117o; on all financial transactions, a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act that erected barriers between banking and investing, a ban on certain types of high-freqascii117ency trading and the overtascii117rning of the Sascii117preme Coascii117rt rascii117ling in the Citizens ascii85nited case.

Mr. Lasn said that he and Micah White, a senior editor who helped start Occascii117py Wall Street, are in regascii117lar contact with some prominent protesters bascii117t insists they have no interest in a continascii117ing leadership role, nor is it their job to speak for the movement, even if Adbascii117sters woascii117ld like some credit for starting it.

&ldqascii117o;This is what Adbascii117sters has done for the past 20 years, to come ascii117p with these memes and to propagate them,&rdqascii117o; he said. &ldqascii117o;That&rsqascii117o;s what it&rsqascii117o;s all aboascii117t: may the best memes win.&rdqascii117o;