2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour

There are always activists in the English cities and towns to greet us, sometimes exhausted after years of resistance the monoculture. We are taken to the part of a city or town where the community still flourishes, and we meet independent shopkeepers. Day after day we have gone into Tesco and Starbucks. Everyone seems radicalized. The wave of evictions and foreclosures has its sinister origin. The political class is business partners to the landlord/developer class, and the resulting chains and malls are bad for jobs, bad for families, and boring. They traffic in sweatshop goods and put everyone into cars. We say no because the Earth says no.

Such language rises into shouts, and we do our best to offer our particular drama, with music, rhythms, rituals. Yesterday in the East End of London was a memorable one, with the Space Hijackers and the Rhythms of Resistance. But then again we have a trail of actions going back across the duration of the tour. The impression is that each community has significant resistance within it;. This is a social movement that has no name - Community Defense? - but and joins organically to the Climate Change and Peace movements.

Press

London Westfield Mall Exorcism

Photos by John Quilty

More Photos:

• Birmingham Gallery
• London Starbucks Exorcism
• Photos on Flickr

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Fan Audio Of Limehouse Town Hall Performance, London May 31 2009