November 16, 2008

The Church of Stop Shopping

Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping just released an album, The Shopocalypse. In a recent interview he linked the current financial crisis to a culture of rampant consumerism.
Q: You claim that the current financial crisis is an actual apocalypse, a sort of cleansing from on high, or from down low, from the masses as it were. Do you think a new era is to come?

A: Absolutely. The culture of shop-til-you-drop was king to all of us. After 9/11, when Bush said if you love your country you’ll go out shopping, that affected everybody—from the average American family who’s $100,000 overdrawn to the head of a hedge fund who’s buying and buying… It’s a fundamentalist religion that controls us as surely as the holy roman empire in the 10th century.

Consumerism fills up our days. It makes us stand in line. In the case of my friends who are stockbrokers, they’re working till 11 o’ clock at night. They’re dragging to the limo.

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Rev. Billy is the topic of this month's Liberty Brew & View movie What Would Jesus Buy? showing this Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7:00pm, Capital City Bar & Grill.

And to answer the question posed by the film, Jesus would probably buy something at the Alternative Holiday Fair happening in Springfield December 5th & 7th.