Cspan will never be the same. [inaudible conversations] all right. We want the earth and we want it now. Need a little humility here. We want the earth and we hope the earth wants us. Greetings, everyone. Im reverend billy from the church of stop shopping. [cheers and applause] aye written a book called the earth wants you. Im honored to launch this book here on our nations capitol, the festive swan of corruption. Amen. But in which i have so many friends. And we come back to this place again and again, dont we . With with our strongest fear est change alluyah. Somebody gives me a changealluyah. Come on now. Tonights story starts 2011. [cheers and applause] Liberty Square residents. There was a woman standing in a bench, it was the ultimate speakers corner, you could jump off and start your preaching at any moment, you know, that was part of the electricity. This lady jumped up on the stone bench, usually wall street workers have their brown back lunches and she stood up there and she said, our elders are speaking of this, that there will come a time very soon when the earth will need to cleans herself, to balance herself and she will rise up with great force and the the people rise up with her and they will live, she will rise up with grace first but if people dont rise up with her, then they will no longer be there. We will be gone. This is a prophecy from debra white given to us at tacoty park. First in additions people. I met her again at the climate talk in paris, preaching the same way right in front of the artic. Napoleon turned over in his grave, amen. That is, i believe, and the community that i represent, i wish the chior was with me right now. We all believe that this is a time when the earth is our teacher, the earth is our government. The earth is our culture and the earth is our economy. [cheers and applause] the earth is our revolutionary leader. Somebody give me hallellujah. [cheers and applause] [shouting] i believe that the earth is a living bin, how radical is that idea . The earth is a living thing. The earth is not just living, the earth has moods, has health problems, has strategic thinking, has relationships, the earth, the earth is communicating to us with her mother, tornadoes that give birth to 30 tornadoes that damn to daughters or sons plains. The earth is communicating to us, the tsunamis, the bones are turning under the earth as well, the extreme earth has tripled since 1980 and theres a reason for this. Its not just some sort of cold scientific reason, theres a living reason. She is communicating with us. Amen shes instructing us. Shes saying, get with it. She needs us in this room to be radical americans again. [cheers and applause] amen amen we have we have made tremendous guiding, risky, dangerous, Visionary Campaign of change, lib, civil rights, peace rights, womens rights, im talking gender rights, immigration rights, weve had many weve had leaders, friends that sacrificed the heroism, we are enjoying here in this amazing, here on 14th street, we are just we cant help it, we are taking for granted a level of freedom. We may have donald trump, we may have rudolph giuliani, we may have vladimir putin, weve got lots of people who wouldnt want us to be here, right, amen . But we are in the Langston Hughes room. We have people who have given their lives for our freedom and now the natural scientists are telling us that in 2100 or 2080, i keep reading the newspaper accounts, do you read the little stories that are on page 6, do you read them, theres some study that comes out its about oysters or whales or bacteria or its about polar bears, its always coming from the earth. The earth is speaking to us through the Natural Sciences who dont speak very well, carl segan is dead. They dont speak very well but they try to tell us what is going on, dont they . They do the best they can, and New York Times on page six some where, page eight. Its in the corner there. And for years those articles would float in the back of the newspaper and there would be a little phrase and it would be after 2100, we dont know what will happen. There was a suggestion that there was horizon awaiting us at 2100, anybody know what im talking about . The costal cities will be gone, the shapes of the continents will be different. The earthquakes and sun tsunamis everywhere. The deserts would be where there are jungles and uninhabitable and that civilization would be over in 2100. And then something changed, that to 2080, 65, 45. I just saw an amazing summary of a paper that was led by dr. James hanson in which 30foot seas were estimated for 2050. Any parents here today . Any parents here, any grandparents here . Amen. We are projecting the life span of our offspring, our loved one, we are wondering what will happen. We have always enjoyed science foiks fiction, but now we are living it. We dont know exactly how to do that do we . Here we are, what is this . This beautiful cabaret, here we are, you have an elvis impersonator. Whats going on here, we are in the room together. If we pull our camera into space and look back at this little room, we are just a space time moment, amen. We dont amount to a hill of beans. Here we are, its my birthday. All right. [cheers and applause] not so special, excuse me. Its just its just here we are and we are surrounded by an apocalypse and manifests as racism, it manifests as war, it manifests at computerized drones, it manifests as laws against marijuana and our desires, our imagination, our dreams. Its coming in at us in many different ways and basically we the progressive conscious, the stranded people out here, we dont exactly know what to do. We havent really knew what to do for many years. We have our heros but a lot of our heros died 30 or 40 years ago. We dont quite know what to do right now. We have to learn the language called earth. I would like to talk to you just a moment about the effort that a small group of people that im a part of we are in from all over the world, i would like to talk about the kind of life we are living, amen. We dress up like extinct animals and sing in a band and we get arrested and go to jail and try to sweep and then we come home and we get some real sleep and then we get up and we dress like extinct animals and we get out of the subway to another bank where we meet and hand out investment information. We meet the stop shopping singers there and we are put in handcuffs, we are put in jail, maybe just a few hours but maybe two days and three days and we face the judge and we promise one or the other and we go home and ready to go banking, we shower and we start investment, can you believe ubs is bankrolling that coal and more extinction reports and we dress like another threatened kind of life and we sing in bank lobbies and parking lots and drive through police rooms and we preach inside a circle of faces who loathe us or maybe just start tickling or they are stunned with thought and we hand information on earth crime sponsored by their money and we stay too long and we get handcuffed and we go to jail or maybe we just get a warning in which case we do more research after returning home and we love our loved once, we do laundry and ignore the bills and then we are exhausted and we fall asleep and we dream, we dream a rain forest, we dream of prairies, we dream of coral reefs and we dream of Alpine Meadows and then we wake up and we dress up like extinct animals and we get on the subway and meet the other stop shopping singers and then, what, this got giant gold, orange paper mache on their heads. We are going to Jpmorgan Chase and we are going to sing in the lobby and we are going to interrupt all the wells management conversation thats going on because we are distinct animals today, we are extinct, we are extinct. In Jpmorgan Chase. [cheers and applause] a preacher always has his sweat flag. [applause] to signify that we are working so damn hard to save your souls, children. All this hard work and we hope that as the plait comes by you, you contribute generously. We are working hard in our church. Im sorry, we have some people from West Virginia today. I didnt mean to cast disbursements on anybody, amen. Im not proud to be politically incorrect, amen. It just happens because im such a thug. Will we survive the the choir. [singing] will we feel the hell in this shopping list. Neighbors fade into the super mall. The oceans rise but i i must buy it all. [singing] whats happening . Im in a its a shopacolipse. Im depressed. I got the blues. Im feeling down because why, because i shop too much but thats not really the problem. [laughter] its that damn convenient amen. [cheers and applause] watch out for convenience, children. Watch out for convenience. Convenience is the devils little helper. Be careful. Be careful. I think some of the people here today are just i have a feeling youre not careful enough. I think some of you you might have thought you were ethically shopping. You might have thought you were carbon trading, dont you know thats bull shit . Amen. [cheers and applause] Ethical Shopping, children, is a lie. It doesnt would recollect. It never worked, the earth replies to Ethical Shopping with 200mile an hour winds. [cheers and applause] amen. Amen, brother. [laughter] no more shopping. All right. This chapter we are reading from a book which is called the earth wants you. Yes you recognize that that the earth wants you . Yes im stealing a phrase and adjusting it to my own advantage from the world war i recruiting poster, uncle sam pointing at you, a really mean white man that is pointing his fenger and wants you to go to world war i and die. Amen. Let me tell you what happened to the boy that is survived, they came home to shopping, some academics claim that is when Consumer Society began. They came back and they discovered lots of advertisements in which middleclass looking people surrounded by appliances and clean, you know, underwear, they they were doing things in advertisements in which their arm puts were raised up and exposed, it was the beginning of the idea that your body stinks. Mustard gas and guns and what have you, whats happening, you stink. [laughter] amen. Thats consumerism. Anybody who has seen those advertisements during the super bowl when be all you can be is a video game, you know what im talking about. Consumerism and militarism has become the same thing. Peacealluyah. [applause] in the church of stop shopping we are concerned with story telling, we are concerned with naming how language is being used to create environments where we find our meaning. I would like to read to you now what is the name of this storm. Our Little Family lives near the Atlantic Ocean in brooklyn. Im writing in early 2013 about three months after hurricane sandy, now, another big storm is spinning out of the sea and everybody is pretty jumpy. I shoveled snow for an hour this afternoon feeling the wind begin with a slow growling. And then i climbed the steps to our apartment where my partner and almost three years old lina have come back early from the city, checking food provisions and flashlights, but is tonights storm all that dangerous . We bring up satellite pictures of this storm and, yes, it looks like a hurricane. It looks like a white circular saw the size of new england. Cutting the coast. It has that eye, that eye looking at us from the center. There is a difference with this new winter storm, the National Weather was surprised that it had lost the naming rights by some mysterious sleight of hands to the Weather Channel with it ads, graphics, meteorologists, the Weather Channels anchor that we are watching tonight hes a blond, smiles at us from the computer screen with the satellite shot of the hurricane over her shoulder like shes taking a selfie with a 10,000 hiroshima storm and why should she give any particular regard to this storm anyway, her bosses named it nemo. Nemo after the clown fish, im exciting that memory in the people who have seen the movie. Theyre swimming around, oh, yeah, hallellujah. That 3d block buster from pixar was the animation was created by the studio that was founded by steve jobs and marketed by Mickey Mickey mouse. Mickey mouse is the antichrist. [cheers and applause] whathappened . [laughter] we are in the Langston Hughes room. I love this place. I love this place. [cheers and applause] after finding nemo grossed almost a billion dollars worldwide, most families with children were left with a vivid memory of dazzling coral reefs, shark chases, and kidnappings by goofy scuba diverring, divers, voice of Albert Brooks wins fish dory voiced by ellen degenerous. This movie and with hail and dooms of snow reports coming in from massachusetts, houses and cars and people disappearing under the whiteout. I go down and shovel once more by the light of the lamp, but then i give up, i peer into the flurries thinking, hmm, do you realize that youve been named after a billion dollar clown fish . [laughter] you know, theres something in the grand violence of a really big storm. I get the feeling this storm was talking to me like, nemo. And then i went over to what i call Climate Change mind. Theres something fishy about the storm, the strange thunder is the order of have vanished fisheries and cause striped bass into the accelerating darkness. Their heads are full of nemo. The fish are dying. But the memory we have of the fish, our memories are becoming commodified. Im one of those people that these are much deadlier because of us. To you, yes . Yes yes [applause]. Of course. Of course. Your pauses like of course, of course, of course. But i suspect that i am one of the progressive type was still at heart someone a skeptic i must be, what i done for this win, what if i if i done for this storm, this preached coral from the caribbean is drumming the side of my house. I keep my guilt and abstract. It is so easy to believe the Climate Science but then go about our digitized day with extreme weather and consumer culture, have in their desperate fight to the death as if it is all some sort of battle that is separate from us. Its not separate at all, is it. No. It is in our bodies. This song and dance fishes swimming in our eyes and ears, it it is telling focus group tested groups on screens in the palms of her hands. I am getting spooked by this ghoulish soundtrack of the storm. I think i better stop standing here with my shovel, maybe i better go inside finally, later that night i asked the question, who owns the Weather Channel anyway . Who owns that thing . Those happy jabbering people with the apocalypse behind them. Good guess. Comcast. The largest media conglomerate in the world does comcast on cspan . No, okay. Woo hoo. All right. Weve dodged a bullet people. Comcast, the largest media conglomerate of the world, owner of mbc, timeworn, theme parks, much of the highspeed internet among the top lobbyist in washington, washington, you mean k street and Net Neutrality in one of the biggest investors in comcast is capital, mitt romney,. I am your golden retriever on the cage in the roof of your car. The 40 Million People in the storms path have had nemo our National Geographic shark porn for the macho australian guy who got killed by the stingray, what has your should become to us . What we think of when we think of the ocean . When we dont have a super storm hitting us from the ocean what are we thinking . The giver of life. Of the giver of life, thank you. This person right here your soul has been saved. The ocean was the media for millions of years. For our ancestors, can we ever get back to the thrilling drama that the ocean really is . If we are capable of outmaneuvering pixar and disney, comcast and nbc, and escape into that beautiful storm of c like, we would find that evolution of 500 million years of cathedral of effervescence interdependency, amen. And how did that become a vast crime scene . What is really happening to the ocean really comes to we will be in a state of shock. We will have to, right now respond to an emergency. Well have to redefine what being alive is. Or what being a human being is. We will know that well have to become radicals again. Radicals again. Ocean the lou yeah. She thinks he hears voices and the grambling thunder and she becomes afraid. Shipping comes over to pop and she asked me, what is the storm saying to us . Why is this storm angry . Have to take a moment you know because i want to know the answer for myself to. Well rita, the storm has been coming here for a long time and we dont even know where it started its coming from way past coney island and we, we forgot about it and we were busy, we were watching movies and now she is here and she is going from town to town and city to city and she is shouting out her name so we should listen. [applause]. [inaudible] the reading would be good to change. [laughter] maybe a little real maybe, maybe a little jesus love . Somebody youre going to buy me a drink . No, hallelujah. Its a miracle people. When we start accepting that the earth is a living thing, that the earth is talking to us, we take on the whole world in the group of people in my community, where from all over the world, and wherever we are from we have singers from south asia, we have singers from africa and south america, wherever we are from, we have Indigenous People where we are from. And we compared notes of course the United States has a particular history of slaughtering and enslaving in the earth culture people, the First Nations people are the people who never stop believing that the earth is talking to us and the earth is speaking to us and the earth is our economy. They never strayed from that idea. We, however 300 years ago we got a divorce from the earth. Then he see there is a series of steps, the industrial revolution, the european colonizing empires, and then all the way up to the new, your latest app. Did i created an awkward silence with the phrase your latest app . Some of you got here and thought your latest app. Im not afraid of gilts. I was raised in holland michigan, and i know all about guilt. In the church, we we are in recovery from fundamentalism. [applause]. So we have people recovering from hinduism, islam, we got your catholics, baptist, jews, and i myself am a dutch calvinist and i wear this outfit as an immunizing kind of armoring to save myself, if if there is a street preacher walking down the street i can deal with that. My soul is already saved, get away from me. So we are in this time of trying to heal ourselves away from fundamentalism. The first first thing that we understand in this project is that fundamentalism is simply the monoculture. Thats what it is. Mont santa rosa great fundamentalist church of our time. This created a monoculture that is what fundamentalist churches are. You dont have to have the complexity of life, what is death, we dont have to ask those questions. Well take care of that for you, it is the monoculture. All the questions are answered for you. Its are answered for you. Its simple, you dont have to be afraid anymore. The earth, when he stepped away from that, the other says well, life is complex. Life is very complex. There is more mystery in a cubic millimeter of dirt then a Monsanto Laboratory [applause]. And that is what we want. We want that dirt. For something that is any of you have spent any time with Indigenous People, 11 of the first things that hits a western person is all, they they have a completely different feeling of what death is. Death is close its a part of life and the people have died are very close and people are talking to the assessors said asking them questions and asking for guidance. And thats very foreign to us. We are trying in our, five years ago we thought we are very sophisticated but we are trying to let death come into our lives, admit that it is a part of life. And so i have something i would like to reach you right now and it is a prayer to the dead. You ready . Yes. I hope this does not hurt your meal. Are you okay . Yes. Are you masticating . You are supposed to true 38 times, i read that in the catalog. Let the saliva build, do you want me to help you . Gemina cant help you . Are right. I want all of my faithful here the congregation today to go to youtube tonight and listen to putting your browser, motherless child, and prints and i want you to watch that song. Trim trim a prayer to the dead. Are you listening to me. Maybe not, talking to the dead now now instruct us will you, no zombies from the game of thrones now, we want real dead. You were just here with us sitting at the table with us, taking your own turn and now you are beyond life, where the four were born and after we are dead. And its kinda with us when we are alive too, but we dont know how that happens. We want to learn. When i walked in the forest, the leaves flickr with the birth of the death and the birth and the death happening all of the time. It is the beauty of the place. We mistake it for an oil painting. It is the whirling of birth and death. Some of those insects live a couple of hours, my gratitude is not that sophisticated yet. I mean really, to give thanks to an insect . But will you teach me . , are you here . Did you talk to me . Did you Say Something . I have a little nonprofit Theater Company some props for some of the play which is a church with an unknowable god. Would you donate please . Plus of with some portable ecosystems that we can carry it to earth chilling blanks, into the lobbies and we leave paths and force and wetlands there on the shiny tiles of the lobby for. Midlife bloom there as perplexed bankers get the return of life on their bad investments oh death on earth. We pray with the privilege, we pay for the privilege of being alive with you, straight out of the sticky, sticky stardust we want to resurrect, right into her new job as super i want to be a super pass, how are you people, amen, are you with me . We will survive the past that night. We will survive the warfare. We will survive the loss against marijuana, and we will have in washington d. C. , at a minimum, 15 an hour, amen. [applause]. Come on, a decent wage, wow. Forwarded all that political campaigning come from . It came from the grateful dead. Nelson, doctor king, all reverend gandhi, oh and heres one that is still living but he said hes waiting, amen the dalai lama. May we be afraid of death that life has waiting inside, theres that word, its in the next sentence, thank sentence, thank you. Praise be. I have goosebumps now. The debtor just doing all of this to us, its great. Okay, dont freak freak out. And if i freak out, feed me 71999 rioexcuse me. May we be unafraid of the death that life has waiting inside of it. Is there dead person i just came up on stage . I want you dead people to find a way to bless my daughter, give him her loving memory of me please, may she recall an elvis impersonator ridding her thousands of books on the s train. I want to be a good i want to be the good debt, but is is that a typo . It is, is this post via one of your good dad . Maybe theyre the same thing. We are so blessed by the compassionate leadership of the dead, the superior intelligence of the dead that surrounds us and comes into us, thank you for supporting us and were so sorry, we did not know why, we are causing premature death everywhere, why are we making the six extinction happen . Death has a place as a natural part of our rhythm, why are we doing this . We are blessed, we are comforted by you joining us as we try to invent direct actions, living, direct actions in which we know the debtor with us. Direct actions against those who create extinction. You are with us, we feel you, we fill the life, hallelujah and good activism, amen [applause]. Yes, happy birthday birthday. That grateful dead person brought me some wine,. [inaudible] right now were facing an inability to put into action the basic ingredients of all the social revolutions that we enjoy here and being here and the room we are reminded of all of the social movements that would benefit from. But it comes time now to admit, to make a hearted mission of cold bit of honesty that something fundamental is interrupting our communication with emma goldman, with hughes, with the heroes of the world, these heroes of our memories, we need to take a coldhearted look at why last sunday there are submitting to arrest Six Continents in the break free 2016 movement and we just did not hear about it, just did not come through the culture. It was not was not taken by us to the next person, it wasnt a big deal to us, wasnt it wasnt in story leveraging change in us. It had to be the children on the steps of the segregated schools in alabama, it had to be the moments when those ladies took off their stilettos and threw them at the cops and stonewall [applause]. We have to have that moment again. We have to ask ourselves why we cant do it. Theres a certain kind of social revolution we need have right now that weve been unable to have for decades. We are not getting out of the chair. Were not getting up from the square of glowing axles of the palm of her hand. We are not escaping the march in the rally, the march march in the rally, we cannot keep doing the same things and expect to get different results. [applause]. I am honored to be here. [applause]. Im honored to be here with people from greenpeace [applause]. I was just in seattle but in my book to a bunch of activists. Those wonderful examples of the exception to the rule, it only happens every year, every couple years, we do not have our planet criers running down 14th street. We must become, the earth is in this childress. We must feel the earthiness. The superstore, it has a message for us and the super storm is coming to thousands of miles away. Coming to a great force in killing us and then we have gentle things coming just whispering in our ears, its everywhere. We are the earth. When a property lines and definitional lines, we made abstractions, we were afraid. And Something Special happens and they cut through it all you have to understand how absurd this mental environment is that we have created. We have to break through. We have to break through. The earth is a raging, the earth is sucking on my earlobe. [laughter] the earth is scaring the hell out of me but we have to get funky in our activism we have to be sold, not hypnotic, that will kill us, that are thrown against us for next Quarterly Report we have to overwhelm it. The way we go to that plan we go there we just walk through the gates their people with badges and uniforms and little cutting hats, brooms, square shoulders with walkietalkies well go in there and will have such earthy power that will instantly persuade them that they will save their children. They must save their children. [applause]. We must save ourselves and ask the earth to save us. We know that we have been for generations where incapacitated sometimes because of our guilt. We know that we must fly above our guilt the earth revolution. The love, the issue which is all of the issue may give us something that is beyond words like change in courage. The people read about us later but we did all we know is, earthallelujah, earthallelujah, earthallelujah, earthallelujah, earthallelujah, earthallelujah [applause]. Thank you [applause]. [applause]. [inaudible] we have an email is going around. You can sign up to stay in touch with reverend. We have time for a couple of questions. And of course we have a book. I have denied clients is there anyone here no [applause]. [applause]. We believe that spinning is one of the most important things you can do. That is how we discover who we are, thats how we discover our bodies. Thats how i get rid of my gilts. The 70s in San Francisco did a lot. The center is now below the table. [laughter] thats where sin takes place. Thats where we rub thighs. And preachers are aware of this. I was in a Boston Church onetime preaching and it was really the old south meetinghouse. It had solid walls up to your waist and families would sit in these little compartments and you could not see your neighbors in that is where the Tea Party Activists i like to recover them now from those republicans, that is where they dressed up and that is where they put on their feathers and dont the kings p in the bay youre sitting up again, youre down there below but now youre back up for a while. Now just like to say that i was making the point in that little section that of writing the we tend to apply to climate denial and then the progressive people. We apply this binary that comes from a puritan past and what i would like us to be on our guard against is kind of an npr like, like i dont deny it but what am i going to do kind of im going to turn it into a witty phrase, going to find a gray area, some kind of way to hesitate. That is to now also and certainly the Environmental Movement as it is officially constructed for us. It has been hesitant in finding ways for you to feel okay buying a totebag or clicking electronic petitions and feeling okay for the day, amen. I know, we are lost right now and that little area and yes, i am from the church, and always come down to consumers. We are separated from original action, separated from original culture from making things for ourselves, by a cloud or products. One of the things that products are and thats say name this storm, naming each name that explodes in front of us is a story and that might sloth down. It might be the wrong story, so lets sing, lets touch touch each other, lets be direct, arrest me, lets have sex. Had a we legalize industrial in the way of defeating monsanto and bringing it back that can help us all . Weed hallelujah. Amen. We live in a bizarre world right now which every product that we buy has the responsibility of explaining the system that it is in. Every product persuades us that we are living a normal life. Every product is norma tyson. We cant love each other directly anymore, were not supposed to touch each others flesh, we have to fall in love by way of some kind of speed dating perfume, some kind of cosmetic surgery, we have 70 products between me and you, and thats why its so important when i look back some of these wonderful artists who just cut through that, someday dream of being that kind of artist that just cut through the con jobs of the average american day. Its outrageous. The direct sensuousness, will i think you know dont sue me, wow i never felt that way before. Amen. [laughter] elbow sex. His outpost sex, a bunch of of people in washington d. C. Having elbow sex will be on cspan. Amen. I just know that each and every one of us will be called upon, for course we in humor, music, we believe in opening up our hearts to try to break through this outrageous, claustrophobic cage that modern society has constructed. But each and every one of us will be called upon to be the earth, defend the earth, earth, and therell be a counterintuitive thing that each of us must do. It might be a little bit more difficult than apple sex was just a moment ago. I know that we have, we have in our midst, those ancestors that did so much for us and we know that right now we have a problem that we are trying to face it and break through it. We know that we have got to be able to make fools out of ourselves. We have to shape shift. We have to do things we never thought we would do. Were preparing ourselves, it could happen in the next second. We commit ourselves to our love of the earth. To the love of our fellows, to fairness, to sharing, to the gift economy. Earthallelujah. Thank you everybody. [applause]. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] a look now at some of the bestselling books according to the boston low. One of last years book award, explores the current state of black america in between the world and me fall by hamilton the published script of the Pulitzer Prize winning broadway musical. In tribe, author and journalist sebastian younger explores the effect we have on returning veteran. When breath becomes there, are look continues with nancy eisenbergs examination of trash in america and the poor white reconstruction to the neil deal in the new book white trash. Thats followed by nathaniel philbricks look at the relationship between revolutionary war generals George Washington and Benedict Arnold in valiant ambition. Next up is the lifechanging magic of tidying up by marie condo. Followed by the book be immortal. And bobby kennedykennedy, look at the former senator. And persistence rather than geniuses a better predictor of success in the book grit. Thats a look at the best
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