The Reverend Billy is now running to be Mayor of New York City. The Wall Street Journal featured him two days ago.
"It's hard to argue against the system he envisions.It's the sort of preaching a certain delusional pastor up the street from MinusCar HQ ought to take notes from.
Think for a moment about what community finance could mean for the nation: Neighborhood banks would lend to local businesses. Profits could stay in the community.
Simply knowing who your customers are and living near them could bring common sense -- the most basic and sound form of risk management -- back to banking.
Sure, it sounds kind of dreamy (OR IT SOUNDS LIKE ADAM SMITH - mc), but such systems are already in place in the neighborhoods large and small. Small businesses thrive, but they are often at the mercy of big banks who giveth and taketh credit according to shifts in economic cycles.
'The Wall Street experience is parallel and equal to the destruction of neighborhoods through chain stores,' Reverend Billy says.
Reverend Billy writes in the Winter 2008 Yes! Magazine:
"What form would the Boston Tea Party take today, against our psychological traffic jam? What is our equivalent to Rosa Parks sitting in the front of the bus?...of Lenny Bruce talking dirty?...of Wangari Maathai lowering a seedling into the ground?"Now there's a Tea Party I'd drink to.
"Critical Mass...the rides are peaceable assembly. Their free expression comes in an intriguing form-the act of traveling by bicycle up streets and down avenues where defenders of the internal combustion engine have built a think book of pre-emptive, car-friendly laws."
3 comments:
The thing about gatherings such as the Tea Party
Politics and politicians get in the way. Doing nothing will never solve anything. I would to attend your tea non-party. Pun intended.
While it should be clear I wasn't interested in our community tax day tea party - I have nothing bad to say or think about those who did.
My justification for calling the pastor delusional (a word I may live to regret using) are two fold: his need to make the community concern over the presence of students about himself - specifically because he prayed. Two, because he only wishes his kids were there - I think that says a lot. The event wasn't important enough for his kids to be out of school but to somehow question getting other's kids out of school is a fabrication.
Thanks for the comments Minus. I had worries about attending the Tea party and have it be all political or an individual's agenda. I was happily surprised. There were people with signs that I do not agree with but it was cool to say the pledge of allegiance, sing the star spangled banner and give homage to our veterans along with 3,500 other people.
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