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What is a Whirl-Mart?
The action is comprised of a group of anti-shoppers ranging in size from 1 to 50 members. The ritual consists of activists/actors arriving at a Wal-Mart, Toys-R-Us or another chain superstore at 12-noon on the first Saturday or Sunday of the month and proceeding to push empty shopping carts slowly and silently through the aisles. Eventually, all of the participants locate one another and form a single-file chain of anti-shoppers which weaves, wanders, and whirls throughout the store for about an hour. It is a collective reclamation of space that is otherwise only used for buying and selling. It is a symbolic display of the will to resist the capitalist ideology.
'Whirl-Mart' is an experiment that can be approached from several different angles. As a work of art, it examines and blurs the boundaries that have been established between performance art, protest, living sculpture, and direct action. As an action of resistance, it utilizes the power of silence in occupying private consumer-dominated space with a symbolic spectacle. As a ceremony, it is a counter-ritual to shopping that transforms the super-store and its wall-to-wall array of products into a surreal and colorful cathedral. And what the heck-- it's just darned fun!
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National & Worldwide
Whirl-Mart Ritual Resistance International Whirl-Mart HQ World Changing Models, Tools, and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future Critical Mass Critical Mass is not an organization, it's an unorganized
coincidence. It's a movement ... of bicycles, in the streets. Rev Billy's Church of Stop Shopping Lots of great scripts from/for performance interventions
with a heavy focus on Starbucks. Commerce
Jamming Commerce Jamming source page. AdBusters A global network of those who want to advance the new social
activist movement of the information age. Commercial Alert wants to keep commercial culture within
its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting
the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and
democracy. No Media Kings Jim Munroe's guide to doin' it for yourself Booksense.com Internet book search that sends your order to your nearest
independent bookstore. Starbucks Delocator Search that helps you locate locally owned alternatives to Starbucks
Media
The Independent Media Center is a network of collectively run media
outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth Project of the Independent Media Institute, a nonprofit
organization dedicated to strengthening and supporting independent and
alternative journalism. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the first to identify
threats to our basic rights online and to advocate on behalf of free expression
in the digital age. Declan
McCullagh's Politech Politech is the moderated mailing list of politics and technology.
Topics include privacy, free speech, the role of government and corporations,
antitrust, and more. MediaChannel.org The global network for democratic media.
PLUS the News Dissector's Weblog. CorpWatch.org counters corporate-led globalization through education,
network-building and activism.
COOLIDGE - Nobody predicted the Casa Grande Ruins could go
down like this, that after hundreds of years of surviving the elements,
standing as testament to a civilization that thrived in the desert more
than 700 years ago, the adobe walls could crumble because of a Wal-Mart
across the street.
But there they were, holes about the size of a half-dollar burrowed
underneath the Great House, the signature structure at the Casa Grande
Ruins National Monument, 50 miles south of Phoenix. Squirrels are
digging their way under the four-story building, threatening to
undermine the structure's foundation. Squirrels have always been a part
of the landscape here. But their numbers were controlled by coyotes
that now stay away.
"Look around us," said Paige Baker, who became superintendent of the
monument seven months ago. "We're completely encircled by development,
and it took away the natural predators."
.....
Officials with the Casa Grande park saw problems with the
Wal-Mart-sparked development across the street. But they did not
foresee a squirrel infestation.
"I don't think anyone realized what the natural resource implications
would be," said Carol West, the chief ranger. The development turned
"these cute little rodent squirrels" into pests, she said.
Wal-Mart, the self-proclaimed low-price leader, is also the leader of
unintended consequences. It has blinded consumers to the perils of its
cost-cutting strategy, which includes pressure to move manufacturing
jobs to China to cut costs. Wal-Mart is the leading employer in
Arizona. But its wages are such that it is also the company with the
most employees using the state's health care system for their kids.
It has undercut the foundations of society. Both this one and one from several hundred years ago.
MediaChannel.org
