Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, an NYC street theater troup, are visiting London and will perform at Conway Hall on Wednesday evening. Today Vanessa Feltz and her producers booted them from her show for stating the true costs of Ronald Reagan's policies and Starbucks' anti-labor practices.
The producers of the BBC-London radio show with Vanessa Feltz asked the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir to leave the studio after singing the song "George Bush Does Not Return To Ground Zero."
Going then to a "weather report," the host left the studio to conference with producers, who then allowed an interview to continue with Reverend Billy sans Choir, but they also added a second interviewer. The Rev claimed that "like all fundamentalist preachers in the USA I was surprised when God told me that Ronald Reagan was now BURNING IN HELL, LICKED BY THE ETERNAL FLAMES OF DAMNATION BECAUSE HE CALLED A NUCLEAR-TIPPED MISSILE 'THE PEACEMAKER.'"
Frenetic hand signals through the glass walls by producers ensued, but tempers finally boiled over with "Wal-Mart is the Devil, and Starbucks presides over infant mortality rates in Guatemala that must drive us from our pose with the double latte..."
THAT prompted the Beebs to hustle the Rev out the door. We walked to the elevator with cries of betrayal in our ears.
Final note: I've worshipped the BBC all my life. Their censorship is a shock. What is it? Lawsuits? That is what they kept saying. But what if there is a cultural emergency and these corporations are violent? -Rev Billy
Going then to a "weather report," the host left the studio to conference with producers, who then allowed an interview to continue with Reverend Billy sans Choir, but they also added a second interviewer. The Rev claimed that "like all fundamentalist preachers in the USA I was surprised when God told me that Ronald Reagan was now BURNING IN HELL, LICKED BY THE ETERNAL FLAMES OF DAMNATION BECAUSE HE CALLED A NUCLEAR-TIPPED MISSILE 'THE PEACEMAKER.'"
Frenetic hand signals through the glass walls by producers ensued, but tempers finally boiled over with "Wal-Mart is the Devil, and Starbucks presides over infant mortality rates in Guatemala that must drive us from our pose with the double latte..."
THAT prompted the Beebs to hustle the Rev out the door. We walked to the elevator with cries of betrayal in our ears.
Final note: I've worshipped the BBC all my life. Their censorship is a shock. What is it? Lawsuits? That is what they kept saying. But what if there is a cultural emergency and these corporations are violent? -Rev Billy
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