This way being the bland, one-size-fits-all top-down homogenised, mass produced pseudo culture of the chain store franchise, which sells us what it thinks we should want, not what we actually need to enrich our daily lives.
The people who walked upon the tarmac of Mill Road, Cambridge, on Saturday November 24th, 2007, know this is not the only way, because another way, and another world exists already, if only you take the time to explore it, and support it.
This world is not generated in an advertising executive's boardroom, but is sometimes chaotic, and always interesting, because it is generated by real residents of Cambridge, and is a two way relationship, a positive feedback loop of local residents not only running businesses as their livelihood, but of local residents supporting those businesses because they believe in them, and because they are a valued part of their community.
On Saturday November 24th, 2007, the people of Cambridge and Mill Road said that they want another future, a future that is in touch with and expands upon their past, not one that eradicates the past because it is viewed as 'competition' to be eliminated.
The people who walked upon the tarmac of Mill Road, Cambridge, on Saturday November 24th, 2007, decided that some things are worth defending, not just for themselves, but for the children that accompanied them on the march, because they know that their children deserve better than a sterile, mass produced, soulless future, where suicide rates will rise, where self harm will increase, because the anger that this generation feels for the future they were cheated out of by the slick advertising campaigns of the corporations is turned in upon themselves because they have no hope.
This is not some lurid fantasy, but a reality for many people around the globe, wherever local authorities have been weak willed and bowed to the perceived might of the corporations, thinking that a fast buck is preferable to a more sustainable and satisfying future.
This is not the sterile future that the people of Cambridge and Mill Road want for their children, so they took to the streets to defend what they already have.
A strong, diverse community.
Their children should be proud of them.
Local authority listen up, because the people have spoken!
