Bicyclists Attack Failed Businesses With Seeds, Art

Fri­day, August 1st — “We don’t need anoth­er park­ing lot” read one of over 30 sten­ciled card­board signs erect­ed Fri­day evening across the fences of var­i­ous failed busi­ness­es through­out San­ta Cruz by a group of bicy­clists as part of a “Going Out of Busi­ness & Green Futures” com­mu­ni­ty ride.

Part protest against car cul­ture, part liv­ing art project, and part prank, the group of about 20 bicy­clists vis­it­ed the sites of for­mer gas sta­tions, dri­ve thrus, autodeal­er­ships, and more, plant­i­ng wild flower seeds, and oth­er dec­o­ra­tions depict­ing a dete­ri­o­rat­ing econ­o­my and hopes for a green­er, wilder future. “Prop­er­ty is Theft”, “My heroes car­ry guns in the their minds”, and “Com­mu­ni­ty Gar­den Com­ing Soon!” read some of the signs post­ed out­side fenced off build­ings and pave­ment crack­ing open with weeds.

The ride was in response to a state­ment sent by the Cor­po­rate Rulers of Amer­i­ca that read:

“To the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States,

Due to cir­cum­stances beyond our con­trol, we regret to inform you that we will no longer be able to con­tin­ue run­ning this coun­try as all of our assets are no longer viable.

Effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly, we will no longer be pro­vid­ing you with low-wage mean­ing­less jobs, cheap gaso­line, or hours upon hours of info­tain­ment. Fur­ther­more, we can­not guar­an­tee that the remain­der of our mass pro­duced prod­ucts are of any qual­i­ty beyond the val­ue assumed by our cor­po­rate logos, nor are they envi­ron­men­tal­ly safe. We also can­not guar­an­tee that your pen­sions will be paid, that your sav­ings are secure, or that you’ll be get­ting the best health care in the indus­tri­al­ized world. In fact, to be com­plete­ly hon­est, we’ve nev­er real­ly meant any­thing we’ve said but do thank you for believ­ing in us nonethe­less.

We here­by relin­quish all deeds of pri­vate prop­er­ty and assume no respon­si­bil­i­ty with what hap­pens to it from here on out.

Final­ly, we’d like to thank you for all your years of ser­vice and sac­ri­fice, but most of all, thank you for your obe­di­ence to our way of life, we seri­ous­ly could­n’t have done it with­out you. We wish you the best of luck. You’re on your own.

Sin­cere­ly,
Cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca”

By Sat­ur­day after­noon, most of the signs had been removed…But the seeds have been sown.

More words & pho­tos