Wow! You sure can tell what's important in life!
Put "Environmental concerns - pollution from radiator fluid, transmission fluid, oil and gasoline in our parks" - and few want to discuss it, 'cause we might have to actually examine ourselves and consider our own eco-terrorism. Add to that the fact that we are paying huge sums to poison ourselves and our children (benzene, smogged through the neighborhgoods from auto exhaust being linked to the huge increases in childhood leukemia, as I understand it) and we can see that we would rather pull an Enron on our selves: create diversions, use smoke and mirrors to disctract ourselves from the real stuff. Having said that, let me say this. My 11-year-old daughter just stopped by to ask me a question about spelling. She saw the subject heading to this e-mail and brightened right up: "Are we going to have Dairy Queen in the parks! All right! All of the parks? Which ones?" You see, we live near MLK Park, which is a lower-class park frequented by nirghborhood kids and by a very high percentage of minority kids, who enjoy the great programming the parks offer there. (Kudos to Annie Young and the whole Park Board!) Now, these kids (my daughter, especially)would love to buy DQ stuff at the park. They'd also think they'd died and gone to God's own Heaven above if you added a Domino's Pizza or some such thing. Even many parents would eventually decide just to move on in and live at the park. Forget affordable housing! We could just stay there and telecommute! People who work at the Mcjobs would not have to be homeless or buy a car, they could just live in the Park buildings! More seriously: I understand that this would eventually come up. Those who suck up the very lifeblood of the poor will want to make our Parks into their all-American Disneyland in Minneapolis kinda' thing. As Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her book "Nickeled and Dimed" - the greatest transfer of wealth in this country is from the very poor to the very wealthy: the very poor work two or three jobs to barely survive, de facto slaves to the wealthy, who belly up to the DQ bar for another little indulgence just to top off the day. This DQ-in-the-parks will only expand the kind of corporate take-over of our culture, showing our kids the American way in right here in Minneapolis: Destroy the earth, make your kids sick unto death with your lifestyle, and then gloss it all over with slick, pre-fabbed culture. Another world is possible. A better world. But letting huge corporations colonize our lives even further is not the way to a better world. So, how are the kids? _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
