I see the Friends of Clark Park are marketing the victory of corporate control of Clark Park with something called the "awesome festival"
This corporate movie series is completely different from the community driven events and festivals we once held in Clark Park. The grass roots community events, which made the neighborhood great and the community strong, are now impossible under the new parks permit system, even if arrests have not yet occurred. Mostly, the types of gatherings vital for healthy humans, community/culture, and democracy will simply never happen again.(This corporate movie series is apparently a car rental corporation production, which UCD already "sponsored" in Drexel Park)
Most of you have no perception of how dramatically the concept of a public park in Philadelphia has been transformed into a neoliberal corporate venue. Nor how the version of privatization forged by Penn with the help of our civic association gang leaders, not only ends the right to assembly in parks, but maintains the taxpayer subsidies for the planned corporate programming.
We are in a period of "normalization" for the "police state" park usage permits, and the full impact on the destruction of public spaces and the first amendment is still unknown to most. (Eventually, the special service districts will keep all of the revenue generated from the new park permit fees. They already have absolute power over our parks and will be allowed to give corporate partners waivers from all fees, while charging unlimited fees to any citizen group they wish! The outdoor "feeding" permits for 3 or more eaters should really be considered, by anyone wishing to understand the end of all citizen rights and the corporate demands for the uses of the former public spaces.)
During the period of neoliberal normalization, the new park permits and unlimited fees are cloaked with waivers by the dishonest civic associations. After these community traitors have been used up, all control over waivers will be shifted to the controlling corporations(Penn, CCD, UCD and partners) and the official history will show that parks were always designed as rental facilities. This police state permit structure for Philadelphia parks is entering its 3rd year of normalization, even though the brutal consumerist future is still cloaked!
The future that I first blew a whistle about 15 years ago has arrived, and it's time for this poem. I'm not sorry if it makes you weep. Sometimes weeping is necessary to open up the mind and renew a living spirit!
Eulogy for the Sacred Park
Over there in the shadows, I still see them.
Ethereal laughter sings out from all sides
Bishops and knights hopping on the boards
Volleyballs bouncing over the picnic baskets
Hearken! It is the whisper of a flute in the distance
Calling to the spirits of all creatures
And yes, the soothing drums sounding ancient wisdom.
We called this place a public park.
A sacred place secured by the Charter of the Forest
Always a sacred place to the Children of the Earth
The schoolyard for a community of tribes
And the factory to build one tribe, from many.
It is now a place of shadows, as people;
Scream and clutch at the shadows of,
A once sacred concept, humanity.
We, the Judas generation, wanted our silver.
So we melted all that was sacred from our history
We wanted, wanted, wanted; all addictions now.
And we terrified ourselves!
So we destroyed the forest, and sacred parks
To surrender all future peoples
To our great master God, Capitalism.
So as I walk the endless sausage shops,
Gun stores, and beer gardens; I remember!
In the shadows and deep in the unspied mind
I bring up the memories in silence; to speak of them,
Is Torture, Consumer values, and Death!
Oh community, oh laughter, hope, and connectedness!
I will embrace your sacredness till my last breath!
Goodbye my loves, my life, my public park.
I will find you again in the vastness of oblivion.
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