Just after I posted a link to 2 of Dr. King's greatest speeches on Democracy now, I saw the mocking day of service in Clark Park.
To support the lies and manufactured history about a crime infested Clark Park and West Philly, the corporate rulers of Clark Park recruit local college fraternities and sororities for the so called "day of service." Brainwashing these upper class students to believe they are supporting Penn's salvation of a previously crime ridden dilapidated park, they proclaim that corporate directed, upscale landscaping, is an act of charity in accordance with the sanitized false legacy of the revolutionary Martin Luther King JR.
1. How is free landscaping of a gentrified park a tribute to King? What chemicals were used? Why aren't the people allowed to know what chemicals are used in parks? Why did the secret corporate controllers of Clark Park lie to the people in the past about use of RoundUp? Who told the students to dump mulch around 100 year old trees? Were the students told the truth about the secret meetings of the anti-democratic Clark Park Partnership or the secret unaccountable UCD? Do they know about the new park permit fees designed to end the 1st amendment rights, and convert public parks to privatized corporate venues????
2. Why aren't corporations/universities taxed instead of fattened, so that all parks can be appropriately maintained by dignified public employees in honest consultation with communities ? Wouldn't Dr King support dignified employment and services to all parks and all neighborhoods, instead of a day of free labor and fake charity for gentrified neighborhoods of upscale consumers?
I applaud students ingenuous desire to contribute a day of service! What I'd like these young people to recognize is that fake charity is not a service to a community, but is designed for the propaganda purposes of manufacturing a need for corporate/Penn rule. When this was a great community and Clark Park was one of the best urban parks in America, we did just fine without corporate rulers and fake charity! We are an occupied, dis-empowered collection of consumers, but we were once a great and diverse community with a good quality of life!
Please tell newcomers that they have been lied to about the history of this neighborhood. Not only did Penn/Wall St./K St. lie about saving this neighborhood when it set out to destroy and redesign the community into an upscale shopping district; but they lied about the neighborhood and park being a crime infested wasteland that scared all but criminals. Tell newcomers that this neighborhood was sabotaged by the massive Penn propaganda machine for decades, and the crack strategy of the empire, to fund international terrorism, while destroying poor urban communities.(1) Then, almost instantaneously after it purchased the neighborhood for pennies, Wall St./Penn/K St. declared that it had saved the neighborhood with neoliberal, neofeudal, and neocolonial tactics and created an upscale paradise. Lies, lies, and damned lies!
Do you see how this national service charade not only mocks the true revolutionary courage and vision of Dr. King, while also supporting the lies and false history of the gentrification? The gentrification, based on disgusting lies, destroys community, dis-empowers citizenship, and self determination. It destroys the hope for democratic principles. It insists on zones of abandonment to throw away our fellow citizens, and concentrate all resources in gentrified communities under corporate, police state control.
This type of national service is the direct opposite of Dr. King's vision for a just society! And the anti-democracy, class based gentrification is the antithesis of Dr. King's call for justice and equality! The empire's propagandists and power brokers know this, and will stop at nothing to destroy the people's hopes for which their predecessors killed the real Martin Luther King JR!
(1) study the history of the Iran Contra episode, and imperial partnerships with drug cartels and the funding of international terrorism against democratic movements around the world
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