"Michael Jones, president of the Powelton Village Civic Association, criticized the district for not involving community members more in the process."
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20140321_SRC_approves_the_sale_of_eight_school_properties_for__38_million.html#PYGmXCJZ84O8GwOy.99
I remember how excited our local civic association leaders were at the beginning of the gentrification 15 years ago. They thought they were anointed to be the new hegemon over the neighborhoods. With their new power, they would rule like feudal lords, and silence the vast majority of their neighbors. Now, the voices of civic leaders have largely been rendered obsolete from the back room meetings, like the rest of us.
What the civic association leaders actually did for many years, as soldiers of gentrification/privatization, was to normalize the processes of absolute power for their corporate/university masters. The FOCP would use slogans such as "Put your money where your mouth is-" in order to mock transparency, inclusion of all, and all the fundamental principles and processes of democracy. With the power of the corporate propaganda machine behind our spruce hill civic gang leaders, they brutally silenced dissent, as they insisted that neoliberalism was the cleaner and safer new order; end of discussion! Full of the fool's pride, these leaders believed they were chosen to grab power, because the corporate institutions believed in their superiority.
What unfolded before our eyes was a neocolonial process. The quislings, who the real hegemon always uses, never had the power they so desperately craved. They were simply tools used to disempower the common people of their community and transfer limitless power to unaccountable corporate forces. Anti-democracy and exclusion have now been normalized and officially sanctioned for at least 15 years, including the demands for back room meetings.
Is this "vision" for society, what all of the silent consumers and those cheerleading antidemocracy really wanted? Does the swagger and the slogans of the civic gangs still impress so many people out there? Do people feel so much cleaner and safer in the crime free upscale paradise, that they believed they would receive by betraying future generations, the working class, and democratic principles?
Can the people rise up now, after cheering on antidemocracy for so long??? Rule by unaccountable civic gangs, in place of democratic processes, was always designed to secure corporate hegemony! Sorry to have to point out the sad truth caused by our ignorance and greed.
