With the picturesque scenery of Philips Park about them, /u/agentnola and a cadre of Solidarity members chat while waiting for everyone to assemble, once they do, he clears his throat to begin.

“I’m glad everyone could make it out today, and that it’s not quite as overbearingly hot today after the rain passed through! I was hoping to have some actually alive grass in the shot with me, the park was the only place I was sure we’d find any. Why did I want to show you living grass? Simple, it is proof, proof we have only to try, and we can bring nature to life. But instead the only place we put such love into are parks, it reminds me almost of how we domesticated pets. We found in nature these glorious and beautiful creatures that we couldn’t control, great lions, fast cheetahs, cunning wolves; and the only thing we could think to do was try and make them our own. To bind them in rings of metal, whether it be collar or fence, and put them on display in extravagant shows of excess.”

“Don’t get me wrong, the park is lovely! I enjoy walking through it myself, but I wonder why keep such beauty contained? Why is our policy always one of containment, rather than integration? Why do we feel like we need to escape the city to be able to breathe deep? I wish it was as simple as flower boxes on every window, but the problem is far deeper, down to how our society has commodified our very lives. We judge everything we do by whether it is a ‘waste of time’, whether it has an opportunity cost. We have let ourselves become not only consumers but the product on sale by our capitalist society.”

“Why do you think the near abolition of poverty has done so little to erase the struggles of mental health across Britain? We are taught, from birth, that we are a resource, a portfolio of investments to be curated and maintained. A mistake is not a lesson, but a loss. I can promise you this: depression will not decline significantly in Britain until there is a true belief that climate change is being arrested. And the drought we’re suffering too is just further proof of it. There are stones being revealed in the Rhine, put there seven hundred years ago, that say: ‘If you see me, cry.’ How is it that commoners in the so-called Dark Ages had more sense than those in power across the globe today? Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from them, though I’d suggest labour action over the Dutch approach of eating our prime minister, though I do wonder what penguin would taste like, admittedly.”