A Saturday Health Fair on Woodlawn Ave In Chicago(Updated)
Filed under: Society and Economy, US politics
UPDATE 5:15 Central Time April 26 There are conflicting reports that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is prepared to offer concessions concerning the mental health clinic closings in Chicago. This comes after many days of protest that include 35 arrests. Two Nobel Prize winners visited the Woodlawn Occupation this morning to offer their support. If I can confirm any news, I’ll pass it on.
It’s a long ride on the CTA Green Line from Oak Park to 63rd and Woodlawn Ave where the Mental Health Movement has occupied an unused lot in front of the Woodlawn clinic. I’ve taken that ride several times in the past week or so, most recently on Saturday April 21st for the Mental Health Movement’s day-long health fair.
The Mental Health Movement is made up of mental health workers, mental health clinic users, plus their supporters. It has been fighting the closure of 6 mental health clinics in Chicago. Thirty-five people have been arrested so far in the struggle. More about that HERE and HERE. Yesterday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel offered free bus passes to patients of the closed clinics(!)
Photo of the original tent encampment
Occupy Mental Health! New Update.
Filed under: Society and Economy, US politics
UPDATE: The the encampment in the vacant lot across the street from Chicago’s Woodlawn Clinic was dismantled by the police, but no arrests were made. The Woodlawn Mental Health Clinic is scheduled to be closed along with 5 other mental health clinics. Mental health workers and patients had barricaded themselves inside the clinic last Thursday night until forcibly ousted by the Chicago police. 23 people were arrested.
People continued to occupy by sitting in chairs and sleeping in cars. It is now 12:25 in the afternoon on Tuesday & I’m at a coffee shop at the corner. There are about 12-15 people across the street from the clinic with a car and van full of camping equipment. They have set up a table with food and signup sheets. Last night the cops said that owner of the vacant lot where they had set up camp had complained. It was a lie. The complaint did not come from the owner. They did lose a tent to the police, but managed to hang on to most of their stuff. They plan to stay the night again. The City Council is planning to meet about Rahm’s big infrastructure plan tomorrow morning.The demonstrators a hoping some alderpeople will raise the issue of the mental health clinics.
2 PEOPLE ARRESTED. POLICE FORBID CAMPING IN VACANT LOT ACROSS FROM WOODLAWN CLINIC
After a press conference at 2 pm on Tuesday attended by the media, the Mental Health Movement began erecting tents in the vacant lot across from the Woodlawn Clinic. Almost immediately the Chicago Police arrived and threatened anyone with arrest until the tents were taken down. I saw two people arrested almost at random as the protestors tried to comply with the order.
Original diary begins below:
While riding the El down to the Monday morning press conference by Chicago’s Mental Health Movement, I couldn’t help but reflect on Rahm’s Emanuel’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. He is obsessive about funneling money to Chicago’s wealthy and compulsive about his attacks on services for Chicago’s working class. Rahm’s latest offensive is the closing of 6 mental health centers.
The issue of closing mental health clinics first came up last fall during the protests surrounding Mayor Emanuel’s proposed budget, which also included slashing library services, privatization of neighborhood health clinics and layoffs of public employees. There was an hours long sit-in outside the Mayors office demanding that all mental health clinics remain open. Below is a video produced shortly after the fall round of protests.
OUR LIVES ON THE LINE: Voices from Chicago’s mental health clinics
The Time I Got Busted by An Alabama State Trooper— In Maryland
Filed under: Race and gender, Society and Economy, US politics
Over at Open Salon they asked that people submit stories of their petty arrests. Here’s mine. Since it involves some American political history about George Wallace and racism in America, I thought it might be of interest to some Daily Kos readers as well.
For George Corley Wallace, his 1972 Presidential campaign swing through Maryland was one seriously bad trip. He was met by riots in Hagerstown and Frederick, by noisy counter-demonstrations at Wheaton Plaza and Capital Plaza near DC and was seriously wounded by gunfire in Laurel. And me? I managed to get myself arrested by an Alabama state trooper ——in Maryland no less.
Although mostly forgotten now, Wallace was the Halley’s Comet of the neo-confederate universe in the 1960’s, trailing a constellation of stars and bars behind him. As governor of Alabama he stood in front of the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in 1962 in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent its desegregation by black students.
At his 1963 gubernatorial inauguration he vowed,”Segregation Now. Segregation Tomorrow! Segregation Forever!” When segregation was outlawed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he changed his rhetoric to the racially coded language that has inspired generations of Republican politicians from Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich. Read more
Occupy Transit! Transit Workers & the Occupy Movement Team Up
Filed under: Environment, Society and Economy, Unions
Calling mass transit “a genuine civil rights issue,” the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), which represents transit workers across the nation, joined with the Occupy Movement, community organizations and transit riders to demand a revitalization of our transit systems. Citing such problems as “older vehicles, deferred maintenance and longer wait times for overcrowded buses and trains,” the ATU was also critical of service cuts and higher fares which have hit working class riders the hardest.
ATU national president Larry Hanley was inspired to ally ATU with the Occupy Movement when he learned of a proposal from Occupy Boston for a national day of protest around transit issues. Occupy Boston had issued this statement:
“In Boston and in cities around the country, our hard-won and necessary transportation systems are under attack. Their viability is being threatened by savage cuts and fare hikes in a calculated push toward privatization by corrupt and unresponsive politicians and their corporate benefactors.”
Hey Rahm Emanuel! Libraries Are Sacred Spaces!
Filed under: Education, Media, Society and Economy, Unions
“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.” –Isaac Asimov (American author with hundreds of books to his credit)
Probably the best known library of all time was located in Northern Africa. The great library at Alexandria in Egypt was, before its destruction, one of the ancient wonders of Mediterranean civilization. Containing thousands of scrolls, it was the Library of Congress for its day. Its destruction did not come in a single tragic fire, but several, and even historians can’t agree how many fires burned and who set them alight. There was also scroll deterioration plus the inevitable thefts and losses. For the Library of Alexandria, it was death by a thousand cuts.
How much information and imagination was lost? We’ll never know.
For the Chicago Public Library system, its deterioration is proceeding with death by a thousand budget cuts, cuts coming from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office on the 5th floor of City Hall, following up on cuts made by his predecessor Hizzoner Richard M. Daley. Libraries are especially important in working class communities where people have less income and where educational opportunities are generally more limited. Read more