No More Bad Prescriptions for Mental Illness

By Gregory Morse
Over the past few decades, ordinary people have experienced enormous levels of economic and psychological stress, caused by a rise in foreclosures and evictions, corporatized “education” of children and young adults, and rampant imperialism overseas that has targeted mostly non-violent people. We live within a social and economic system that benefits a small minority of elites at the expense of the rest of us: the working class (or robbed class, if you may say so).
The intensified stress levels have manifested themselves through increases in homophobia, sexism, and racism— as demonstrated by alarming rises in arrest and prison population statistics. Likewise, the rates of mental illness and serious depression have also increased. This has been especially true since the financial crash at the end of 2008.  Sadly, these high rates of depression, anxiety and a whole range of other mental illnesses mean there are high rates of risky behavior such as drug use and alcoholism, domestic abuse, and even suicide. U.S. capitalism deals with mental illness by prescribing an endless array of psychotropic drugs to treat a wide range of symptoms including anxiety, depression, Asperger’s syndrome, shyness, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder and others.
The drugs used are endless. They include Nortriptyline, Dexedrine, Paxil, Prozac, Klonopin, Ritalin, Adderall, and many others. These drugs swell the profits of the drug industry, but they are often ineffective in helping to cure the individuals who take them. Despite this, physicians continue to prescribe those medications that swell the profits of the already massively profitable pharmaceutical industries, but this only results in bandaging a gaping wound without confronting the deep and complex social issues that cause these problems. By focusing entirely on the individual’s “problems,” society reinforces our American and Western-dominated mentality people should “pull themselves up by the bootstraps.” That is, if we work hard, we will achieve anything, and if we don’t, our problems are entirely our own fault. This mentality clearly does not help people who have mental illness due to factors outside of their control.
One of those factors is related to the growing militarism of our society. In 2011, 164 U.S. soldiers committed suicide, and only slightly less were committed in 2010 and in 2009. The Pentagon and the media avoid mentioning these suicides, because to acknowledge these deaths is to acknowledge how dehumanizing war is. The U.S. rushed into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now the government cannot control or even admit to the resulting crisis.
Mental illness and depression are not limited to military personnel, however; it is hard not to meet someone going through their own personal stresses and struggles. I am personally a young man who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome as a kid. Having a label you are given by the system is in itself a struggle. For me, this meant that I had a hard time in school and also in making friends and establishing relationships. Often, the medication I took enhanced my social anxiety disorder.  Like many mentally ill and depressed people, I have been afraid to ask for help I needed. I have been wading through numerous unsatisfying jobs I knew were beneath my abilities and feeling like a failure in not living up to expectations I felt I could achieve but didn’t. It is easy for me to be overwhelmed with stress at times.
As a socialist, I believe there are important immediate steps that can be taken to deal with mental health issues. One solution is to implement a single-payer health care system immediately. Within that single-payer system, mental health should be as urgent as all other health care issues and studied for its complexities. The stigma surrounding depression and mental health problems must end. It is completely unacceptable that suicide exists at all.
As  a movement, Occupy must treat mental health seriously, despite our political differences. Nobody should ever feel discriminated against because of their race, sexual orientation, or their mental or physical abilities. Nevertheless, I would argue that only when capitalism has been overthrown can we resolve the social and economic problems that precipitate or intensify most mental illness and depression in society today.

Reflections On Occupy Providence’s Sidewalk Occupation, June 7th-10th

By Jim Daly

Photo by Chloe Chassaing

 

Netroots Nation participants were greeted by a 24/7 sidewalk occupation by Occupy Providence that started when the annual conference began on Thursday afternoon, June 7, at the Providence Convention Center, and continued until the conference’s ending on Sunday, June 10.
Netroots Nation is a collection of liberal Internet bloggers, news reporters and other individuals who play a major role in national political social networking. This conference was an opportunity for those who had been writing about political issues to interact with one another and with prominent politicians on the Left.
Members of Occupy Providence set up sleeping bags, protest signs, and an info desk outside the Convention Center to attract those attending the conference and focused on three themes: no bailout for 38 Studios, the bankrupt gaming company founded by Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling that owes the state of Rhode Island millions of dollars; Tax the Wealthy; and an economic development and recovery plan that involves Solidarity not Austerity.
Protesters, passers-by and Netroots folks engaged in daily working group meetings, general assemblies, and community discussions. Every night ended with a People’s Open Mic, where all Occupiers were welcome to tell their stories, explaining why they were members of the movement and how the movement had affected them.
There were Teach-ins on Thursday and Friday afternoon centering on issues of economic inequality, student debt and environmental destruction. Many of the problems addressed in these public forums could be resolved, speakers and participants agreed, if the richest individuals in the nation were taxed at a higher rate. Rather than taxing those who can afford to pay higher taxes, our elected representatives engage in austerity measures and cut social programs for those who need them. This exact type of economic injustice is what Occupy Providence highlighted during the weekend’s twenty-four hour protest.
The Netroots conference could not have taken place at a more politically charged time in Providence, as it was held only weeks after 38 Studios failed. Many of the liberal Internet bloggers inside the Convention Center have long expressed outrage at the economic injustice prevalent in American society. The situation surrounding the recently shattered 38 Studios is a perfect example of this injustice and Occupy Providence shed light on the scandal during the Netroots conference. Schilling was given $75 million dollars by the State of Rhode Island with the expectation that his venture would create job opportunities for Rhode Island workers— but his venture failed. Occupy Providence shared the outrage felt by the community at seeing Schilling, a man with no experience in running a large business, given so much job relief money simply because he was famous and wealthy.
Occupy Providence organized protests throughout the weekend. On Friday protesters marched to 38 Studios to make chalk outlines representing the “Dead on Arrival” jobs that Curt Schilling’s company had “brought” to Rhode Island. Occupy Providence then marched to the State House where they delivered a petition to the Governor’s office to stop the bailout of 38 Studios.
Occupy Providence members were ejected from the State House by police officers, despite being told they could stay if they were quiet. Representative Teresa A. Tanzi left the House floor to defend the protesters against the police but they ignored her as well.
On Saturday Occupy Providence held their biggest march of the weekend with around 75 people taking to the streets. Their first stop was again 38 Studios, to denounce the state’s ill-considered financial support for this failed venture. The activists then continued their march to the State House, drawing chalk outlines of bodies representing 38 Studio’s D.O.A. jobs.
Protesters then marched through the Providence Place Mall, where they had a tense confrontation with the police. Mall security officers unsuccessfully attempted to push protesters out of the Mall. Outraged at Occupy Providence’s exercise of its freedom of speech, the head of security called the police to have the marchers arrested. Ten peaceful protesters were detained while other members of Occupy Providence stood across the street awaiting their detained friends’ release and mic checked the police. After a few tense moments the protesters were released. One had suffered a sprained arm as a result of the police’s aggressive arrest. A community healing discussion followed that symbolized the unity that Occupy Providence has maintained even during its most intense political protests.
I, the author of this article, was one of the individuals who helped plan and also participated in this four-day, three-night, twenty-four hour protest. This protest was, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful political actions our organization has seen to date. The weekend-long protest has increased the number of faces that I will think of when I need strength and inspiration. I formed many new friendships and strengthened old ones. I want to give a special thank you to those who stayed with us from Occupies in Connecticut, Texas and Tennessee.
By the time we packed up our sleeping bags on Sunday our movement had grown in maturity, productivity and unity. It seems to me that our movement is beginning to take a first of many steps toward being capable of dealing with issues, both internal and external, that have held us back. I am confident of our ability to continue to grow stronger now that the Sidewalk Occupation has ended.

Occupy: A Balance Sheet and a Way Forward

By Paul Hubbard

When OWS, Occupy Boston, Occupy Oakland, and the dozens of other encampments were cleared out by the police, it disrupted and disorganized our movement. We have to recognize and admit those facts. Repression is a tried and true method that the 1% employs against social movements— IT WORKS— that’s why they do it.
Further, the continued occupation of OWS in Zuccotti Park represented the only national focal point for our movement and once it was gone, Occupy entered a new space— the space of retreat, regroupment and figuring out the next phase.
As long as the movement was in occupied spaces, we offered an organizing/protest in the streets/social movement alternative to the electoral sham of the 1%. Mass social protest movements in the streets seriously disrupt the electoral process and I cite the 1968 street protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago as a good example of that. In order to refocus the country on the duopoly of the Democrats and Republicans, the 1% had to repress our movement.
All social movements have inherent contradictions and follow their own special ‘laws’ of development. They go through amazing phases of mass protest, unity, unleashed energy and creativity, and, especially after a nationally coordinated repression, periods of downturn.
A huge part of movement building (and movement leadership) is having the ability to recognize those periods of downturn and being sufficiently organized to minimize the impacts from the blows from the 1%.
The Occupy movement was brilliant at illuminating the primary contradiction of American capitalism. By focusing on the obscene wealth inequality caused by Wall St, the big banks, and the profit motive, the Occupy movement tapped into mass anger and deep-seated outrage at the corporations, which was bubbling just underneath the surface in American society. Its formulation of the 1% versus the 99% struck a deep chord in the consciousness of the American people, particularly the youth.
The occupation tactic offered an amazing model of sustained organizing, reclaiming public space for protest, assembly and free speech. These combined to give the Occupy movement a mass appeal which hasn’t been seen from a social protest movement in 35 years. A new radicalization is beginning to unfold in dramatic and unique ways.
Occupy represents nothing less than the rebirth of working-class, anti-capitalist struggle. After 35 years of neo-liberal economic policies and structural adjustments that have devastated the unions and women’s rights and increased racial inequality (despite Obama’s election as President), the one-sided class war is over. Our side is finally fighting back!
Two-sided class struggle is on the agenda­­— an amazing achievement for a movement that’s just six months old. But as I stated earlier, all social protest movements have contradictions and follow their own ‘laws’ of development. The Occupy movement’s biggest contradiction is this: it’s a working-class, anti-capitalist movement fighting the 1% that is physically based outside the workplace (factories, offices, hospitals, schools, construction sites, other workplaces), and largely outside the organized spaces of the working class (unions). That is where the real potential power of the 99% resides, in our workplaces, where through strikes and workplace occupations, we can collectively organize to shut down, then take over and run the system ourselves. The tactic of occupying public space was brilliant as a first phase for our new movement but there are solid reasons to believe that phase is and should be over. The most compelling reason why I think it won’t be useful for us to try to reproduce the occupations of last fall in the spring is the relative ease with which the armed agents (police/security apparatus) of the 1% were able to repress and clear out the encampments. Occupy alone doesn’t possess the social weight (which exists with workers in factories and workplaces) to defend occupations, especially in open public parks.  Occupy can’t mobilize sufficient masses of the American working class to consistently come out in defense of public spaces every time the police move to evict us. The relationship of class forces (1% versus 99%) doesn’t yet favor the Occupy movement.
The Occupy movement has changed the discourse in this country, with a powerful narrative that has resonated with the 99%, but we have largely been unable to change the material reality and agenda of the 1%. That agenda has been decades in the making and encompasses dramatically lowering the standard of living of the 99%. US capitalism is in a life and death struggle to maintain its hegemony as an international empire with wars/occupations abroad and class war at home. It will take the power of the working class, organized in collective workplace struggle, to transform society in the fundamental ways Occupy is demanding.

Recent Direct Actions

By Randall Rose

Here’s an update on Occupy Providence direct actions which have taken place since we published our last issue.

Photo by Paul Hubbard

2/6 March to AG Kilmartin’s office. Present petition against
lenient settlement with big banks committing foreclosure
fraud and harrassing homeowners.

2/23 Protest VP Biden in Providence, to demand taxing Wall Street transactions (Robin Hood Tax).

2/29 ALEC protest in Groton, CT.  Join other Occupys in Groton to protest Pfizer’s funding of ALEC, a right-wing state lobbying group.

3/1 Occupy Education. Support Occupy RIC march from Burnside Park to RI Dept of Ed for high-quality education for all, opposing education cuts, soaring student debt, privatization and job insecurity.

Photo by Susan O’Connell

Photo by Susan O’Connell

Photo by Susan O’Connell

3/22 Verizon. Join rally to support CWA union in their fight to keep their benefits at Verizon.

3/26 Re-seeding offer. March from Burnside Park to City Hall where we offer to re-seed the park with our own labor.

3/29 Trayvon Martin. Join march from Central High School to demand re-opening the case in the killing of innocent Trayvon Martin.

4/4 First Source. Endorse rally by DARE and People’s Assembly for civil rights on the anniversary of Dr. King’s death, supporting the implementation of First Source rule to hire local residents.

4/4 Occupy MBTA in Boston. Endorse Occupy Boston and Occupy MA rally against MBTA fare hike and service cuts, affecting RI commuter rail.

4/14 Budget rally in Bristol.  Join East Bay Citizens for Peace to support cutting the military budget to free funds for people and economic development.

4/17 Tax Day in Providence. Join American Friends Service Committee, marching to Textron and Bank of America, to support taxing the rich.

4/17 Tax Day in Westerly.  Demand taxing the rich, including a tax on Wall Street transactions.

Photo by Joseph Mendez

4/22 Occupy Sexism.  Support rally, march, dinner and teach-in by RI Anti-Sexism League.

4/24 Robin Hood March.  March in Robin Hood costumes to House Finance Committee hearing, where we testify in support of bills to reverse tax cuts for the rich.

4/25 Robin Hood Tax Rally in New York.  Join ACT-UP on its 25th anniversary to support a tax on Wall Street transactions.

6/7-10 Occupy Netroots.  Four-day sidewalk occupation on Sabin St. during Netroots Nation conference in Providence.  Demands: No bailout for 38 Studios, Tax the 1%, Solidarity not austerity (locally, nationally, and internationally).

6/7 State Budget.  During House floor debate on balancing the budget, OP members mic-check from the balcony, calling for balancing the budget by taxing the wealthy and corporations, not by layoffs and pension cuts.

Photo by Chloe Chassaing

6/8-9 Two days of marches to 38 Studios and State House, opposing the planned bailout of 38 Studios’ Wall Street bondholders. Marches include stop in Providence Place Mall and a portrayal of the dead-on-arrival jobs at 38 Studios’ offices (picture above).

6/10 Chalking: Messages in chalk on the sidewalks of downtown to support the 99%.

6/28 Eviction protest. Support Joann Manning, who is being threatened with eviction from her family’s home even though she is willing to pay rent to the bank that foreclosed on her.

7/4 4th of July parade. Join EBCP “Patriots for Peace” float in the Bristol 4th of July parade.

7/27 Oppose junkfood subsidies for agribusiness.  Join RIPIRG to oppose Congress’s farm bill which pays large subsidies to big agribusinesses for producing junk food ingredients.

The above actions were approved by votes in the Occupy Providence General Assembly, an open democratic meeting of the 99% where OP’s main decisions are made.  Occupy Providence members also participated informally in many other actions.

Cartoon by Mark, http://www.hurwittgraphics.com

Rhode Island’s Economic Development Boondoggle

By Tom Sgouros

You hear a lot about “economic development” in discussions of state government these days, and about the various agencies charged with promoting it, but why?  It’s not because casinos are now important (though they are) or because jobs are important (though they are) or because our economy is in such terrible shape (though it is). The reason is much sadder.
In large part, the best things the state can do for the state’s economy have to do with those essential things that the private sector can’t (or won’t) do: universal public education; maintaining roads, bridges, water and sewer lines; policing the marketplace; protecting the environment; facilitating basic scientific research. These are the factors that could make ours a stronger economy, and each of them affects hundreds or thousands of companies at a time and millions of citizens, even here in Rhode Island. What an economic development agency can do will only ever be a minor effect compared to these others.
Unfortunately, the last 30 years of tax-cutting lawmakers have left your state unable to provide these services well. In the name of keeping taxes down, we have deferred maintenance and borrowed too much. We have pushed responsibilities onto cities and towns, to be funded by regressive taxes, and now Central Falls is in bankruptcy, with Woonsocket, East Providence, and Providence teetering on the brink. We’ve avoided discussion of programs meant to save money, like early childhood education and maintenance. So we pay too much for the little we get, and public services are a shambles.
Enter the economic development apparatus, a collection of functionaries who promise we can still have a thriving economy without paying enough to manage the fundamentals. This is a very appealing pitch, and Governors and legislators around the country have fallen for it, in Rhode Island as much as anywhere else.
Here in Rhode Island, the Economic Development Corporation is a free-standing quasi-public agency, which, through a quirk of its history, has almost unlimited borrowing authority, none of which has to be approved by voters. And borrow they have, for good and for, well, less good. They blew $30 million on Alpha-Beta, a bio-tech flop (they did recover about $25 million of it eventually), and EDC’s authority was a pivotal part of the deal that allowed state debt to balloon in order to pay for the I-boondoggle rearrangement of Route 195, loading up the state with hundreds of millions of dollars in new debt. There’s plenty more, including $14 million for the Masonic Temple hotel project, and over $30 million for the troubled Wyatt jail in troubled Central Falls. The prison, far from being a source of support for that city, recently announced it would not try to make up for its past lapses in payments, let alone meet its current obligations to the city. (After all, says their management, they have to repay their bondholders and make a profit before they have anything to spare for city government.) Now EDC is again in the news, having thrown $75 million at former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s failed video game company, 38 Studios.
What’s more, as a freestanding agency, EDC was free to pay its executives whatever they please, and to conduct their business however they pleased. Their executives could wear good suits, house their operation in first-class office space, and generally conduct themselves just like the overpaid CEOs they spend their time with.
There are two problems with this. The first, and biggest, is that the EDC vision of a healthy economy for Rhode Island isn’t really sustainable. Attracting companies from elsewhere will only get us companies who don’t care about Rhode Island: empty growth, if growth at all. There’s already enough corporate irresponsibility in the world. We absolutely don’t need a system that encourages more.
The second problem is more theirs than ours: about the only tool that RIEDC has at its disposal is various kinds of tax breaks to offer companies and a limited amount of money to lend (much of which they’ve dedicated to 38 Studios). Without much of the infrastructure to support a healthy economy, they have to put their faith in salesmanship and tax breaks, not in fundamentals.
What happens at an agency with such an ill-defined and difficult role? Failure, that’s what. Over the years, EDC has seen some good people come through its doors, along with the inevitable few who only look good in a suit, but they’ve been tasked with the impossible. Their mission has been to make our state’s economy bloom despite the fact that we are shrinking our investments in our infrastructure, our workforce and our environment. And what have we seen?  Tremendous pressure to do something has produced ill-considered loans, and nebulous and occasionally laughable plans.
A future EDC or something like it could play a useful part in monitoring the state’s economy, and in technology transfer, trying to push new technologies into the market to advantage local businesses. They could be useful promoting networking and centralizing some information businesses need. But our EDC has served mostly as an ATM for corporations, and as a state-paid corporate lobbyist, pushing tax cuts in the legislature, oblivious to the effects these cuts have had on education, police forces, bridge maintenance, and all the rest.
The time is long past when we can afford to continue this way. We have to understand government as an integral part of keeping our economy sound, sustainable, and just.

Tom Sgouros is the editor of the Rhode Island Policy Reporter, at whatcheer.net, and the author of “Ten Things You Don’t Know About Rhode Island.” Contact him at
ripr@whatcheer.net.

What Should Education Look Like?

by Lisa Niebels

While the needs of our economy have changed, the educational structure has not.  It continues to use a top-down industrial model in which creativity and individuality are discouraged. In most schools today, the individual learner and the family’s role in personalizing the educational experience to meet the needs of each learner as well as the community are ignored.
It is time to reform our current compulsory educational practices.  One “reform” is already being attempted.  This has been the implementation of a high-stakes testing requirement for all public school students. While the goal of this is supposedly to provide every student with the skills needed for the twenty-first century, the result is sadly that many students are instead finding themselves without these skills— and also without a high school diploma. According to an article published in February by the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, students who do not pass the RI Dept. of Education’s “high stakes testing” requirement, slated for implementation in 2014, will not receive a diploma. Based on this year’s recently released NECAP testing scores in math, close to half of all students currently enrolled in Rhode Island schools may not graduate, and the proportions are much higher for some sectors of the school population.  For example, 84% of special education students, and 70% of all African American and Latino students are likely to fail.  Not surprisingly, the prospective failure rate is unevenly distributed throughout the state:  While 13% of Barrington students and 14% of those in East Greenwich may not qualify for a diploma, the figures climb to a dizzying 69% and 79% for those enrolled in Providence and Central Falls schools, respectively.
In our schools today we are cramming as much testable data into our children as possible and medicating the non-compliant ones in order that they meet the expectations of a fear-based culture.
What are the alternatives to the current ineffective educational system?  I have come to believe that providing students with personalized educational experiences is the most effective reform we could implement.  Learners and their families should always have the opportunity to be active participants in their education, and, for some, homeschooling may be the best approach.  Some schools also take an individualized approach.  I worked for over ten years at the Met School, which empowers high school students to “take charge of their learning” through internships and individual learning plans, and I have spent a year in Roger Williams University’s College Unbound program, which integrates personalized learning with other traditional offerings, classes and online learning.  According to College Unbound’s philosophy, “Requirements are learning goals, not courses— and different students meet them in different ways.”
Choice is ultimately what we need to offer.  Education is too important to waste on regimented learning taught with military precision and uniformity.  Such education will not enable learners to realize their full potential as human beings, and the adoption of high-stakes achievement tests will only serve to create a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots in Rhode Island and elsewhere.

If you are interested in working to stop the defective, and potentially disastrous educational “reform” being promoted by Commissioner Deborah Gist and the Rhode Island Department of Education, please e-mail me at lniebels1@gmail.com.

Sources:

• Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams  http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/StopStealingDreamsSCREEN.pdf
• “Standardized Test Results Show That “High Stakes Testing” for High School Graduation Would Have “Devastating Consequences,”    http://www.riaclu.org/20120223.htm
• The Met  http://metcenter.org/about-us/
• College Unbound  http://www.collegeunbound.org/

By Paul Hubbard

Are the Police Part of the 99%?

By Chris Murphy
Many people in the Occupy Wall Street movement believe the police are part of the 99%. They say that their friends and family have joined the force and are good union people who want to help the community and see Occupy succeed.
This article will attempt to show that the police are on the other side.  We need to consider the police as an institution.  Within the institution of law enforcement, a single police officer is not allowed to be an individual and cannot be swayed to join the side of the Occupy movement until he or she retires or quits the force. Just like other workers within the capitalist system, they must follow the orders of the boss. This article will argue that their boss is the 1%.
It is not just local police departments that have acted against Occupy and against the 99 percent, but a larger law enforcement spectrum of Homeland Security, ICE, Federal Protective Service, FBI, fusion centers and the CIA. Law enforcement has routinely been on the side that has committed violent and oppressive acts which violate civil liberties. For example, the Oakland police brutally attacked Occupy Oakland, critically injuring an Iraq War veteran. The LAPD has confirmed that, in the run-up to the raid on Occupy LA, dozens of undercover officers were gathering intelligence on site. In Occupy Providence, infrared cameras have been used to determine how many people were currently at the People’s Park.
The state repression leveled against OWS by law enforcement is something that communities of color face on a daily basis. This racism leads to the breaking up of families with two million people in jail, the majority people of color. In New York City, there is a well-known “Stop and Frisk” policy that overwhelmingly targets minorities. In 2011, according to the NYPD, there were so many “Stop and Frisk” searches of young black men that they exceeded the number of young black men actually living in the city! Within Rhode Island, it is also well known that the police search vehicles of black and Latino residents at a much higher percentage than white people, even though contraband is found in a higher percentage of the stops of white people.
The Obama administration deports over 1100 people a day through collaboration of local and federal police departments. Even U.S. citizens are increasingly being deported. A 14-year-old Texas girl who was missing for months was mistakenly deported to Colombia by immigration agents.
The Central Intelligence Agency works with the NYPD to illegally monitor and infiltrate mosques under the guise of “homeland security.” In the same week that Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a Boston Muslim-American pharmacist was convicted of material support for terrorism. The reason for his prosecution was that he refused to be an informant on the Arab and Muslim community for law enforcement.
Tens of millions of dollars goes to homeland security, but what resources address violence against women and children here in our country today? This is not a top priority. Officers also abuse power when interacting with women. For instance, the global Slutwalk protests began when a Toronto officer told a young woman “not to dress like sluts.”
Yes, it is agreed that police do respond to all types of calls. But, ultimately, to serve and protect whom? This author’s opinion is that their purpose is to make sure the status quo remains, and the status quo is about protecting the one percent’s property. For example, Goldman Sachs provided the NYPD with millions of dollars in funding during the beginning of OWS. At Occupy Providence’s Textron rally in downtown Providence, it was the police who ordered marchers off the steps of Textron’s headquarters.
Although Occupiers have chanted “The police are the 99%”, and tried to sway officers by saying “You are one of us, join us”, the evidence I’ve cited argues that law enforcement’s presence in our community is meant to act as a deterrent, in order to control people, hoping to limit the number of people who participate in struggle and who what is possible through their own collective power.
Now, you might say that law enforcement has been nice to us at Occupy Providence. However, we might consider other possible explanations for this situation. I would suggest that nobody in government wanted to take on OP: the new governor was reeling; the mayor had lost his “political capital” because of his decisions about his budget crisis; there was no acting police chief; and the public safety commissioner had coordinated a raid of the Narragansett tribe, a sovereign nation, not long ago. Given law enforcement’s spotty record of late, one would have to wonder.

An Interview With Former Civil Rights Organizer, Charles Cobb, Jr.

Interviewed by Gavroche Allen.

I was privileged to have an moment to talk with a person who participated in one of the turbulent if not inspiring times in recent U.S. history. Prof. Charles Cobb Jr. was one of the community organizers in Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the South during the civil rights era of the 1960s. Professor Cobb is now a part time teacher in the Africana studies at Brown University and now resides in Florida. He relates to me some personal accounts during that time. He also gives some insight on how we as activists can move forward.

Professor Cobb, can you tell me about your life before you joined SNCC?    
When the first sit-ins happened in the early 1960s I was in high school in Springfield, Mass. When I first saw what happened to them on television, my first reaction was that they look like me. Not in a racial but in a generational sense. They were young and engaged in Civil Rights activities.
If you were black in the 1960s, you planned to go to a historically black college. Only a handful of blacks went to white schools like Brown. Most blacks went to black schools, and the odds were overwhelming that you were going to the South. That meant you were going to sit in segregated public places. The question was: what you going to do about it?
My family was a politically active family. I was predisposed. When I got to Howard, I become involved the sit-in movement. It is through that involvement that I got into SNCC. It was Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which was also active in the Civil Rights Movement, that invited me to a workshop in Texas and handed me some money for a bus ticket. This bus ticket gets me all through the South, and I decided to see all through the South. I get off the bus at Jackson, Mississippi, to meet with the students sitting in. The reason I get in Mississippi is that it is entirely associated with Emmett Till’s murder. To make a long short: I thought the state was so dangerous I wanted to meet these students. They convince me to stay in the state.

Can you describe SNCC and how they played a part in the Civil Rights Movement in the South?
They are three important things you have to understand about SNCC that made it unique in its time. First, it was an organization of young people. First time you got to see young people working 24/7 for change. Second, it was a movement of a grass-roots organization. It was an organization of organizers from student protest. Third, it was a radical organization. Not radical in an ideological sense but in the people we worked with. They were maids and sharecroppers. The poorest of the poor, in the most racist of societies.

What were the main goals of SNCC during the 60s? Do you think SNCC succeeded in accomplishing those goals?    
We saw ourselves as organizers, not leaders. Our goal was to help people speak with their own voices instead of being spoken for by others. And also to organize for themselves. In some ways we were successful but not entirely successful, because there is still a struggle in this country.

You had such dynamic leaders such as Stokely Carmichael and Ella Baker in the movement back then. How did these leaders shape you as a community organizer?
Stokely Carmichael and Ella Baker were two key components of SNCC. The key person in SNCC was Ella Baker. She, of course, was from an older generation. But she recognized when the sit-ins erupted that the student energy was important. She was the one that pulled us together. As a result, thus began the creation of SNCC. She was the one who steered us into grassroots organizing. To quote her, “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

What are the similarities and differences between movements in the 60s and the Occupy movement today?
The obvious similarity is the issue of protest. The kind of protest Occupy is making resembles some of the protests in the 60s. So far the differences outweigh the similarities. I can’t know every single Occupy movement in every city. It seems to me so far this movement has not figured out what it wants in regard with community organizing. It has not figured out how to find a language or a method to begin to speak in organizing in the communities. These communities may not understand or agree with the Occupys.
Look at the evolution of SNCC. It evolves from an organization of student protestors into an organization of organizers impeding in the communities. You cannot sustain a movement with protest.

By assessing the last six to seven months, where do you see the Occupy movement heading?
Simple answer: I don’t know. I can’t know its real internal dynamics. Unless Occupy figures out how to really organize in the community, they will be marginalized.

There has been a spark of interest about people of color and abuses of law enforcement, for example, the murder of Trayvon Martin and the wrongful execution of Troy Davis. Do you think this recent outrage will develop into another Civil Rights Movement?
Again, I don’t know. First, we need to see these things are not uncommon. The whole issue of violence of authorities directed at young black males has been with us for decades. You see the Trayvon protests and do you know who I see speaking: old men.  Maybe it is my prejudice, but I do not believe you get a movement out of old men like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. You get a movement when young men and women take leadership on this issue.

What final advice do you have for the new generation of young activists?
Take the lead! It’s your future. People talk about passing the torch. No! Take the touch!

Deficits, Debts and Demagogues

By Richard D. Wolff

Government budget deficits and the national debt are occasions more for demagogues to preach than for serious analysis. The usual suspects, conservatives and liberals, are gearing up for the election. Each side uses the large federal budget deficits and fast-accumulating national debt to beat its tired ideological drums. Conservatives insist that deficits and debts require huge cuts in government jobs and job benefits (especially pensions) and in social programs (especially Medicare and Medicaid). Liberals push for less drastic cuts in federal employment and programs because “the economy still needs stimulus.” Liberals promise that when prosperity returns and Washington’s tax revenues rise, we can painlessly use them to reduce the accumulated debt.
The two sides have been promoting these positions for decades, long before the current deficits and debts arrived. The latter are just opportunities exploited by both sides to repeat old sermons to their faithful. However, there are important political lessons to learn by connecting deficits and debts to the demagogues using them these days.
What are the actual causes of recent years’ high deficits that have boosted the national debt? The first cause is the capitalist crisis. When millions are fired, their lost income means lower individual income taxes flowing to Washington. When businesses lose sales, their incomes also drop and thus also their income tax payments to Washington. Lower sales mean lower sales taxes flowing to state governments. Our collapsed housing market lowers property values, and that drops the property taxes on which local governments depend. Second, even as government revenue shrank because of the crisis, Washington undertook extremely costly bailouts of large banks and other corporations as part of stimulating a crisis-ridden capitalist economy. Washington also sent more money to states and localities to offset a part of their revenue loss because of the crisis. Crisis-induced revenue losses plus crisis-induced expenditure increases are the major causes of today’s large deficits and national debt increases.
The third major cause of federal deficits and debts has been huge reductions in corporate income taxes and individual income taxes on the richest Americans. At the end of World War II, for every dollar paid to Washington in individual income taxes, corporate profits’ taxes amounted to $1.50. Today, the ratio is very, very different: for every $1 paid in individual income taxes, corporations pay $ 0.25. Despite the effects on statistics of S corporations and other tax loopholes for businesses and executives, the bottom line shows a massive shift of the federal tax burden from business onto individuals. Over the same period, the top rate of the federal individual income tax fell from 94 percent to 35 percent: a massive federal tax break for the richest Americans.
The result was and remains obvious: the middle of the income distribution­— the majority that is not rich and not (or not yet) really poor— had to pick up the burden. No wonder that a majority of the population is upset, angry, talks endlessly about “tax revolts” and deeply distrusts politicians of all stripes who imposed the twin massive tax shifts upon them. The majority correctly fears being driven down into the mass of the poor. As that process unfolds, the majority becomes increasingly resentful and angry and looks for whom to blame.
The job of the demagogues is to deflect that anger onto a credible scapegoat. Their goal is to protect corporations and the rich (1) from the return of the tax rates they paid in the past; (2) from paying for the crisis since 2007 that they helped to cause; and (3) from paying for the government bailouts they demanded, received, and that saved them from very serious, crisis-induced problems.
The demagogues’ preferred scapegoat is the public sector of our economy. So, they attack government employees and the public services they provide. Chief among their current targets are the pensions paid to retired public employees. These are denounced as primary causes of the deficits of local, state and federal budgets. Democrats and Republicans agree to cut those pensions as a way to reduce the deficits.
Yet, this scapegoating is easy to expose. Public employee pensions have not risen in any dramatic way over recent years, so they could not and did not cause the government budget deficits to zoom upward. Those pensions did not cause our national debt suddenly to soar. Capitalism’s second-worst crisis in 75 years and the government’s bailout program for large corporations and the stock market, that’s what caused the deficits and the exploding national debt.
Attacking workers’ pensions is preferred because it protects corporations and the rich from blame in this time of mounting economic difficulties for most people. It pits government workers against private-sector workers. Attacking public workers’ pensions undermines retirement programs to which they contributed, benefits they accepted in place of wage increases from their employer. Conservatives use lower pensions in the private sector to argue for parallel reductions in public employees’ pensions; next they will use reduced public pensions as arguments to lower private-sector pensions.
Cutting public employees’ pensions makes workers pay for a crisis they did not cause and for the massive government bailouts they did not get. How convenient for corporations and the rich that Democrat and Republican demagogues are “concerned about the problem of government pensions.” Instead of scapegoating public workers, they could remember the lessons of the last time US capitalism crashed.
In the 1930s Great Depression, powerful unions, socialist and communist parties got the government to raise taxes on corporations and the rich. Those tax revenues helped fund a New Deal for most Americans by (1) creating the Social Security system for the millions over 65, (2) creating the unemployment compensation system for the millions without jobs and (3) creating and filling over 12 million federal jobs.
As corporations and the rich rolled back the New Deal over recent decades, they created conditions for another massive crisis. Now, they aim to turn their crisis into another chapter in that roll back. When capitalism delivers these results, it has outlived its usefulness for all but the few beneficiaries of that system.

Occupy Providence— A Survey of People Involved

Survey conducted by Annie Rose London

In late December and January, Occupy Providence participants were asked to fill out a survey, and 128 individuals completed it. We believe that the sample represents Occupy Providence participants fairly well, including those who were physically occupying Burnside, those who regularly attended General Assemblies, and those who participated in the movement primarily online. From the responses, it is possible to gain insight into the composition of those in Occupy Providence at one point in time, to determine what OP activities people were engaged in, and to find out what goals inspired people to participate in this movement.

PARTICIPATION
What first brought you to Occupy Providence? (129 responses; someone replied twice?)
Answers:     Rally or march  25%  |  General Assembly 23%  |  General curiosity 19%  |  Workshop/discussion 2%   |  A meal 0%   |   Other 31%      (The “Other” responses were usually listed as experience at other Occupy locations, most frequently Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Boston.)
What working groups have you participated in? (193 responses, of which 47 were “zero”, leaving 81 respondents reporting 146 working group participations or nearly two per person)
Answers:     Direct Action 24  |  Safety & Support 19  |  Women’s/Trans/Genderqueer Caucus 15  |   Food 12  |   Facilitation 11  |  Media 11  |  Visioning 11   |  Sanitation 10  |  Health & Caring 9  |  Legal 7  |  Creative Interdisciplinary Art 8  |  Political Action 7  |  Queer Caucus 5  |  Coordination 4

Are you satisfied with your current level of involvement in OP? (124 responses)
Answers:     Really prefer to increase 27%  |  Prefer to increase 42%  |  Totally satisfied 27%  |  Prefer less 3%  |  Really prefer less 0%
What are some factors that would enable you to participate more?
Top solution: indoor locations.
Next most frequent: events on different topics, in different formats, and with varying co-sponsors.
Others: translation to other languages, shorter events, less gendered oppression, and more coordination.
What skills/talents/resources could you imagine contributing to OP?
Answers:     Cook, build, write, network, build websites, write grants, run workshops, mediate, contribute materials, and many more.
How do folks stay connected to OP? (290 responses)
Answers:     Email listserv 79  |  Facebook 67  |  Coming to the People’s Park 58  |  Word of mouth 55  |  OP website 20  |  Local newspapers 10  |  Twitter 1

How has your level of involvement in OP changed since you first became involved? (123 responses)
Answers:     Increased greatly 6%  |  Increased 22%  |  Stayed the same 24%  |  Decreased 26%  |  Decreased greatly 23%

Leading causes for decreased involvement:
other obligations, accessibility, challenges with finding a way to contribute,
internal structural conflict, most often in the form of oppressive behaviors.
IDENTITY
What gender do you identify as? (129 responses)
Answers:     Female 59 (46%)  |  Transgender 3 (2%)  |  Male 60 (47%)  |  Other 7 (5%)
What racial, ethnic, or national background are you most likely to identify as?
Answers:     Over half identified themselves as white, while about 15% viewed themselves as persons of color.
Another 15% did not identify themselves by race or ethnicity at all.
What is your age? (129 responses; someone replied twice)
Answers:     Half of all respondents reported themselves to be in their 20s, with another 20% in their 30s.
Smaller percentages of people ranged in age from their teens to the 70s.
What other identities are important to you?
Answers:     Parents, environmentalists, activists, Providence residents, and immigrants.
How would you describe your political views? (categories created from open responses)
Answers:     Far left 22%  |  Socialist 21%  |  Radical/revolutionary 19%  |  Liberal 16%
Anarchist 15%  |  Progressive 12%  |  Libertarian 9%  |  Democrat 7%  |  Feminist 4%
VOTING
Are you registered to vote? (114 responses)
Answers:     Yes 86%  |  No  14%
Did you vote in the 2008 presidential election? (122 responses)
Answers:     57% voted for Obama  |  1% for McCain  |  16% for another  |  26% didn’t vote.
Do you plan on voting in the 2012 presidential election? (118 responses)
Answers:     Yes, and I feel strongly 47%  |  Yes, but I don’t feel strongly 28%
No, but I don’t feel strongly 6%  |  No, and I feel strongly 20%
OPINIONS
What are the issues that have most motivated your involvement in OP? (590 responses or about 4 per person on average)
Answers:     Economic inequality 108  |  Economic influence on politics 96  |  Housing & Foreclosure 82  |  Systemic transformation/Revolution 82  |  Jobs 81  |  Foreign war and occupation 75  |  Political corruption 75  |  Environmental justice 73  |  Racial inequality 70  |  Education 69  |  Healthcare 69  |  Immigration 64  |  Food justice 60  |  Gender inequality 59  |  Constitutional rights 55 |  LGTBQ rights 51  |  War on drugs 42  |  Foreign trade agreements 38  |  Animal rights 25  |  Other 17
What change in the world do you want to see?
Most common response: A desire for equality among all people.
Common: true democracy, solidarity and community, environmental sustainability, responsible government, and the end of the domination of capitalism.
Somewhat less common: culture shifts and human consciousness shifts.
What change do you hope to see in your own life?
Most common: desire to trust and empower oneself, increased job stability, meaningfulness, increased compassion towards others, bettering one’s political awareness, and community.
What do you think the next steps for should be for OP? (665 responses or about 5 per respondent)
Top responses:
Focus on community outreach 83  |  Focus on coalition-building with other organizations 60  |  More actions/rallies 58  |  Occupy indoor locations 57  |  Focus on public education about relevant issues 56  |  Focus on political pressure 54  | Create alternatives to current systems (e.g., provide free childcare) 52  |  Hold the G.A. in public spaces (such as City Hall, for example) 50  |  Focus on local 1% (e.g., Brown U, Textron) 50

Why We Should Support Public Transportation

By Barry Schiller

Buses have considerable environmental advantages over cars, cost less for people to use, and promote economic development by helping people get to work, school, and shopping. They also promote public health through encouraging moderate physical activity by walking or biking to bus stops. These points are well known. In a rational world, our leaders, in preparing Rhode Island for our future, would have already acted to preserve and expand Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) bus service. But there is also an even bigger reason to help RIPTA. Justifying public transit is part of the larger debate about the legitimacy of all government services.

Thirty years of tax cuts for the 1%, deregulation of banks and corporations, and cuts to public service have created a seriously unbalanced situation. The concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the policies that perpetuate it are shameful, and contrary to what should be our shared values and treating others as we would wish to be treated. Meanwhile, the government is starved of the revenue needed to secure a basic standard of living for all our people, just as the ranks of those needing assistance have grown to epic proportions.

Thus we are at a delicate moment in our nation’s history when this lack of balance has created an atmosphere of uncertainty, fear, distrust, and anger. The dominant narrative has been that the government is broke, the people are broke, and we can no longer afford the social safety net. The dominant prescription has been to subsidize our failed financial industry and other mega-corporations while sacrifices are demanded of the people— the very policies that have brought us to this point. Fortunately, now the Occupy movement has arisen to challenge this dangerous narrative.

Contrary to myth, the US economy is bigger than ever, and its gross domestic product is over $14 trillion. The country is rich, but the money is largely in the hands of a small privileged group. Does it really make sense to coddle them and cut services for the rest of us? Since our economy is so driven by consumer spending, doesn’t it make sense to give help where it is needed?

This is an area where those who care about the 99% should not back down. RIPTA is a battleground where we must stop appeasing the bullies and start pushing back and arguing for public services. And winning this battle will give us momentum for the next cause, and there are many waiting.

Unless the US Congress and the RI General Assembly act soon to provide adequate and sustainable funding for public transit, RIPTA will face massive service cuts next summer when a $10 million deficit looms. RIPTA’s funding stream is largely based on a fixed-cents-per-gallon gas tax that has not only not kept up with inflation, it has actually declined in dollars as folks drive less or use more efficient vehicles. Indeed, over the last six years or so, the revenue per given cent of gas tax has declined from about $4.8 million/year to about $4.2 million, just as RIPTA’s diesel fuel costs have approximately doubled. If this is not addressed, RIPTA projects the next few years will see the loss of all holiday service, most evening and weekend services, and longer waits on many remaining lines. ADA “RIDE” van services for the disabled will no longer be available to complement the discontinued services.

We have until the end of the legislative session in June to stop this from happening and we must start now. A first step is to go to your nearest computer and type “save ripta petition” into your favorite search engine or visit http://www.change.org/petitions/save-ripta to sign the petition. To do more, get involved with the new RIPTA Riders group (for infor- mation, call the RI Sierra Club office, 521-4734) or contact your local state Senator or state Representative and let them know you care. We do have real support from riders, community groups, and even some politi- cal leaders. Together we can save RIPTA!

Barry Schiller is a former RIPTA Board member and a member of RIPTA Riders.

Burnside: Our Statue But Not Our Hero

By Patricia Raub. /// Historical Photos courtesy of Rhode Island Collection at Providence Public Library.

Photo by Chloe C

In 1887, Providence dedicated an equestrian bronze statue in the city’s center to Ambrose E. Burnside, who had died a few years earlier. The monument was the work of Launt Thompson, a well-known New York sculptor. It depicted Burnside with his signature side-whiskers, in military uniform and holding binoculars, presumably to monitor a battle unfolding below. The statue was mounted upon a twenty-eight-foot-high granite base.

The statue and base cost $40,000. About $16,000 of the cost was borne by the City and State. The rest was raised by private subscription, with donations ranging from twenty-five cents to $1,000. Rhode Island veterans of war— many of whom had served under Burnside— marched in the ceremonial procession to the dedication site where several dignitaries gave speeches. While we have only the words of the One-Percent from this event, one assumes

that the 99% were proud of their native son, too. They helped raise the funds to build the monument, and they “voted with their feet” by participating in the dedication ceremony.

The monument stood for nearly twenty years in Exchange Place, facing City Hall, with horses, wagons, and carriages moving in all directions around it.

When the new railroad station and federal building were built at the turn of the century and the open area was transformed into a park, the statue was moved further north and set upon a reconfigured base designed by local architect William R. Walker.

Over the years, not everyone treated the monument with the respect that some felt it deserved. During the annual Arts Festival in 1969, the statue was “dabbed and splashed and brushed with almost all the colors there are,” giving it a “psychedelic” look. Many complained that the painting spree was a “desecration and an insult to General Burnside’s memory.” While the horse and rider were embellished with water-based paint, the base was decorated with enamel paint that required sand-blasting to remove. The Superintendent of Parks, however, seemed unfazed, commenting that “much worse things have been cleaned up. I don’t think there will be any problem, and I’ll follow through on it.”

Over forty years later Occupy Providence has again focused attention on the Burnside Statue, holding its General Assemblies at its base, covering the monument with signs and banners, tying a mask over the statue’s face, and affixing a flag to the horse’s tail. Most of the signs and banners have since been removed so that masking tape will not damage the surface of the structure. Nevertheless, the statue has become the visual symbol of Occupy Providence, with tents clustered around it in all directions.

Whose statue is this? It is clearly our statue! When it comes to Burnside himself, however, most Occupiers know little about him besides the fact that he initiated sideburns and he was a Civil War general, apparently not a very good one. So. . .who was Burnside?

Burnside was, variously, the founder of a rifle works company, an officer for the Illinois Central Railroad, president of the Providence Locomotive Works, a three-term governor of Rhode Island, and, at the end of his life, a U.S. Senator. However, Burnside was primarily a career soldier who worked his way up to the rank of Major General during the Civil War.

It is for his actions during that war that Gen- eral Burnside is remembered. At the time of the monument’s dedication in 1887, Burnside was a hero to Rhode Islanders. Yet, few outside the state regarded him favorably. Lincoln’s lukewarm assess- ment of Burnside was that he was a “most meritorious and honorable officer”— whom the President had relieved of his command of the Army of the Potomac after his disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg.

More recently, Civil War historians have consistently ranked Burnside among the ten worst generals of the war, labeling him “a military dunderhead” with a “disturbing record of failure.” Burnside is scarcely a hero.

As a professional soldier before the war, he was responsible for the murder of Apache in New Mexico. During the war, he led his men unprepared into battle, and through his strategic incompetence contributed to the deaths of more than 900 soldiers at Fredericksburg. Later, he denied the right to free speech to anti-war advocate Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham, by arresting him. Later, he tried to close down an anti-administration newspaper in Chicago.

In civilian life, Burnside was an industrialist and likely to have been no friend of labor. As a Governor and then U.S. Senator, Burnside was part of a select group of prominent native-born white men who looked out for their own interests rather than the interests of the average Rhode Islanders, a growing number of whom were working-class immigrants.

Whose hero is Burnside? Not our hero. For that matter, not anyone’s hero.

_______________________

Sources

“The Burnside Statue.” New York Times. (June 26, 1887: 9).

“A Clean Base for Burnside.” Providence Journal-Bulletin (June 19, 1969: 25)

Knight Edwards. “Burnside: A Rhode Island Hero.” Rhode Island History (January 1957).

Robert Freeman and Vivienne Lasky. Hidden Treasure: Public Sculpture in Providence
(Providence, 1980).

“General Burnside’s Death.” New York Times (September 16, 1881: 1).

William Marvel. Burnside (Chapel Hill, 1991).

John Nanlon. “Burnside a Hit—Generally Speaking.” Providence Evening Bulletin (June 2, 1969: 2)

Horatio Rogers. Dedication of the Equestrian Statue of Major-General Ambrose E.
Burnside: In the City of Providence, July 4, 1887, with the Oration of General Horatio
Rogers; Together with Some Account of General Burnside’s Funeral, and of the
Movement Resulting in the Erection of the Statue (Providence, 1887).

Craig L. Symonds. “Who Were the Worst Ten Generals?” North & South: The Magazine of Civil War Conflict (May 2004).