Category Archives: Economic Policy

Occupy Phase II

Posted on by ninjanurse

Thanks, Occupy

I stopped by Burnside Park yesterday with some coffee and took away some Occu-debris. Then I went to First UU, like Paul Revere (sort of). Get on downtown and join the cleanup!

Amazing what they did, working till 1:30am. The tents are down, materials in neat stacks. The ground is raked, the fountain clean.

All of us who support the call of economic justice for the 99% have our work cut out for us. Emmanuel House can use our support. General Assembly will continue to meet twice a week. The City of Providence has declared a ten-year plan to house all its residents and end homelessness. This can happen if we keep on track.

Follow Occupy Providence on Facebook for locations of GA.

Richard Salit from the Providence Journal covers the park cleanup and departure, not online yet- but on the front page of the print edition today.

Thank you to everyone who braved the cold and the uncertainty. You are an inspiration. The work is just beginning.

URGENT, URGENT, URGENT!

Posted on by ninjanurse

Today, Sunday 29 January, volunteers are needed at Burnside Park to pack up the tents and leave the space clean.

If you have a truck, even better.

Parking is awful. Bring your love energy. Providence has created the best Occupation nationwide– let’s show the world that we are ready for the next step– taking the General Assembly statewide, to hear the voice of the 99% in Olneyville, Central Falls, Woonsocket and all our cities and towns.

UPDATE: I went by about 7pm. Cleanup is still in progress, neat open space between tents being taken down. Lots of stuff still to move. I’m taking a load to Johnston Landfill tomorrow in my tiny car. If you are inclined to lend a hand, there’s still time.

UPDATE II: As of 8:30, looking good. One truck on site, tents mostly packed, some still there. I don’t know if Occupy will be able to complete the move by dawn, but much neater, more organized than even a couple of hours ago.

Letter to Treasurer Raimondo

Posted on by Kiersten Marek

A group of civil rights and advocacy organizations in Rhode Island is calling Treasurer Raimondo’s attention to some of the extreme political positions taken by The Manhattan Institute and demanding that she return the award she recently received:

January 11, 2011
Hon. Gina Raimondo, General Treasurer State House, Room 102 Providence, RI 02903

Dear Treasurer Raimondo,

On behalf of a broad range of civil rights and community organizations, we respectfully write to you regarding your recent affiliation with the Manhattan Institute – an extremist right wing group that promotes offensive, ignorant and hurtful positions towards the LGBTQI community, women, minorities and our environment.

Last week you traveled to New York to stand with and be publicly recognized by The Manhattan Institute, where you accepted their “Urban Innovator Award” for your work to alter Rhode Island’s pension system. Your work regarding the pension system has certainly been the subject of significant debate, and our purpose today is not to reexamine the merits of those legislative efforts. Rather, we seek to call your attention to a series of troubling articles and position papers that we sincerely hope do not reflect your own personal or political positions.
· In “Gay Marriage vs American Marriage”, the Manhattan Institute comes alarmingly close to some of the more common anti-equality rants espoused by the so-called National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and the Family Research Council, by claiming that marriage equality (same-gender marriage) is not the same as “American Marriage”. Furthermore, in “Redefining Marriage Away”, the Manhattan Institute claims that the reason to fear marriage equality is that gay and lesbian couples do not value fidelity, that their asserted lack of monogamy is immoral and dangerous. As if these articles aren’t offensive enough, they publish and reference anti-equality articles and books written by former NOM president Maggie Gallagher including “Why Marriage is Good For You”.
· Ms. Hymowitz writes about how “Women Prefer the Mommy Track,” widespread rape on college campuses is a myth, and claims that feminism as a whole is “not so much dead as obsolete.”
· The Manhattan Institute called claims of racial profiling by police “ACLU misinformation,” “promoting racial paranoia,” and “ivory-tower posturing” and compared being charged with racism to being charged as a witch: to be without any conceivable defense.
· The Manhattan Institute rails against President Obama’s green jobs initiative, stands in opposition to wind power, and sees fracking as an alternative energy solution.

Madame Treasurer, the aforementioned articles are just a sample of what is readily available on the Manhattan Institute’s website. We must ask if you or anyone in your office were aware that this organization published such venomous, racially-charged, anti-gay, anti-environment and anti-women positions before you agreed to be honored by them in New York. We are willing to accept that you were not, but that acceptance must accompany a proactive effort by you. Return the Manhattan Institute’s Urban Innovator Award and publicly condemn these harmful writings at your earliest convenience, preferably within the next 48 hours.

We recognize that the purpose of your visit to the Manhattan Institute was to receive an accolade for your pension work and not to discuss the important issues we have brought to your attention. It is simply unacceptable to us as a coalition, or your constituents as a whole, for you to stand with or accept an award from a narrow-minded and hurtful organization. To do so would be seen as nothing less than an implicit condoning of their bigotry.

Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration, we look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Sincerely, Clean Water Action Rhode Island
Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island
Hope United
Marriage Equality Rhode Island
National Association of Social Workers Rhode Island Chapter
Ocean State Action
Sierra Club Rhode Island Chapter

Dis-Obey

Posted on by ninjanurse

 

by any name is just as pretty

Last night I began my Christmas shopping. I survived a trip to the Providence Place Mall without getting foul-tempered. The trick was avoiding the parking garage, where cars were gridlocked coming and going, and inside shoppers were waiting in long lines to get their parking receipts.

I saw a rack of Obey T-shirts at Nordstrom. It’s the assimilation of bad-boy Shepard Fairey into the Mall. You can still see Obey Giant stickers around Providence from when he gave it away for free, and I’m not knocking that a guy’s got to make a living. Especially an artist– whose best ideas are prey to being stolen and making someone else rich.

Shepard Fairey is writing about Occupy on his site.

I stopped by on my way to the bus and was invited into the tent where the General Assembly was in progress. The tent looked bigger inside than out, with a community room and a library. Burnside Park is still unusually neat and the Occupation is still ongoing.

All of us who support the people there with their call for economic justice will have a project to work on now– a safe place for homeless people to get out of the cold. This is do-able, and would provide a hub for social services that address the problems that cause people to lose their housing in the first place.

An article in Alternet sheds some light on why there is such good cheer in tents in the park…
Here is a modest proposal to cure obesity, loneliness and holiday blues…

“Overwhelmingly, growth is seen as the solution to all problems, but growth is failing,” says Herman Daly, a former World Bank economist who is also known as the father of “ecological economics,” an offshoot of the same field that spawned Adam Smith three centuries ago but challenges many of the assumptions that classical economists hold dear.

And further…

Another reason to believe degrowing the economy, while not painless, may make us happier in the long run is a growing body of research comparing health and wellbeing across national borders and economic classes. As a billion poor people around the world already know and many Americans have found out as unemployment has spiked in this country in the last four years, money enough to ensure a roof over one’s head, a full belly and other basic needs is very important to well-being. Beyond a certain subsistence level, however, some provocative research suggests money won’t buy you love.

In their 2009 book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, epidemiologists Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett argue that a society’s overall happiness is linked to income equality. Not only do they argue that equality — not more income or more consumption — make us healthier and more contented, their research shows that less equal societies like the United States have higher rates of anxiety and illness, violence, teenage pregnancies, obesity, drug abuse and eroding public trust. And they tend to consume excessively, among other negative effects.

The rest is here.

I took General Science in high school, and the teacher explained a positive feedback loop. It is a bad thing. Where a negative feedback loop is like your thermostat–turning down the heat when it gets too warm; a positive feedback loop is like global warming– where the polar ice melts and the open water absorbs more heat, melting more ice.

Basing an economy on endless growing consumption is unscientific and not reality-based. I think, too, that the passion for things can be tempered as you get older. Young people need more things, old people need more shelves. I need more family time and parties– this holiday season is going along good for that.

Funny thing, when I left Occupy to get on the #42 I had to wait until Santa Claus got off the bus. He had his beard pulled down, but it was definitely Santa, unless red suits with white trim and sacks of presents are this year’s look in men’s wear.

My resolution for the New Year is to live in the present. I have lost so many good people this year that it’s impossible not to recognize that life is short. Though I am by nature a good girl, comfortable going with the flow, I resolve to pay attention so that I know when the right thing to do is to dis-obey.

Christine Rousselle is Cuter than Ronald Reagan

Posted on by ninjanurse

Christine Rousselle has given the Republican Party an early Christmas present, wrapped in anecdotes, with a ‘Welfare Queen’ bow. She published an essay called, ‘My Time at Walmart: Why We Need Serious Welfare Reform’.

Rousselle, a 20 year old student at Providence College, worked summers at a Walmart in Maine, and discovered that the public can be hard to work with. She transformed the trials of service work into an opinion piece on The College Conservative that got her major blog hits and five marriage proposals according to the Providence Journal.

With a sharp eye to who was using food stamps and what they bought, Ms. Rousselle exposed the rudeness, bad dietary choices and apparent abuse of the system she had to witness from her stool behind the cash register. If any poor working families were stretching their food budget by shopping at Walmart, grateful for the food assistance, Ms.Rousselle doesn’t mention it.

That left-wing rag, the Bangor Daily News, ran this article last summer…

AUGUSTA, Maine — While there are indications that Maine’s economy is slowly rebounding from the recession, the federally funded food stamps program is growing significantly, helping more poor families get food and, in some ways, the state’s economy as a whole.

“It’s really a combination of factors that are causing this increase,” said Barbara Van Burgle, director of the Office for Family Independence. “One is that we have a lot of families where a parent is working but they do not make very much and are still eligible for the food supplement programs. That is 45 percent of the families.”

The latest statistics indicate there were over 248,000 Mainers — up 7.5 percent from a year ago — benefiting from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which used to be called the food stamp program. That is nearly 128,000 Maine households. The average monthly benefit per person is $129.17.

“This is a supplemental program” Van Burgle said. “It is not meant to be the only source of food for a family.”

The federal government pays for all of the benefits and half of the cost of administering the program. Any person with income less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level is eligible for the food assistance program.

The federal poverty level is $10,890 a year for an individual and $22,350 for a family of four. Van Burgle said in a poor state such as Maine, a lot of families with working parents are eligible for benefits.

“We have a lot of families in this state where the parents are working hard, some at two jobs, but they just do not make a lot of money,” she said.

Van Burgle said another factor in Maine’s numbers is the state’s demographics. She said more than 10 percent of those on the program are over 65 years old and retired. She said as more Mainers retire without adequate retirement incomes, the more will qualify for food assistance.

Maybe Ms. Rousselle didn’t notice the old ladies. We used to have lurid stories in the recession of the 70′s, about widows surviving on cat food. Ms. Rousselle is appalled that ‘Nearly 30% of the state is on some form of welfare’. The worst recession in thirty years seems to have escaped her notice. Some day her own parents might depend on welfare. We call it Social Security.

The minimum wage in Maine is $7.50/hr., which gets you $1200 a month if you work 40 hours a week. Maine recently voted not to increase their state minimum wage, which is a lavish 25 cents above the federal. This puts a full time, low wage worker in line to get food stamps.

So, speaking of wages, how does Walmart, our nation’s largest employer, stack up?
According to Walmart, pretty good.

As of October 31, 2011 (End of Q3), the average wage for regular, full-time hourly associates in Maine is $13.10 per hour (Walmart Discount Stores, Supercenters, and Neighborhood Markets). Additionally, eligible associates receive an annual incentive based on the company performance.

Payscale.com lists a lower rate, $7.50-$10.55 for cashier. Since Walmart has pharmacies, I wonder if they are including pharmacy techs or even pharmacists in their ‘average’? This is very unclear. There are other ways to game the labor market, such as hiring part-timers who don’t qualify for benefits. From Caitlin Kelley at Reuters.com…

The median retail wage in 2010 was $8.90 for a cashier and $9.86 for a sales associate – down from $9.50 an hour in 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than three-quarters of retail workers are older than 25, contradicting the popular belief that only teens living at home work retail for a little extra pocket money.

One-third of all retail workers are the sole income for their families, working for poverty-level wages. Many of them want to work full-time, but retail employers, who clearly have the upper hand in an era with few other available jobs, consistently and increasingly offer them only part-time positions without benefits. Part-time workers earn a third less than those employed full-time, despite the physical and emotional labor — and the skills and product knowledge that retail work requires — being identical.

With wages remaining so low, many full-time retail workers need food stamps to boost their incomes.

Did Ms. Rousselle ever talk to her co-workers who were not just there on college break?

Maybe things are different in Maine, but here in Rhode Island I work with people who are on assistance, I guess you could call it welfare. They made bad choices. They raised children and married men who worked hard and died, leaving their widows on Social Security and yes, food stamps. They married and had children with health problems who needed expensive medical care. They got themselves hit by cars or afflicted with illnesses. They struggled in school and found themselves stuck in low-wage jobs. They lost their jobs in the recession.

Anecdotal evidence is compelling, but it’s only what you see. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency with colorful stories about welfare queens and drunks buying orange juice for their cocktails with food stamps. The stories were so good, they just had to be true, and Reagan was a performer, after all.

Still, anecdotes are biased toward the exceptions, the compelling dramas.

Imagine if we took this approach to, say, Providence College. There are about 3800 students attending, and most of them are hard-working decent kids, but let’s not dwell on that.

Let’s look at something more alarming. Underage drinking and lawlessness.

The College Atlas named PC as one of the top ten beer-drinking schools. And according to the Providence Police, they don’t pay much attention to legal age.
In fact, GoLocalProvidence rates PC as one of the most dangerous colleges and universities.

If we were to collect anecdotes from some of the bars in Elmhurst, and bartender’s stories about obnoxious customers, how would PC shape up?

I know that some years ago, the modest working-class neighborhood that surrounds PC was having to petition the city for relief from loud parties, vandalism and crime coming from PC, and the college was not very responsive. The administration really had an attitude. Kind of like a twenty year old smirking at the people who have to use food stamps. But that’s opinion, I admit.

Christine Rousselle is correct that welfare can be abused and needs reform. Every big system needs reform just like every big complicated machine needs maintenance. Welfare is a poor substitute for jobs, and jobs are what every state has lost in the recession. I’d go for a new Works Progress Administration myself, but the Republican party opposes any stimulus that comes from government, and Walmart is not picking up the slack. Who’s to blame? Bring on the Welfare Queens, it worked in the 80′s.

And some of what Ms. Rousselle says she saw does sound like fraud. Fraud is a bad thing. This is what the government wants you to do about fraud…

Assistance Fraud
Residents who know of, and wish to report fraud or abuse of the cash assistance, food stamp, Medicaid or any other benefit program provided by the Department of Human Services, should call the 24-hour hotline for fraud at (202) 673-4464 in the Office of Program Review, Monitoring and Investigation (OPRMI). Anonymous calls are accepted. Callers who give their names can request confidentiality at (202) 671-4496.

I don’t think there are government sanctions against being a lousy customer, service workers just have to put up with that. But Ms. Rousselle claims that she witnessed “massive amounts of fraud and abuse.” That would make Walmart an accessory to fraud. I’d like to know if Ms. Rousselle called the hotline, and if not, why not?

Having slept on this, I wake up thinking that Walmart Corp. might not be as totally delighted by Ms. Rousselle’s internet success as she is. Would you shop at a place where the clerk is watching what you buy with your EBT card so she can expose you on the internet? Good publicity for Ms. Rousselle, but not so much for Walmart.

Occupy Providence Day 38, 11/22/11

Posted on by ninjanurse

At the General Assembly

November 22, 1963, is for those of us old enough to remember a dividing line– the day our country was robbed by the bullet of a leader we had won by the ballot. Ask, ‘where were you?’ and you’ll hear a story. I was in third grade the day President Kennedy was shot, and my teen years were marked by the terrible series of political assassinations that followed. The attempted murder of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six citizens who came to hear her speak is only the most recent undoing of democracy.

Reverend Martin Luther King, also taken away from us by assassination, was such a powerful nonviolent leader that his image today is shorthand for the peaceful exercise of free speech. The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice was an Occupation not universally popular, or uncontroversial in its time, no matter how we love to quote, ‘I have a dream.’ The general support of the Occupy movement today exceeds the support in the 1960′s for Civil Rights, though today most like to believe they would have been on the right side of history.

If you say that ‘Jobs and Justice’ are at the core of the Occupation, you will not be wrong. Fifty years on we are still striving for a more just and equal society.

I got out of work and walked downtown to Burnside Park, where a plywood Info Booth has sprung up. The tents are moved together into rows. General Assembly was in progress– about 15 people were meeting at the statue of General Burnside. The topic was planning actions to draw attention to the issues of homelessness and foreclosures, and collaboration with other community groups. I stood on the fringe and listened, and thought about all the people I’ve talked to who support the Occupation.

There’s many ways to support the cause of greater economic justice, and the recent action by the Mayor, I believe, was expedited by the political energy of the people committed enough to stay in tents to maintain a center of organization.

From the park to Kennedy Plaza I waited a long time for the #42, and when the bus pulled up it was #1– the driver was having a meltdown and the sign was stuck. Just then explosions vibrated off the buildings and fireworks lit up the sky.

“Crowds, creatures dancing around, the dancing cop, fireworks–it’s the 375th Anniversary! Happy Birthday, Providence!”

She steered around the congestion and slowly we got on our way.

That night I dreamed that I was on a train to New York City, surrounded by people in distress. I felt the spirit of 9/11, in the first days, when we all felt an urgency to come to the aid of our country. That spirit of common humanity has burned low since the days of Roger Williams, through American centuries, following the arc of history, which bends toward justice because it must. People will always strive for what is right. That spirit illuminates the Occupation today.

There’s 49 Other States

Posted on by ninjanurse


From Think Progress, a year ago this guy would have gotten a ticket, not tossed in the slammer…

Alabama’s economy is suffering because of HB 56, the state’s draconian immigration law, as workers flee out of fear. State Sen. Scott Beason (R), who sponsored the anti-immigrant bill in the Alabama legislature, once called it a “jobs bill,” but the state’s immigration law is leaving entire industries without enough workers instead.

And the extreme law, which legislators are now reconsidering, could seriously damage the state’s reputation as well after police arrested a German Mercedes-Benz executive last week under the immigration law. Mercedes opened its first American manufacturing plant in Vance, Alabama in 1993, spurring a trend of foreign car makers and suppliers opening factories in the state. They may be rethinking that decision, however, after one of their German executives was arrested for simply not having his passport with him.


Read the rest here.

Think Progress links to a story in Associated Press

[Alabama Governor, Robert]Bentley, a Republican who signed the illegal immigration law earlier this year, called the state’s homeland security director, Spencer Collier, after hearing of the arrest to get details about had happened, Collier said in an interview.

“Initially I didn’t have them, so I called Chief Anderson to find out what happened,” Collier said. “It sounds like the officer followed the statute correctly.”

Collier said he didn’t know how Bentley found out about the arrest, and Bentley press secretary Jennifer Ardis referred all questions to Collier.

Collier said he has made at least a dozen similar calls to law enforcement agencies that made arrests under the law to see how it is being handled, and he said his call to Anderson wasn’t prompted by the fact a Mercedes executive was arrested.

“It’s just to make sure they’re using best practices and following the law,” he said.

If I were cynical, I’d take a perverse pleasure in the fact that the un-named Mercedes exec probably didn’t ‘look illegal’.

Bloomberg Business at msnbc has a detailed article about Why Americans Won’t do Dirty Jobs.

The short version is that these jobs are so difficult, dangerous and poorly paid that in an American economy workers lose money doing them. The only way to make it work is to send the American dollars to a poorer country where the value is greater. Bloomberg describes workers toiling 13 hours for $60. And this bears further investigation– an American worker trying to make a job in the fields..

In a neighboring field, Cedric Rayford is working a row. The 28-year-old came up with two friends from Gadsden, Ala., after hearing on the radio that farmers were hiring. The work is halfway complete when one member of their crew decides to quit. Rayford and crewmate Marvin Turner try to persuade their friend to stay and finish the job. Otherwise, no one will get paid. Turner even offers $20 out of his own pocket as a sweetener to no effect. “When a man’s mind is made up, there’s about nothing you can do,” he says.

NO ONE WILL GET PAID??? I’ll bet this is some ‘independent contractor’ deal where the workers get no hourly wage, no social security, no workers comp. insurance. This bears further investigation.

Alabama and other states that erode workers rights, health and safety are left with an economy that depends on jobs that do not pay a living wage. Governor Bentley has just dug deeper into the pit. Scapegoating immigrants won’t solve Alabama’s problems. Supporting workers rights is essential, but won’t offer any short-term political gain, and is not in sync with the Republican Party.

Mercedes, y’all can come up here. We could use some good jobs and we don’t arrest people for forgetting their driver’s license.

Occupy Wall Street’s Volunteer Medical Aid

Posted on by ninjanurse

Elaine Hirsch, Kmareka’s West Coast correspondent, sends a post about some of the professionals who volunteer their skills at Occupy Wall Street. Here in Providence the need is clear, and Occupiers with first aid skills have responded and in cooperation with Public Safety have helped people in need get to the Emergency Room. Health security for the 99% would free our workers from scrambling for a job with benefits or being one health emergency away from financial disaster. Small businesses would be the first to benefit, and I know some doctors who would welcome an integrated system that let them do what they went to school for– and I don’t mean billing.

Occupy Wall Street’s Healthcare

A number of sympathetic doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and other healthcare professionals have banded together to volunteer their time, seeking to provide free medical care for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. A number of the healthcare professionals involved in the endeavor identify with an informal group calling itself Doctors for the 99%. These caretakers’ assistance goes beyond merely supporting the Occupy protests, but in its way constitutes its own protest, adding dissatisfaction with the American healthcare system to college and master’s degree debt, bank bailouts, joblessness, and other woes.

Some of the doctors have occupied an abandoned hospital, while elsewhere round-the-clock care is available in a surplus medical tent reminiscent of an old M.A.S.H. Set. Most of the care being offered is relatively rudimentary. There have been reports of nurses stitching wounds and doctors providing over-the-counter medication, but most of the care seems to be basic first aid and preventive treatment.

A major goal seems to have been to limit the spread of contagious disease in the cramped conditions common in the protest camps. To that end, a number of doctors from Columbia Health Center and Doctors for a National Health program recently arrived to offer free flu shots. As winter approaches, another major focus of the medical team has been educating the protesters about warning signs that indicate the beginning stages of hypothermia.

According to Pauly Kostora, a licensed practical nurse from New Mexico, protesters will also be able to find free mental health treatment.

The healthcare system in place among the protesters is limited, and the professionals volunteering their time rely considerably on actual hospitals. No doctors have come forward to acknowledge providing prescriptions, and when protesters arrive with serious injuries, nurses are instructed to call emergency services.

The volunteers are either sympathetic to the movement or have joined its ranks outright. The doctors and nurses report anger over the state of healthcare in the United States, and view the assistance they’re offering to the protesters as a contribution to the fight for universal health care. The doctors and nurses appear to be working day jobs, and finding time to offer aid to the protesters during their off-hours.

Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites and writing about all these things instead. Currently, she writes for onlinephd.org.

Occupy City Hall

Posted on by ninjanurse

Read This--You Will be Tested


Times like this, I wish I was a reporter and not just a humble blogger who was working near downtown and decided to walk over and check out the Occupation of City Hall.

City Councilman Luis Aponte introduced a resolution in support of allowing the Occupiers to stay in Burnside Park indefinitely and exercise their right to free speech. Word went out on the intertubes that Occupy would hold the General Assembly in City Hall and attend the City Council meeting, in support of this Democratic process.

I had been in City Hall a few times. My point of reference was the 2003 Providence City Council session where the city passed a resolution against the Iraq War. I expected a large crowd and a peaceful session.

When I got to Burnside Park I was surprised to find just a couple of dozen people huddled under umbrellas, holding a planning session by the fountain. There were rotating speakers representing the different working groups that hash out details and bring proposals to the whole Occupation. There were calls for volunteers for Safety and Support to stay by the tents during the City Hall action, to speak with the police and the press. To stand by the door to City Hall and make sure it was kept open.

Ashley and Annie Rose explained the hand signals, the process, and the philosophy. ‘This is not a leaderless movement, this is a movement of leaders.’ And, ‘this is not planning for the movement, this is the movement.’

The amazing thing is– it was working. The mood was peaceful, civil, determined. But kind of loud. ‘We Are Unstoppable–Another World is Possible.’ Marching past the bus commuters in Kennedy Plaza. The people waiting in Kennedy Plaza see it all– the demonstrations, the RIPTA cuts.

We marched up to the doors and walked in.

From a chilly rain to a comfortable and grand public center. Providence City Hall is a treasure, built in 1878, gilt, marble, tile and paintings. Chandeliers, brass and a curving staircase. And no one stopping us.

A policewoman came up and talked to some occupiers, she didn’t look worried. Men in suits walked through the crowd of demonstrators and conversed or opted for the elevators, but they were doing their job and so were we.

City Hall is distractingly beautiful. There were a few children, who were enjoying this like a field trip to the museum. I ran into Dave, who was taking in the gallery show– an exhibition of WRNI’s ‘This I Believe’ contributors photos and statements. WRNI is brought to you by Rhode Islanders who organized to make it happen, and one of the photos I recognized as Barbara Schweitzer, a poet and friend. Which is to say, in Rhode Island you know people– that’s our strength.

The General Assembly was held on the stairs. People had been trickling in, the second floor filled up. A speaker reviewed the drill. Councilman Aponte had introduced a resolution for the Occupation to stay. We were there to observe and show support.

One of us was in a wheelchair, and I saw him still on the first floor. I went down to see if he needed any help to get into the hearing room, if there was any problem with the elevators. He was fine, but I overheard him talking with the policewoman, who had spent most of her time at the desk by the door. The man had apparently not been here before.

‘…this place is with a church?’ he asked.

‘No’, the policewoman said, ‘I think that’s the whole idea, it’s separation of Church and State.’

I can understand the man’s confusion. We don’t build civic temples like Providence City Hall anymore.

I went back up the stairs and heard a young woman ask ‘Are we allowed to go inside a City Council meeting?’
‘Yes,’ a man answered, ‘and more of us should. It’s not only a right, it’s an obligation.’

Occupy Providence marched loudly up the stairs to the third floor and filled the room, including some in the balcony. Not quite the crowd that filled the room in 2003, but a presence.

The session opened with an invocation, and the chaplain asked for blessings on the council members and on Occupy Providence. We pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Councilman Aponte asked that the Occupiers be allowed to continue their exercise of free speech. ‘The Pledge of Allegiance ends with the words, ‘and justice for all.’ ‘let’s allow them to occupy Burnside Park. Though it may be inconvenient, let’s err on the side of more freedom and not less.’

After Councilman Aponte spoke, five more members stood up in support. Several of them mentioned the nonviolent nature of the protest, the consideration and cooperation of the Occupiers. The justice of their cause. ‘You are treating the park like it is your park, thank you, I appreciate your message.’ More than one said that Burnside Park is cleaner and safer since the Occupiers moved in than it ever was.

Those of us who spend some time in Downtown know that this is true.

Councilman Aponte’s resolution will go to committee. The Occupation was still there when I left, cheering a motion to support RIPTA. The City Council seldom has so much attention to their sessions.

Lobbyists and the wealthy have their paths of influence. If the rest of us are willing to put ourselves into City Hall on a cold rainy night after a hard day’s work, it has an effect. What if the cost per vote becomes priceless? This is what Democracy looks like.

I think the Occupiers are demonstrating a new model of power. Nonviolence is a fine word, but a negative. An absence of harm, but what fills the gap? Does our language have words to describe it?

When I walked into Burnside Park and joined the group I could have been anyone, and I could have volunteered for anything. There was no security check on me. How can this work? How can it work when the park is the long time hangout of people who have nowhere else to go, some so troubled that they are not accepted anywhere? How can this movement operate this way when history tells us there will be provocateurs and predators of all kinds?

I think the answer is that a new way of relating is being worked out. Perhaps this could only happen in a time of crisis. Danger and opportunity.

Americans famously come together in crisis. This may be the dynamic of the bucket brigade. When the house is burning you don’t argue– you grab a bucket and put the fire out.

Our country is in crisis, caught between fear and hope. This may be the birth of a 21st Century way of being. It is a sure thing that endlessly expanding consumption is not sustainable, and circling the wagons spins into a space so small that most of us will be outside the safe zone.

It was cool to see children and adults discovering the beautiful building downtown that they had never seen from inside. And it’s ours. Our own government, of the people, by the people and for the people. This is what Democracy looks like.

PROVIDENCE JOURNAL: First report here. Richard Dujardin reports ‘at least five’ of the eleven members supported Occupy Providence. I counted six. It’s on the record, anyway. The resolution was sent to committee, so keep those calls and letters coming.