News

  • by Jason Pramas, Jan-27

    Cambridge, MA - Over 20 Harvard employees and supporters held a demonstration outside Harvard University's 90 Mt. Auburn St. facility on Wednesday against proposed "voluntary and involuntary staff reductions" at the Harvard University Library- while a meeting on restructuring the labor force at the library was being led by HU Library Executive Director Helen Shenton inside.

  • by Amy Grunder, Jan-20

    BOSTON/Government Center - The Boston Teachers Union held a boisterous rally outside Boston Public Schools district headquarters Wednesday night to build public support for the union's contract goals. Chanting "contract now!" and blowing horns and whistles, about 500 teachers, students and supporters from other union locals braved freezing temperatures to call for an end to a 20-month impasse in contract negotiations between the teachers' union and the Boston public school administration.

  • by Amy Grunder, Jan-13

    BOSTON/Beacon Hill - Anti-foreclosure activists rallied at the Statehouse on Wednesday and testified in support of four proposed laws that would protect Massachusetts homeowners against foreclosure and eviction. Organized by the Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending, a statewide coalition, the rally drew about 100 supporters from some of the state’s hardest-hit communities in advance of a packed public hearing before the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.

    If passed, the four laws would force banks to enter into loan-modification negotiations with homeowners and produce valid legal title to homes before foreclosing. The laws would also permit court oversight of foreclosure actions, and allow former homeowners to remain in foreclosed homes until the property is sold to new owners who intend it as a primary residence.

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Editorial

  • by Jason Pramas, Jan-27

    There is far too much for me to say about UMass Boston to fit in one editorial; so I'll restrain myself and keep this brief. Open Media Boston strongly supports the Occupy UMass Boston movement's decision to found an encampment at the UMB Campus Center on Monday. And supports the movement itself. For the first time in a long time, Boston's working class university - my alma mater - is home to a growing and vibrant network of progressive students who are organizing for radical and much needed changes to public higher education system in Massachusetts. There have been many attempts to spark such a movement in the last four decades - some of which I have personally participated in, and helped organize - but this is first attempt that is part of a society-wide movement for social change. And the first one that looks to be willing to engage in sustained direct action outside "official channels" to demand full government funding for public higher education, an end to the privatization and corporatization of the Mass. public higher education system, free speech on campus, and a complete reorganization of the UMass system to serve the needs of the Commonwealth's working families rather than the needs of the unelected businesspeople that currently control the UMass Board of Trustees - and our government at all levels. The OUMB movement is swiftly gaining traction among UMass Boston students, staff and faculty - which, as a commuter campus, has long been a very difficult place to engage in grassroots political organizing. And that's all to the good.

  • by Amy Grunder, Jan-17

    The annual public ritual of rendering homage to Martin Luther King Jr., the man, while obfuscating - if not actively betraying - his message, is de rigueur for elected officials, with or without the gospel choirs. Once a year, these officials issue their compulsory paeans to Dr. King's legacy, or to what passes for his legacy these days. Their homilies secure that legacy firmly within the civil rights realm - King's later writings and speeches are not exactly on the tips of their tongues.

  • by Amy Grunder, Jan-12

    A handful of Massachusetts legislators have offered some solutions to the state's budgetary woes, fearlessly pursuing the criminals who enrich themselves at public expense but pay little or no state taxes. The big banks, you might ask? The pharmaceutical companies bilking the state's Medicaid system of tens of millions of dollars? Well, no. It turns out that the most serious pillagers of public funds, to judge by these proposals, are not predatory lenders or tax-dodging corporations, but the poor. Not exactly a new idea.

    Massachusetts' poorest residents are stealing your money and using it to buy drugs, cars, boats and condominiums, in case you haven't heard. It seems the state is being bled, to the tune of a billion dollars per year, by impostors who pretend to be poor in order to claim benefits.

Opinion

  • by Victor Wallis, Dec-23

    Howard Zinn would have loved to see you all here today, and to have been part of this historical moment. He believed that we should each do the right thing regardless of whether or not it has a visible impact. When a positive impact materializes, it then comes as a pleasant surprise. But it wouldn’t happen without all the seemingly thankless work that came before.

    What the Occupy movement recognizes is that the problems facing the 99% are systemic in nature. They won’t be cured by putting one or other of the two capitalist parties in office.

    The systemic contradictions have been around for a long time, but the popular response in the US is unlike anything since the 1930s. And now, there is the added urgency posed by environmental breakdown, which requires us to question previously unchallenged assumptions about the desirability of growth.

  • by Paul Shannon, Dec-16

    I think that at events like this it’s good for us to remember how lucky we are to have had this opportunity to work together with so many wonderful people over the years: to engage with each other both as colleagues and even as friends.* I know Howard Zinn used to talk about this, and as usual, he was right. What a privilege to have been fellow travelers with people from different generations who long for worldwide human community and an end to socially created human suffering. Of course we have to deal with each others craziness. But who else would you want to hang out with? I know it’s something that has enriched my life in a way I never expected and I feel very fortunate about the whole thing.

    How fast things can change!

  • by Suren Moodliar, Dec-06

    In this impromptu talk, veteran organizer and movement thinker Mel King, outlines his thoughts about the significance of the #Occupy movement, its potential for radical social change and its methods. Although an enthusiastic supporter of the movement, Mel suggests that in time the movement will have to choose targets (once it is ready) and also consider moments where the consensus process may be less effective. He goes on to applaud the movement for engaging in the battle of ideas, "You are occupying minds!"

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