Editorial

A word of congratulations is due this week to the brave young organizers with the Student Immigrant Movement for maintaining a 24/7 presence in front of the Mass. State House for 19 days until they managed to help stop the legislature from pulling off one the more pathetic displays of poll-driven politics in recent memory and convince them to reject the worst provisions of a package of anti-immigrant proposals that the Senate added to their budget proposal with very little debate last month. Not to say that this publication is overexcited about what has been achieved.

As the global economic crisis continues, Massachusetts lawmakers continue to follow the neoliberal playbook as slavishly as their federal counterparts - slashing programs that help working families and the poor to the bone, and refusing to raise taxes on the rich and corporations to help keep vital social services at reasonable levels. So, as has become our tradition here at Open Media Boston during the annual state budget debates, we're taking a look at the proposed cuts in the final Mass.

Words cannot describe the contempt in which this publication currently holds the Mass. Senate for their disgraceful vote to kick our state's immigrant communities to the curb this week. More disgusting still is that one of the six sponsors of the Senate budget amendment in question is a Democrat - Sen. Steven Baddour (D - Methuen) - who has suddenly decided that "we have an illegal immigration problem here" despite being a leader in a political party that is generally pro-immigrant 'round these parts. The good senator is of Lebanese ancestry ...

Sergio Reyes is a serious person.* This May Day he is marching in support of workers and immigrants.

Reyes brings a gravitas to the day that accompanies few. Neither a college lefty nor foundation-weaned and preened non-profit operative, Reyes comes to the United States from Chile where a US-back military government installed the world’s first regime that would implement everything that neo-liberal Washington demanded: government that cut taxes on corporations, cut programs for working people, cut regulations and, yes, cut people.