Editorial

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.

Our colleagues at South End Press put out the following call for financial support this week, and we're republishing it here it in hopes that Open Media Boston viewers will send them some money at speed. There aren't very many left-wing publishing houses in the U.S. and we can't afford to lose another one. Especially in times like these. So please check out their pitch and then dig as deeply as you can to help them out.

Read on and thanks,

Jason Pramas
Editor/Publisher
Open Media Boston

It should come as no surprise to regular Open Media Boston viewers that I found the City of Boston’s destruction of the Occupy Boston encampment in Dewey Square on Saturday morning unnecessary and ill-considered. Moreover the way the Boston Police Department raid on the camp was conducted - while less violent than their destruction of the Occupy Boston extension camp in October - was highly problematic.

One of the least credible attacks on Occupy Boston by local politicians pundits and press has been the idea that its Dewey Square encampment - judged to be a form of protected free speech last week when Judge Frances McIntyre issued a temporary injunction preventing the City of Boston from dismantling it - is costing the public a large amount of money. Due mostly to police overtime costs. The figure currently being tossed about for the ongoing police presence at the Occupy Boston camp is roughly $600 000 to date.