Those With Mental Health Challenges Fight Rahm Emanuel's Cutting of Their Support Network

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Those With Mental Health Challenges Fight Rahm Emanuel's Cutting of Their Support Network

Thursday, 07 November 2013 00:00
By Kari Lydersen, Haymarket Books | Book Excerpt

You can read about the largely untold story of Saul Alinksy tactics being resurrected against the man who earned his spurs as a political fundraiser for Mayor Richard M. Daley - and went onto high level positions in two Democratic administrations and Congress.

Rumblings of discontent with the corporate, authoritarian reign of Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel have been spreading across the city since his inauguration.

In this excerpt from Mayor 1%: Rahm Emanuel and the Rise of Chicago's 99%, author Kari Lydersen details how mental health advocates occupied and protested the closing of a city clinic that fell mercilessly to Emanuel's budget ax.

The Occupation

On April 12, 2012, about two weeks before the scheduled closing of the Woodlawn clinic, the Mental Health Movement planned a party to commemorate the clinic and its consumers. Movement members wheeled in garbage barrels filled with soda and collapsible barricades on which to hang artwork. They brought snacks. Everyone was in a festive mood. Margaret Sullivan and Jeanette Hansen took the bus there together. Hansen took a bad fall as she was getting on the bus, both of them overloaded with bags. A passerby tried to persuade her to go to the emergency room, but she stridently refused. "I'm on the way to a party!" she said.

About two hours into the celebration, members of the movement announced to the revelers that people should leave if they didn't want to get arrested. The clinic was being occupied with help from members of Occupy Chicago. As it turned out, they had brought much more food than needed for an afternoon celebration; there was enough for about 20 people to survive for a month. The barrels weren't filled with soda and ice, after all; under a few drinks and a layer of ice cubes were bags of quick-dry cement. The occupiers would add water and then fasten barricades into the mixture, creating immovable obstacles to cordon off the clinic from the adjacent county primary care clinic, which would remain open. Sullivan's "party preparations" included bathroom cleaning supplies and reams of toilet paper - "the things the boys never think of."

At the moment the occupation started, movement members also dropped two large banners from the clinic's roof - the furled fabric had been stowed there before sunrise. One listed the group's main five demands; the other said, "Stop Stealing Our Health - Save Our Clinics."

The occupiers settled in for the long haul, passing the time playing cards and Scrabble and cooking spaghetti, washing the Styrofoam plates afterward because they figured they might be in there for a long time. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19764-those-with-mental-health-challenges-fight-emanuels-cutting-of-their-support-network