Protesters urge MBTA to avoid cuts, fare hikes

Public transit riders and their advocates pleaded with the MBTA’s board of directors on Wednesday to avoid or minimize fare hikes and service cuts that officials of the agency have said are inevitable.
. . .

Members of Occupy Boston, which held a 10-week vigil in Dewey Square last year, stood at the outset of the meeting and demanded public transportation remain “accessible to all of the 99 percent.” Another large group held a noisy protest against the fare hikes and service changes outside the packed hearing room.

At one point during the meeting, a group calling itself the “Fast Five” and dressed in superhero costumes asked the board to consider `saving’ the T by adopting alternative money-saving solutions such as renegotiating bank debt, tapping the state’s unused snow removal funds and transferring control of Boston Harbor ferries and Silver Line service to the Massachusetts Port Authority

http://tinyurl.com/7ho3ezv

UMass Boston occupiers move their encampment outdoors

After camping out in their campus center for 50 days, the Occupy UMass Boston University of Massachusetts Boston movement has shifted outside.

Wednesday marked the third day the group has claimed a spot on the school’s plaza in a military tent that was used as a kitchen during Occupy Boston’s encampment downtown. They city cleared out the downtown encampment in December.

“We’ve been talking with the administration and decided to take the movement outside,” said Matthew Gauvain, 29, a UMass Boston student originally from Lynn.

http://tinyurl.com/7gorefb

Report Warns Of Threat Income Inequality May Pose For Massachusetts Economy

A new report from the Boston Foundation warns that growing economic inequality remains the greatest threat to the region’s long-term prosperity.

According to the report, released Wednesday, Boston’s richest 20 percent earned more than half of the region’s income in 2010. The poorest 20 percent made just over 2 percent of the income.

That income disparity means the vast majority of workers remain vulnerable to economic downturns. It also means that the economic recovery is leaving many people behind.

http://tinyurl.com/7b7fehb

Occupy Boston plans ‘flash mob’ protest

Group members are staging a pre-arranged “flash mob” protest at 12:30 p.m. today in front of the state’s Transportation Building.

Today’s lunchtime rally will be the controversial group’s first major public action since police ousted several hundred occupiers from their encampment in Dewey Square on Dec. 10.

Group members say the T protest dovetails with their anti-Wall Street platform. They say banks that received government bailouts now hold most of the T’s debt and want to see the debt forgiven or restructured to spare people who need the T to get to work. Occupy Boston member Gunner Scott said other plans are under way for an April 4 rally at the Massachusetts State House.

http://tinyurl.com/7v79af3

The new urban militarism of local law enforcement in Western society

Many observers were surprised and even shocked by police methods used to subdue various “Occupy” demonstrations across the U.S. and Europe. There seems to be increasing dependence on methods of local policing that is eerily similar to how western militaries behave in the battlefield.

We took a look yesterday at the city of Chicago’s exploding surveillance camera systems. Today, we broaden the discussion with a look at increased militarization of local law enforcement in Western-societies. Stephen Graham is professor of Cities and Society at Newcastle University in the U.K. He examines the increasing influence of military technology on domestic police forces in his book Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism.

http://tinyurl.com/7yj4vpr

What Has Occupy Been Up To? 6 Great Actions You Can’t Miss This Spring

The early days were beautiful, they were inspiring, but it is now that we are being deliberate, that we are building relationships with each other and with our communities, it is now that we are building our infrastructure, it is now that we are doing the internal work that we need to do in order to be smarter, faster, better at bringing people together, better at sustaining ourselves as a movement, it is now that we are more committed then ever. And we have been planning for the spring. So below I present you with a list of things to look out for from Occupy in the coming weeks and months and as it goes from winter, finally, to spring:

http://tinyurl.com/6n4jt4t