Remember – call and join the conversation – 612-341-0980 – or Tweet us @TTTAndyDriscoll or post onTruthToTell’s Facebook page.

HELP US BRING YOU THESE IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST – PLEASE DONATE HERE!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We return to the subject of teacher contract issues in Minneapolis after running out of time last week…if ever sufficient time is possible. And we talk with Grad Assistant organizers at the UofM trying to unionize their colleagues.

As we said last time, all school districts in the state of Minnesota – have been negotiating their teachers’ contracts over the last many months, some arriving at agreement well before some others. St. Paul in the throes of its negotiations. Minneapolis Schools concluded theirs last Fall.

Core Minnesota city schools, especially Minneapolis and St. Paul – contain more kids of color than white students in their classrooms – and have been shown among the worst in the nation for their achievement gaps – that scholastic chasm separating white children from kids of color, especially Black, Latino and Native children.

Teacher-bashing seems to come easy for some who see their organizing efforts as a threat to the notion that teachers should do only what they’re told to do and should be subject to parental and administrative overlords. But, what role can and do teachers also play in keep the gap alive? As we said last week, many parents, advocates and educators cite the clear disparity in the color of students and the person teaching them.

Change ain’t easy – for people or groups of them. Organizations who have maintained insider relationships long enough usually want no other stakeholders involved in their “business,” and suggest such public decision should remain private.

Last time, we included representatives from the Minneapolis teachers union – the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers – the long-standing bargaining unit for those standing in front of our kids. This week, those reps found themselves forced to withdraw by personal circumstances, so we’re bringing back the critics and hope to clarify their positions. Those stakeholder groups - like Action for Equity and Put Kids First Minneapolis started attending the meetings and, in no uncertain terms insisted that, as progressives who support collective bargaining and closing the gaps. In coalition with others, and calling it "The Contract for Student Achievement," they advanced five key ideas for last Fall’s bargaining. They, and their ideas for reforms, ran into a brick wall, essentially dismissed as interlopers with no business being part of the process. We talk with our returning advocates.

In Segment Two, we learn about the effort to organize University of Minnesota Graduate Assistants into a UAW local (GSWU/UAW). Grad Assistants are those research and teaching aides who do much of the work collecting and imparting knowledge to undergraduates while administrating classes and compiling data for professors and instructors as they work their own way toward masters degrees and PhD.

Why organizing efforts in general always seem to bang heads with highly resistant administrations seems so strange. Here’s a thought: ask General Motors or Ford and other large corporations if they would really want their unions to go away – and you will hear a whispered, “Hell, no”. Such bargaining units are critical to the bottom line because they keep workers in line. And yet – almost no cooperation melts away in the initial stage establishing a local.

Join TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI as we give some vent to and ask some key questions of critics of the Minneapolis teacher negotiations and hear from grad students about their work to essentially herd the cats of academia – the often ego-driven ranks of deans and professors and administrators and their graduate assistants.

GUESTS:

LYNNELL MICKELSEN – Co-Founder of Put Kids First Minneapolis and one of the authors of the Contract for Student Achievement

CHRIS STEWART – former Minneapolis School Board Member; CEO, Action for Equity;
and Co-Chair, Education Work Group of the African-American Leadership Forum

SARA NELSON – Teaching Assistant, Geography, UofM – Spokesperson, UAW local (GSWU/UAW)

SCOTT THALLER – Research Assistant, Physics, UofM – Spokesperson, UAW local (GSWU/UAW)

Remember – call and join the conversation – 612-341-0980 – or Tweet us @TTTAndyDriscoll or post on TruthToTell’s Facebook page.

HELP US BRING YOU THESE IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST – PLEASE DONATE HERE!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in the 1970s, a monumental landmark court case unlocked the doors of this country’s state hospitals and other institutions housing – more like warehousing – hundreds of thousands, perhaps a couple million mentally ill men and women on the strength of a new standard of commitment: that anyone not posing a danger to themselves or others could not be forced into what was essentially incarceration of people with mental illnesses. The court told the system to fix itself.

It never really did.

What the politicians failed to do was follow up on mandates calling for community-based housing and treatment facilities and services that could help treat and shelter people afflicted with such persistent illnesses as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder (once called manic depression), especially those that, under serious circumstances could result in erratic and dangerous behavior or outbursts – especially those who stopped the treatments that stabilized their brain chemistry.

Instead, many of those millions were often left homeless and/or unemployable, therefore unable to cope in an amorphous world where others avoided contact or responded violently to the unstable expressions of their illnesses. For whatever reason, many of those saddled with bi-polar disorder cease taking their meds when they start to feel “normal,” and find themselves back in the wide swings of mood that characterize bi-polar disorder. The manic phase can be intoxicating and the depressive phase often suicidal or violent. The mental illnesses most at risk (some may not seem dangerous)*:

All cases of schizophrenia (a psychotic disorder)

Severe cases of major depression and bipolar disorder (mood disorders)

Severe cases of panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder (anxiety disorders)

Severe cases of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (typically, a childhood disorder)

Severe cases of anorexia nervosa (an eating disorder).

*(Timothy A. Kelly (2002) "A Policymaker’s Guide to Mental Illness.” Washington, DC: The Heritage Foundation.)

 Such has been the case with several mentally ill citizens of communities across the country facing down police officers all too ready to react with fatal or deadly force. Some of this is contrived – a method of suicide by cop – i.e., intentional death by confrontation with police officers they know will shoot to kill if a weapon is brandished or they feel threatened by anyone advancing on them.

One case of the “quick-draw” killing of a mentally ill Minneapolis woman actually resulted in some serious retrospection by the officers involved and resulted in the formation of a foundation designed to stave off such fatal clashes between cops and the mentally ill they confront through training – Crisis Intervention Teams – or CIT. That foundation – the Barbara Schneider Foundation – born out of the death twelve years ago of an otherwise respected and active community person who died in the midst of a psychotic episode when police responded to complaints about excessive noise from an apartment and came face-to-face with a distraught Schneider wielding a knife. One of the cops involved, Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer, remembered all too well 10 years later how he felt forced to respond with deadly force.

Police killings of mentally ill citizens (*EDP = emotionally disturbed person) continue to occur – and, of course, some cops can be killed in the process as well:

Ki Yang, 46, St. Paul  - shot, 2003. Suffered from schizophrenia and had a history of violent episodes

David Cornelius Smith, 28 – Bipolar - Tasered 2010 by Minneapolis police–died twice at scene, died 10 days later

James Ludwig, Vietnam vet, homeless and mentally ill (emotionally disturbed), surrounded and shot to death by St. Paul Police 1993

Officer Richard Francis – 27-yr veteran Chicago cop – shot while trying to subdue an EDP*

Andrew Hanlon, 20 – Irish immigrant – shot to death by Silverton, Ore. Cop claiming threat

Francisco Martes, 40 – homeless EDP – shot dead after wielding a knife around a cop

Kelly Thomas, 37 – homeless w/ schizophrenia - tasered and beaten to death by six Fullerton, CA cops

Craig Edward Prescott, 38 – bi-polar former sheriff’s deputy tasered, water-balled and crushed in his cell by 8 other deputies – April 2009

Pierre Abernathy – a mentally ill citizen of San Antonio, Texas – was tased and beaten to death by a group of at least six police officers on August 4, 2011

The list goes on. Mostly men, often homeless.

Questions persist about why the police, as an institution and culture cannot or will not make as part of their earliest training methods to subdue mentally ill and agitated men and women without killing. They have the armor and they have the firepower – why not the skill?

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI talk with two representatives of the Barbara Schneider Foundation in search of some answers.

Other Story Links:

James Ludwig Court Case

The Prison System as a Gulag for People with Serious Mental Illness

Center for Problem-Oriented Policing

Responses to the Problem of People with Mental Illness

Newsweek article: Cops and the Mentally Ill

GUESTS:

 MARK ANDERSON, Executive Director, Barbara Schneider Foundation

RENEE JENSON, Community Collaborations Coordinator, Barbara Schneider Foundation

WITHDRAWN: Representative of Hennepin County Community Corrections Dept.

HELP US BRING YOU THESE IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST – PLEASE DONATE HERE!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back in early November TruthToTell brought you a great conversation with David Cobb, former Green Party Presidential candidate and national spokesperson for MoveToAmend – the strengthening effort to remove the designation of personhood from corporate entities in the United States. That corporate personhood has seriously damaged this republic is clear in any analysis of this nation’s economic, political and social history and the deference courts have paid to corporations regarding the Bill of Rights and a myriad of other claims that compete with real persons.

This week, we are presenting both an encore of that discussion and the remainder of the hour with MTA Minnesota Coordinator, Nathan John Ness and two of his colleagues with an update on MoveToAmend’s current wok in light of the Occupy movement and their symbiotic relationship.

Here’s a bit of what we used to announce that show last month: 

What do we mean by corporate personhood – and why is this not a good thing?

In 1819, the Supreme Court, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, recognized corporations as having the same rights as natural persons for the purpose of entering into contracts and enforcing those contracts. Later, in 1886, the Court’s Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision (118 U.S. 394 [1886]) recognized corporations as persons for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment (states must provide equal protection under the law to all people within their jurisdiction).

Those two rulings have thus provided the century-old underpinnings for a number of subsequent decisions equating corporations with real people, two of the most recent being Buckley v. Valeo, which equates campaign finance with free speech – a true precedent in its own right – followed by last year’s 5-4 Citizens United (Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission) ruling, yanking all restrictions on corporate (and union) campaign monies and allowing unlimited dollars to flow directly to support or defeat candidates, just not to the campaigns themselves.

The 2010 elections demonstrated starkly the fallout from all of these rulings on the make-up of Congress, especially the reversal of the Democratic House majority to Republicans, and of several governorships and state legislative bodies. The best examples of the latter are Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Florida, and the passage of truly onerous, anti-worker, anti-teacher legislation. Corporate personhood gave life and power to the Koch brothers’ wealth as the primary financing tool of both the Tea Party entities and specific electoral contests in those states.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI engage local and national advocates on the role of corporations and Move to Amend.

GUESTS:

GUESTS:

DAVID COBB – former Presidential Candidate for the US Green Party, National Projects Director of Democracy Unlimited and official spokesperson for MOVE to AMEND (Recorded)

NATHAN JOHN NESS – Minnesota Organizer for MOVE to AMEND (Recorded and Live)

PHYLLIS RODEN – Move To Amend activist, Conference on a Constitutional Convention at Harvard participant (Live)

ROBIN MONAHAN – Move To Amend activist who, with his brother, Laird, walked the length of the US in 2010 to bring attention to corporate personhood. (Live)

Over more than five years, CivicMedia and KFAI have brought you over 300 conversations about the critical issues our communities face on a daily and weekly basis in the Twin Cities and Minnesota. Now, as 2011 comes to a close, you can score a year-end tax deduction by donating to our parent CivicMedia-Minnesota, and we'll do an even better job, we know.

PLEASE HELP US BRING YOU THESE IMPORTANT DISCUSSIONS OF COMMUNITY INTEREST –

DONATE to CIVICMEDIA-MINNESOTA HERE!  And THANK YOU!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We, the undersigned registered voters in Ramsey County, hereby petition the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners for the purpose of enacting an ordinance, as follows:

Ramsey County shall be prohibited from making expenditures, incurring debt, or entering into any agreement, directly or indirectly, related to a stadium on the TCAAP* site in Arden Hills.

Advancing an initiative petition for an ordinance preventing Ramsey County from taxing county residents to finance a Vikings stadium on the former *Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant site in Arden Hills is Ady Wickstrom, a current councilmember in the nearby suburb of Shoreview. She’s not alone in her quest. Other councilmembers and mayors in other Ramsey County municipalities, St. Paul included, support the initiative of NoStadiumTax, which would, if the proper number of signatures are collected and verified, be placed on the 2012 election ballot.

A slim majority of the Ramsey County Board has been pushing a $1.2 billion combination development deal with Minnesota Vikings ownership to clean and fill that polluted site with an entertainment, hospitality and residential complex, including a massive stadium with moveable roof. First, they proposed a .5% increase in local sales taxes (with nothing from other Metro counties), which was dead on arrival in both the Governor’s office and the Legislature. Now comes a proposal to tax food and beverages a 3% tax to fund the county share, a preliminary approval coming last week by a 4-3 vote.

Ramsey County is the only one of Minnesota’s 87 counties with a home rule charter of its own – the county’s version of a municipal constitution – and, as such, its governance is subject not just to state law, but to its own specific code of laws county voters approved some 15 years ago, right after legislators gave counties the option of doing so.

The charter allows for initiative, referendum and recall (I&R) – the three legs of citizen democracy usually exercised when elected officials, in this case the county board of commissioners, are viewed as unresponsive to the public will. The Ramsey County initiative process is convoluted – much more so than in many states. Ady Wickstrom will explain it to us, but her job and that of her supporters is to secure signatures from Ramsey County registered voters equal to 10 percent of those who voted for President of the United States in the last general election. 27,817 signatures are required this time around, given the Presidential votes of 2008. Several steps intervene first, including a chance for the County Board vote to pass it themselves. Not likely. The primary movers on the Board, Tony Bennett and Rafael Ortega, are unavailable Monday, but we’ll re-visit this item when things heat up over the next several months.

GUEST: