Calling NATO Protesters: Help Occupy the Closed Clinics!

OCCUPY CLINICS – HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE!
A call from Mental Health Movement to Occupy Wall Street and all others
coming to Chicago to protest NATO and the war and austerity agenda of
the 1%
 
 To all our family from the global 99%,To all those who believe that
healthcare is a human right,To all those coming to protest NATO and its
wars for profit around the globe,To all those who have struggled with
mental illness personally or with loved ones, To all those who have been
denied healthcare,To all those who have waited all day in emergency
rooms,To all those public servants facing layoffs or cuts to salary and
pension,To all those who are sick and tired of being sick and tired, To
all those who believe that another world is possible beyond this
madness,

The Mental Health Movement calls on all protesters coming to Chicago to
join us in the fight for healthcare not warfare. As NATO war-makers come
to this city to plan wars that leave people traumatized and cost
trillions of dollars, clinics that help people heal from trauma and deal
with mental illness are being shuttered for lack of $2.3 million
dollars. As our battle to save our clinics has intensified, Occupy
Chicago and other Occupy groups around the city have become powerful
allies. Now we ask members of Occupy Wall Street, other Occupy groups
and all other sectors of the social movements coming to Chicago to
protest NATO to join us in occupying clinics by setting up a 24/7
presence outside of recently closed mental health clinics. We will
dramatize the contradictions of a system that finds billions to wage
NATO’s endless wars for profit but leaves its most vulnerable without
basic healthcare.

For 26 days, we have maintained an around-the-clock presence at the
Woodlawn Clinic at 6337 S. Woodlawn, one of six mental health clinics
recently closed by Mayor 1% Emanuel. On April 12th 23 people – most of
us patients from clinics facing closure – barricaded ourselves inside of
the Woodlawn Clinic, only to be evicted and arrested by the SWAT team
and Chicago Police and sent to jail, the future home for the mentally
ill who cannot find treatment. Upon release, we returned to the clinic
and have been camped out 24/7 ever since. Through this struggle we have
seen 41 people arrested but have reached thousands of Chicago residents
with our stories.  We will not be held back. The Huffington Post has
called the struggle to save Chicago’s mental health clinics “the
Birmingham and Stonewall of the mental health movement.” We consider
this fight ground zero in the struggle for a world that sees healthcare
as a right and invests in healing and human rights, not warfare and
corporate subsidies.

Today, we are expanding our campaign to the Northwest Mental Health
Clinic in Logan Square at 2354 N. Milwaukee. This clinic has served the
predominately Latino community of Logan Square for 30 years. This is the
first site of our expanded resistance to clinic closure. We know that
we can count on the people mobilizing for the NATO demonstrations to
respond to our call with the tactic of non-violence and in a way that
continues to lift up the voices of those of us whose lives hang in the
balance of this struggle. We are clear that our enemy is the system that
deprives us of healthcare and other basic human rights, the politicians
that administer that system, and the 1% who profit from it, not the
police sent in to do Mayor 1%’s dirty work. Just as Occupy Chicago has
stood with us, taken arrests with us, and been a true example of dignity
and solidarity, we know that you too will see that our causes are one
and the same and that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by
connecting local and global struggles.

Mayor 1% claims that closing clinics is a way to expand mental health
services by throwing a few crumbs to private clinics. He has ignored our
cries about the importance of the trust built through years with our
therapists. He has ignored our cries about the importance of having safe
spaces like these clinics in our communities. He has ignored our cries
about his plan’s complete elimination of all black male therapists. He
has ignored our cries about his plan’s 50% reduction in the number of
Spanish-speaking therapists. He has ignored our cries about the 18
people who have already been hospitalized due to stress surrounding the
clinic closures and loss of therapists. He has ignored our cries about
the difficulty of finding care in the private sector given prohibitive
co-pays, Medicaid cuts, and a steady decline in mental health funding
for all providers. He has ignored our cries that a small fraction of the
hundreds of millions in tax breaks he got for his campaign donors at
the Chicago Mercantile Exchange could save our clinics. He has ignored
our cries that Cook County Jail is the largest provider of mental health
care in the state of Illinois. He has ignored our cries that closing
clinics when the need for mental health services is growing,
destabilizes communities and makes the wars on Chicago’s streets even
worse. He only spoke personally about the clinic closures after
representatives of the Nobel Summit visited our clinic occupation and
denounced his plans. But he spoke of bus passes and his words were just
another reminder that he has ignored our cries.

But we know that one man cannot hold back the power of a people’s
movement. We know that with our struggle we create space to talk about
the trauma and mental illness that is too often buried under mountains
of silence and pain. We know when Occupy Wall Street and others stand
with us it will help amplify our cry around the world:  HEALTHCARE NOT
WARFARE!

In solidarity,

Mental Health Movement

LOGISTICS FOR JOINING US IN THE FIGHT FOR HEALTHCARE NOT WARFARE:
Show up at 2354 N. Milwaukee or 6337 S. Woodlawn when you get to town,
whenever you come we will be there. Email us at
MentalHealthMovement@gmail.com or call (773) 340-9598 if you need help
with directions.