There is far too much for me to say about UMass Boston to fit in one editorial; so I'll restrain myself and keep this brief. Open Media Boston strongly supports the Occupy UMass Boston movement's decision to found an encampment at the UMB Campus Center on Monday. And supports the movement itself. For the first time in a long time, Boston's working class university - my alma mater - is home to a growing and vibrant network of progressive students who are organizing for radical and much needed changes to public higher education system in Massachusetts. There have been many attempts to spark such a movement in the last four decades - some of which I have personally participated in, and helped organize - but this is first attempt that is part of a society-wide movement for social change. And the first one that looks to be willing to engage in sustained direct action outside "official channels" to demand full government funding for public higher education, an end to the privatization and corporatization of the Mass. public higher education system, free speech on campus, and a complete reorganization of the UMass system to serve the needs of the Commonwealth's working families rather than the needs of the unelected businesspeople that currently control the UMass Board of Trustees - and our government at all levels. The OUMB movement is swiftly gaining traction among UMass Boston students, staff and faculty - which, as a commuter campus, has long been a very difficult place to engage in grassroots political organizing. And that's all to the good.

The annual public ritual of rendering homage to Martin Luther King Jr., the man, while obfuscating - if not actively betraying - his message, is de rigueur for elected officials, with or without the gospel choirs. Once a year, these officials issue their compulsory paeans to Dr. King's legacy, or to what passes for his legacy these days. Their homilies secure that legacy firmly within the civil rights realm - King's later writings and speeches are not exactly on the tips of their tongues.

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.

Massachusetts' poorest residents are stealing your money and using it to buy drugs, cars, boats and condominiums, in case you haven't heard. It seems the state is being bled, to the tune of a billion dollars per year, by impostors who pretend to be poor in order to claim benefits.

Quick note to say that Open Media Boston will be on a break while your faithful Editor/Publisher is attending his semi-annual graduate school residency. We'll be back after January 18th. However, if there's anything major happening in the Boston area labor and non-profit sectors before that date, be sure to flag us at info [at] openmediaboston [dot] org - and we'll do our best to cover it. And, as always, feel free to submit opinion pieces anytime. Also, we're not doing an official fundraising campaign yet, but if you feel inspired to send along whatever spare change you might have left after the holidays, we'd much appreciate it. Just click the big red Donate button in the upper left corner of every page on this site. Thanks!

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.

As is usual for a largely volunteer-run publication like ours, Open Media Boston will be slowing down our production schedule for the rest of December and much of January. We won't stop our news operation entirely, but we will be in a sort of journalistic fugue state while we all catch up with our families, have some down time, and wait for the activists we cover as our main beat to start taking it to the streets on a more regular basis again. However, if you know of some news we should be covering, don't hesitate to drop us a line at info [at] openmediaboston [dot] org and we'll do our best to get a reporter in the field. And, as always, we're happy to take a look at submissions from anyone who cares to ... um ... submit something. Cheers to all.

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. From the large number of police at the scene to the LRAD sonic cannon that I personally photographed on Summer Street next to the Federal Reserve Building (and which fortunately remained unused), it was overkill from start to finish. Especially the effort that was expended to keep the news media away while the camp was being removed.

For the last few weeks I’ve been meaning to find a moment to write a brief editorial on the poll numbers that the Occupy movement has been generating since its inception in September. Today’s boston.com piece on the just-released Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll on Occupy Boston impels me to say something on the subject at last. And I have a pretty simple message on such polls … that is, for a brand new grassroots political movement, Occupy is doing a tremendous job of winning the support of large swaths of the American populace. For example, the Boston Globe poll shows that 41 percent of Massachusetts residents support the Occupy movement. 38 percent disapprove, and 21 percent aren’t sure what they think yet.

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.

However, the main reason the police are there is not to keep the peace - the occupiers do that themselves. Instead uniformed and undercover members of the Boston Police are there to watch the camp on behalf of the city government and the powers-that-be. And given Mayor Thomas Menino’s well-known desire to get rid of the camp, the recent wave of Occupy camp evictions elsewhere in the US, and the heavily covered eviction of Occupy Boston’s attempt to establish a second camp next to the Dewey Square camp in October, it’s reasonable to assume that the police on-site are now remaining especially vigilant for any problem with the camp that would give Menino an excuse to remove it under the terms of the court order.

There has been a great deal of interest by progressive unions, labor federations, community-labor coalitions, and non-profits of many kinds in the rise of the Occupy movement. A lot of this interest is positive, and represents the leadership of existing progressive organizations understanding the importance of expanding their efforts at this particular moment in history - and reaching out to the new movement in the best spirit of mutual aid and solidarity.

Some of this interest, however, is less positive. I won't speculate overmuch in this editorial about why organizations that claim to share the values of the new movement might engage in questionable behavior towards it. Suffice to say, some organizations have what could best be described as "turf issues" with the occupiers - which has unfortunately been the case here in Boston at times.