February 16, 2016 – RI Future

February 16, 2016February 17, 2016

PC President Shanley signs list of demands, ending occupation

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

A 13 hour occupation of Providence College President Brian Shanley‘s office ended Tuesday evening as Shanley capitulated and signed the student’s list of demands. According to a Facebook post by Marco McWilliams, “Students will now turn their attention to follow through efforts.”

A statement from the students, who identify themselves as the “Board of Directors” arrived at 1am. It reads:

“We would not leave until the document said he would provide a substantive plan in regards to “each” of the Demands for Redress because there is not one single one that we were willing to go unaddressed. Altogether we were in there thirteen hours, eight of which he ignored us and then gradually agreed to negotiate. This came when he realized we really wouldn’t leave his office until we had his signature and that four students were steadfast in their hunger strikes. We are proud of what we accomplished. We will see how honest he is in his commitment in 20 days and whether or not we believe his plans are substantive enough.”

Video below is from @LadiiePhii96 on Twitter.

The photo below was tweeted out by Marco McWilliams.

A copy of the statement Shanley signed has shown up on Twitter courtesy of @motermouth2 and can be seen below.

You can read the press release put out by the students here:

PC students occupy President Shanley’s office to protest campus racism

February 16, 2016February 16, 2016

PC students occupy President Shanley’s office to protest campus racism

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

A group of Providence College students has occupied the office of PC President Brian Shanley. The following is from their press release:

Beginning at 8:30 am this morning Providence College students who have been organizing against anti-blackness and racism on their campus began to occupy the Office of the President. Student organizers issued a list of comprehensive Demands for Redress in December 2015, based on evidence-based practices and systemic solutions for an inclusive campus that the President will not agree to. This follows three semesters of unproductive dialogue filled with political rhetoric and complacency from the President and his administration. Additionally, Shanley has not responded to any e-mails requesting to meet one-on-one with student activists.

Three of the students are participating in a hunger strike.

Student protesters say they will occupy the Office of the President and remain there until Shanley signs An Agreement of Commitment to the Demands for Redress.

On-campus protests have led to increasing racial tensions, as can be seen in this video:

The video was filmed on Friday, February 13, 2016 at Providence College. Peaceful protesters demonstrated on the continued complacency of President Shanley and his administration on issues surrounding overt anti-blackness and racism on the college’s campus. During the protest, campus visitors, who were attending Family Weekend, physically and verbally assaulted students.

The first segment shows a man who pushed the student in front of him while simultaneously screaming in his ear “If you don’t like it here, transfer!” The same male also threatened another student, saying that if the group continued to chant he would punch him in the face. The younger male, in the yellow hat is seen mocking student protesters by mimicking dance moves while telling them to “shut the f*** up” and calling their efforts “a joke”. The video also shows a woman in a fur jacket screaming “ALL students matter” in retort to “Black Students Matter” being chanted by students.

To say “all lives matter” is not to say that all human life is equal but is to deny the racial disparity that exists in American society. This is an ideology that permeates much of campus.

This display of aggressive hate and hostility is just an example of what some students of color at Providence endure from their peers and professors both in and out of the classroom. This type of behavior is typically met with silence on the part of the Office of Safety and Security and key decision makers such as the President of the college. For example, during the fall 2015 semester when a group of Providence College students peacefully marched in solidarity with the University of Missouri, a spectating student used Snapchat to post the demonstration with the message “shut up you n******”. Instead of investigating, Safety and Security protected the perpetrators and the College has taken no visible action to address such behaviors.

In addition to overt anti-blackness and racism such behaviors permeate other areas of the college, including the curriculum, both implicitly and explicitly. The February 13, 2016 demonstration is, in part, a response to the silence and the increasing sense of insecurity faced by students of color. Students are committed to engaging in various forms of activism in attempts to break the silence in response to racism and anti-Blackness. They are committed until Father Shanley “stands up or steps out”.

Update: The students were told when they entered the office that President Shanley was not on campus. At 9:30 a.m. the President was seen by a student in the hallway outside his office in Harkins Hall 218 but he refused to make eye contact.

RI Future previously covered racial tensions at Providence College here:

Students, faculty accuse PC of racial profiling and anti-unionism

Update: RI Future has just received video from inside the occupation:

February 16, 2016May 3, 2016

Environmentalists tell Sheldon Whitehouse: we don’t support fossil fuels

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse was wrong to suggest the so-called “larger environmental community” isn’t disappointed that the climate champion of Congress is supporting a fossil fuel power plant in Burrillville, Rhode Island.

That’s the opinion of the Environment Council of Rhode Island, a coalition of 62 different groups that protect the environment in the Ocean State.

“While ECRI has deep respect for Senator Whitehouse’s work in the U.S. Senate to address climate change,” the group said in a prepared statement sent widely to local media. “ECRI regrets that in his Jauary 22 interview Senator Whitehouse misrepresented the views of Rhode Island’s environmental community.”

In an interview with WPRI’s Ted Nesi, Whitehouse said the “larger environmental community” understands why he supports a methane gas-fueled power plant in Rhode Island, which he says would help lower energy prices in the Northeast.

“There’s a small group of people who would like to have me change my position,” Whitehouse told Nesi. “From the larger environmental movement – the Save the Bays and the League of Conservation Voters and the Nature Conservancies and all that – there’s no blowback whatsoever. They understand the difference between the national and the local concern.”

Said the Environment Council of Rhode Island today: “To be clear: ECRI strongly opposes the proposal to build a new, long-lived fossil-fuel plant in Rhode Island, because building this plant would make it impossible for the state to meet its short-, medium-, and long-term goals for carbon-emission reductions.”

On September 14, ECRI, of which the Nature Conservancy is a member, took an official position on the Burrillville proposal:

Climate change is the most urgent problem facing Rhode Island and, indeed, the world. One of the major causes of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, like coal, oil and natural gas, to make energy. In this context, the Environment Council of Rhode Island (ECRI) strongly opposes the proposal to build a new, long-lived natural gas fueled electricity generator in Burrillville. ECRI supports the quickest transition to clean, renewable energy and greater energy efficiency; this is not the time to be building new fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Steve Ahlquist reported subsequent to the WPRI interview that Save The Bay and the League of Conservation Voters had no position on the proposed methane power plant. He wrote, “Given that two of the three groups that Whitehouse named have no position on the project, and the third group, “the Nature Conservancies and all that” doesn’t specify any particular agency, it appears that Whitehouse’s answer was intended to minimize the importance of local opposition to the power plant, not honestly appraise the support for natural gas infrastructure expansion that exists in the wider environmental community.”

The proposed gas-fueled power plant in Burrillville has exposed a rift between local environmental activists and the elected Democrats they often support. Governor Gina Raimondo was an early and ardent supporter of the project. Whitehouse was more measured. In August, his office told WPRI he was “still reviewing the details of the proposed power plant.”

The proposed power plant opposition has been led by grassroots activists, some of whom associate with a group called FANG or Fighting Against Natural Gas.

February 16, 2016May 3, 2016

Recent power auction proves Burrillville power plant unneeded

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The Clear River Energy Center, a gas and oil fired energy plant proposed by Invenergy for Burrillville, Rhode Island is not needed, according to the results of ISO New England Forward Capacity Auction, the results of which were released last Monday. The results of the auction means that cost of energy in Rhode Island in 2019-2020 will be reduced and these lower costs have nothing to do with the energy offered by Invenergy.

[Note: Jerry Elmer had this to say in an email received after the story ran: “Energy and capacity are two different commodities. (The third component of electricity price is ‘ancillary services.’) The price of both energy and capacity are elements of the ultimate price of electricity that is paid by ratepayers (electricity customers) but energy and capacity are not the same thing. (That is, energy and capacity are not the same thing as each other; and energy and capacity prices are not the same thing as the price of electricity.) As components of the overall electricity market in New England, energy represents about 80% of the value (price) of electricity and capacity represents about 20%. (Ancillary services are a very, very small part of the price.)]

Forward Capacity Auctions (FCA) are somewhat complicated, and making sense of the ISO NE press release was a big lift, so I talked to Jerry Elmer, senior staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), to get my head around it.

“Invenergy is planning to build a 900 – 1000 MegaWatt (MW) plant,” said Elmer, “Only 485 MWs cleared in that auction and got a capacity supply obligation (CSO). So what that tells you immediately is that the plant is not needed in RI. If the plant were needed it would have gotten a CSO of 900 MW.”

Hold up. Let’s take this a little slower.

The way electrical prices are determined in Rhode Island is through a series of annual auctions. Most recently we completed FCA 10 (Forward Capacity Auction 10). Power companies bid to supply energy and ISO NE takes the best offers at the lowest price. The companies in the bidding are then obligated to supply that power during the time period specified and at the determined price. This is the capacity supply obligation (CSO).

In the most recent auction, FCA 10, Invenergy cleared only 485 MWs, about half of what their proposed 900-1000 MW plant could produce.

Under the rules of ISO NE, a certain amount of energy must be locally sourced in each zone. Here in Rhode Island, we are in the South Eastern New England (SENE) zone and the amount of locally sourced power required is 10,028 MW.

As Elmer explained the math, “The zone cleared the auction at 11,348 MW. So do a thought experiment: Invenergy got a CSO for 485 MW. Take 485 MW out of 11,348 MW and you’ve got 10,843 MW in the zone without Invenergy. You’ve got a surplus. You’ve 500 MW more than you need, without Invenergy.”

This is not what Invenergy expected when they presented their plans for the new plant. “If you look at Invenergy’s filing with the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB),” says Elmer, “they were talking about how desperately the plant is needed, it’s needed in RI to keep the lights on, and that the clearing price of capacity is going to be much higher in RI than in the rest of the ISO NE pool, what they call ‘rest of pool.’”

In the previous auction, Rhode Island did not fare so well. The reason for this is that between FCA 9 and FCA 10 the zones were restructured. “It used to be, up until this auction, there were two separate zones,” said Elmer, “There was SEMA RI (SouthEast Massachusetts and RI), NEMA Boston (SouthEast Massachusetts and Boston), and ‘Rest of Pool,’ but for FCA 10, the ISO collapsed what used to be the NEMA Boston zone with the SEMA RI zone and made one SouthEast New England (SENE) zone.

“The interesting thing here is that Invenergy has been planning this plant for a couple of years and it is true that in the two previous actions, FCA 8 and FCA 9 one year ago, the SEMA RI zone cleared much higher than rest of pool. Invenergy was right about that. So they start this plan for this plant, and they figure that they are going to absolutely clean up financially.

“This is an import constrained zone, clearing price is double what the rest of the pool is, we’re going to put 900 or 1000 MW into this very high priced zone, we are going to make a fortune. This was their thinking.

“Between FCA 9 and FCA 10, ISO NE collapsed the NEMA Boston and SEMA RI zone into a big zone, and now, instead of the zone that includes RI being very constrained with a shortage of power, we now have an excess of power in the zone.”

Drawing the lines of the various zones has nothing to do with politics, said Elmer, “It’s nothing you can vote on or put political pressure on. It’s physics! It’s where the transmission does or does not exist.”

Let’s look at this from Invenergy’s point of view for a minute: Invenergy “thought they were supposed to have 900 or 1000 MW cleared, at a very high price,” said Elmer, “instead only half the plant cleared, 485 MW. What cleared went at exactly the same price as rest of pool, no premium, zero. The rest of pool came out 25 percent lower than last year’s clearing price, and the zone here [in Rhode Island] cleared at about half the price of last years price for this zone.”

This is great news for Rhode Island, but for Invenergy, not so much. “Here’s the kicker,” said Elmer, “Invenergy got a CSO for 485 MW. That means they have got to build the plant. They are on the hook. They posted a huge bond with the ISO called Financial Assurance (FA) just to be allowed to play in the auction. So now Invenergy has the worst of all worlds.

“It only sold half its capacity to the ISO and at a much lower price than anticipated, but they still have to build the plant, or as an alternative, they could sell their CSO between now and June 1, 2019 in one of the annual or monthly reconfiguration auctions that the ISO runs, and get out of the business altogether and not even build the plant.

“They are now forced to build the plant that will be much less profitable and lucrative than they thought, or get out of it.”

Currently, the EFSB is holding hearings to determine whether or not the plant will be built. In their filing with the EFSB, Invenergy’s two major arguments in favor of the plant were, “The plant is needed for system reliability, to prevent blackouts, to keep the lights on” and “The plant will end up lowering the bill for ratepayers,” said Elmer.

“What the results of the auction shows is that both of Invenergy’s main arguments are just wrong. They are false,” said Elmer, “The plant is not needed for system reliability, it is not needed to keep the lights on and the net effect on the clearing price is either zero or very close to zero because the plant wasn’t needed.”

“CLF is presenting three witnesses to the EFSB,” said Elmer, “one witness for each of the three arguments that Invenergy is making in favor of the plant. We’ve got one witness on the system reliability issue: Is the plant needed to keep the lights on? The answer is no and this auction proves it.

“We have a separate witness on the money issue. Will building the plant save money for rate payers? This auction result says no, the answer is no.

“And then we’ve got another witness on the climate change/carbon emission issues whose testimony is going to be that if the plant is built, it will be impossible for the state to meet its carbon emission reduction goals.”

This information is “absolutely all relevant to the EFSB. In fact, Invenergy is the party before the EFSB that raised these issues! CLF is not raising these issues. We’re addressing these issues because Invenergy raised them. In legal terms, Invenergy opened the door on each of these issues, we’re just walking through it. We’re not raising these issues, Invenergy’s raising these issues. The reason we’ve got witnesses addressing these issues is because Invenergy raised them!”

The arguments in favor of the plant that we are hearing from our elected leaders, such as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, that Rhode Island suffers from an energy “choke point” and needs this plant for grid reliability, is simply not true any more, if it ever was. Given this new information, Senator Whitehouse should now feel very free to change his position on the proposed plant.

The low energy prices available now allows Rhode Island the luxury of planning a just transition to renewable energy sources and the time we need to concentrate on efforts to lower the amount of energy we need. Political leadership is needed to take advantage of this opportunity, and should not be squandered on an unnecessary fossil fuel plant that will harm Rhode Island’s environment and keep us addicted to fossil fuels for at least another half century.

February 16, 2016February 16, 2016

Michael Hudson explains how neoliberalism is KILLING THE HOST

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

As the final entry into our macro-historical overview of neoliberalism, I wanted to share with readers a very special interview. Michael Hudson’s new book Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy is a brilliant dissection of how neoliberal hegemony has come to dominate the economics discipline and what it has meant to our society.

But do not be scared off by this, here is a lucid, concise writer who explains economics in a fashion that any high school student could understand. Paul Craig Roberts recently wrote in a review I recommend you read:

Michael Hudson is the best economist in the world. Indeed, I could almost say that he is the only economist in the world. Almost all of the rest are neoliberals, who are not economists but shills for financial interests. If you have not heard of Michael Hudson it merely shows the power of the Matrix. Hudson should have won several Nobel prizes in economics, but he will never get one.

Hudson recently sat down with an interview with Eric Draitser of CounterPunch Radio (one of my personal favorite weekly podcasts) and gave a wide-ranging interview I found extremely illuminating. And if you really like what you hear, consider buying a copy of this excellent book.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!

February 16, 2016February 16, 2016

Sex worker stories we are reading that you should too!

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

On May 16, 1997, Robert Cadorette went to the law offices of Paul, Frank, and Collins, Inc. in Burlington, Vermont to talk about when he met then-sitting Bishop Robert Gelineau of the Diocese of Providence. He described on the record in detail, under penalty of perjury if he lied, how, when Gelineau was a young Brother in the Green Mountain State, he had tried to molest and then drown a young Cadorette at the Catholic orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain. Less than one month after the deposition was taken, Gelineau retired and was replaced by Bishop Robert Mulvee, who went on in later years to settle lawsuits and make monetary restitution to victims of Catholic clerical abuse.

Gelineau’s behavior was the infamous gutter-talk of Providence for years. Buddy Cianci allegedly used to joke with people about bailing the Bishop out after he was caught in compromising positions with young men in the Jewelry District, just adjacent to gay men’s clubs and bath houses in Providence. There is the story of how he was once caught in a similar set of circumstances at a rest stop over the line in Massachusetts, an instant where he called in a political favor to Ted Kennedy late in the night which would explain why Bishop Tobin only actively sanctioned his son Patrick for pro-choice votes after the old Lion of the Senate had died.

Yet despite these obvious and well-known cases of what would be called human trafficking, there is very little effort to make any sort of real public reparation by the power structure for the behavior of Bishop Emeritus Gelineau. In fact, a surgical pavilion at Fatima Hospital in North Providence bears his name!

This is important to keep in mind when discussing anti-trafficking efforts in the news. Unless you are dealing with a group that wants to arrest Gelineau and those clergy in the Diocese who covered up for him, these efforts could in fact be deceptively-marketed anti-sex worker efforts.

We have been carrying stories for the last few months about sex workers that are trying to fight back against legal harassment. One element of this harassment is the so-called ‘rescue industry’ that utilizes the problem of human trafficking to justify this harassment, claiming that all sex workers are victims and are incapable of free association and choice in the sex industry, which they offensively equate with antebellum slavery.

One story worth reading comes from our friend Tara Burns, the activist and sex worker who sat for an interview with us several months ago. In a recent story she published called 602 Imaginary Prostitutes Were Arrested in Alaska Three Years Ago she explains how the dubious nature of the rescue industry starts with problems in the statistics issued by law enforcement agencies like the FBI and includes an interview with Maxine Doogan, who analyzes and critiques these statistics.

The other one comes from the Libertarian website Reason.com, who are quite good on issues of drug and sex industry issues even if I disagree with their economic views. In their story The War on Sex Trafficking Is the New War on Drugs, they write:

The tactics employed to “get tough” on drugs ended up entangling millions in the criminal justice system, sanctioning increasingly intrusive and violent policing practices, worsening tensions between law enforcement and marginalized communities, and degrading the constitutional rights of all Americans. Yet even as the drug war’s failures and costs become more apparent, the Land of the Free is enthusiastically repeating the same mistakes when it comes to sex trafficking. This new “epidemic” inspires the same panicked rhetoric and punitive policies the war on drugs did—often for activity that’s every bit as victimless. Forcing others into sex or any sort of labor is abhorrent, and it deserves to be treated like the serious violation it is. But the activity now targeted under anti-trafficking efforts includes everything from offering or soliciting paid sex, to living with a sex worker, to running a classified advertising website.

The issue is not a strict and near-Manichean bifurcation between arguments that say “trafficking is real” versus “trafficking is not real”, it is the slimy and altogether pro-pedophile use of the legal apparatus to prevent sex crimes for purposes that go after consenting adults. If the police are running around Rhode Island going after people who sell sex in a business transaction with full consent, you miss the sociopaths like Bishop Gelineau who are considered community leaders while inflicting harm on minors.

Consider the actions of Day One, an NGO that is not going after Gelineau. They are soon going to be giving “trainings” around the state that help people “spot human trafficking”, as if some of the most difficult to detect type of sex crimes were a giant game of Where’s Waldo? Bella Robinson, our friend and contributor, is skeptical of this effort and wonders if this is actually about harassing she and her co-workers.