As Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams once noted, “Forced worship stinks in God’s nostrils.”

Putting aside for the moment the legal and religious arguments against the National Day of Prayer, let’s ask one simple question: Does prayer work? The answer, at least according to those who have actually sought to study and measure the efficacy of prayer is no. Study after study shows that people who are prayed for do no better in recovery than those who are not. Even those who believe in the power of prayer, despite all the contrary evidence, sometimes quip, “God answers all prayer, but sometimes the answer is ‘No.’”

So if prayer has no measurable effect on the wellbeing of our nation, why do we still insist on a National Day of Prayer, despite the insult the event hurls at millions of believing and non-believing Americans? If we are going to issue proclamations encouraging all Americans to engage in what has been scientifically shown to be an ineffective waste of time, why not declare a National Day of Homeopathy? Or hold a nation wide Bigfoot hunt?

Obama’s proclamation from 2011 quotes President Abraham Lincoln’s recollections about prayer, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.  My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day.” Lincoln shepherded the country during its most desperate hour, and was more sorely vexed than any other President in history. Note that Lincoln was driven to prayer only when circumstances overwhelmed him and wise council was scarce. Here was a man pushed to the absolute limits of desperation, and in his time of weakness, he found solace in prayer.

I can understand the feeling of being alone, desperate and trapped by circumstances, and I can understand the appeal of and the emotional need for prayer under the most dire of circumstances, but I would argue that America, as a people, as a country and as an ideal are not in so desperate a position as to need a mandate driving us all to our knees to implore a mythological being for some sort of miracle. We are better than that.

It was not the power of prayer that threw the yoke of British rule off the backs of the colonists in the days of the Revolutionary War. It was the blood of heroes, the strategies of generals, the genius of diplomats, and the vision of Enlightenment ideals that did so. WWII was not won by the hand of God but by the economic, scientific and military might of the United States when it finally entered the war. And when humans walked on the moon, prayers were certainly issued, but it was the mathematicians and scientists, running millions of calculations and experiments, that got our astronauts safely to our nearest celestial neighbor and back.

Praying for a miracle is the ultimate wish for a quick fix, a lottery ticket for the soul. We all want something for nothing, but the truth is that nothing worth having is free, and nothing worth doing is easy. In the throes of an emergency all the prayers in the world are as nothing compared to the efforts of one rescue worker or doctor. As founding father Benjamin Franklin once said, “Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.”

The United States is facing some real problems right now, but none of these problems are going to magically solve themselves, and no God is going to burst forth from the heavens to deliver us. What is needed is for Americans to embrace the ideals of reason, compassion, optimism and action. What is needed is for Americans to roll up their sleeves and get to work fixing the problems our country faces with the power of their minds, the strength of their muscles and the love of their hearts.

The National Day of Prayer is simply an admission of our desperation as a people. Through its celebration we tell each other and the world that we are out of ideas, that we are desperate and lack wise council. Each year on this day we fall to our knees as a nation and loudly exclaim that we have given up, and we need a miracle. Meanwhile the rest of the world builds and innovates, making us feel ever more inconsequential, creating spiraling and negative feedback that reinforces our desperation, a desperation that can only be met by more prayer. We become prayer junkies, always looking for the next quick fix, always looking for that impossibly rare thing called a miracle.

We do not need a National Day of Prayer and we never have. We need to get to work.

The proposed soda tax, heard yesterday by the House Finance Committee, would add a levy of one penny for each ounce of sugary beverage a distributor sells. So a two-liter bottle of Coke, which costs about $1.50, would cost an additional 60 cents. A 20 ounce bottle one gets from a soda machine or convenience store cooler would run an extra two dimes.

Despite the incremental increase, the soda industry tried in the hearing yesterday to sell to the Committee members on the idea that Rhode Islanders would flock to Massachusetts or Connecticut to get their Coke or Pepsi rather than fork over an extra couple of quarters.

“This legislation would heavily impact sales, particularly in the border stores, which in turn reduces revenue to the state and ultimately impacts the number of jobs associated with the beverage industry,” according to a letter to the Committee from the Rhode Island Beverage Company.

Most people won’t cross the street to save 60 cents, never mind shell out $4 a gallon to do so. But don’t let common sense stand in the way of industry lobbyists claiming that the state’s soda sales would be “heavily” impacted and even lead to people losing their jobs!

Clements Marketplace in Portsmouth – a grocery store on an island, mind you – made this outrageous claim, too. People would have to drive across a bridge to find the nearest Massachusetts convenience store or super market.

“My store and all other border stores will lose sales, the state will lose tax revenue and Rhode Islanders will lose jobs,” wrote store manager Tracy Clements Anthony.

From Clements to the Fall River line is an eight mile drive. That means it would cost a commuter about a dollar in gas to drive to Massachusetts to save 60 cents on a two liter bottle of soda. Portsmouth consumers: that’s a net loss of 40 cents on every two liter you waste your time driving to Fall River for. And that’s if you are driving a Toyota or a Honda; if you’re driving an SUV or a minivan it’ll cost more like $2 in gas to save that 60 cents.

Also notice how similar the language is in the two letters. That’s because these are talking points, not ever to be confused with facts, meant to be repeated often enough until they become part of our collective cultural understanding. In this case, that people will spend more money than they save simply to avoid paying a tax.

Other letters from other soda sellers mirror these talking points, including one from Brigido’s Fresh Market, which points out that their Slatersville store is “less than one mile from the Massachusetts border,” which is true – but there isn’t a convenient convenience or grocery store anywhere nearby across the border.

Meanwhile, the one cent per ounce tax – on a product that is known to contribute to a variety of health problem like diabetes, obesity and heart disease – would raise some $45 million that would be earmarked for public health initiatives.

“We just want them to pay a little extra if want to do something unhealthy,” said Steve DeToy, of the Rhode Island Medical Society. “It’s the same thing we did with tobacco. It worked with tobacco we think it will work with obesity too.”

Almost three decades later, we’re still hearing about ultra-high income earners like Warren Buffett paying a lower tax rate than his secretary.

According to the IRS, the wealthiest 400 Americans, who earned an average of roughly $270 million in 2008, paid an average tax rate of just 18.2 percent that year. That’s about the same rate paid by a single truck driver in Rhode Island. It’s not right, and we need to restore fairness to our tax code.

And next week, we have a key opportunity to do just that. The U.S. Senate has scheduled a vote on the eve of tax day, April 16, on the Paying a Fair Share Act, legislation I introduced to require multi-million-dollar earners to pay a minimum federal tax rate of 30 percent.

Implementing the so-called “Buffett Rule” would restore some badly needed fairness to our tax system. It would also generate an estimated $47 billion in new revenue that could help reduce our federal deficit or repair decaying infrastructure. President Obama has already thrown his weight behind the bill, urging the Senate to pass the Paying a Fair Share Act — but the GOP has made it clear that they want to safeguard tax loopholes for the ultra-wealthy.

You can lend your voice to this important fight by becoming a citizen cosponsor of the Buffett Rule at www.BuffettRuleBill.com.

This would be a real win-win for middle-class families at a time when so many Americans are fed up with a system that gives special deals to the wealthy and well connected. Polls have shown that Americans across the country strongly support the Buffett Rule. And the Rhode Islanders I’ve heard from say the same thing: They’re feeling more and more squeezed by this economy, but they pay their fair share in taxes, and they expect millionaires and billionaires to do the same.

We need to act now to correct this inequity and show the American people that we are on their side. This is a test of Congress to show that we can give them a straight deal, not just help special interests.

I’m not saying this will be easy — the reality is that this will be a tough fight. But you know what? It’s the right thing to do, and we should keep at it for as long as it takes.

We know the special interests that fought for unfair tax loopholes will fight against the Buffett Rule, and you can bet that they will continue to urge Republicans to oppose our efforts to restore fairness.

That’s where you come in. As we get closer to our vote on April 16, we need to demonstrate that there is a groundswell of support to turn the Buffett Rule into law — and your voice can be part of that groundswell.

Please become a citizen cosponsor of the Paying a Fair Share Act, then call your senators and tell your friends to do the same.

If the American people make their voices heard and put enough pressure on Congress, we can restore fairness in our economic system, do what’s right for the middle class, and show that Congress can stand up to special interests.

I hope you’ll join me in this fight. It’s one worth fighting.

This post originally appeared in the Huffington Post.

The job hunt is nearly as disheartening. Each letter sent out is a gamble, each interview a risk. Plenty will offer you tips, plenty will suggest you talk to so-and-so, plenty will say “perhaps if you tried here.” And you force yourself to nod, because you think to yourself, “I have done all of that already,” but you do not wish to get into a fight. But no one will treat you with respect; be it the callous souls who tell you, even in the midst of the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, to “get a job,” or the people whom you are applying for a job with. You will be left on the line for weeks, sometimes without ever getting a response telling you someone else has been hired. Alternatively, they will send you some of the cruelest words in the English language, “thank you for your interest…”

I have sympathy for employers; it is not easy to pull the trigger and tell the job-seeker they will not be hired. But I have no sympathy for the politician who sees the suffering of their policies and yet continues with their madness. The politician says that they have imposed their policies so cities and towns “will get their fiscal house in order.” But they have not imposed fiscal order; they have imposed pain and suffering. Tell the victims of these policies that the political leadership has brought fiscal order. Tell the family who has abandoned their home and is living in their car because property taxes went too high, or the landlord forced to raise rents on tenants they know cannot afford it. Tell the vast majority of the people of this state who pay taxes at a rate nearly twice that of those who can most-afford it that we are bringing fiscal order. Our political leadership has a perverse definition of “order”.

Where’s the work that was promised? I was fortunate enough that I could work for free as a volunteer while I searched for a job. Most are not that lucky. They languish, in trouble, waiting for work that will end their weariness and replace it with accomplishment. Through this hell that has been imposed, they march onwards, driven by the idea of hope, our state motto. The motto so sacred to Rhode Islanders that we placed it on our flag so that it might symbolize us. The Statehouse should be the house that hope built. Instead, it is hope’s marble mausoleum.

The party in power names itself “democratic”. Perhaps they need a lesson in democracy. The word means the people rule. The people. Not the Speaker of the House nor the President of the Senate. If the representatives of the people delivers a bill, “democracy” means the leadership must consider it and bring it to vote by those same representatives, not hold it for further study, their epithet for saying they have killed it. This means that if the people cry out for fairness in our taxes, you cannot dismiss this cry as not having a chance. The people get to decide that, too.

But our “leadership” tells us that we must wait, that the tax policies they enacted six years ago during good times have not yet had their full effect. And yet, our unemployment rate has risen back to 11%, while the rest of the nation sees declines. Our “leadership” tells us we must not tax job creators, while the state loses the very jobs we are asking the creators to create. Our “leadership” tells us business favors tax consistency, but only if that consistency is going down. Our “leadership” tells us they want Rhode Island to be a place where anyone can live, but their policies force cities and towns to raise property taxes so high no one can live here.

I say this as a Rhode Islander. I say this as someone who only recently found a job in this state after nearly a year of trying, and I was not confining myself to only the state. I looked beyond our borders reluctantly, because deep in my heart, I know there is truly no other state for me. I am not ashamed or abashed to say I love Rhode Island, in all its oddities. I do not believe any true Rhode Islander can contemplate fleeing this state without any regret or sadness. And yet, that contemplation has been very real to me. And it is real to the thousands of Rhode Islanders who remain without work, many who have been searching longer than I have, many of whom are more deserving then I am.

There are those who will despise me for what I’ve written here. They will attack me, perhaps call me a demagogue. They will find fault with whatever I say, and seek to undermine my reputation. I do not care about my reputation though, I care about Rhode Island. The naysayers will point to our 11% unemployment rate and deride the citizens of this state as stupid for not abandoning it. They will insult the place of my birth, and me, not knowing or comprehending that the reason the unemployed stay is because as much as circumstances prevent them, they also have hope. They believe in this state. The naysayers look at an idea and say “we cannot do this,” and they will find such and such a reason to stop it. But those with hope will look at an idea and say, “how can we make this work” and search for ways until they have exhausted all possibilities.

We want to make our state work. We want to rebuild this state with our own sweat. We are not asking the politicians in the government to break a sweat, we will do that. We will work the hours, we will do the labor. We ask merely that the politicians on Smith Hill have the decency to relieve the pressures that prevent us from doing so, that they reverse their mistaken policies and free the people of this state to work. That they keep those already working employed. That they enforce policies that actually will bring the idle gainful work. That they take no more from those who have already sacrificed too much.

There is a dividing line between people. On one side are those who do not love this state, who cannot imagine a way out of this crisis, who call for it to be abandoned or else denigrate its people and its government. On the other are those who wish to give their lives for this state, who wish to improve it, who see its possibilities even in the midsts of its failures. I ask the leaders of this state to be the leaders that we know they can be, and lead this state to greatness. Where’s the work? It is before us.

Kate Bramson details five priorities for Rhode Island, including taking better advantage of our ports, keeping our college graduates here in state, retraining our workforce and taking advantage of what Allen Tear of Betaspring called our “unfair lifestyle advantage, an unfair cool advantage.”

Of course, Rhode Island’s business climate was also cited as a priority, but Bramson keeps great perspective writing that RI must, “reach out to help traditional small companies and the innovative start-ups that are developing new technologies and will be future job creators.”

– Meanwhile, over on the editorial page, Darth Flanders penned an op/ed with Gary Sasse extolling the benefits of municipal bankruptcy. It read as if Flanders and Sasse were selling the idea of municipal receivers to mayors and managers across the state, even though they led off by saying, “If the reader takes one thing from this article, it is that only after exhausting all other options should financially troubled Rhode Island municipalities” consider bankruptcy. Of course the next sentence started with a big giant, “But…”

– In other financial news from this weekend, Ted Nesi made a great observation about Rhode Island’s economy. Namely that public sector unions aren’t nearly as powerful as people think, and Wall Street is much more so.

“For all the talk about labor unions’ power in Rhode Island, their influence over political leaders is still trumped by the might of another formidable institution: Wall Street. When Rhode Island’s leaders are faced with a choice between investors and public-sector union members, they consistently side with the former. The bondholders law, which explicitly protects creditors over pensioners, is one example of that; the suspension of democracy in Central Falls is another.”

– Economic inequality has become such the debate dejour that they are even talking about it in East Greenwich, home of Rhode Island’s largest concentration of the 1%. Lisa Sussman wrote a great piece for EG Patch about why this upscale suburban enclave really shouldn’t complain about Chafee’s municipal plan. Read the comments to see me get beat up for sticking my nose into the fray!

– Given all this gloomy news about the state of the state, what are we to do about it? Well, Occupy URI will be protesting at the Board of Governors for Higher Education meeting today at 5:30 at the URI Bay Campus “to object to the unrelenting diversion of funds from public education in Rhode Island, and to bring to the Board’s attention grave concerns regarding the constitutionality of those diversions,” according to a press release, which also says:

“In addition to being patently unconstitutional, the diversion of funds from education is morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, The RI Board of Governors, continuing a trend spanning decades, approved an explosive 9.5% tuition increase for the University of Rhode Island for the 2012-13 academic term. This has led to an unconscionable burden on those seeking the opportunities guaranteed to them in the RI Constitution.”

Flanders told the ProJo he would like to create a local charter review commission to look into the merits of switching from a mayoral form of government, in which the highest position in government is elected, to a city manager form, in which the highest position is appointed.

The article says “state and local officials are exploring the possibility,” but the only local official cited is Albert Romanowicz, who was appointed by Flanders to run the local jail. All the other local officials in the article – such as the mayor, not surprisingly – are against it.

Forget, for a moment, that mayors are less expensive than managers – in Rhode Island, the average municipal manager makes $101,480 a year and the average mayor makes $84,800 (meanwhile, average receiver makes in excess of $360,000 a year).

The really troubling issue here is that Darth Flanders is again going too far in his role as receiver.

Flanders has already over-stepped his bounds when he tried to institute an overnight parking ban in Central Falls. Sure, this would have made money, but that’s because he would have made it a violation to park where residents park in Central Falls, on the road. Few, if any, in Central Falls have three car garages, like Flanders does at his house in East Greenwich. While he pushed the idea through over the objection of the residents, Gov. Chafee had him rescind the idea the next day.

Similarly, the governor should tell Flanders to back off on his vision of permanently restructuring of the government by eliminating elected officials.

Central Falls does not suffer from too many elected officials, it suffers from poverty. There isn’t a high enough tax base to pay for the services that are needed. To that end, the receiver is well within the parameters of his responsibilities to shrink the size of government – though a better solution would be to work on expanding the tax base.

Either way, someone charged with financial oversight shouldn’t take action toward eliminating elected positions. It’s just unseemly, and it smacks of punishing the people of Central Falls for being too poor to pay for their services.

According to the Projo, “Flanders and his staff insist that the mayoral form of government invites patronage and cronyism.” But I’m not sure the same can’t be said of an appointed manager. At least mayors can be voted out of office. In fact, the very underlying principle of a democracy is that elected officials are held accountable by the people.

Evidently, Flanders doesn’t think this is working so well in Central Falls. “Let’s put it this way,” he told the Projo. The mayoral form of government “hasn’t served the populace very well to date.’’

If this is the case, Flanders could use the power of his position to create a community dialogue about these issues, or start a training academy for young local leaders.  Both of these ideas would better eliminate cronyism from government than simply trading a mayor for a manager, as well as have many other positive effects on the city.

But it seems as if Flanders is so hyper-focused on being the Lord of the Pink Slip that he forgot he actually has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something much bigger and more meaningful than just eliminate positions and divvy out haircuts.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras from the State of the City speech.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras now joins General Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Central Falls receiver Bob Flanders in a very exclusive group of Rhode Islanders. You’ve heard of the Promise Keepers, right? Well, these three are the promise breakers.

All three have asked retirees, in no uncertain terms, to give up a portion of the post-employment benefits that they previously negotiated for and agreed upon. They asked for a contractual mulligan, if you will.

Not that Taveras, Raimondo and Flanders don’t each have difficult situations to deal with – they do. But while fiscal health is important, so is being known as a community that keeps its word. And at this rate, Rhode Island is in grave danger of being known as the state where contracts are made to be broken.

This won’t serve the state well in any future negotiation, even if it’s with a big company looking for a tax incentive to relocate here. If we did it to the people who served and protected us, they might reason, why would they not also do it to us?

But on a more elemental level, faith in government is really all that holds us together as a civic community. Once we can’t trust our government to keep its word, all bets (and social contracts) are off. I’m not saying we’re there, or even close, but we should certainly do whatever we can do to avoid that path altogether.

Give Taveras credit here. Of the three promise breakers, he has leaned the least on the contractual mulligan strategy. Before going to the retirees, he raised taxes significantly and fought hard to raise revenue through other means, most notably by begging the colleges and hospitals to ante up as well.

And he has been pretty honest about his ask. When I asked him prior to Saturday how he felt about asking for such concessions, he was pretty blunt about it: “A lot of people have gone forward based on promises that have been made and most of them have kept their side of the bargain. Obviously the city is at this point saying we need to change our side of the bargain and that is always a difficult thing.”

At his plea to retirees on Saturday, he repeated several times, I’m told, that his ask was by no means fair. He repeated it to Ted Nesi later in the day.

Raimondo, on the other hand, sold her pension-cutting plan under the banner of being fair, that is when she wasn’t fist-pumping to the pro-business crowd. And Flanders … well, I’d be surprised if the concept of fair ever even occurred to him. He simply threatened to behead retirees if they didn’t agree to his pension-slashing terms. Seriously, he told them “a hair cut is better than a beheading.”

In the short term, Taveras’ more humanistic approach may save fewer dollars. But it’s little wonder he’s the most popular pol in the state. And in the long run, that kind of political capital can get you a lot more concessions than deception or decapitation.

Drink to managed poverty

While shopping at Whole Foods last week (yeah, I do that often #smirking) I came across a new Whole Foods brand coffee. It was arranged in a pyramid styled display, and the store rep., having just completed the task of assembling it, stood nearby staring on with a look so proud it bordered on the supercilious.

I stepped closer to observe that the coffee was being shipped in from all around the world: Latin America, East Africa, India blends. Of course this is nothing new, we always bring in goods from places we’ve either colonized or helped facilitated the colonization of (think Vietnam). But what struck me most was what I read on the side of the container: “A hand up to over a million people. 30¢ from every can goes to alleviating poverty worldwide where Whole Foods Market sources products.”

Hmmm… “A hand up,” “alleviating poverty worldwide.” Really?

There are two immediate ways in which I might problematize the crisis in Western altruistic thought — and the capitalist work of Whole Foods in this endeavor:

First, it positions us, as Westerners who live in and with a “First World” perception, to imagine that essential poverty can be alleviated by 30¢. And what a bargain that is! In fact, it’s a 2 for 1 special, because not only can one purchase a can of fresh, organic, fairly traded coffee, but one can also purchase one’s redemption from having to think or be concerned about the constructed impoverished conditions of the people who laboriously tend this coffee on land they don’t own, or even control. One need not expend cognitive energy contemplating the worker’s labor conditions, which are likely politically influenced by social and economic mandates from one’s own First World government; just 30¢ and it all goes away.

Pardon me a moment while I run to my bookshelf, grab my bible and reread the parable of the Good Samaritan:
[Luke 10: 30-37]

²⁹But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
³⁰And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
³¹And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
³²And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
³³But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
³⁴And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
³⁵And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
³⁶Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
³⁷And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. [KJV]

The marketing formation of this coffee creates a way for western consumers to escape critiques of capitalism. Rather than fundamentally question this economic monolith, we choose, instead, to tolerate it; and Whole Foods makes it a benign affair. In many ways that which we call “neocolonialism” is merely the refitting of the old colonialism to a contemporary world and political cultural order. The labor of those othered is still exploited, but said exploitation is somehow in the very same moment alleviated — and that apparently with 30¢.

Real photographs of the women on the side of the can have simply become twenty-first century iconographs of acceptable indigence. Think “Aunt Jamima,” still clothed in her class-status-cueing raiment, still brandishing a smile of contentment, only now she is receiving a so-called fair wage.

Next, when we consider the example of Africa we know that it was a continental European colonial outpost. And we know that the economic corruption and deleterious identity politics were introduced by morally challenged European powers and are sustained by African hegemons. American media and educational structuring silence this past and present in such a way that it is held external to the lived experiences of both Third World laborers and First World consumers. Capitalist frameworks of knowledge exploitation, and our participation in its perpetuation, are obscured by an altruistic desire to purchase our 30¢ redemption from having to care any further about the way in which neocolonialism cashes in on, as Jesus would assert, our neighbor.

Though we think ourselves “Good Samaritans”, in fact we have become political actors, “Levites” and “priests,” at the register in Whole Foods. No coming closer out of compassionate concern, no oil and wine of healing or bandaging of wounds, no picking up from the road side and transporting to the inn, no financing of medical care to nurse back to health; nothing of a sorts. Just 30¢ to alleviate the poverty. Oh, the suffering worker will remain in poverty, no doubt! But it will be somewhat alleviated as the oppressive economic relationship of our’s and our neighbor’s world is authorized by this insidious transaction of misdirection. The irony of the issue at hand is not that we didn’t provide a charitable service, but that we got to walk away imagining that we did. And this is, as Slavoj Zizek would say, “the commodification of suffering,” where the aim is not to end the economic relationship hinged on disparate power, rather it is to maintain it by benevolently prolonging it as though one were giving alms.

“The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.” -Zizek

Rhode Island law currently permits insurance companies to charge higher premiums to women over males – a common industry accepted practice known as gender rating.  Insurance companies would argue that women are more expensive to cover due to their unique medical needs like mammograms, pap smears, and maternity costs.  Yet, women can’t choose to have breasts or ovaries, but driving recklessly, abusing alcohol, and eating unhealthily are all choices that can negatively affect health among both men and women.  Even so, women still pay higher premiums in the individual health insurance market (never mind the fact it’s been illegal in the group market for decades).

Still doesn’t make sense, right?  Soon, under President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, this discriminatory practice will be banned federally when most major components of the law go into effect.  (Phew!)  Yet… what about the next two years during which women of Rhode Island will continue to be charged higher rates?  I think Rhode Island can do better – and I’m not the only one.

I suppose if we want to talk about the cost-benefit analysis of covering women who may become pregnant, it would make sense to take steps to prevent unplanned pregnancy and reduce those so-called ancillary costs to insurance providers.  Following this logic, the HHS ruling late last month that requires all employers and health insurance plans provide birth control with no co-pays as a basic, preventative health measure really was one giant leap for woman kind to break the cycle of gender rating in insurance coverage.

Just last week, Brown University released a new public poll that found 56.8 percent of Rhode Islanders support birth control coverage with no co-pays.  Meanwhile, Rhode Islanders are almost evenly split on Mr. Obama’s recently issued requirement that church-related organizations such as colleges and hospitals to cover birth control in their employee insurance coverage.  The survey found 47.5 percent in favor of the policy and 47 opposed.  Might this public approval around contraception and empowering women to plan their parenthood, be a strong sway towards equality between genders on issues of health care?  One might hope.  Eliminating gender rating in health care coverage and providing birth control as preventative, basic health care seems like progress.

The tides are shifting – women’s health care under a bright, if not glaring, national spotlight, and as Rhode Islanders, we have a unique opportunity to show our support.  The reality, in terms of insurance premiums, is that each sex has their own unique set of health complications and risk factors – merely being female is not one of them.  Just like over 40 years ago when the insurance industry voluntarily abandoned the practice of using race as a rating factor, so too should it abandon gender as a means of determining insurance premiums.

Unfortunately, Rhode Island is behind the curve on this issue.  Nearly all of New England, with the exception of CT, has gender rating bans and regulations.  We have an opportunity to use the public spotlight that has been placed on women’s health to show that Rhode Island stands for equal rights among women and men.  It’s a no brainer.  Women in seven surrounding states are already protected from this practice; it’s time for the Ocean State to do the same.

If you want to get involved, and advocate for Rhode Island to erase gender rating right out of RI health insurance, I encourage you to come to the RI State House this Wednesday & Thursday “at the rise” to participate in the following hearings:

Tuesday February 28 at the Rise (around 4:30 pm) Hearing Room 203  – House Committee on Corporations hearing on House Bill 71751, to eliminate gender rating in health insurance, sponsored by Rep. Donna Walsh.

Wednesday February 29 at the Rise (around 4:30pm) Hearing Room 212 - Senate Committee on Health & Human Services hearing on Senate Bill 2208, to eliminate gender rating in health insurance, sponsored by Senator Sue Sosnowski.

All of these happen(ed) in the microcosm of Occupy Providence, and all present their own interesting takes. First, I want to make it clear: I have not been involved in any Occupy Providence actions or meetings since December 10th. So, I’m a distant observer. What I do get to read is the online discussion group, which is often informative, but a very small portion of what must be going on.

As far as legitimacy/authority of the General Assemblies, this is something I can’t really speak to, but of those I went to, it often seemed to me that one of the things the General Assembly was becoming when I left is what I like to refer to as a “shit-screen”. These are pretty useful tools for keeping dissent somewhere else. Student government is a common one. Basically, it’s where you go to complain to someone who has an apparent power but in actuality has very little authority over the situation. I’ll never forget the discussion I had with an Industrial Areas Foundation organizer who said that understanding where power is located was a very important thing. “We don’t want to waste our time protesting at a city council meeting only to discover the decision was made somewhere else by someone who isn’t even in government,” he said.

Ostensibly, General Assemblies were created to empower people and to provide some level of governance (however much you might despise that word) over those who joined Occupy. People discussed their grievances with the system, which was necessary to see what issues we should be focusing on, but if you’ve ever stood for three hours in the cold listening to people complain about government, you realize that a coffee shop is a nicer setting and you can also go to City Hall or the State House and cuss out an elected official or a bureaucrat and feel much more satisfied (in no way am I suggesting you do this, many of them have terrible jobs already). General Assemblies often took so long to get things done that we’d quit for a night without really having said much more than we had yesterday.

The homeless were always an issue, but to Occupy Providence’s credit, despite some lofty rhetoric attempting to link the movement to the Arab Spring, veterans of the Tent Cities taken apart by then-Mayor David Ciciline were always present and were probably the most pulled together about the real nitty-gritty of the “occupation”. This lines up almost perfectly with what Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about the true roots of Occupy Wall Street; that it drew more from historical US encampments (the Bonus Army, the Poor People’s Campaign, and most importantly the Tent Cities) than from any Arab Spring Movement. I think that’s about right. America isn’t a dictatorship, it’s a democracy, so we are always going up against a system that has institutions in place to deal with dissent or allow it to be victorious. I always thought we should’ve looked to Chile for our model. Regardless, tent city participants were and continue to be great resources for street-based movements. It should, however, be noted that not a single American encampment movement has yet succeeded.

That argument about what kind of system are we facing leads right into the euphemistically-described “diversity of tactics” discussion, which make no mistake, is going on in Occupies around the country. This was inaugurated with the now infamous attack on black blocs published by journalist Chris Hedges in Truth-Out. Reporter Susie Cagle responded in Truth-Out, along with David Graeber of n+1. Ms. Cagle criticized Mr. Hedges for failing to be there before making his criticisms. Mr. Graeber largely criticized Mr. Hedges for his rhetoric and lack of understanding of the movement, while faultily relying on Gandhi to support his position of allowing violence. My favorite dissection of the debate is this one from MyFiredoglake member danps. Finally, Professor Erica Chenoweth weighed in by providing data showing that non-violent campaigns during the 20th and early 21st centuries were more likely to succeed than violent ones (they get more successful over time).

In no way do I support those advocating for violence, but let’s be clear, majorities of Americans dislike Occupy Wall Street’s tactics. They were against the shutdowns and they are against the encampments. They might support what they perceive to be the goals, but the tactics have been a turnoff. When I was there, there were discussions about shutting down Kennedy Plaza via protest. I never understood that, since you rarely find the 1% riding the bus (they can afford cars and chauffeurs). The people most harmed by a Kennedy Plaza shutdown would’ve been people like me, students, and the poor. If you’ve ever taken public transportation to an appointment, you know the sort of panicky feeling you get as time ticks down. Now imagine that a massive demonstration walks in front of you. I would not be very supportive of whatever they were protesting. That they were protesting economic inequality would probably incense me. Luckily, parts of Kennedy Plaza were only briefly shutdown during the two marches I attended.

I’ve said before that Occupy needs a Valley Forge moment, and I stand by that. In no way should we disparage those who have done the hard work of encamping and protesting for these many months. But many have drifted away. And the remnants have now built an organizational structure they’re fine with, but which is highly confusing for new people. The bar to participation is high, and what I think we’ll find is that more organizations will temporarily ally themselves with their local Occupies rather than join. That’s alright.

What I’d like to see from the various groups that seem destined to arise out of Occupy’s splintering (I believe it will splinter in the absence of a cohesive force, and I believe that splintering is already going on) is one with a bit more discipline. One of the things I love best about the Civil Rights Movement was the Sunday best people wore. People tended to be well-dressed when they went to protest, and this both enhanced their respectability while underscoring the brutality they faced from police.  Too often, Occupy members were derided as hippies, and many were. But some of the most powerful images are of those who were dressed in uniform (airline pilots marching on Wall Street). It’s a lot harder to beat down the well-dressed than it is to beat a bunch of hoodies.

I’ve said before that this is far bigger than Occupy, that the ideas being raised must be taken up by a wider movement willing to allow new groups to the fore. If we simply say, “oh, that’s Occupy’s beat” then we’ve allowed ourselves to fall prey to stand-byerism. If Occupy fails, or if it splinters, then it must be a learning experience for those of my generation for whom this is our first outing into the street and into protest. We can’t go “tried protest, it didn’t work.” It simply can’t be the end of things.