Score one for the good guys

So I've been getting all activisty recently. (After Obama's election campaign, community organizing became the in thing, so I thought I'd check it out.)

Here's an infuriating thing: a while back the city decided to close down four of the city's mental health clinics--and all the ones slated for closure just happen to be in poor, largely minority neighbourhoods on the southside. Because if you've got a budget problem, the thing you really want to do is take support away from people with mental health problems living in impoverished areas.

There was a whole series of actions on this issue (protests and town-hall meetings), but none of those yielded much success. The mayor's office consistently refused to talk to anyone about the issue. Things were looking pretty grim. But then:

Mayor Richard Daley today issued a temporary reprieve to four South Side mental health clinics slated to close but did not say how long they would stay open.

[...]

The clinics were to close as early as Tuesday, but a brief sit-in staged Monday by clinic patients and their advocates led to meetings with Daley Chief of Staff Paul Volpe and the subsequent mayoral reprieve.

The sit-in involved a half-dozen people dressed in suits, walking into the office at different times with various legitimate-sounding inquiries--and then refusing to leave. That was the core group, ready to be arrested if it came to that. They were backed up by a much larger group of protesters outside of the office. And also a bunch of cameras from local news outlets. Beautiful.

Alas, I didn't actually make it out to that last rally. (Naturally I now feel terrible about that--not only would it have been a good thing to participate in, but it would have been a big rush, too.) And the lack of a full commitment to keeping the clinics open is worrisome. But, all that said, it still feels pretty damn good.