The head of the Biden administration’s vaccination program is Bechara Choucair. He was the commissioner of the Chicago Dept. of Public Health from 2009 to 2014. He oversaw the dismantling of half of our city's publicly funded mental health clinics under Rahm Emanuel. We've met.

Here's Choucair being chased out of a meeting by protesters over the clinic closure plans back in 2011.

When dozens of people who received care at those clinics were about to go to jail, bc they'd barricaded themselves inside the Woodlawn clinic, in a final push to save it, Choucair couldn't look anyone in the eye as he fled the scene. People he knew for years tried to talk to him.

I called out to him in that parking lot, but I didn't expect him to look back. I just wanted him to know I was there and that I saw him. I saw his shame as he slunk away from the mess he made for Rahm.

Two people who were part of that protest, Helen Morley and Jeanette Hanson, were Mental Health Movement activists who were quite clear with Rahm and Choucair, on multiple occasions, that they would die without their clinics. They did. And they weren't the only ones.

I was at Helen's memorial service when Rahm's police attacked a protest in another part of town, and I had to go straight to jail support afterward. It was a rough time.

I know we're eager to escape Trump, but let's not forget the character of neoliberalism. Austerity kills.