three cheers for federal agencies (which usually do the exact opposite of what their monikers would imply)!

I generally don’t advocate violence, but is this not the kind of thing that people should be picking up guns over?

you don’t fight bulldozers with guns . . .

Vehicles and Heavy Equipment

you don’t fight bulldozers with guns ...

True.

You’ll need the guns for the Blackwater troops (which no doubt there will be; when residents choose to resist)....

Right, save ammo through sabotage.

We do this kind of thing all the time.

Ozymandias Sabotage Handbook

The Big Easy Isn’t

On a rainy night flight we descend into the flat bowl of New Orleans wedged between the Mississippi River and the Lake Pontchartrain with the impression that we are going under water, which is not far from the truth. A large part of the city, as became painfully obvious during hurricanes Katrina and Rita, is below sea level. During my first twenty-four hours in the Crescent City, rain alternately fell, poured, drizzled, and spit from the sky. Puddles formed and turned into flooded streets while locals looked up at the clouds with trepidation. The residents I talked to told me that every major storm brings back the trauma and the agonizing question: will the levees hold? I couldn’t help thinking of my new friends when, the day after I returned from my trip, I read a news story saying that over eight inches of rain had fallen on the city since I left, flooding streets and causing many schools and businesses to close early.

I had made the journey to New Orleans to attend the biennial convention of the International Labor Communications Association (ILCA), entitled “Seeking Higher Ground: Telling Workers’ Stories After Katrina,” October 18-20. Along with fellow AFT 2121 member and CFT Communications Director, Fred Glass, I participated in a great experiment, designed by the ILCA leadership and inspired by Glass, to take this year’s conference out of the meeting rooms and into the streets. We are, after all, journalists and what better mission could we pursue than to put ourselves at the service of the largely unheard voices of fellow union members and the ordinary people of New Orleans still suffering more than two years after the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States? Despite two plus years of promises from politicians and governmental organizations, large parts of the city, albeit the parts tourists never see, look like ghost towns, as if the storm occurred last week rather than the end of August 2005. And for many of those who have returned—the population stands at 50-60% of what it was before Katrina—the struggle for decent housing, schools, and employment continues. It was our job to go out into the community, talk to the people, and report on the unions and the organizations making a difference.

With the images of Spike Lee’s documentary, “When the Levees Broke,” still fresh in my mind, we set out on a bus tour of the areas of the city that captured the world’s attention during the week following Katrina, and which were so graphically portrayed in Lee’s film. When the waters receded, as did the attention of the media, left behind was a devastation that is still very much evident today. The statistics were appalling enough: 80,000 homes still uninhabitable and countless others in various states of repair; of the 27,000 destroyed homes (every home except one) in St. Bernard Parish only a fraction have been repaired; and of the 125,000 small businesses damaged or laid waste more than 50% are struggling or have called it quits. But seeing the gutted homes and businesses, smelling the garbage, and feeling the frustration of the people we talked to was a visceral experience far more powerful than the numbers.

We saw whole neighborhoods where people had not returned and others where one or two houses on a block would be lived in. We saw FEMA trailers parked in front of ravaged homes and others parked next to concrete steps, all that was left of their homes. Whole families have been crammed into these mobile homes while public housing units that suffered minimal damage sit empty behind chain link fences with barbed wire on the top. Margaret Trotter, a former resident of the St. Bernard Housing Development, gave us a tour around the grounds where low-income families before the storm had occupied 960 units. In a colorful, down home style she harangued the politicians accusing them of abandoning the mostly African-American poor of the city. “They don’t want us to come back. Well, guess what? They’re going to need us. A city needs poor folk, working class or whatever.”

Over and over we heard the same message from the black community, that the powers-that-be would be just as happy if the poor, largely African-American former residents that are scattered all over the country didn’t return. In a plan that echoes the neo-con dream, developers, wealthy businessmen and some politicians saw the catastrophe as an opportunity to attack working people, white and black, to break the back of unions, privatize public education, and get rid of public housing. Shortly after the storm, when electricians were desperately needed to get the power back on, 85 members of the local IBEW were told that their “services were no longer needed.” The Bush White House had suspended the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rules, opening up the door for subcontractors to import workers from outside the area and pay lower wages.

Saket Soni of the Workers Center for Racial Justice reported to us that many reconstruction jobs were filled by foreign workers who paid recruiters thousands of dollars for visas to work in New Orleans. The promises of decent housing, high wages and even citizenship proved false, and many of the workers were not even paid.

Once the largest unions in Louisiana, the 4700 members of United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) were summarily fired with a stroke of Governor Kathleen Blanco’s pen. Dr. Brenda Mitchell, President of UTNO, says that her fellow members were insulted when it was time to hire some of the teachers back as they were required to reapply and pass a test. Nevertheless, the teacher’s union is slowly coming back as are other unions that have received a great deal of support from unions around the country.

Sunday, December 9th
@Iron Rail Bookstore (511 Marigny St., New Orleans, LA)
3pm

OK people. let’s get fucking serious.

• rents have doubled

• there is a critical shortage of rental units in our city, leading to high rents and lots of homeless people (see: New Orleans Hurt by Acute Rental Shortage)

• homeless people are camping in front of city hall and under the claiborne overpass

• developers are getting filthy fucking rich

• The pigs said they are going to evict Tent City on Tuesday, the 11th, because BLACKWATER bought the building next to the park and is going to fence the entire block off for construction of a new building.

...And the city is about to tear down hundreds of livable, affordable rental homes, the 4 largest public and housing complexes in the city, in like 2 weeks! it’s time to stand up and fight back!

This is the deal:

Sunday, 3pm, Iron Rail Books (511 Marigny St.) There will be a teach-in/organizing/strategy session for New Orleans anarchists and radicals at the Iron Rail about public housing, what’s been going on with it, and what is happening THIS WEEK.

Here’s a bit of background:

Public housing issues have been worked on by wingnuts and other unsavory idiots until recently, keeping/driving many radicals in new orleans away. And recently, activists put out a “call to action” for people from around the country to come to New Orleans and do civil disobedience to stop the Projects from being demolished. THERE IS 50-200 PEOPLE COMING!

Luckily, some of the less demoralized and exhausted among us local, not-crazy radicals have taken the lead in the organizing, and have gotten in touch with actual residents of public housing, are getting cool local people involved, and put together a website, which will serve as a place for information in the coming days. There is a “pledge of resistance” on it, and other stuff.

www.defendneworleanspublichousing.org

And here’s a quick run down of what’s going to be going down:

• Saturday at Loyola U. at 11am there is a meeting for all parties involved/interested in fighting to stop the demolition of public housing (and an expansive struggle from there).

• Sunday at Noon a couple of people will be going to Duncan Plaza (tent city) to talk to people about squatting movements around the world and possible courses of action. If anyone knows of a good pamphlet online about that, please put the link as a comment, otherwise we’ll make one.

• Sunday at 3pm there is the meeting at the Iron Rail

• Sunday night: stickers, wheatpasting, etc…

• Monday: 9am press conference at City Hall

• Monday: 2-11pm Nowe Miasto (223 Jane Place) will be serving as a check-in/convergence center for people coming in to town or anyone who wants to get involved

• Tuesday there will be a Direct Action training at Nowe Miasto for civil disobedience, legal info, background on the struggle, etc…

• Wednesday there will be a spokescouncil/large group meeting at Nowe Miasto to finalize action plans and strategy

• Thursday the 13th-Sunday 16th there will be 3 days of actions. each day will see an escalation of pressure and tactics.

• Monday the 10th-Sunday the 16th media activists will be set up at the iron rail who will be covering the protests, so if you want to get involved in that look for them there.

Flyers with info about the protests, direct action manuals, posters, and more will be available online at the website and also at the Iron Rail by this Sunday.

Enough is enough. Shit has to change. Let’s do it!

If there was any kind of real movement in this country, New Orleans would be the rallying cry and everyone would be down there. Anybody who can get there should get there. I generally don’t advocate violence, but is this not the kind of thing that people should be picking up guns over? This is exactly the kind of scenario where a bloodbath could make a real positive difference. I feel guilty that I can’t go myself, so ought to keep my mouth shut, but this calls for a real physical response that doesn’t let up.