<!doctype html public "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
<html><head><style type="text/css"><!--
blockquote, dl, ul, ol, li { padding-top: 0 ; padding-bottom: 0 }
--></style><title>Death, Abundance and New
Orleans</title></head><body>
<div>Message from Bridget Lehane of People's Institute for Survival
and Beyond in New Orleans.</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>For folks who haven't had an update on
life in New Orleans for a while, this is a pretty accurate picture,
beautifully painted by one of our good friends and allies, Jordan
Flaherty.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Peace<br>
<br>
Note: forwarded message attached.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
<br>
Bridget Lehane<br>
New Orleans, LA<br>
<br>
-------------------<br>
Life is good.<br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab><x-tab>
</x-tab></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>
<hr size="1"></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>Yahoo! Shopping<br>
Find Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at <a href="">Yahoo!
Shopping</a></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
X-Apparently-To: bridgetlehane@yahoo.com via 68.142.206.85; Wed, 14
Dec 2005 22:12:51 -0800<br>
X-Originating-IP: [69.90.134.154]<br>
Authentication-Results: mta188.mail.mud.yahoo.com<br>
from=leftturn.org; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)<br>
Received: from 69.90.134.154 (EHLO piper.riseup.net)
(69.90.134.154)<br>
by mta188.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 14 Dec 2005
22:12:46 -0800<br>
Received: by piper.riseup.net (Postfix, from userid 1001)<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>id 04B0A3F398; Wed, 14 Dec 2005
22:12:45 -0800 (PST)<br>
X-Original-To: jordanhurricane@lists.riseup.net<br>
Delivered-To: riseup+jordanhurricane@piper.riseup.net<br>
Received: by piper.riseup.net (Postfix, from userid 1001)<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>id 1429A3F06F;
Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:12:16 -0800 (PST)<br>
To: jordanhurricane@lists.riseup.net<br>
From: neworleans@leftturn.org<br>
In-Reply-To:<br>
MIME-Version: 1.0<br>
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 22:12:16 -0800 (PST)<br>
Reply-To: jordanhurricane@lists.riseup.net,neworleans@leftturn.org<br>
X-Loop: jordanhurricane@lists.riseup.net<br>
X-Sequence: 15<br>
Errors-to: jordanhurricane-owner@lists.riseup.net<br>
Precedence: list<br>
X-no-archive: yes<br>
List-Id: <jordanhurricane.lists.riseup.net><br>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa@lists.riseup.net?subject=help><br>
List-Subscribe:
<mailto:sympa@lists.riseup.net?subject=subscribe%20jordanhurricane><br
>
List-Unsubscribe:
<mailto:sympa@lists.riseup.net?subject=unsubscribe%20jordanhurrica<span
></span>ne><br>
List-Post: <mailto:jordanhurricane@lists.riseup.net><br>
List-Owner:
<mailto:jordanhurricane-request@lists.riseup.net><br>
List-Archive:
<http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/jordanhurricane><br>
Subject: [jordanhurricane] Death, Abundance and New Orleans<br>
Content-type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="----------=_1134627144-22618-9623"<br>
Content-Length: 5411<br>
<br>
Death, Abundance and New Orleans<br>
By Jordan Flaherty<br>
Wednesday, December 14, 2005<br>
<br>
On Sunday, I drove past streets named Abundance, Pleasure and Humanity
to a memorial for Meg Perry, a 26 year old Common Ground Collective
volunteer from Maine. Meg died on Saturday when the bus she was
in crashed near downtown New Orleans. She had come to New
Orleans in September, then left and returned with more volunteers.
The memorial was in a community garden she had been working on in the
Gentilly neighborhood. All around were empty houses. It
was a small moment of mourning, in a city of mourning. Mourning
that feels like it wonít end, because the disaster hasnít
ended.<br>
<br>
Walking the streets of New Orleans, itís hard to escape the feeling
of death and loss. The city is heavy with the weight of those
not present. Many neighborhoods are still dark, not even streetlights
or stop lights, with long stretches of houses that have been abandoned
for months. Even Central City, a mostly Black neighborhood that saw
little flooding, is mostly dark and empty, although nearby (whiter)
neighborhoods like the Lower Garden District are more populated.<br>
<br>
You almost never see children in the new New Orleans. And there
is still a 2 am curfew. Iíve heard several reports of people
being arrested for sitting on their porch at 2. As temperatures
drop, much of the city doesnít have gas service. Every door
has a spray painted symbol from the National Guard, marking that they
entered the house to look for bodies. <br>
<br>
Compared to much of the city, my neighborhood was not hit hard by the
storm, but months later there are still mountains of debris on the
street and no regular trash pick up. I havenít received mail from
August, much less September through December. FEMA left a note
on my door saying that because they couldnít see our roof from the
street, they reserve the right to break into our home anytime in the
next six months to inspect it.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
The longer homes stay empty, the worse things get. Houses that
were left empty have been infested with insects and refrigerators left
with food are filled with maggots. New Orleans already had a massive
termite infestation ñ I can only assume that while the city was
empty it got worse. Iíve heard the rat population has
multiplied. In garbage hauling alone, the city needs to dispose of at
least 22 million tons, 15 times the debris removed after the Sept. 11
attacks on the World Trade Center.<br>
<br>
Disaster response has political repercussions. Corruption and
stealing of post-earthquake disaster aid in 1972 contributed to the
fall of the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. The faulty federal
response to the 1985 earthquake that hit Mexico City ignited a
grassroots movement in Mexico that helped to end the PRI
governmentís decades of one party rule. And, of course, the 1927
flooding of the Mississippi River helped to elect Huey P Long governor
of Louisiana. <br>
<br>
Within two weeks post-Katrina, Michael Brown of FEMA resigned. New
Orleans police Superintendent Eddie Compass followed soon after.
Now, Marsha Evans, president of Red Cross, has also been forced out.
As soon as we are able to have an election in our city, Mayor Nagin
will be gone. And Bush administration poll numbers have been in
free fall. The stakes are high, and the possibilities for change are
real.<br>
<br>
When I saw the floodwaters rising in New Orleans, I expected poor
people would be cut out of the reconstruction money. What has
surprised me is the extent to which the entire city has been left out.
While some local elites have profited, much of the money has gone to
disaster profiteers from Halliburton and Blackwater and bureaucrats
from major relief organizations. And, on a deeper level, the
money necessary to rebuild New Orleans simply hasnít come. We
still donít even know if the levees will be rebuilt, or to what
level. As the New York Times pointed out in a powerful editorial
this week, we are facing the death of a city, and we feel the rest of
the country has forgotten us.<br>
<br>
Money for rebuilding and relief has arrived from across the US.
However, only pennies compared to the 1.5 billion dollars Red Cross
has collected so far. And many organizations are providing only a
dubious service. ìCan anyone tell me why the SPCA is still
breaking into homes to look for animals?î a friend asked.
ìItís been almost four months. Peoples pets have either
survived or they havenít.î<br>
<br>
Another friend who is working for a big relief organization expressed
her concerns to me ìWeíre getting $35 a day for food, on top of
our salaries,î she said. ìThings take forever to be approved
- sometimes so long that by the time we have the support we need, the
effort has passed. Thereís so much money behind usówe can do
pretty much whatever we want and donít have to worry about funding,
but it feeds lifestyles that are much more demanding than Iíd hope
relief workers would be.î<br>
<br>
Progressive resources have been scarce. With the financial and
political support of the labor movement, progressive organizers in New
Orleans could create a union city deep in the traditionally non-union
south. The labor movement pledged hundreds of thousands of
dollars towards relief, and some union organizers and activists came
down to struggle with grassroots groups. But, so far, the vast
resources potentially available from labor have been absent.<br>
<br>
Progressive and liberal foundations and nonprofits will spend millions
of dollars more, but its very likely most of that money will not go to
New Orleans-initiated projects. One funder I spoke to told me
that foundations have received very few funding requests from new
Orleans-based projects ñ no doubt because many excellent New Orleans
based projects are too overwhelmed to write grants right now.
She told me that several outside organizations have leaped into this
vacuum to apply for this money, while local projects will be left
out.<br>
<br>
New Orleans ñ and the south in general ñ has a long history of
outsiders spending large sums of money for organizing without
community leadership or involvement. Efforts like this always
fail. The AFL-CIO spent millions of dollars in the late 90s on
an effort called HOT-ROC to organize the hospitality industry in New
Orleans. Several years and hundreds of organizers later, the
campaign quietly folded up shop, without organizing a single worker.
Meanwhile, vital local efforts go unfunded and
unsupported.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br>
For example, NO HEAT ñ the New Orleans Housing Emergency Action
Team, a local organization with no paid staff or grants ñ has set up
a phone tree, currently with at least 50 people, to respond
immediately to any evictions. Theyíve had demonstrations,
press conferences and community meetings, and work closely with the
Peopleís Hurricane Fund legal network.<br>
<br>
The Latino Health Outreach Project is another small local effort that
has been doing vital work with virtually no funding or attention from
outside New Orleans. They have been setting up clinics for
Latino day laborers wherever they can find them ñ from the hotels
and campsites theyíre staying in to a restaurant on Canal Street
many hang out at on Friday nights.<br>
<br>
Catherine Jones, who helped initiate the project, writes,<br>
<br>
ìThe stories we are hearing from workers are so monumental we
donít know what to do with them. Some people are working in
mold-infested houses with no masks or protective gear; some contract
laborers are being imprisoned in hotels by their bosses, who wonít
let them leave the premises once they return from the dayís work.
People are working six and seven days a week, often for ten or more
hours a day. We have talked to many day laborers who donít get paid
after working for a day or even an entire week. These cold nights,
many people are sleeping in tents while their bosses stay next door in
heated trailers. Some people sleep under cars or bridges. Everyone is
worried about flu, what it will mean to get sick in this climate where
no job is guaranteed and a dayís wage helps support as many as ten
people back home. <br>
<br>
ìA friend who used to live near the clinic told us how one day, when
he and some other people were going to work in Chalmette, they got
stopped by the police at the checkpoint and the police asked them for
their green cards. Our friend showed his Texas driversí license and
explained that he didnít have a green card since heís a US
citizen. ëYou need a green card,í they said. They turned back the
entire truck and told everyone they couldnít go to work that
day.î<br>
<br>
<br>
Iím no voice for New Orleans. Iím white, Iíve only lived
here a few years, and my house didnít flood. There are many
people who can speak more effectively about what is happening in New
Orleans ñ and some have. At the same time, there are still so
many stories that arenít getting out. And many of the people
who would be the best ones to tell them are too overwhelmed with the
losses weíve all faced.<br>
<br>
So, on behalf of everyone in New Orleans too overwhelmed to write
right now, please, donít forget us. Weíre still
drowning.<br>
<br>
=====================================<br>
Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn
Magazine. This is his thirteenth article from New
Orleans. Jordanís previous articles from New Orleans are
at
http://www.leftturn.org/articles/SpecialCollections/katrina.aspx<br>
=====================================<br>
Based on conversations with organizers and community members, Left
Turn Magazine has compiled a list of grassroots New Orleans
organizations focused on relief, recovery, social justice and cultural
preservation that need your support. The list is online at<br>
http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/Viewer.aspx?id=689&type=W<br>
=====================================<br>
<br>
If you want to know whatís up in New Orleans, and read more about
the Latino Health Outreach Project, racial profiling in the city and
more, see these writings by Catherine Jones: <br>
http://floodlines.blogspot.com/<br>
You can also listen to Catherine interviewed at
http://www.againstthegrain.org/audio12.12.05.mp3<br>
<br>
Comprehensive website for information and action related to prisoners
in New Orleans: http://www.criticalresistance.org/katrina/<br>
<br>
More info on Meg Perry:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/12/6551.php<br>
<br>
Other Resources for information and action:<br>
<br>
Reconstruction Watch - http://www.reconstructionwatch.org/<br>
Common Ground - http://www.commongroundrelief.org<br>
Peoples Hurricane Fund - http://www.communitylaborunited.net<br>
Resource for Journalists - http://www.katrinainfonet.net<br>
Justice for New Orleans -
http://www.justiceforneworleans.org/</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team
- http://www.no-heat.org/<br>
<br>
<br>
This is a low-volume email list for Jordan Flaherty's emails from New
Orleans. To subscribe, email
jordanhurricane-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. To unsubscribe,
email jordanhurricane-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
</body>
</html>