Bulldozing of public housing will begin as early as December 15. Lafitte is in better condition thatn 70% of buildings in Orleans Parish. Despite this, develoopers will use tax dollars to demolish sound structures that could be rehabitated, use tax dollars to build new "mixed income facilities" that cannot possibly house all prior residents, then use tax dollars to displace people to Section 8 housing far from their friends, family, and neighbors.... not to be completed for years to come... at a time when rents are sky high, there are 12,000-18,000 homeless people in the city and FEMA is cutting people off of rental assistance.
Polls close in just a few hours. Electing Malcolm Suber (78 on the ballot) to the New Orleans City Council At-Large seat is an opportunity for our movements to gain a strong voice in the Council and build our struggles for justice, dignity and reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf South. Malcolm is running to provide an alternative to the elected politicians who have failed us and will continue to fail us. We need representatives from among the workers, from African Americans, women and youth. It is up to us together to fight for our rights and make sure we elect people that stand for us. Malcolm has a thirty year history of doing just that. He is a long-time fighter for the working class and people. He has stood up for the rights of Katrina survivors, fought for rent control and battled against police racism and brutality. He is running in this election to represent the demands of the people and make the government pay for reconstruction.
BUT THE CLOCK IS TICKING AND WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT!
First, VOTE MALCOLM SUBER FOR CITY-COUNCIL-AT-LARGE, 78, TODAY, SATURDAY OCT 20. Getting yourself and your friends and family to the polls is crucial for our struggle to get a real representative of the people on the City Council. Also, there are a number of other things you can still do to help:
Hold a sign for Malcolm. For more information, or to get a sign to hold, call Sam at 416-9215.
Send the following text message to everyone you know in New Orleans: Don't forget to Vote Malcolm Suber 78 Council at Large www.malcolmforcouncil.com
FORWARD THIS LIST TO ALL YOUR EMAIL CONTACTS!
Please check out the endorsement from Nation magazine below. Thanks and see you at the victory party and anywhere we must go to fight injustice. ------------------------------------------------------- Malcolm Suber: Good for New Orleans
by ADOLPH REED JR.
[posted online on October 12, 2007]
Editor's Note: It is not The Nation's usual practice to run endorsements of individual candidates by our writers. But longtime contributor Adolph Reed, Jr., an expatriate New Orleanian, made a special case for the importance of Malcolm Suber's campaign for city council in that beleaguered city, where the most vulnerable of Katrina's victims have far too few political representatives fighting for their interests. Here is his letter to progressives concerned about New Orleans' future.
The greatest need in New Orleans now is for a direct, politically effective challenge to the prevailing framework of "market-driven" recovery, the results of which are as clear as they were predictable. The neighborhoods, and sections of neighborhoods, where there are signs of recovery are those where residents had resources before the storm. Elsewhere, the situation ranges from very spotty to bleak. Period. This pattern crosscuts race; the deeper truth of the outrageous injustice that defines life in the city is that property ownership is the sine qua non for consideration as part of the civic community in the calculus of recovery and rebuilding. This is Milton Friedman's ideal, an eighteenth-century model of citizenship.
Several groups in New Orleans have been fighting resolutely since the city was still under water to inject the interests of displaced public housing residents and other poor and working people into local political debates and planning processes for the city's reconstruction. One of the travesties associated with Katrina is that so far those groups' efforts have not gained real political traction. In late September, for example, Federal District Court Judge Ivan Lemelle, a Clinton appointee, blithely approved the Housing Authority of New Orleans's (HANO) plan to destroy 4,500 units of low-income public housing in the city -- despite the city's critical housing shortage, including rents that have nearly doubled since the storm, and over continuing protests and legal challenges. Advocates for public housing residents are appealing the decision, but even if they ultimately succeed in reversing it, the victory will be both a purely defensive one and too late for many.
As important as that advocacy is, like the ongoing work to rebuild housing for those who remain displaced, unless the underlying framework for recovery is challenged, all those efforts will amount to trying to drain Lake Pontchartrain with a teacup. Local activists are keenly aware of that fact and have been discussing possibilities for mounting a united political offensive for more than a year, but until now their efforts have lacked a focal point. That is why it inspired such excitement when Malcolm Suber, a well-known activist in the city, announced his candidacy in the October 20 special election for the at-large seat on the City Council vacated when Council President Oliver Thomas resigned in a bribery scandal.
Suber, who has been agitating in the city for three decades, is known as a person with clear, principled politics and is rooted in the local political scene. He is a former political science instructor at Xavier University and long-time union activist. (In the spirit of full disclosure, Malcolm and I were graduate school classmates and worked closely together in activist politics in Atlanta in the early 1970s.) For decades he has been in the forefront of the fight against police lawlessness and brutality in New Orleans. He is a founder and key leader of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF), which has been the main vehicle for agitation and advocacy on behalf of poor and working people since the storm. He has a substantial electoral constituency and a solid organization behind him. And the campaign has begun to realize the potential for galvanizing progressives and other affected constituencies into a coherent political voice in the city. This undertaking has already been endorsed by the Green Party of Louisiana, C3-Hands off Iberville and Survivors' Village (the two main groups agitating to defend public housing for poor people), several ministerial and neighborhood associations, Malik Rahim of Common Ground, Bill Quigley, Loyola University law professor and lead attorney for the displaced public housing tenants, and various other prominent union, community and social justice activists.
Suber's campaign rests on a platform that asserts the public sector's central role in shaping and implementing a just recovery. "The right to return," Suber insists, "remains an empty phrase unless policies are adopted by governmental officials that make it possible for our people to return." Thus his campaign pledges to fight for federal legislation to re-open public housing developments in the city and provide assistance to returning tenants and to return control of public housing to local government. He promises to counter the explosion in rental rates post-Katrina by sponsoring a rent control ordinance that will also provide property tax reductions to owners of residential rental property. He also promises to be a strong advocate for an overhaul of the Road Home program to provide homeowners with adequate assistance to repair storm-damaged homes. And he would require all major development projects in the city to provide assistance for affordable housing.
He proposes to open health clinics at public schools, increase funding for community-based health clinics, and secure funding for the City's Health Department to provide free health screenings for the public. Perhaps most crucially, he pledges to fight for the reopening of Charity Hospital .
Suber's platform includes a pledge to introduce and fight for an ordinance requiring businesses with 50 or more employees in the city to pay a minimum wage of $16 per hour -- "to insure that the working people of the new New Orleans, especially those women and men in the service industry, are able to escape poverty and provide the creature comforts of life for themselves and their families." In addition, he proposes another ordinance that recognizes the rights of workers to organize unions and establishes penalties for any employer who attempts acts of retaliation or intimidation to limit that right. "When I am elected as your councilman," he says, "I will work tirelessly to make the new New Orleans a union friendly town."
He takes a clear and resolute stand against the privatization of public schools in New Orleans, which has proceeded rapidly and without debate in the aftermath of the flood, and for increased public accountability and openness in public education and all facets of local government. He calls for open government and an end to corrupt and sweetheart contracting.
Recognizing that many of the city's needs can be addressed only through a regional approach and serious federal commitment, he endorses the call for a Gulf Coast Civic Works Project, on the model of the Works Progress Administration, for rebuilding physical and social infrastructure along the region devastated by Katrina and Rita.
This campaign could be the most important development in local politics in post-Katrina New Orleans. In a city whose politics has been characterized by intense racial polarization before Katrina and since, Suber is the one candidate who is attempting to appeal broadly to New Orleanians on the basis of a concrete vision for the city that transcends those divisions and is genuinely inclusive. His campaign's base is solidly anchored in the city's poor and working class black communities. He also has always sought to work with progressive and civic-minded whites from the affluent Uptown and Lakefront areas as well as white workers, and he has worked conscientiously to build alliances within the city's Latino and Vietnamese communities. A Suber victory would provide the Council with a clear and resolute voice that insists that all those constituencies be included among the circle of stakeholders in the crafting of the city's recovery and physical and economic reconstruction.
And this is a seat that can be won. There are thirteen candidates in the field, including several incumbent and recent officeholders. The coalition that has formed around Suber's campaign is in a strong position to secure a place in the runoff between the two highest finishers. And then the real debate for the city's future begins.
As an all-too-close observer of the human consequences of the depressingly narrow, class-skewed political discourse that has gripped the city since the storm, I can say emphatically that without some aggressive intervention into local political debate, there is little hope for a just and fair alternative to the Friedmanite vision currently driving the city's recovery. As long as that prevails, all the rebuilding efforts of church groups, Habitat for Humanity and other volunteers will amount to little. Therefore, I urge Nation readers who want to help restore New Orleans on a just basis to support the Suber campaign in whatever way possible.
Contributions can be made and information obtained on line at malcolmforcitycouncil.com.
Checks should be made out to Campaign to Elect Malcolm Suber and mailed to the campaign at 1200 Carondelet Street, Suite 1, New Orleans, LA 70130 .
How to Fuck over an Immigrant (Repost from SG Politics)
Current mood: busy
Category: News and Politics
Note: While I disagree with the use of the term "illegal," preferring "undocumented," I think the story below is well written and makes an important point:
Pedro Zapeta came to America from Guatemala 13 years ago as an illegal immigrant. He lived and worked in Florida, washing dishes and living as cheaply as he could. The plan was to save as much as he could, then return to Guatemala, buy land and build a home for his family. Two years ago, he headed to the airport with $59,000 in a duffel bag ready to start his new life.
Clearly, that was a bad idea. Airport security and customs are not big on people flying around with large bags of cash. Anyone who enters or leaves the country with more than ten grand must fill out a form declaring the money. Pedro did not know that. US customs seized his money.
Officials initially accused Zapeta of being a courier for the drug trade, but they dropped the allegation once he produced pay stubs from restaurants where he had worked. Zapeta earned $5.50 an hour at most of the places where he washed dishes.
Pedro was then turned over to the INS. INS released him and began deportation proceedings. Which is odd, because dude was trying to leave. But now he is not. Why? Because the government has decided to keep his money.
Lawyers have been working pro bono to get his money back and fight his deportation.
"They are treating me like a criminal when all I am is a working man," he said.
Whatever, criminal. You came here and worked jobs for minimum wage or less without paying taxes. And you lived here illegally, which basically means you stole our money. You may as well have killed our babies. But still, well meaning people heard the criminal's story and donated $10,000, which was put into a trust.
The government did offer Pedro a deal:
He could take $10,000 of the original cash seized, plus $9,000 in donations as long as he didn't talk publicly and left the country immediately.
Uh, what the fuck? Who went to arbitrary number school? How about you take out the tax money Pedro didn't pay and let him keep the rest? And then go after his employers. But we've decided to keep his money and spend our resources fighting it in court. Is it possible to be any more horrible?
Now the Internal Revenue Service wants access to the donated cash to cover taxes on the donations and on the money Zapeta made as a dishwasher.
Right, we can be more horrible. Here's a better idea: Why not keep the $59,000, take the $10,000 and then make him pay taxes on the money that we took? That is what America is all about.
But hey, at least things are looking down for Pedro.
On Wednesday, Zapeta went to immigration court and got more bad news. The judge gave the dishwasher until the end of January to leave the country on his own. He's unlikely to see a penny of his money.
Check out this event: New Orleans International Human Rights Film Fest
Hosted By: jordan flaherty When: Thursday Apr 12, 2007 at 7:00 PM Where: Various Spots Around New Orleans see website! New Orleans, LA 70112 United States Description: jordan flaherty
The job market is so competitive in New Orleans these days. I LOVE not getting enough work doing dockwork, but it's not paying the bills. I've had a number of interviews, some in-person and some on the phone. None of which have resulted in an immediate job offer. I'm waiting to hear back on at least two that I think went really well. In the meantime, I'm sick. So, once again, surfing the net. While looking at the latest job postings on Craigslist, somethign piqued my curiosity. Resumes. Yes, people were putting their resumes out there for potential employers and others to dee. How could I resist? After all, what else is out there?
As soon I clicked on it my eyes were drawn to
"I WILL work FOR $4/hr, I have work EXPERIENCE"...college degree in marketing...
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