world traveller (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jenkasjournal) wrote,@ 2005-10-22 04:53:00 |
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are new orleanians the new palestinians?
10/22/2005
new orleans, louisiana
here in the dim light of the garage we've turned into a makeshift studio and computer lab, i sit trying to collect my thoughts to launch a campaign to challenge the behavior of the new orleans police department.......but my thoughts and plans keep getting invaded by images -- images of the dried-out brown flood areas i've been driving through to bring food and water to some holdouts in east new orleans.....the brown, dried grass and mud mile after mile - abandoned homes with water lines 8 feet high, the toys-r-us with the sign broken off, the car dealerships with row after row of cars brown from floodwater......and the images of the people i've been talking to -- the old man who was arrested for trespassing just before the storm, and then found himself, along with hundreds of other prisoners, abandoned in old parish prison as the floodwaters rose around them, and those on the first floor died in their cells......he cried as he told me his story, his tears have struck me, as so many others, deep in my heart.
and the courage of charlestine jones, who came to us last week seeking our help to fight her landlord, who was illegally evicting her....and we helped her........we got together and planned and organized, we met the challenge and got together rallies and petitions, press conferences and faxes to the management -- activists in boston brought the tenants' demands to the office there, and in dc the same....in new orleans the manager had the list of demands delivered to his house.....and we won......today the owner agreed to four of the five demands, and the tenants are satisfied with that.....
but the struggle is just beginning.....
i had hoped to be in palestine by now.......but instead i am here in new orleans....i have no benefactors, no paycheck from FEMA or the government, but i am working, along with so many others in this project, out of my love for this city and her people....and for all people........i am working probably harder than i have worked in my life -- manual labor, mental labor, emotional labor....this is tiring work.....and i keep wondering, "where are all the volunteers?" we need so many more than we have.......we need the residents of this city to return and start working in the jobs that are being snatched up by outside contractors......we need people who can take care of their own needs and roll up their sleeves and work on cleanup....we need organizers and lawyers, environmentalists and engineers ..........
and the more i think about the need, and how vast it is, i find myself thinking about the residents of new orleans -- scattered and broken, in shelters and apartments across the country....and how many talented, skilled people have been pushed into diaspora, with no hope of returning. their jobs are being sold off to the lowest bidder, and the culture of new orleans has been split into ten thousand pieces in ten thousand shelters -- how will we piece this puzzle back together to bring new orleans back?? in a way, this is an american version of al-naqba (the catastrophe), that 1948 event when the state of israel was created and the palestinians were pushed out of their homes and scattered to the wind.
so, in a way i am already in palestine -- the 'occupied west bank', the white settlements on what used to be brown peoples' lands, the corporate looters coming in to get rich off the disaster while the indigenous new orleanians are thrown to the wind to make their own ways in new lands.
are new orleanians going to be the new palestinians? refugees in their own country, forced out of their destroyed and battered homes to make way for the developers and their plans and money-making schemes? or will we fight back.....and remake new orleans in the image of a sustainable economy and community....with public control of resources and a safe, sustainable environmental cleanup and rebuilding of the levies?
the plot thickens....stay tuned to this series for the next climax in this movie.....(or come down here yourself and help us clean this place up! -- see http://www.commongroundrelief.org for more info)
starhawk has written a good piece about the situation right now in new orleans, and the common ground collective that i am working with:
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activi
and another one entitled, "Who will take out the garbage?"
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activi
here is the weblog of a guy who is volunteering here (check the entry 'hostile takeover'):
http://www.bringdownbush.org/blog/
check the audio interviews and reports i have made at:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/
and if you have time today (october 22nd - day of action against police brutality), consider sending an email or making a call to challenge police brutality and prison conditions in new orleans:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
10/22/2005
new orleans, louisiana
here in the dim light of the garage we've turned into a makeshift studio and computer lab, i sit trying to collect my thoughts to launch a campaign to challenge the behavior of the new orleans police department.......but my thoughts and plans keep getting invaded by images -- images of the dried-out brown flood areas i've been driving through to bring food and water to some holdouts in east new orleans.....the brown, dried grass and mud mile after mile - abandoned homes with water lines 8 feet high, the toys-r-us with the sign broken off, the car dealerships with row after row of cars brown from floodwater......and the images of the people i've been talking to -- the old man who was arrested for trespassing just before the storm, and then found himself, along with hundreds of other prisoners, abandoned in old parish prison as the floodwaters rose around them, and those on the first floor died in their cells......he cried as he told me his story, his tears have struck me, as so many others, deep in my heart.
and the courage of charlestine jones, who came to us last week seeking our help to fight her landlord, who was illegally evicting her....and we helped her........we got together and planned and organized, we met the challenge and got together rallies and petitions, press conferences and faxes to the management -- activists in boston brought the tenants' demands to the office there, and in dc the same....in new orleans the manager had the list of demands delivered to his house.....and we won......today the owner agreed to four of the five demands, and the tenants are satisfied with that.....
but the struggle is just beginning.....
i had hoped to be in palestine by now.......but instead i am here in new orleans....i have no benefactors, no paycheck from FEMA or the government, but i am working, along with so many others in this project, out of my love for this city and her people....and for all people........i am working probably harder than i have worked in my life -- manual labor, mental labor, emotional labor....this is tiring work.....and i keep wondering, "where are all the volunteers?" we need so many more than we have.......we need the residents of this city to return and start working in the jobs that are being snatched up by outside contractors......we need people who can take care of their own needs and roll up their sleeves and work on cleanup....we need organizers and lawyers, environmentalists and engineers ..........
and the more i think about the need, and how vast it is, i find myself thinking about the residents of new orleans -- scattered and broken, in shelters and apartments across the country....and how many talented, skilled people have been pushed into diaspora, with no hope of returning. their jobs are being sold off to the lowest bidder, and the culture of new orleans has been split into ten thousand pieces in ten thousand shelters -- how will we piece this puzzle back together to bring new orleans back?? in a way, this is an american version of al-naqba (the catastrophe), that 1948 event when the state of israel was created and the palestinians were pushed out of their homes and scattered to the wind.
so, in a way i am already in palestine -- the 'occupied west bank', the white settlements on what used to be brown peoples' lands, the corporate looters coming in to get rich off the disaster while the indigenous new orleanians are thrown to the wind to make their own ways in new lands.
are new orleanians going to be the new palestinians? refugees in their own country, forced out of their destroyed and battered homes to make way for the developers and their plans and money-making schemes? or will we fight back.....and remake new orleans in the image of a sustainable economy and community....with public control of resources and a safe, sustainable environmental cleanup and rebuilding of the levies?
the plot thickens....stay tuned to this series for the next climax in this movie.....(or come down here yourself and help us clean this place up! -- see http://www.commongroundrelief.org for more info)
starhawk has written a good piece about the situation right now in new orleans, and the common ground collective that i am working with:
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activi
and another one entitled, "Who will take out the garbage?"
http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activi
here is the weblog of a guy who is volunteering here (check the entry 'hostile takeover'):
http://www.bringdownbush.org/blog/
check the audio interviews and reports i have made at:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/
and if you have time today (october 22nd - day of action against police brutality), consider sending an email or making a call to challenge police brutality and prison conditions in new orleans:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
