world traveller (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jenkasjournal) wrote,@ 2005-11-02 23:05:00 |
|
the informal sector, the rhizome and relief
i left new orleans for a couple of days, to speak at the conference of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television about indymedia, new technology and journalism in a disaster area.....
as the plane lifted off, i looked down at new orleans....the flooded area so clearly distinct from the non-flood area: the browned branches of trees, the mud-caked walls of houses........lake ponchartrain, much bigger than the city itself, with one small line - the causeway -- crossing the lake.....and the thought of trying to escape a crowded city on that little line with 100+ mph winds whipping around became a very frightening prospect indeed.
but my thoughts soon drifted as the plane flew higher, and i began to think in more general terms about the bigger picture of what is happening down in new orleans and the gulf coast. as i watched the patchwork of farmland and city streets, it appeared that the gridwork was pushing up against the more organic forms of trees, snaking rivers and mountains......in some instances, it seemed that the vein-like spread of forests and swamps was pushing back against the grid.....and i thought about the image that some in the activist community have chosen to represent 'the movement' of people working for social justice: the rhizome.
the rhizome is a natural organism that spreads, root-like, underground -- it is self-replicating, and decentralized in its growth. tentacle-like fingers reach out from one organism to the next, reaching, curving, touching, a web-like network crossing the landscape.
watching the vein/root-like spread of nature battling the grid structure of the cities, i started to think of our way of organizing relief aid -- the rhizome-like, organic, flexible, spontaneous spread of the common ground model of relief coming head-to-head with the rigid, structured, top-down and immobile model offered by FEMA and the government. their model, based on a comamand-control structure, stood by while hundreds of people drowned in their homes after the post-katrina flood in new orleans. their model did not allow for the flexibility and creativity necessary to save the people, to evacuate and to bring them to dry ground. in fact, their structure and focus became an obstacle to helping the people in their time of desperate need. police in gretna, just across the river from new orleans, prevented new orleans residents from crossing the bridge into gretna -- the soaked, weary residents waded onto the bridge from the toxic flood water below to try to cross into gretna (where evacuation buses were lined up and waiting at the mall parking lot), but were shot at by gretna police firing live ammunition over their heads, and forced to turn back into the flood water.
why is the story being told and repeated throughout the country about the new orleans flood still the story of looting and shooting? haven't you learned by now that this story was a red herring? A media smokescreen? a story by which the news media diverted attention away from the desperate cries for help from the thousands of people abandoned in the flooded city toward a false image of a black criminal class that was to blame for all the problems? i can't believe that even now, two months later, people are still asking me about the looting -- hasn't the truth about that been exposed by now??
but then, i remember how the top-down structure of government-led relief, in combination with a state-run corporate media, shaped the picture of post-katrina new orleans, and i realize it is no wonder that people are still so misled in the news they receive about new orleans and the gulf coast.
so let me tell you a story - a story which is one small part of the emerging story of post-hurricane new orleans. this is a story i have pieced together out of dozens of personal interviews....a story verified by hundreds of independent accounts compiled by human rights watch and other groups working in the area. but it is a story that, despite all evidence to the contrary, continues to be denied by the authorities. it is the story of the prisoners in old parish prison, who were, by all accounts, left behind on the day after the hurricane hit and the flooding began.
the day before the hurricane, many of the prisoners who were on the first floor were moved up to the second floor before the guards evacuated, but no other measure was taken by the guards to ensure the survival of the prisoners. there were prisoners left on the first floor who died in their cells. no one knows how many -- the prisoners don't know, they were stuck in their own cells and couldn't tell how many were stuck below, and the authorities aren't talking - they deny that anyone died at all.
when the guards evacuated, they left some food for the prisoners, but not much. then the water started pouring in. the first floor filled with water, and the prisoners on the second floor, as they heard the drowning cries of those below, began to panic. the water was rising, dirty, oily, smelling of sewage and toxins -- they took whatever they could find and tried to bash through the windows. the water rose to chest level and stopped rising.....the men (there were women prisoners, as well, but they were not on the second floor) reached for anything they could find to hit the windows....some men, who had been put in the gymnasium by guards, managed to use a basketball hoop. others, locked in a large cell, used a door fastener they had managed to break loose......it took many hours, but at last, some of the prisoners managed to break through the windows and escape into the flooded hallways. they joined together and tried to get out of the building......bodies floated by, both inside and outside the building. and at last, a day later, a boat arrived with a couple of guards who had the decency (well, as an afterthought, anyway) to come back for the prisoners.
the men and women were brought by boat to a highway overpass (an island in the flooded city), where they were made to wait in their sewage-soaked clothing with no food and water for another full day, until they were taken off by bus to various federal facilities. with their records lost, and no one paying any attention to who was who - who was in prison for a felony, and who was just there on an overnight charge for trespassing or drunkenness - it has taken two months, and only just now are these prisoners beginning to be released.
listen to the first-hand account of stanley, a 65 year old man who was arrested the day before the hurricane on a bogus trespassing charge, and ended up almost dying, and remaining in prison for weeks:
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/200
first-hand account of dale:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
now let me tell you another story. it is the story of charlestine jones, a mother of two daughters currently being evicted from her home with nowhere to go. it is the same story of bertha dugas, and of sonia khan, a guatemalan grandmother with her whole family of eleven crowded into her one-bedroom apartment (because her daughter's home was damaged).....also being evicted with no place to go. it is a story of blatant corruption, of greedy landlords and real estate agents trying to make money off their insurance claims by claiming hurricane damage when in fact there was none..............this is a story of intrigue and secret deals, of re-development schemes and crooked politicians....and the story goes to the mayor's office, the governor's office, the federal government......it is the story of a system corrupted from the bottom to the top.
when i first wrote to you all about new orleans, i sent along a letter that i had written to my congressman about the failure of the government to respond to the crisis, in which i advocated that control of the local situation be placed into the hands of new orleans mayor ray nagin. i still think that is the case -- that in the emergency crisis, local control needed to be given in order to safely and quickly evacuate the population. and i think that ray nagin has enough knowledge of local geography and resources that he would have been more than able to oversee the evacuation, had he been given the authority to do so.
but after the initial crisis has passed, and it is time to start the cleanup and rebuilding process, ray nagin has shown himself to be the stooge he was (s)elected to be. not long after the hurricane, he made the statement that the rebuilding of new orleans should be modelled on the way the st. thomas housing projects (in new orleans) were redeveloped several years ago. this is a sick and twisted statement - considering the way the st. thomas housing projects were redeveloped at the absolute expense of the poor folks who lived there.....the people were lied to at every stage of the process: first, they were promised that the redevelopment would be wholly to their benefit.....the first row of homes were then torn down and condos built in their place......although the people of st. thomas housing projects did not see any benefit from that (those whose homes were torn down were displaced, and high-paying tenants put into the new condos), they were told that the next row of condos would be for them. then, the next row, then the next. but at every stage of the 'redevelopment', citizens from st. thomas were displaced and replaced by high-paying renters, until, after a two-year process, the low-income tenants had ALL been replaced, the housing project had become high-priced condos and a walmart, and pres kasnakoff the developer had fattened his pocket with quite a hefty profit.
now pres kasnakoff and his pals are part of mayor nagin's "rebuilding new orleans" redevelopment commission, and are looking to make some hefty profits from this latest venture as well. it doesn't seem to matter to these greed-driven developers that many of those displaced from the st. thomas housing projects ended up in sub-standard housing in the lower ninth ward, the area that took on the most water during the flood -- who knows how many elderly, sick and handicapped people drowned because they couldn't escape from the lower 9th ward.......it doesn't seem to bother pres kasnakoff and his real estate buddies that they are displacing the poorest of the poor, who have suffered more than any humans should ever have to suffer in their lives........it doesn't seem to affect the consciences of these businessmen at all that their 'redevelopment plan' means the literal throwing-out of thousands of these poorest people with no place to go and no resources, rendering them invisible so that the richest few can build casinos and money-making tourist traps on top of what used to be their homes. you may think i am being over-dramatic here -- i wish that i were being over-dramatic.....but after looking into the eyes of the folks who are being thrown out onto the street with no place to go, and having inside peeks at the twisted dealings of the old-boy network of developers, businessmen and politicians, i am afraid that this is in no way an over-dramaticization of these very real, and extremely disturbing, events.
i know this journal is getting long.....i am always way too long-winded....but there is something else that i feel i really need to share.....i mentioned earlier about the rhizome structure, and how much more effective it is than the hierarchy in getting things done......and i just feel i need to illustrate this by pointing out that, despite the fact that both FEMA and the red cross have tens of billions of dollars in aid money to spend, they have gotten very little real help to people in need. in new orleans, for example, there is NO FEMA relief center open to the public on the east side of the mississippi (where the vast majority of new orleans' citizens live). the only FEMA center open to the public is at Landry High School in Algiers. the place is staffed by FEMA workers and blackwater security forces - the blackwater soldiers outnumber the FEMA workers about 5 to 1. (Blackwater Security, you may remember, gained infamy early in the war against Iraq when its members were implicated in torture in Abu-Ghraib and other prisons........the mercenary soldiers grew to be so hated by the Iraqi people that four of them were killed by mobs and their bodies dragged through the streets of Fallujah -- an event which led to the US invasion/decimation of the city of Fallujah in revenge)
so anyway, Landry high school is crawling with mercenary soldiers, and people going there seeking aid are routinely turned away. if you are lucky enough to be able to convince the guard at the front that you are indeed worthy of receiving aid, you are ushered into the gymnasium where some tables are set up, and, after a considerable wait, you are brought to a FEMA worker who connects to the internet and tries to go through the FEMA application process on the FEMA website. now, if any of you have tried going through the FEMA application process on their website, you know that it crashes 3-4 times during each attempted application, and you have to start the whole application over again. so, after several hours of frustration, if you are able to finish the application process without the whole system crashing, at the end of the process you are issued a FEMA id number. having this number means that, at the end of two weeks, you may or may not be issued an emergency check for $2,000 for hurricane-related expenses. this may sound like a pretty good deal, but for those who have lost everything, it is just a tiny dent in the expenses they have incurred.
so that is what FEMA can give you. as for someone who is walking into the FEMA center with nothing, nowhere to go, home destroyed, family missing.......sorry, but you are out of luck. FEMA can issue you an ID number, but as far as emergency shelter and supplies, they do not provide anything.......well, ok, they have one flier on their flier table that says: EMERGENCY SHELTER, with a phone number. if you phone that number, you will find a church in baton rouge, two hours drive away, that is full. the red cross center is the same way......they do have a few box lunches and some bottled water you can get there, but have said that the only aid they can give people is an application for cash assistance (which may or may not be approved). they are routinely turning people away, sending them to our tiny organization, common ground, for help. let me repeat this, because i just find it so astounding: FEMA AND THE RED CROSS ARE SENDING PEOPLE TO _US_ (common ground) FOR HELP. these organizations, with their tens of billions of dollars of funding, can't seem to get it together enough to open even ONE emergency shelter in new orleans. or to provide food, or transportation, or cleaning supplies, or even phone calls, for the people who have suffered so much.
we had a call the other day from the main red cross center in new orleans, saying there were two guys there who had no place to go, but that they could not help them there at the red cross.....they sent them to common ground, where we gave them some warm tea and a place to sit down and relax a bit, and heard their story -- they were workers, one from houston and one from atlanta, who had been hired by contractors to come work in new orleans.....but when they arrived, they found the conditions horrendous: tiny shared tents on a naval base which they were not allowed to leave, cold showers and filthy port-a-johns, 12-hour days 7 days a week for low wages.....they felt they had to leave, but had no way to get back home. we ended up taking them in and sharon, one of the people who started common ground, ended up giving them money out of her own pocket to help them get home. the day after, we ended up putting up a young man who the red cross sent to us as well -- a resident of the ninth ward who survived five days on his roof with no food or water, ended up in florida, and then evacuated from there during hurricane wilma......he came to common ground and slept with the other volunteers on the floor of an old firehouse, and now has joined our relief effort to clean up and bring back the ninth ward.
there are so many aspects to this story - so many facets of human suffering -- so many poor folks ignored and terrorized by the authorities (the military every day points guns in the faces of anyone remaining in the city - relief workers and citizenry alike), abandoned and betrayed by the official relief agencies, lied to and kicked out by the landlords and developers -- how much more can any person sit back and take??
but not everyone is taking it lying down -- that's what makes me hopeful, and grateful, and glad to be doing this work -- last week charlestine jones led a campaign to pressure the landlord in her public-funded housing complex to stop the forced eviction of herself and other residents, and with the help of local supporters and a national campaign, was able to get the owner to negotiate, and agree to the tenants' demands. this is what gives me hope ....and now other tenants are coming forward, starting to fight back against these illegal and unjust evictions. and it gives me strength, to know that with the power of people working together, we can get this entrenched power structure and old-boys network to budge. now, we just need to push more. and harder. and from every possible angle. and eventually, we, who work for justice and truth, and not for money and personal interest, will win in this struggle. we must. it's not just new orleans. the earth itself is depending on us for this fight.
and if all this reading isn't enough for you, here are two good articles written by friends of mine:
"Why are they making new orleans a ghost town?" by bill quigley (a local human rights lawyer who has been giving volunteer legal aid):
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
"Katrina: Direct Action vs. Government Guns" by scott weinstein (a nurse at the common ground clinic):
http://www.commongroundrelief.org/2
i left new orleans for a couple of days, to speak at the conference of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television about indymedia, new technology and journalism in a disaster area.....
as the plane lifted off, i looked down at new orleans....the flooded area so clearly distinct from the non-flood area: the browned branches of trees, the mud-caked walls of houses........lake ponchartrain, much bigger than the city itself, with one small line - the causeway -- crossing the lake.....and the thought of trying to escape a crowded city on that little line with 100+ mph winds whipping around became a very frightening prospect indeed.
but my thoughts soon drifted as the plane flew higher, and i began to think in more general terms about the bigger picture of what is happening down in new orleans and the gulf coast. as i watched the patchwork of farmland and city streets, it appeared that the gridwork was pushing up against the more organic forms of trees, snaking rivers and mountains......in some instances, it seemed that the vein-like spread of forests and swamps was pushing back against the grid.....and i thought about the image that some in the activist community have chosen to represent 'the movement' of people working for social justice: the rhizome.
the rhizome is a natural organism that spreads, root-like, underground -- it is self-replicating, and decentralized in its growth. tentacle-like fingers reach out from one organism to the next, reaching, curving, touching, a web-like network crossing the landscape.
watching the vein/root-like spread of nature battling the grid structure of the cities, i started to think of our way of organizing relief aid -- the rhizome-like, organic, flexible, spontaneous spread of the common ground model of relief coming head-to-head with the rigid, structured, top-down and immobile model offered by FEMA and the government. their model, based on a comamand-control structure, stood by while hundreds of people drowned in their homes after the post-katrina flood in new orleans. their model did not allow for the flexibility and creativity necessary to save the people, to evacuate and to bring them to dry ground. in fact, their structure and focus became an obstacle to helping the people in their time of desperate need. police in gretna, just across the river from new orleans, prevented new orleans residents from crossing the bridge into gretna -- the soaked, weary residents waded onto the bridge from the toxic flood water below to try to cross into gretna (where evacuation buses were lined up and waiting at the mall parking lot), but were shot at by gretna police firing live ammunition over their heads, and forced to turn back into the flood water.
why is the story being told and repeated throughout the country about the new orleans flood still the story of looting and shooting? haven't you learned by now that this story was a red herring? A media smokescreen? a story by which the news media diverted attention away from the desperate cries for help from the thousands of people abandoned in the flooded city toward a false image of a black criminal class that was to blame for all the problems? i can't believe that even now, two months later, people are still asking me about the looting -- hasn't the truth about that been exposed by now??
but then, i remember how the top-down structure of government-led relief, in combination with a state-run corporate media, shaped the picture of post-katrina new orleans, and i realize it is no wonder that people are still so misled in the news they receive about new orleans and the gulf coast.
so let me tell you a story - a story which is one small part of the emerging story of post-hurricane new orleans. this is a story i have pieced together out of dozens of personal interviews....a story verified by hundreds of independent accounts compiled by human rights watch and other groups working in the area. but it is a story that, despite all evidence to the contrary, continues to be denied by the authorities. it is the story of the prisoners in old parish prison, who were, by all accounts, left behind on the day after the hurricane hit and the flooding began.
the day before the hurricane, many of the prisoners who were on the first floor were moved up to the second floor before the guards evacuated, but no other measure was taken by the guards to ensure the survival of the prisoners. there were prisoners left on the first floor who died in their cells. no one knows how many -- the prisoners don't know, they were stuck in their own cells and couldn't tell how many were stuck below, and the authorities aren't talking - they deny that anyone died at all.
when the guards evacuated, they left some food for the prisoners, but not much. then the water started pouring in. the first floor filled with water, and the prisoners on the second floor, as they heard the drowning cries of those below, began to panic. the water was rising, dirty, oily, smelling of sewage and toxins -- they took whatever they could find and tried to bash through the windows. the water rose to chest level and stopped rising.....the men (there were women prisoners, as well, but they were not on the second floor) reached for anything they could find to hit the windows....some men, who had been put in the gymnasium by guards, managed to use a basketball hoop. others, locked in a large cell, used a door fastener they had managed to break loose......it took many hours, but at last, some of the prisoners managed to break through the windows and escape into the flooded hallways. they joined together and tried to get out of the building......bodies floated by, both inside and outside the building. and at last, a day later, a boat arrived with a couple of guards who had the decency (well, as an afterthought, anyway) to come back for the prisoners.
the men and women were brought by boat to a highway overpass (an island in the flooded city), where they were made to wait in their sewage-soaked clothing with no food and water for another full day, until they were taken off by bus to various federal facilities. with their records lost, and no one paying any attention to who was who - who was in prison for a felony, and who was just there on an overnight charge for trespassing or drunkenness - it has taken two months, and only just now are these prisoners beginning to be released.
listen to the first-hand account of stanley, a 65 year old man who was arrested the day before the hurricane on a bogus trespassing charge, and ended up almost dying, and remaining in prison for weeks:
http://radio.indymedia.org/news/200
first-hand account of dale:
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
now let me tell you another story. it is the story of charlestine jones, a mother of two daughters currently being evicted from her home with nowhere to go. it is the same story of bertha dugas, and of sonia khan, a guatemalan grandmother with her whole family of eleven crowded into her one-bedroom apartment (because her daughter's home was damaged).....also being evicted with no place to go. it is a story of blatant corruption, of greedy landlords and real estate agents trying to make money off their insurance claims by claiming hurricane damage when in fact there was none..............this is a story of intrigue and secret deals, of re-development schemes and crooked politicians....and the story goes to the mayor's office, the governor's office, the federal government......it is the story of a system corrupted from the bottom to the top.
when i first wrote to you all about new orleans, i sent along a letter that i had written to my congressman about the failure of the government to respond to the crisis, in which i advocated that control of the local situation be placed into the hands of new orleans mayor ray nagin. i still think that is the case -- that in the emergency crisis, local control needed to be given in order to safely and quickly evacuate the population. and i think that ray nagin has enough knowledge of local geography and resources that he would have been more than able to oversee the evacuation, had he been given the authority to do so.
but after the initial crisis has passed, and it is time to start the cleanup and rebuilding process, ray nagin has shown himself to be the stooge he was (s)elected to be. not long after the hurricane, he made the statement that the rebuilding of new orleans should be modelled on the way the st. thomas housing projects (in new orleans) were redeveloped several years ago. this is a sick and twisted statement - considering the way the st. thomas housing projects were redeveloped at the absolute expense of the poor folks who lived there.....the people were lied to at every stage of the process: first, they were promised that the redevelopment would be wholly to their benefit.....the first row of homes were then torn down and condos built in their place......although the people of st. thomas housing projects did not see any benefit from that (those whose homes were torn down were displaced, and high-paying tenants put into the new condos), they were told that the next row of condos would be for them. then, the next row, then the next. but at every stage of the 'redevelopment', citizens from st. thomas were displaced and replaced by high-paying renters, until, after a two-year process, the low-income tenants had ALL been replaced, the housing project had become high-priced condos and a walmart, and pres kasnakoff the developer had fattened his pocket with quite a hefty profit.
now pres kasnakoff and his pals are part of mayor nagin's "rebuilding new orleans" redevelopment commission, and are looking to make some hefty profits from this latest venture as well. it doesn't seem to matter to these greed-driven developers that many of those displaced from the st. thomas housing projects ended up in sub-standard housing in the lower ninth ward, the area that took on the most water during the flood -- who knows how many elderly, sick and handicapped people drowned because they couldn't escape from the lower 9th ward.......it doesn't seem to bother pres kasnakoff and his real estate buddies that they are displacing the poorest of the poor, who have suffered more than any humans should ever have to suffer in their lives........it doesn't seem to affect the consciences of these businessmen at all that their 'redevelopment plan' means the literal throwing-out of thousands of these poorest people with no place to go and no resources, rendering them invisible so that the richest few can build casinos and money-making tourist traps on top of what used to be their homes. you may think i am being over-dramatic here -- i wish that i were being over-dramatic.....but after looking into the eyes of the folks who are being thrown out onto the street with no place to go, and having inside peeks at the twisted dealings of the old-boy network of developers, businessmen and politicians, i am afraid that this is in no way an over-dramaticization of these very real, and extremely disturbing, events.
i know this journal is getting long.....i am always way too long-winded....but there is something else that i feel i really need to share.....i mentioned earlier about the rhizome structure, and how much more effective it is than the hierarchy in getting things done......and i just feel i need to illustrate this by pointing out that, despite the fact that both FEMA and the red cross have tens of billions of dollars in aid money to spend, they have gotten very little real help to people in need. in new orleans, for example, there is NO FEMA relief center open to the public on the east side of the mississippi (where the vast majority of new orleans' citizens live). the only FEMA center open to the public is at Landry High School in Algiers. the place is staffed by FEMA workers and blackwater security forces - the blackwater soldiers outnumber the FEMA workers about 5 to 1. (Blackwater Security, you may remember, gained infamy early in the war against Iraq when its members were implicated in torture in Abu-Ghraib and other prisons........the mercenary soldiers grew to be so hated by the Iraqi people that four of them were killed by mobs and their bodies dragged through the streets of Fallujah -- an event which led to the US invasion/decimation of the city of Fallujah in revenge)
so anyway, Landry high school is crawling with mercenary soldiers, and people going there seeking aid are routinely turned away. if you are lucky enough to be able to convince the guard at the front that you are indeed worthy of receiving aid, you are ushered into the gymnasium where some tables are set up, and, after a considerable wait, you are brought to a FEMA worker who connects to the internet and tries to go through the FEMA application process on the FEMA website. now, if any of you have tried going through the FEMA application process on their website, you know that it crashes 3-4 times during each attempted application, and you have to start the whole application over again. so, after several hours of frustration, if you are able to finish the application process without the whole system crashing, at the end of the process you are issued a FEMA id number. having this number means that, at the end of two weeks, you may or may not be issued an emergency check for $2,000 for hurricane-related expenses. this may sound like a pretty good deal, but for those who have lost everything, it is just a tiny dent in the expenses they have incurred.
so that is what FEMA can give you. as for someone who is walking into the FEMA center with nothing, nowhere to go, home destroyed, family missing.......sorry, but you are out of luck. FEMA can issue you an ID number, but as far as emergency shelter and supplies, they do not provide anything.......well, ok, they have one flier on their flier table that says: EMERGENCY SHELTER, with a phone number. if you phone that number, you will find a church in baton rouge, two hours drive away, that is full. the red cross center is the same way......they do have a few box lunches and some bottled water you can get there, but have said that the only aid they can give people is an application for cash assistance (which may or may not be approved). they are routinely turning people away, sending them to our tiny organization, common ground, for help. let me repeat this, because i just find it so astounding: FEMA AND THE RED CROSS ARE SENDING PEOPLE TO _US_ (common ground) FOR HELP. these organizations, with their tens of billions of dollars of funding, can't seem to get it together enough to open even ONE emergency shelter in new orleans. or to provide food, or transportation, or cleaning supplies, or even phone calls, for the people who have suffered so much.
we had a call the other day from the main red cross center in new orleans, saying there were two guys there who had no place to go, but that they could not help them there at the red cross.....they sent them to common ground, where we gave them some warm tea and a place to sit down and relax a bit, and heard their story -- they were workers, one from houston and one from atlanta, who had been hired by contractors to come work in new orleans.....but when they arrived, they found the conditions horrendous: tiny shared tents on a naval base which they were not allowed to leave, cold showers and filthy port-a-johns, 12-hour days 7 days a week for low wages.....they felt they had to leave, but had no way to get back home. we ended up taking them in and sharon, one of the people who started common ground, ended up giving them money out of her own pocket to help them get home. the day after, we ended up putting up a young man who the red cross sent to us as well -- a resident of the ninth ward who survived five days on his roof with no food or water, ended up in florida, and then evacuated from there during hurricane wilma......he came to common ground and slept with the other volunteers on the floor of an old firehouse, and now has joined our relief effort to clean up and bring back the ninth ward.
there are so many aspects to this story - so many facets of human suffering -- so many poor folks ignored and terrorized by the authorities (the military every day points guns in the faces of anyone remaining in the city - relief workers and citizenry alike), abandoned and betrayed by the official relief agencies, lied to and kicked out by the landlords and developers -- how much more can any person sit back and take??
but not everyone is taking it lying down -- that's what makes me hopeful, and grateful, and glad to be doing this work -- last week charlestine jones led a campaign to pressure the landlord in her public-funded housing complex to stop the forced eviction of herself and other residents, and with the help of local supporters and a national campaign, was able to get the owner to negotiate, and agree to the tenants' demands. this is what gives me hope ....and now other tenants are coming forward, starting to fight back against these illegal and unjust evictions. and it gives me strength, to know that with the power of people working together, we can get this entrenched power structure and old-boys network to budge. now, we just need to push more. and harder. and from every possible angle. and eventually, we, who work for justice and truth, and not for money and personal interest, will win in this struggle. we must. it's not just new orleans. the earth itself is depending on us for this fight.
and if all this reading isn't enough for you, here are two good articles written by friends of mine:
"Why are they making new orleans a ghost town?" by bill quigley (a local human rights lawyer who has been giving volunteer legal aid):
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
"Katrina: Direct Action vs. Government Guns" by scott weinstein (a nurse at the common ground clinic):
http://www.commongroundrelief.org/2
