| New Orleans Battle Update! |
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| Written by Kali Akuno | |
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Page 1 of 2 On
Thursday, December 20th, 2007 the world witnessed first hand the
ongoing battle for human rights for the Black and working class peoples
of New Orleans. The Police riot prompted by the New Orleans City
Council to silence and suppress dissent against the neo-liberal
reconstruction program of the US government and international corporate
interests displayed the true limits they are willing to go to deny the
cities historic Black majority the right to return. Despite the repression and coerced and discriminatory vote of the City Council, the struggle to stop the demolitions and the human right to housing in New Orleans continues. The Coalition to Stop the Demolitions is moving without pause to the next stage of the struggle and is calling on everyone of conscious to stand with us in this fight. To successfully engage the next stage of the struggle, a concrete understanding of where the movement now stands is in order. While the shameful vote of the City Council approving demolitions was a temporary set back, our movement was able to force City Council and Mayor C. Ray Nagin to make some critical concessions to several of our demands. These include:
The movement also forced several prominent national politicians and 2008 Presidential candidates to respond and put pressure on George Bush to halt the demolitions and to live up to his September 2005 promises to rebuild New Orleans and confront the racism and poverty that underlined the catastrophe. These figures included John Edwards, Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Barack Obama, and most recently, Hilary Clinton. While the concessions offered by City Council and Mayor Nagin are fairly significant, they do not provide sufficient protection guarantees for public housing residents, and more importantly, they do not concretely address the escalating housing crisis presently afflicting the city. What the concessions in effect attempt to do is give political cover to Mayor Nagin and the City Council through a décor of humaneness, progress, and false promises of homeownership and inclusion in the reinvigorated American Dream of Bushes "ownership society". What they offer in reality however is further legitimacy to the neo-liberal reconstruction program of the Bush regime outlined by neo-conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and administered through the likes government institutions and agencies at every level, including the neo-colonial city administration of Mayor Nagin through his "free market" recovery policies. If the concessions offered by Mayor Nagin and the City Council are administered rents in the city will continue to rise, homelessness will immediately escalate, more and more working and middle class Blacks will be forced back out and further exiled, and the city will become irreversibly whiter. The Coalition to Stop the Demolitions seeks to stop these calamities and is thus resolved to pursue the following courses of action. 1. Maintaining Political Pressure on key targets, including (see contact information below) by emailing, calling, and faxing them to adhere to various demands of the Coalition:
a. Mayor Nagin and the New Orleans City Council
2.
National Days of Action on Friday, January 25th and Saturday, January
26th, 2008 targeting the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
Committee and focusing on SB 1668
i. To not let them off the hook for their heinous vote, and
b. Senator Vitter to end his holdup of Senate Bill 1668. ii. To ensure that they adhere to the compromise provisions they passed in their resolution on December 20th c. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee to pass SB 1668 and move it to the Senate floor for a full vote. d. Alphonso Jackson, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to:
i. Stop the Demolitions
e. The Developers and Demolition Contractors to stop the demolitions. ii. Adhere to the demands of the coalition (see demands) 3. Legal Action to
a. Challenge the proceedings of December 20th and,
4. Recall and Voter Registration Initiative b. The enforceability of the City Council Resolution and the appeal letters of Mayor Nagin to HUD
a.
To recall the Mayor and all of the City Council representatives for
their amoral vote on December 20th and their consistent undermining of
policies that support the right of return
5. Economic Reprisals targetinga. Mardi Gras Festivities February 1st – 5th, 2008 b. The NBA All Star Game Festivities February 15th – 18th, 2008 |