New Orleans, LA

Home Despot

Just as I was coming back from my second trip home, I read this in the Times-Picayune. It’s hard to believe how far these corporations and politicians will actually go in the face of this housing crisis. The devastation of the hurricanes, much like that of the Iraq war, have opened the door to the most aggressive and drastic ruling class agenda. Paul Bremer and the neo-cons tried to impose a free-market utopia on post-war Iraq. That continues blow up in their faces.

Post-Katrina New Orleans was seen as a similar opportunity for radical capitalist reshaping: “Demographic changes,” real estate booms, dismantling public social programs. In come the charter schools, out goes public housing.

Last Sunday we had a small action at a local Home Depot store.

All the gutting and remodeling obviously means big business for home improvement giants like Home Depot. The West Bank outlet was spared serious damage and they can’t meet current local demand. Opening another outlet in Orleans Parish is an obvious move. The location they settled on with federal of overseer of the New Orleans Housing Authority is the issue.

A young local organizer with NO HEAT led a crew of inside the store to explain this to the customers as the opening skirmish in the new campaign…

I’ll give more details soon but I just got an emergency phone call. The day laborers who have been camping in City Park being threatened with arrest this very moment. Gotta go…

Jeremy

Home Depot gets turf in public housing
Lease opens debate on agency priorities
Thursday, January 19, 2006

By Gwen Filosa
Staff writer

Home Depot will lease six acres of land inside a Central City public housing complex to install a temporary “tent-like” store, housing authority officials said Wednesday.

The big-box building supply chain wants to buy the entire site for a permanent store, near the corner of Louisiana and South Claiborne avenues, but it chose to sign a 364-day lease with HANO in order to immediately open for business, HANO said at its regular meeting.
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Because the lease is shorter than one calendar year, by a single day, HANO could legally strike the deal without holding a public hearing. Mirza Negron Morales, the Department of Housing and Urban Development official who acts as HANO’s one-person board of commissioners, approved the lease Wednesday.

Home Depot will pay $10,000-a-month in rent to the housing authority for the land, part of the C.J. Peete housing complex, which has about 20 vacant acres of land from demolition in recent years. Peete, formerly called the Magnolia complex, had 146 occupied units pre-Hurricane Katrina, out of a total of 538 units. It remains empty since the storm hit.

The retail chain approached HANO with the offer.

“It’s a temporary measure to get commerce in the area,” said Judith Moran, the HANO director in charge of the project. “They will definitely provide job opportunities for residents.”

The Home Depot announcement speaks volumes about the future of New Orleans public housing, which HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson predicted would dramatically change from a picture of faded brick buildings and concentrated poverty to “mixed-income” neighborhoods that no longer stigmatize the poor as the city’s unwanted.

At the same time Wednesday, HANO officials promised they are doing everything they can to return public housing residents to New Orleans. But the image of a corporate retail giant entering the picture of “affordable housing” stole the show.

As Wal-Mart emerged from the demolished shards of the former St. Thomas housing complex in the Lower Garden District to help finance a privately developed neighborhood that includes some poor families via HANO’s rolls, Home Depot appears a likely anchor for the Central City neighborhood once beleaguered by the troubled Peete complex. Peete is destined for major changes. HUD announced after Hurricane Katrina that it would replace the dilapidated brick buildings with a “mixed-income” development similar to that of River Gardens, the brightly painted neighborhood with the faux New Orleans architectural designs that developers built on the site of the former St. Thomas housing complex.

HANO will share in Home Depot’s gross sales from the temporary store if they exceed $16 million.

Critics speak up

While HANO officials said the deal is good for New Orleans because residents “badly need” building supplies, housing advocates called it an example of mismatched priorities.

“We need housing; we don’t need another Home Depot,” said attorney Laura Tuggle of New Orleans Legal Assistance, which represents poor people for free in housing disputes. “Why don’t you get trailers on that vacant lot? It blows my mind that we’re talking about a temporary lease for vacant land. It sends me such bad vibes of what will happen to residents.”

Jay Arena, a vocal activist with a group called Hands off Iberville, accused HANO of selling off “the people’s property” as part of a plan to “ethnically cleanse” New Orleans and keep black residents from returning.

After a few more barbs of that nature — one of which accused the panel of taking “bribes” — HANO’s administrative receiver Nadine Jarmon chose to reply.

“I would respect a lot more of you if you lived in our residences,” Jarmon said, her voice breaking with emotion. “I talk to my residents every day. This is a transparent agency. There are no bribes. That’s why we took over this agency.”

HANO has been in federal receivership, through HUD, for about four years, after mismanagement took a widespread toll on the public housing complexes and its residents.

Jarmon, who lives in New Orleans full time, rode out the storm with other HANO officials at the agency’s Gentilly offices, where they were stranded for three days before being rescued by boat.

Yet activists Wednesday chided HANO. Several were visibly puzzled by the one-person board of commissioners, as Negron approved a host of “indefinite” contracts for repairs and security services. The EBE Fence company will install a $276,000 chain link fence at B.W. Cooper and a $292,000 fence at the ruined St. Bernard complex.

No voting takes place at these meetings, since HANO is under federal guidance. HANO takes public comment, but in the end, decisions are not up for discussion, such as the Home Depot deal.

“You are part of the conspiracy to keep poor black people from returning to the city,” activist Malcolm Suber told the panel. “You are making no efforts to address the critical need we have in the city. You act today as if public comment means nothing.”

Since Katrina’s landfall Aug. 29, HANO has made strides in repairing its homes and caring for its residents, Jarmon said Wednesday.

But critics said the agency isn’t moving fast enough, or fairly.

Lucia Blacksher, an attorney with Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, said HANO repeatedly violates an agreement it made to provide eligible public housing residents apartments at the River Garden community. Such residents, among the most vulnerable storm victims, were turned away post-Katrina despite being on a priority list for the homes, she said.

“You guys have one of the most important jobs in the city, especially now,” Blacksher said Wednesday. “We have an agreement (to include the poor at River Garden). I spend 80 percent of my time trying to get you guys to comply with it.”

Residents gone

Prior to Katrina, HANO provided housing to 49,000 people — some 14,000 families — through either Section 8 vouchers or public housing before the storm.

HANO predicts that 60 percent of its pre-storm public housing population plans to return to New Orleans. It is not taking new applications for housing now, but instead is working to bring back its clients. Repairs are needed at Iberville, which hedges the French Quarter, and at C.J. Peete, as well as at Lafitte in the 6th Ward and at B.W. Cooper, between Earhart and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevards.

But HANO has welcomed residents back to Iberville, where 45 units were occupied as of this week, which is about 7 percent of its pre-storm population. Cooper, which is vacant and sealed off with metal doors to ward off vandalism or squatting, had 300 of its 576 units spared from flooding and is currently under construction. HANO is dealing with mold removal, general cleaning and other repairs in order to bring the units up to compliance.

Of the city’s ten conventional complexes, three were flat-out devastated by the floodwaters while only two — River Garden Uptown and Fischer in Algiers — escaped flooding.

St. Bernard, Florida and Desire were flooded and may require complete demolition, HANO said Wednesday.

About 600 public housing families have returned to their homes at Guste, Fischer, River Garden and scattered sites, while more than 1,000 who cannot return home have received federal housing vouchers. About 300 have signed leases on homes, HANO said.

More than 2,000 Section 8 families have returned to the city and received the same federal vouchers, and of that lot, more than 450 families have signed leases.

Pre-storm, HANO also managed 7,379 public housing rental units, including more than 700 scattered sites in New Orleans. Of that total, 5,146 units were occupied and many of the vacant homes were flagged for demolition.

HANO’s Gentilly office was ruined by the storm. HANO recently set up offices at 833 Howard Ave. An office handling Section 8 clients is located at the Christopher Park Homes Community Center, 2000 Murl St.

For more information, visit the housing authority’s Web page at www.hano.org.

New Orleans, LA

A little help from my friend

The truth is, I have nothing exciting to report. Going inside, and then outside again, so much down here has been tough. I am struggling with that readjustment process, and a whole number of other issues. None of these make for good reading material.

I decided to cheat on this one. I am pasting in an article written by a good friend of mine. His name is Richard Mellor and he is an exceptional person. He has spent the last thirty years fighting a hard and principled war in the workplace, the union bodies, and in the streets. He has learned a lot and taught a lot, especially to me. From the time I became a 21 year-old Teamster shop steward, he has been an incredible teacher, friend, and comrade. This last piece he wrote on the real effects of the “free market” says exactly what needs to be said…

Jeremy

The “Free Market”: The Greatest Terror Of All

Jaqcquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, a New Orleans city council member is a big fan of the “free market”. In the controversy over the re-building of New Orleans she makes her position very clear, “There’s nothing better than free enterprise and the free market to decide how this city is rebuilt.” (1)
Ms Clarkson leaves out one important lesson that should be absorbed by all working people; it was free enterprise and the free market that destroyed New Orleans. This omission is no accident; after all, Ms Clarkson is a political representative of the capitalist class, of big business. Sitting on the board of the Louisiana Realtors she has a vested interest in building anywhere, anytime. And the aftermath of Katrina has opened up some real opportunities for the real estate business. Politicians like Ms Clarkson, Bill Clinton or George W Bush will always tell us they enter politics to serve the “American people.” They simply fail to tell us which American people.

The destruction of New Orleans was not a natural disaster but a social one. Leaving aside the fact that the increased frequency and strength of hurricanes is widely believed to be caused by global warming, itself a free market product, the inability of the levees to withstand such a force as Katrina was well documented. Monies necessary for strengthening the levees were used for the war in Iraq where privatization of huge sectors of the Iraqi infrastructure have been accomplished by the bomb and thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died as a result.

Ms Clarkson also represents New Orleans District C which includes the French Quarter, a commercial center and therefore more important than working class communities. The communities where the low- waged who worked in the French Quarter live, Ms Clarkson wants to rebuild according to the laws of the market that caused the destruction in the first place. Naturally, being in the real estate business and on the board of the Louisiana Realtors is just a lucky break for this businesswoman. Her political decisions have nothing to do with her business interests she would have us believe. But for the big landlords, bankers, speculators and other moneymakers, Katrina has been a gift from above.

A few hours plane ride from New Orleans, in Detroit Michigan, the free market is wreaking havoc on another sector of American workers. The auto bosses have gone after their employees with a vengeance. Following on the heels of the airline bankruptcies, Delphi Corporation, the auto parts maker spun off from GM in 1999 has declared bankruptcy in order to renege on its contractual obligations regarding employee pensions. This is despite the fact that Delphi is not broke. The employers are using the bankruptcy courts to get around contract obligations with unions. In actuality, the employers, their politicians and the courts that serve their interests are joining together in a more open fashion in order to eliminate all the gains made during the rise of the CIO in the thirties and the civil rights movement that followed. Their efforts are made even easier by the capitulation of the heads of the AFL-CIO to this process. In auto, the UAW leadership has agreed to concessions in wages and retirement benefits and has done nothing to prevent job losses.

Labor leaders, the so-called labor-friendly politicians in the Democratic Party, and the academics who give them intellectual justification for their failed policies argue that the climate is not favorable for workers to make demands on the employers. But this is absurd. According to the Financial Times, profit margins and profits are at a 30 and 50 year high respectively. (2) A recent study published by Linda Bilmes of Harvard and Joeseph Stglitz of Columbia estimates that the Iraq war, under a moderate scenario, will cost at least $1.1 trillion. Martin Wolf of the Financial Times comments, “to put this in context, the minimum budgetary cost is 10 times the world’s net annual official development assistance to all developing countries.” The world is awash with cash.

The crisis in New Orleans is a free market crisis, a crisis of capitalism. The attacks on workers from Detroit to Bombay are a product of the system not the results of greed in the abstract, bad management practices or corrupt CEO’s and politicians. A political party does not exist in a vacuum; it represents class interests. The politicians in the Democratic and Republican parties are simply representing their class interests when they carry out policies that devastate workers, our communities and our well-being. The fact that they’re corrupt is secondary but still costly for working people.

The recent scandal involving the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is a prime example of the rottenness of the present system and its political representatives. Robert Livingston, a former Republican congressman turned lobbyist, claimed on CNN, that “Abramoff was an aberration.” This is the news for our ears. But in the Wall Street Journal, the paper that capitalism writes for itself rather than mass consumption, John Shadegg an Arizona Republican writes: “Powerful members of Congress are able to insert provisions giving away millions — even tens of millions — of dollars in the dead of night. The recent scandals involving Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff have highlighted the problem, but this is not just a case of a few bad apples.” (4) They have to tell the truth to each other to a certain extent, as their system is not without rules. Livingston, like most retired politicians likes the lucrative lobbying business. According to a new study by LobbyingInfo.org, 43 percent of Congressional members who have left office since 1998 have registered to lobby. No wonder Livingston paints Abramoff as an aberration in the mass media; thieves don’t like their profession maligned.

The two examples above, New Orleans and auto, are a clear example of the failure of the capitalist system where the major forces of production are in private hands. When we say that working people can run society panic sets in. “This is communism” the capitalists will cry”, and the former dictatorship in the Soviet Union will be re-borne in the press. The less hostile will say we are only dreaming, that workers can never run society (we can just fight and die for it), “it’s a good idea…but”, the “but” meaning human nature is inherently greedy and exploitive. And society cannot function without the Carl Icahn’s and Kirk Kerkorian’s of this world owning the factories, the airlines, the mines and deciding with their friends what should be produced, when and how; what should be built and where.

But despite it’s degeneration into a totalitarian dictatorship, the revolution in Russia showed that workers can run society just like Wilbur and Orville Wright’s experiment with flight proved that we could make machines that fly; they didn’t stop the experiment because the model crashed. The Seattle general strike of 1919 showed too that working people can actually administrate society through workers’ councils or committees rather than just produce society’s products by our labor while the direction of work and the administration of the products we create is left in the hands of the bankers and their politicians. What we produce through our labor should be a social product, produced for human need not profit for the few. The social product need not be the property of Steve Miller, the hatchet man for Delphi or his colleagues.

Ideas have a class base. In feudal times the dominant ideology was that the King was King by “Divine Right.” His position in society was given to him by God. It’s pretty clear who benefits from this viewpoint; certainly not the peasant in the fields. It’s hard to overthrow a despot who one believes is a despot by the grace of God, if you believe in God that is. Cromwell, the English farmer decided to test this philosophy: cut off the King’s head and see what happens. A new day was born.

It’s time for a new day.

By Richard Mellor
Retired member, AFSCME Local 444
Oakland, CA

(1) Financial Times 1-12-06
(2) Financial Times 1-9-06
(3) Financial Times 1-11-06
(4) Wall Street Journal 1-18-06

New Orleans, LA

On my first day back from the last trip to California I attended an interesting meeting. This was a regular weekly meeting of the NO HEAT coalition, the New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team.

This a group that started in late October. A few activists connected to Common Ground were just starting to work on housing issues and it made sense to do so in a common front with local housing activists. It has been interesting how this has played out. This process has been not always a smooth one, but overall productive. Just how much this was still truly the case was what really struck me that evening.

Having been away so much in recent weeks, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. The last several months have been so intense. Days seemed like weeks and weeks like months. So much could change the period I was gone, and so much did. The main conclusion I took from my first meeting coming back was that the general process was still productive and anything but smooth.

I guess this makes perfect sense considering everything involved. It was great to see over 40 people. These were mostly local folks, many new to activism. A half dozen or so were displaced residents of public housing projects. The activists from local groups like Hands Off Iberville are still involved as ever, as well some of the really solid youth from the Peoples Hurricane Relief Economic Justice Committee and the Iron Rail Collective. The more long term out-of-town folks coming in with Common Ground are still adding a lot to this unlikely mix.

I say unlikely because many of these groups and individuals have long histories of difficult relations. These differences are generally political, complicated by personality clashes, and completely typical of every city in the country. Of course the reality of post-Katrina New Orleans is anything but typical.

While I was gone, the approach we’ve been using to fight evictions has also been used to stop bulldozing homes in the Lower Ninth and the mass eviction of evacuees from Uptown hotels. This was great to learn. If these immediate efforts can help build the militant self-organizing, consciousness, and political independence of the working class here, we’re doing well.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

I had just gotten back from my Christmas/New Years break in San Diego when I left New Orleans again on business. This time I had to back to Oakland to meet with the organization I work for. Labor’s Militant Voice is a revolutionary socialist group. The roots of the group’s activity, like mine personally, lay in labor struggles.

The continuing failure of the AFL-CIO officialdom to lead the US working class in effective, united resistance to the offensive of capitalism is no small thing. The result is a steady grinding away of the gains won by generations before us in class struggle. Our class is like a tamed lion. The master and his little whip are no match for our collective power. The lion tamer loses control the very moment the lion becomes conscious of that fact. Labor’s Militant Voice is working to help bring closer that day our tamer loses control globally. The working class must then build a new society in its own image and own interests.

Considering our tiny size and resources, LMV does a good job in this effort. We currently meet every several months to decide how to best do this. This meeting last happened in Oakland this week.

The comrades in California also organized two public meetings on the struggle for housing to speak at while I was out there. One meeting was in Oakland, one at University of California Santa Cruz. The Oakland meeting was part of a campaign to help Katrina evacuees there to organize themselves. One of the leaders spoke about his experience evacuating the Ninth Ward to the Superdome. It was incredibly moving to hear all the survivors speak, especially him. It obviously difficult for him, as it would have to be for anyone, to describe the misery of being warehoused in the Superdome.

He and I both spoke at the Santa Cruz meeting. There were about 45 students and a few campus workers.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

I got back a couple days ago and I’m still not adjusted. I was getting about 20-30 phone calls a day on vacation and I’m in the process of catching up. None of these make very interesting material to write about.

One call I got today may be interesting. Sonia called me from the Mexican restaurant she works at. When John and I had dinner there right before Christmas, I remember being struck by how few women were there. The place was packed. Every table was entirely full. With the exception of John and myself, the customers were all Latino laborers. They are working for the construction contractors and wiring their pay back to Oaxaca, Honduras, Jalisco, etc…

The casual labor market is booming. Instances of abuse are rampant. I have gotten into conversations with Latino laborers at gas stations, on street corners, and all kinds of random places. The locations and laborers vary, but the stories are all too familiar.

Contractors are not paying and the workers are pissed. It seems like time to help them organize their own recourses.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

It is a quarter to nine central standard time on Christmas Eve. I leave tomorrow for a much-needed break. I will resume working and writing in New Orleans on January 2nd, next year.

I was at Central Lockup again down at Orleans Parish Prison until midnight.

Yesterday was a hell of a day. I took my man Sean to the airport and made it to Common Ground’s morning meeting by 8:30 to explain the Chief Al case to the new group of volunteers and announce the action. A good turnout of these folks was important. A lot of the core people involved in eviction defense work are out of town. This includes most of the local activists. Like Sean, very few of them are from here and have mostly left to visit their families.

A big concern has been the lack of media interest in Chief Al’s case. The local and national media have been very responsive to most everything we have done around evictions so far. I sent the press release out twice and a young volunteer from Maryland took the time to call each outlet and ask if they would cover. She told me they had been noncommittal, and for the third time, no media showed. This is getting a little mysterious. I hope it was just the holidays stopping them from covering this time, but who knows?

We had about 75 folks and the Chief was in full form again. As smoothly as last week went, last night’s action was the complete opposite. It was a real test. I would say we passed and met the obstacles as well as possible, but there were obstacles at every turn.

The first serious issue arose when we entered Lucky’s. It was a lot fuller than expected and the regulars were all stunned when we entered. A couple of them tried to stop us before we even got started. We were not about to get shouted down by a drunk. We were sober, righteous, and experienced shouters on a mission. We got started and held the bar’s attention until another drunk went completely ape-shit. He tried to get violent, but was too drunk and surrounded to actually do it. Finally, the bar management had him dragged out by a bouncer and a regular. Unnamed employees approached us afterwards and apologized for the wanna-be violent drunk and said that “our boss is an asshole. He treats all of us like an asshole too.”

When we got down to Igor’s main place a few blocks down, they were ready for us. Loyalist employees and regulars physically blocked the Chief at the door. We raised our ruckus in the doorway long enough to clarify our position to the other patrons. It started looking unsafe for our 67 year old Chief.

We went outside and were picketing and flyering the busy St. Charles traffic for a matter of minutes when the NOPD came down heavy.

We got lucky at the last week’s action. National Guard units responded before the NOPD. These troops jumped out of their Hummers with loaded rifles and we immediatly explained what we were doing. The sergeant looked at the flyer, then looked at the Chief, then looked at the crowd. “Well, this is a First Amendment issue. It’s not violent and we have no problem with it. A platoon of Guard MP’s posted themselves up and the NOPD kept rolling by. There has been friction between the Guard troops and local law enforcement. The Guard has intervened already against what it considered abuse or unnecessary police violence. Their presence kept NOPD at bay last week.

Last night was another story. Sixth District NOPD came in fast and hard. The patrolmen arrived with a group of detectives. I had barely introduced myself when the lieutenant detective took over their negotiations. The woman was anything but sympathetic.

Whenever police respond to these kinds of actions, my approach is to calmly explain the grievance behind the action and our First Amendment rights. These commanders and detectives came with intelligence and a mission of their own. “I know why you’re here. I know about you and about your group. I also know you know there is a proper way to resolve this and you decided not to use it.”

I wanted to know where the investigation of Igor Margan was at, if they were so familiar with the situation. We went back and forth on the topics of protest permits and such until she started challenging me about where the Chief was and what steps he’d taken before. Up stepped Chief Al and set this Sixth District Uptown detective lieutenant straight.

The First District knows all about this. All they said is contact the Attorney General and he hasn’t done a damn thing. She maintained the same line of questions, in the most intimidating possible and she was pretty good at being intimidating. Finally the Chief said ”Look, no disrespect ma’am, but I’m not to be made a fool of. You keep asking me the same stupid questions and there is no way to possibly respond. You are wasting your time and you are wasting my time.”

The detective lieutenant visibly shrank. She looked at her detectives and her patrolmen, then she looked at the Chief. “We’re done here. We’re going to leave, just don’t impede traffic.”

Back at our starting point, it got difficult again. A young man from the UC Santa Barbara group was being arrested. I ran over with a local video camera activist we work with and asked the same patrolman from the action what the charge was. “Public urination and lewd conduct.” I tried to reason with him the officer, but he had decided not to issue a citation. The student volunteer’s out of state status meant he had to be locked up until he saw a judge, which would have meant Monday morning. He was about to leave and I took a different line of reasoning. As soon as I started arguing that this was retaliation for protesting, he paused. He knew he was caught then. “Was he one of the ones down there with you? “ As if the cop was in the parking lot to look for people urinating by some chance and wasn’t watching our group. I made clear there was no question this arrest was connected to the protest, not in our minds or our lawyers’ down at the Loyola University Poverty Law Clinic. “I am going to call my supervisor.”

The uniformed lieutenant came quick. He talked to me, his officers, and the kid in the car. He said the arrest was warranted because “the kid ran from the officer” and he was out of state. He conceded to make it a bondable offense.

We were 30 deep at Central Lockup almost as fast as the kid got there. The sheriffs who run the bail window talked to me and the Chief and took flyers: “$515 dollars and he’ll be out as fast as he’s booked. We’re already booking him now baby.”

An hour later the culprit was back at the Common Ground volunteer center surrounded by three young women from his UCSB delegation. They were not subtle in their opinions of his decision making. It was healthy peer pressure, but I couldn’t resist jokingly offering him a ride back to OPP.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

Below is a press release I sent out tonight to local media. The last two actions went very well.

We had about 35 folks at the first action. That was a good turnout considering what all happened that day. There was a march organized by the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund which took a lot from the youth who both organized it are key to our coalition. Also, Meg Perry, a Common Ground volunteer from Maine, passed that afternoon in a bus accident. Very few Common Ground folks outside of the core eviction defense organizers could attend. The group was overwhelmingly local and mostly new to us from the public meeting in the Treme.

We took over the bar and outnumbered the few customers by more than double. Me and Chief Al got on stage in a pause between the bands songs with a bullhorn. The customers were cheering in his support and chanted against Igor. The band changed lyrics and sang “Give back Al’s stuff.”

Last Saturday we had our usual thirty, plus about forty extra rowdies who came down from UCSB to volunteer with Common Ground. These youth were really pumped out to help the Chief’s fight as well as all post-Katrina eviction victims. I just had to bring the Chief and the facts. This crowd brought the ruckus.

Press Release Attn: Night Assignments

Re: Eviction Defense Direct Action

“Give Chief Al’s stuff back!”

When: 8:30 PM Friday, December 23rd 2005

Where: meet at St. Charles Ave, march on bars owned by Igor Margan

Why: Skeleton Chief Al Morris, a lifelong resident of the Treme and Mardis Gras community leader was illegally put out of an apartment he shared with an evacuated friend. The man responsible issued a handwritten note to get out that day and sent workers to padlock and clear the unit at 1141 Ursuline, next to the Backstreet Museum. Neighbors witnessed these workers taking property from Chief Al, including the tools he needs for his livelihood, sentimental Mardis mementos and costumes. Chief Al also lost the generator and items he used to distribute to neighbors in need throughout the entire hurricane. Chief Al never evacuated.

Mr. Margan refuses to take responsibility for Chief Al’s difficult loss and return the much needed property. The New Orleans Housing Emergency Action Team coalition continues its campaign of public action until Chief Al’s property is returned. The last two weekends, groups of 35 and 70 supporters of the campaign took action at various bars and nightclubs owned by Igor Margan.

Attached: flyer, “eviction notice” and list of demands.

New Orleans, LA

All that mess with the computers had me stressed out last night. I had told myself not to get drunk for a while, on account of the bender me and Chief Al got into at the Vaughn’s Bar Christmas party last Friday. I was doing ok so far, but then I ran into my neighbor who was doing worse than me.

This guy is a character. One guy I know, who met him, referred to him as a “y’at”. I asked him tonight if he was one. He didn’t like it. I guess “y’at” is not the preferred term commonly applied to the working class whites who withstood the “white flight” post-WWII exodus. He said he was a “Ninth Ward boy.” He was having a rough night.

I asked him what he has doing and he said “patrolling the neighborhood.” He’d just wanted to walk around and clear his head. I suggested we play pool. As we turned the corner toward St.Claude, he mentioned the lights finally being on just across it. I said something about how much had changed just since I got here.

He talked about things during the storm, and chasing off looters with assault rifles. Somehow I already knew he had done that. When Josh the bartender from the Marigny mentioned that they were all armed with pistols, but folks in the Bywater had assault rifles, I just somehow knew he was talking about my neighbor.

When we got to the bar with the pool table, put our quarters up and sat down. It got heavy fast. The conversation turned to the subject of death. Two of his close friends had committed suicide in the last month. He asked me if I knew how it felt inside to empty a man’s bowels by strangling him with a garrotte. I didn’t know what to say so I listened. He had been trained for the act as an elite Marine, but not for the after effect. The VA hospital had been closed since the storm and he was missing his therapist.

“I love my country, but I don’t trust my government. I hate what they do to vets. They go homeless because they can’t hold a job. How you gonna hold a nine to five when you can’t sleep but two hours at a time? Guys can’t hold a job with all this shit inside, and they say ‘Why can’t you keep a job? What are you, an asshole or something?’

We played a lot of pool, so much for my decision not to drink for a while. I’m pretty good and he’s better. We played doubles against all comers and held the table all night.

He told me that he promised himself never to hurt anyone again when he got out of the Marines. We talked about East LA in the eighties. I mentioned that the death rate in certain neighborhoods was higher then than in Beirut. He knew. He also knew about Beirut. He had transferred out of the unit with all his buddies from basic training, just months before they all got blown up in their sleep.

He was sent to Central America. “They had me go live among the Sandinistas. They same people I was killing.” I asked what he thought about the Sandinistas. “ They were beautiful people. They were mostly dirt farmers, but they loved their country.” I asked what he thought about the contras. “They were assholes, they just worked for the US government, total assholes.”

That’s where we left it as he walked home. I stopped inside Vaughan’s Bar and picked up the day’s Times-Picayune that I’d missed. On the front page, it said that the House voted down the Baker Bill. That was a proposed mortgage bailout of low-income homeowners. The headline read: “Foreclosure fears are reignited.”

It made me think about how me and my neighbor friend and Chief Al go drink to numb ourselves, while the developers and land sharks are having a whole other kind of party.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

I have been trying to upload new material on the Labor’s Militant Voice website since 8:00 this morning. It is now 10:15 PM, so that was nothing nice.

Internet access in New Orleans is a delicate proposition these days. If you can get to a WIFI spot, the chances are it is overloaded and subject to all kinds of interruptions due to overloads, surges in a shaky power grid, etc… Sending emails is one thing and big fat homepage uploads is something entirely different.

I finally got it off, but that is about all I did today. In the process, I had a nice long talk with a close associate in the eviction defense work, who doubles as a Common Ground computer tech, and he was equally stumped. We talked about what is wrong with the unions (class collaborative bureaucratic leadership) and the post-WWII boom of US capitalism. The two of us drove out to discuss the Louisburg Square case with Sonia. She and her son treated us to a nice carnitas and fajitas mixta dinner at the restraunt they work at, I also did a brief phone interview with the Boston Herald on the Louisburg Square struggle and got a commander from the Jefferson Parish sheriffs to write a report on the gate locking incident. He got a call from his deputy chief with the big fancy card and didn’t want to do it, but I insisted.

Not that Sonia or I think the report will straighten out anything, but it happened and it needs to be documented. You learn the importance of the paper trail by being a union steward. You also know the cops are feeling vulnerable when the commander has to concede to doing it.

Jeremy

New Orleans, LA

Sonia called me this morning at 7:00. The management of Louisburg Square Apartments put up chain link fences all around the property some weeks ago. Last night they had the nerve to lock them.

Sonia was very concerned. Her granddaughter was sick and needed medicine, and Sonia had no way of leaving her complex. What if there had been a fire last night? Sonia asked my advice. As much as I wanted to add this to my collection of videotaped evidence of management abuse, there was an immediate safety issue. I advised her to first try calling management, and then also call the sheriffs. Management closed their office right after the hurricane and never gave the tenants a new number. They were never in their before 9:00 AM anyways. Sonia was physically cut off from the onsite manager’s apartment by a fence, so the authorities had to be called.

In the meantime, I had my own plan to help. I hurried my tools together, and was just taking off for Terrytown when Sonia called back. The contractor supervisor, who has been a problem, but is not quite as evil as the property management, had seen the gate was locked and rushed over to open. He apologized to Sonia. He said it should not have been locked. He said only he and Lisa had keys, and he did not lock it.

I’m glad the gate got opened. It meant I could start my day off the way I was meaning to before I got real sick last week. I’ve been wanting to get online early and get my blog and emails done by 8:00, when the things usually start getting busy. It worked out today. Sonia, her upstairs neighbor Jamyra, and I all called the number on the “big fancy card” I’ve been laughing at all weekend. The business card the deputy chief gave us on Friday has a massive badge stretching across the whole card. The badge is embossed for a three dimensional effect, with glossy gold and colored inks. We all called to report the unsafe locking of the gate by management in order to get a police report of the incident as soon as possible.

If I had gotten there before the contractor, management, or sheriffs, it would have been a little more dramatic. I would have obviously documented the safety hazard with my video camera, just before I eliminated it with the 24” bolt cutters I recently acquired.

Jeremy

PS: Yesterday was a good day. Morales won in Bolivia, and the Chargers whooped the previously unbeaten Colts 26-17 in their own crib.