World Can’t Wait Drive Out the Bush Regime organizers
have already arrived in New Orleans, to join with hundreds of other
volunteers from around the country. Read below for on-the-spot reports
and reflections of World Can’t Wait volunteers in New Orleans.
The Bush Administration’s response before, during, and
after Katrina was criminal and alone would be reason enough to drive
them from power.
Families have been left scattered across the country in
either hellish F.E.M.A villages or left homeless. A city of rich
African- American history has been left to rot and plans of
privatization are a means for ethnic cleansing and provide a glimpse of
the horrific future represented in the Bush Program.
Since then, New Orleans has been a magnet for
justice-minded people, youth in particular, as thousands have flooded
through the city to volunteer with rebuilding and organizing. World
Can’t Wait- Drive Out the Bush Regime has sent a team of student
volunteers to participate in this rebuilding while spreading the Drive
Out the Bush Regime movement and lots of materials to residents and
volunteers.
Throughout the summer more contingents will travel to New
Orleans and a flyer is being created for anyone who will be
volunteering in New Orleans to distribute. The World Can’t Wait
National Bus Tour will be kicking off from New Orleans and is looking
for people who want to take responsibility for getting this tour on the
road.
From the volunteers in New Orleans
Sunday May 21st
Me and Abbie went down to Tulane University to see a show
entitled “Katrina Warriors” organized by Eve Ensler the writer of the
Vagina Monologues. The scenery around Tulane looked completely
untouched by the Hurricane and was full of electric power, plush lawns,
and sprawling mansions. The communities were alive and buzzing with
activity, a huge contrast from the upper and lower 9th ward in which we
are staying which resembles a ghost town.
The show was primarily young and older women and was aimed
at promoting awareness about women’s issues. Eve Ensler gave a few
impassioned speeches about the importance of acting and resistance
injustice in this world wherever you may find it. She spoke about the
importance of self reliance and active struggle. We handed out World
Can’t Wait Calls during the intermission and afterwards and people were
very receptive yet overall hesitant to engage us about the issues, I
suppose because they were focused on the play. Went home and fell
asleep.
Monday May 22nd
Woke up early and went to the common ground morning meeting.
At the meetings people talk about community and common
ground issues. Me and Abbie were assigned to a work crew and were going
to be gutting a house in the upper 9th.
We arrived at the houses and their was a young man already
working on the house. He greeted us and said his name was E.J and that
we would be helping gut him and his mothers house. I was working with
E.J. out in the yard and collected that he was in the military. I asked
him about what he thought about the levees and Katrina. He said he
thought they were blown and the national gaurd took things too far. He
also mentioned that our involvement in the Middle east was for “the
wrong reasons”. He was on active duty being trained for Iraq when the
hurricane hit and he left the military to come home and help his family
despite opposition from his superiors, who finally relented to his
demands to leave and go home.
Later in the day I met a kid named Mike who engaged me in a
conversation about state sponsored terrorism and the governments
involvement in all sorts of Black ops around the U.S. including the
WTC. He said he went to a Jesuit High School in Texas and most of his
teachers were not only liberal but some were downright radical! He said
they all promoted awareness about the Middle East and one specifically
expressed that they believed the U.S. government had orchestrated the
WTC.
I then steered our conversation into what can be done to
curb this criminal illegitimate government. He said that individualism
ran rampant at Marquette where he attended school but that more people
were coming forward and joining there anti war movements on campus. He
said he loved the idea of World Cant Wait and wanted to organize at his
school. He has been down here for 2 weeks and though he is leaving in a
week said that he is returning to finish out his summer here! I was
very impressed with his commitment and political awareness.
After Mike I spoke to a young woman named Awra. She was
from Iraq and her father was from Palestine. We began by discussing the
illegal actions that this government is taking. She whole heartedly
agreed and told me she had fled Iraq with her parents during the 1st
gulf war. She said the devastation that the U.S. has inflicted on her
people will never be known by outsiders. She said most of her family
still lives in Iraq and most of the people in her family have been
kidnapped for money because of the widespread poverty. She said its
almost common place and people except it as an everyday occurrence. She
said “there are no jobs except for para military or military jobs for
the puppet government that people will not take because of danger and
opposition to the U.S. backed puppet government”. We spoke about the
need for a coherent nationalist struggle with meaningful and
revolutionary leadership. She agreed but thought that the Middle East
will always have elements of Islam in their government because it is
less a religion there than a way of life.
We realized that we had been talking for a long time at
that point and decided to go back to work and continue our conversation
later. Her stories about her family and Iraq filled my head for the
rest of the work day and concentrating on work was hard.
Tuesday, May 23rd
from Abbie- WCW Volunteer
Today
I worked a dcommunity distribution center on the lower 9th ward called
the blue house. This was my first time venturing into the lower 9th
ward. The rumors were right. To get to the lower 9th, you have to cross
over a bridge that goes over a canal. You also go over the levees. The
blue house is located right next to where the levees broke. Surrounding
it is a sea of clutter. Houses are barely distingushibale. There are
open lots, and the makings of a house sitting across the street. It
looks like a bomb went off here. A volunteer and I wlaked around for a
while. IN the distance we saw the word “Baghdad” spray painted onto the
side of what used to be someone’s home. The word perfectly chracterizes
the what’s happened there. The kid beside me says, “Everyone knows they
blew the levees. Thye murdered all of these people. Someone has to be
held accountable.” We got further into it, and he said that he knew
that the national guard up through the federal government had a
great deal of responsiblity for this. He was tired of people blaiming
it all of the local government. All around us was flattend ground,
smashed glass, and the air felt very heavy.
The people here are very inspiring. Yesterday, after the
situation down here sank in, we all began to work intensily. Despite
the scorching sun and the suffocating humidity, everyone here works
hard, without stopping, and I have never heard one complaint. Most
volunteers are eager to take on more. The volunteers here express
compassion that is beyond comparison to almost any other I’ve seen in
my life. And many are also very angry about what went down in Katrina.
Many of them are hungry for a vehicle that will actually create change.
Wednesday
Today, one of the highlights was an interesting discussion
we had with one of the initiators of Common ground about the history of
imperialism, and the rising danger of the emergence of fascism in this
country. He talked about the Haliburton sponsored concentration camps,
the particularities to this regime and its entire agenda of lies,
hatred, and bigotry, and the need for youth, like those who volunteer
for common ground, to take their rage and transform that into action.
He had heard about WCW and shook his head and smiled when we mentioned
it. He was very interesting in our experience organizing, and our
thoughts on the current administration. We ate with him, then went to
bed.
Last Thursday, Thomas and I used our day
off to ride around the 7th ward to talk to some of the residents here.
The damage in the 7th was severe, however, not as bad as the 9th ward,
and some residents are living there, though many not in their own
homes. The first man we talked to said that he had left
before the storm hit, and that his home hadn’t been too damaged. We
talked about the National Guard’s oppressive role after Katrina, and he
said since he was gone, he’s only heard little pieces of stories. The
conversation was cut a bit short, but he took our fliers and said he
definitely would read it and think about it.
Down the street a bit, a woman and her grandchild were
sitting on their front stoop. We asked her about her story from the
storm. She said that she stayed in
and that Katrina, though bad itself was definitely not what caused the
extent of the devastation in the region. She said that after the storm,
she went outside, sat on her front porch, and ate an ice cream cone. It
wasn’t until later that the water had started to come, eventually
reached her shoulders, and she was forced to go up to the roof of her
house with her children. She was stranded there for days. We asked her
what she thought about the levees, and she said that she’d been in
during a similar hurricane in 1965, and remembered that the people were
then investigating whether or not the government blew up the levees. We
discussed the ineffective evacuation procedures and the government’s
utter neglect of an entire community. She told us that now her rent has
been jacked up to 1200 a month, and soon her FEMA check will run out.
She doesn’t know what she’ll do. She took some materials.
Next we talked to two older men sitting on their front
steps enjoying the sun. They were probably the most responsive to the
idea of October 5. The word fascism grabbed the attention from one man
in particular, who said “oh, now this is something I’m interested in.”
We got into a long discussion about different aspects of oppression in
society, its connection to bush, and then even into religion and the
effects of dogma on people in society.
Overall, it seemed, obviously, that there is enormous
potential for an upsurge on October 5 here in the community. People are
very angry about what went down before and after Katrina, and very
aware of who holds responsibility for this. It seems there is a great
need for more organizers to travel here over the summer who can work
more with the community of
Thursday
Today I went out to the Kids and Community Center to help move some boxes of books, toys, etc., to a new community center in
in June. Common Ground is revamping an apartment complex that was
destroyed during Katrina. The complex used to be one cultural centers
for the black community in
and now looks like a literal junk yard, with debris, broken glass, and
trash everywhere. We carried boxes up three flights of stairs into the
beginnings of a children’s center.
Then, a girl I met from
and I went back to CG, and took some laundry out for the collective
kitchen. While the laundry was running, we talked for a long time about
different things. She goes to school in
for many years. I asked her about her thoughts on the professor that
was brutally beaten over his moral standing against the teaching
of intelligent design, as well as the initiation of a new law in
public schools find the law to be ridiculous, and feel that it is
keeping the children from excelling in science to their full potential.
We talked along time about the Christian fundamentalist movement, and
the movement of society to theocracy. She said that many in
are fundamentalists, and that she did not understand how people could
be sucked into that. She also told me about how the governor of
is trying to make all abortion records legal to the public, supposedly
to understand more about the nature of rape. It was definitely a day
full of intense, but fulfilling, physical work, laundry (finally!!),
and some compelling conversation.
Saturday
Today,
I mostly did volunteer stuff. I write this to give you a picture of
some projects they are doing down here, and what types of volunteering
you’ll be involved in. Of course, there is house gutting, which is very
physically demanding work. Also, there is a community kitchen and in
house security. Here you will cook food, serve food, and you can choose
to take a security shift, where you walk the ground of Common Ground
itself and make sure nothing’s going down. Then, there are the special
projects, which are my favorite, because you work directly with the
community. Today I worked in one of those projects: the Kids and
Community Center, which is an after school program for children of
Today, they were
graduating from the program, so we were mostly helping to prepare food,
clean the house, and set up the graduation stage, which, as a side
note, was set up in front of a NION flag with the globe. Then, we put
together notebooks for the kids that showed samples of their work over
the semester, and also notes from the Common Ground instructors. The
most common theme in the kids’ work was family, pets, and Martin Luther
King and Malcolm X. I found this to be very impressive. Most of these
kids were around for the flood, and experienced much of the horror
involved during and after the flood. Many may have been faced with
National Guard and their loaded guns and their relentless attacks on
the city. Yet, the draw visions of hope and a idealism for the future.
This touched me deeply, and I found this very inspiring as an
organizer.
Sunday, May 28
Today
marked a radical change in the dynamic here at Common Ground. The day
began as most do: up at 6:30, out to work at 7, back at 3, dinner, and
then conversation. After dinner, we all gathered around on the front
steps in awaiting a special event,
a young white guy, still in his twenties that co-founded Common Ground,
was to give a long talk to the volunteers. While we sat on the steps, I
started talking a young teacher from
He asked some about me, and I mentioned World Can’t Wait, thus, we
slowly got into politics (it seems a natural progression here) and he
told me about some of what he perceives as the most pressing issues
today.
He said lately he has been doing a lot of work on the Save Dafur campaign. He said that he was certainly against any type of
and in fact, the entire Bush military agenda. He said that this is
something that had hit him and his students hard, and told me about how
a time before the war in
when he, and several friends, spontaneously decided to physically
disrupt a military recruitment session, and were arrested. He said that
they, all black men, were beaten brutally, and stayed in jail for 60
days. But he doesn’t regret it, and feels that people need to put
themselves on the line more often.
Then we started talking about what is really needed in this
country in order to drive out a sitting regime, and whether or not that
is possible. He remained grounded in the position that it is not
possible, mainly because of a lack of funding, and the character of
similar movements, such as the predominately white, middle-upper middle
class, anti-war movement, and how he thought we needed to break through
those boundaries and reach more people. He brought up the immigrant’s
rights struggle, and how inspired he was about that. The program then
started, and I hope to continue the dialogue soon.
Tuesday May 30th
From Abbie
Brandon’s speech
shocked many people. It was blunt and very emotional. Afterwards, people
definitely wanted to talk. He began with his story of how he grew up in a
sheltered small town, was not political, watched friends and family die from
cancer from the toxic contamination of his town’s water supply, and slowly got
into politics when he met Martin King Wilkerson, a former member of the Black
panther party in New Orleans, who was incarcerated on false charges and spent
thirty years in Angola. King lives in New Orleans,
and was stuck in the flood, so Brandon
drove from far away with a boat to come get him out. He found that more
difficult than expected.
Brandon
remembered how when he first arrived, he went to the Red Cross. There will
hundreds of people with boats from all over the country, compassionate people
who had dropped everything to come done to NO to save people from the toxic
flood waters. The National Guard, however, had ordered New
Orleans a no enter zone, and had surrounded its
parameter with check points. No one was allowed in. All the boats were turned
away, and Brandon, distraught and confused,
turned back home.
A day later, he returned, determined to get into the city.
He went over to meet Malik, another founder of Common Ground, and a good
friend, to figure out how to get in. Malik was staying in Algiers,
a neighborhood that contains mostly middle to upper class whites. Some sections
however, contrast greatly, and are wrought with poverty, and are predominately
black. Malik lived in a very low income apartment building. When Brandon
got there, he saw white men with guns all over, who were apparently guarding
their homes, and, in turn, were capturing any black people they saw, tying them
up, and sending them to the superdome, which was already overflowing with
people who were provided with no water or food for days. Brandon and Malik
decided to take a more militant approach, and formed their own protection
teams, also with weapons. He recalled that the white militias backed down
then.
Infuriated, and self described as “crazed” from
the horrors he’d witnessed, Brandon headed over the big bridge over the
Mississippi river on foot, determined to get King out of his house. He dropped
his weapon, and carried no food or water, because he figured that there would
be no reason for anyone to attack him (mostly a precaution to protect himself
from the New Orleans police and the
National Guard). AS he crossed the bridge he saw black men being turned away
from crossing, and some even being shot at. He walked down the bridge and into
the water, which he described as filthy water with a smelly film floating on
top, comparable to oily water that surrounds sausage before it’s cooked.
He said that he walked straight into it, and soon was stopped by the New
Orleans police force. After a sharp exchange of words,
they finally gave him a boat, and sent the National Guard out with him. Barely
in the water, they were called back, and Brandon
said they were told to take him back to the police. He refused, and jumped out
of the boat, and swam through the water. There was another sharp exchange, and Brandon
says that because he was white, he thinks he prevailed. They gave him a boat,
and got his friend.
Many in the audience were shocked by this story. This is the
first time that any of the coordinators here have initiated such a discussion
and really tried to expose the role of the national government, as well as the New
Orleans police force, in the aftermath of the storm.
He went on to describe further intolerable situations. Common Ground began as a
very militant organization, formed to protect the community. They immediately
sent out search teams, hospitals, and distributions centers. As soon as the
water went down, they began to strategically look for places to gut that would
keep the city, as well as private contractors, from bull dozing and seizing all
of the lower and upper ninth wards from the community. This pissed a lot of
people off. Brandon said that the original
volunteers were harassed and threatened for months. Policemen stopped by
everyday, and many times physically and verbally harassed them. People were
beaten badly and some even had guns pointed in their faces. Only recently have
these practices stopped.
Brandon went on
to talk about the points of unity that Common Ground was founded on, and the
idea of solidarity, not charity. His personal visions are very politicized, and
so are many of Common Ground’s practices, and Brandon
seems to want to take CG more into that direction. However, there were so major
things I disagreed with, and it so did others, and it opened things up for more
dialogue, which is a rare occurrence here, it seems. Brandon
emphasized first the idea of direction action and immediate visual results. He
also pointed out that he wanted to see more action, less talk, and used several
examples of, what I thought to be a narrow view on ideological struggle. The
reaction from the crowd was very mixed. Overall, I thought the end of the talk
was very narrow, and left little room for struggle. However, I noticed that it
inspired, and may have radicalized many people, because Brandon’s
story was so exposing of this government’s hateful and racist agenda, and Brandon’s
story is full of unapologetic determination to fight for the freedom and
dignity of people. However, his unapologetic nature, to me, seemed to turn into
an unwillingness to allow a dialogue of flowing and creative ideas on how to
continue forward with the struggle, and ultimately seemed a little too
spontaneous.
T asked a good question about how this is an entire program,
and that what happened in Katrina will certainly happen again, if it is not
stopped, and how Common Ground plays a role in actively working to stop this.
He answered that Common Ground is making connections in the community, and all
over the world, and is constantly rebuilding, and essentially trying to rebuild
the community’s strength, and that if the military ever came down to New
Orleans again to start shooting black men, it would not be tolerated. I think
he made some very good points here, however, I think he did not emphasize the
fact that this regime needs to be stopped, and that we cannot allow another
Katrina. The world cannot wait around for this to happen again, and then act to
protect targeted victims once it does. It seems to we need to take action now,
that is both on the ground, like Common Ground, that is making connections in
various communities in different sectors of society, however, is also grounded
in a deep understanding of the nature of this regime, the history of this
country and the rise of this regime, the history of people’s movements, and is
full of ideological struggle.
Brandon’s speech
certainly evoked a plethora of different emotions and ideas. One 9th wards
resident in the crowd yelled out: “How can they go over there are destroy Iraq,
flatten shit over there, and say they want to build that shit up, and they
won’t help New Orleans. The
government, FEMA, all of them, they spit right in my face! They’re spitting in
our faces! They’re spitting in our faces!”
Despite some of my disagreements with what Brandon
said, his talk hit me hard. I had to take some time to myself to let some of
the stories he told really sink in. I’ve heard, and read, and talked about what
happened down here countless times, and it has always impacted me in a big way.
However, actually witnessing it in person, and talking to the survivors, and
hearing first person stories, has impacted me in a way that I will never
forget. It has given me a new energy and determination to contribute all I can
to resist and drive out this regime. My conversations, which will come later,
revealed that other volunteers felt the same way.
Tuesday May 30th
From Thomas
Yesterday and the day before were some of the best days that
I have had in New Orleans yet. They have solidified my decision to return here
for a third and participate in the work that is being done to bring this
vibrant community back from the brink of extinction and out of the hands of the
parasitic government that is trying to suck the life out of its people. For Memorial I had a barbeque with a local family
literally as I was walking down the street. I stopped just to chat for a few minutes and
we began to have discussions about everything from the neighborhoods, to the
history of the city, to the Mayor, to the president and the war. They all expressed the need and hope that the
oppressed minorities will start taking care of each other and as Eric the wise uncle of the house put it, ”
Stop taking the Guvments crutch, they
been playin the same tricks on us po people for years now! We need to do things like common ground is
doin, when they don’t do the things we want we do em for ourselves. This way we build respect and support from
the people.” His mother said, ‘I
couldn’t agree mo. But why we need a
hurricane to do all dat. We shoulda been
doin this fa years!”
The other night one of the cofounders of common ground had returned
from Venezuela
after asking Hugo Chavez for money in aiding common ground. He gave a chilling speech about the first
days of common ground and how he wound up working with Malik Rahim to found Common
Ground. He talked about having to sneak
into city with his boat because the city was surrounded by the military that
wasn’t letting anybody in or out of New Orleans
city limits. He spoke of trying to rescue
and aid people with food and water and being threatened and harassed by the
police, F.B.I., and the military. He
said when he got to the Superdome in search of the friend whom he was trying to
locate save, ‘The marines weren’t letting any food or water in and they weren’t
letting anybody out. It was like
watching Jews going into the oven and being able to do nothing about
it.”
That comment alone shook the 300 or so volunteers and community members
he was addressing to the core. Some peoples eyes teared up and others were
openly crying.
Why have we allowed our government to do this? Because we have talked about resisting and
struggled about resisting and told others to resist but we haven’t been
resisting ourselves. There comes a point
where the awful actions of this government are no longer to blame, but the
people who stand idly by and let these atrocities happen are to blame.
Brandon said
that out of desperation for his missing friend, and horror at the awful
situation that he witnessed he went back to Texas
and got an Ak-47 with the intention that he was going to save his friend and
others or die trying. When he got he met
Malik who had set up a common ground on the west band of New
Orleans (The side of New
Orleans that
didn’t flood and is predominantly white and middle to upper class). They both found that racist militias and
police were LITERALLY hunting down any
black male they found on the streets and either shooting at them or zip tying their
hands and arresting them or turning them
over to authorities. Many of them were
trying to round up supplies to bring back across the river to their dying community
members.
The two men and some others began confronting these racist mobs
and the police and rescuing and freeing black men from the racist bondage that
had befallen them. Brandon
said it was time to act up and throw the consequences out the window. He said
in the face of such blatant racism, fear, and injustice he had to act.
This is something that every individual who actually cares about
resisting and stopping this regime must take with them and in their hearts. Ask yourself are you coming to this protest
to alleviate some guilt you have over our governments actions, are you coming
to this demonstration to pat yourself on
the back and say “well I tried.”
Or will you resist this government and put yourself in harms way so that
millions more don’t die. Will you raise
your raise your voice and lay on the tracks so the train doesn’t roll by to Auschwitz
without bump or roadblock. At the
junction that we now face, Abortion now illegal, OUR tax dollars funding Right Wing Christians
preaching abstinence only and intolerance for BIRTH CONTROL and basic civil
right for homosexuals.
Our tax money, 400 billion dollars a year of it going to
ruthlessly murder Iraqi and Afghan
civilians who happen to be in the way of our brutal government as they violently tear down
the ruthless dictatorship that they
funded, aided, and armed to the teeth and now find bothersome.
People are dying all over the world because not only do we not speak
about it, or flyer about it, or teach in about… because we refuse to actively
and courageously resist. We refuse to
act up. We must make a sound and a
stir. While we yell we must also
rebuild. And when they come to tell us
that were too loud and that they want us to stop, we will refuse. And when they send in the man to make us stop
we will still refuse. And when we are
released we will refuse to comply again and again. We must resist in every way we know how.
Thomas— From New Orleans,
9th Ward