World Can’t Wait! / New Orleans -in the House!
[Preliminary Report]
People from all over Louisiana and especially the still-devastated City of New Orleans metro area gathered on October 5th for a rush-hour No-Protest-As-Usual Speak-Out with a loud chorus of chants like, “The World Can’t Wait! – DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!” The noisy demonstration featured a traffic-stopping 10″ banner of Bush proclaiming: “Worst President” and “WorldCantWait.org” slashed across his face in bright “WCW”-green! Folks grabbed ready-made signs and banners sent in solidarity by the sister-city World Can’t Wait/Atlanta, donned orange jumpsuits and grabbed fresh markers and poster placards to make signs of their own.
The sheer joy lit up peoples” faces as they reached out to a captive audience of stopped motorists in the worsening traffic jams of downtown -just a few blocks down from the infamous SuperDome on Poydras- as they cheered and honked in solidarity! Folks carried large banner flags declaring, “Make Levees, NOT WAR!” -a popular theme of this year’s post-Katrina Mardi Gras, and symbol of these proud survivors” resiliency with their distinctive “Big Easy” humor-social commentary. The loud cacophony of cheers and honking and chants of “2008 – is WAY TOO LATE! -BUSH STEP DOWN! -THE WORLD Can’t WAIT!” echoed across the high-rise office towers and SuperDome. This caused even more commotion of curious onlookers pulling over, bottle-necking even more traffic as the curb-side protestors ran up to vehicles handing out flyers and green O-5 stickers and imploring them to “JOIN US!” Downtown workers on foot also wandered over to check us out and join in the people’s speak-out!
The determination of people turning out, despite the small numbers, was testament to see through their daily hardships – many still without decent roofs over their families” heads, one year on- to see this disaster’s criminal mishandling by a government extending from local, state, and all the way to Bush’s fascist-lusting White House!
It also should be noted that on the front page of the local Times-Picayune the day after O-5, the government has had to admit that the return of residents to the metro area was significantly over-estimated to be over half, when it is actually less than 40% able to return one year after “recovering” from Katrina. All this is in a city where the most devastated neighborhood, the Lower 9th Ward lay in waste like a bombed-out Iraqi city that still has no potable water, only scheduled to be turned-up Oct. 20th, after more that a year of “recovery!” Local folks were filled with gratitude and solidarity to be getting hooked up with a nation-wide -and-beyond organization like World Can’t Wait! that fundraised and sought the support of sister chapters like Atlanta to bring an organizer and carload of WCW ready-made demo supplies to the Bush-weary survivors of Southern Louisiana.
The vast majority of the nearly 100 spirited protestors are actually Hurricane Katrina survivors themselves and victims of this rotten regime’s cynical and opportunist “slow response” which was clearly caused by criminal malaise of proper infrastructure engineering and emergency planning that grossly exacerbated the estimated 1,800 death toll, mostly from preventable flooding from the woefully neglected levee system, unnecessary exposure and trauma.
The fact that New Orleanians were able to pull themselves away from the trauma and devastation of still-wrecked homes and lives and martial law-enforced Diaspora to be a part of World Can’t Wait and demand this rotten regime be given the boot is amazing in and of itself! Work continues to organize WCW/New Orleans” “New Beginning” movement chapter meeting for next weekend from the many sign-ups, and collect photos and testimonies from the new activists for a comprehensive summary report.