50¢ As gov’t cover-up deepens People of Gulf Coast … · SEPT. 15, 2005 VOL. 47, NO. 36 50¢...

SEPT. 15, 2005 VOL. 47, NO. 36 50¢

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H U R A C Á N K AT R I N A :Gobierno culpable de negligencia criminal 16

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DEATH ROWSAVEFrances Newton! 12

SUPREME COURTRequiem for a reactionary

editorial 14

PUERTO RICO Gov't backs away from mass layoffs 13

PARIS FIRESAfrican community demands housing 14

HUNGER STRIKEItalians support Iraqi resistance 15

By LeiLani Dowell

Barbara Bush, accompanied by formerpresidents George H.W. Bush and BillClinton, visited hurricane relief centers inHouston on Sept. 5. When interviewedabout the experience on American PublicMedia’s “Marketplace” program, sheoffered callous statements about the mis-ery the people there were undergoing.

She said, according to Editor &Publisher, “referring to the poor who hadlost everything back home and evacuated,‘This is working very well for them. ... Somany of the people in the arena here, youknow, were underprivileged anyway, sothis—this (she chuckles slightly) is work-ing very well for them.” (Editor &Publisher, Sept. 5)

The response from former First LadyBarbara Bush epitomizes the response ofgovernment officials across the board tothe continuing crisis for the people of thedelta region. Despite the evident desper-ation of the people of the Delta, theresponse to the disaster on the part of gov-ernment officials continues to be sluggishand indifferent to the needs of the people.

One episode highlights this indiffer-ence. On Aug. 30, two Navy helicopterpilots assigned to deliver food and waterto military installations along the GulfCoast completed their mission, and thenpicked up a radio transmission from theCoast Guard asking for help with rescueefforts.

Unable to contact their superiors forpermission, they headed over to the area.They picked up folks stranded on roofsand inside their houses, including twoblind people who had been unable toclimb to the roof of their house.Throughout that day they rescued 110people.

Expecting a hero’s welcome, the twopilots—Lt. David Shand and Lt. MattUdkow—returned to base, where insteadthey received a reprimand for strayingfrom their initial assignment. Udkow,who associates say was “especially vocalabout voicing his disagreement to hissuperiors,” was reassigned to supervise akennel on base for pets of service mem-bers.

The New York Times of Sept. 7 says that“the episode illustrates how the rescueeffort in the days immediately afterHurricane Katrina had to compete withthe military’s other, more mundane logis-tical needs.”

Pentagon birds of prey descend

However, even with mountingnational and international criticism, thegovernment still deems it acceptable towrite off the people of the Delta for

As gov’t cover-up deepens

People of Gulf Coast demand answers

MondaMondayy SEPTSEPT 1212

NNationalational DDay ay ofof OOutrageutrageJUSTICE For the Victims of Katrina!JUSTICE For the Victims of Katrina!

Troops Out Now Coalitionwww.TroopsOutNow.org 212-633-6646

We must unite on September 12 to demand:

* Immediate relief--food, medicine, water,clothing, and emergency shelter for thepeople of the region.

* Extended unemployment benefits for all whohave lost jobs, and a massive jobs and housing program for the near future.

* Money for Hurricane Relief, Not War!* End the military occupation of New Orleans!

People trying to feed their families are notlooters!

* An independent international investigation ofthe criminal negligence that caused this dis-

aster.

Some of the cities where protests are already plannedinclude: New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Amherst,New Haven, Charleston SC, Jackson MS, Miami FL,Minneapolis-St.Paul, Boston, Detroit, Jersey City, LosAngeles, Houston, Raleigh, Washington DC, SanFrancisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia,San Diego, Seattle, St Louis, Kansas City, Memphis,Milwaukee, Atlanta, and hundreds of other cities and

towns of all sizes, in every region of the country.

Initiating endorsers include the Million Worker MarchMovement; Troops Out Now Coalition; SaladinMuhammed, Black Workers For Justice; HarlemTenants Council; Chris Silvera, Chair, TeamstersNational Black Caucus; International Action Center;Cuba Solidarity New York; Rev. Lucius Walker,Pastors for Peace; Rev. Luis Barrios, Iglesia SanRomero de Las Am ricas; and local leaders andactivists from around the country.

Rally at Mon. Sept 12 5:00 pm

In front of the FEMA officesat the

Federal Building 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan

New York �n Los Angeles �n Boston �n Washington DCHouston �n Atlanta �n San Francisco

and cities and towns across the country

It is a CRIME for the government:

� to allow people to suffer and die because of theirrace and class.

� to treat people like the enemy because they areblack and poor.

� to spend $200 billion on war while cutting budgetsat home, resulting in more death and destruction.

Stop the execution of Francis Newton!Let's have a moratorium on murdering Blackpeople. Texas is set to execute the first black

women in 150 years on Sept 14. This act would add racist insult to injury -

don't even think about it!

Continued on page 5

Special Section on the Gulf DisasterLegacy of poverty 2

The real looters 3

Scandal of the levees 4

Bush andPat Robertson 4

It goes deeper than FEMA 5

The disaster unfolds, day by day 7-9

Corporate vultures move in 9

En route to New Orleans: ‘Feels like Trail of Tears’ 9

Drowning in capitalist politics 10

Sept. 15, 2005 www.workers.org

The other hurricane

Racism and poverty in the Delta

has led to a predominantly Black city being ill prepared.Many of its residents are desperately poor; disproportion-ately jobless, underemployed and imprisoned; homelessand with a sub-par public education system. The jobsavailable are mainly low-paying, in the service industry.

Over 27 percent of the New Orleans population livesbelow the poverty line. Sixty-seven percent of the city isBlack, and this population makes up the great majority ofthe poor—the ones left behind in every area of life. Thehomes that African Americans live in are mostly old orrundown tenements in the lower-lying areas of the city.

Another startling fact is that more than a third of theBlack population lack automobiles. Both Gov. KathleenBlanco and Mayor Ray Nagin decreed that those with themeans to do so should evacuate the city before Katrinahit. Poor Black people did not have the means to leave ontheir own; they couldn’t afford to own a car because ofpoverty or infirmity.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, Black people acrossthe country have become incensed over the gross crimi-nal negligence of all levels of government. The images ofthe poor, mostly Black, the elderly and children beingignored, dying slowly from hunger and dehydration, have-been burned in people’s minds. This may lead many towonder or have doubts about the government’s intent, butthe statistics don’t lie.

For decades, the local ruling class of New Orleans hasre-segregated the city, destroying low-income housing tomake way for expensive homes, townhouses and superretail stores in an area above sea-level.

The conspiracy is of the capitalists’ making and is hap-pening across the country. But in New Orleans it has beentragically revealed by Hurricane Katrina, for all the worldto see. And with the destruction and the gruesome task ofrecovering thousands of dead bodies comes news that theunemployment rate for the hurricane-ravaged areas is toclimb to 25 percent. Can the situation become devastat-ingly worse?

That is why the call to bring the troops home must beamplified—to stop the suffering and murder of the Iraqipeople, to stop the loss of life of the many poor andoppressed sucked into the war machine by the povertydraft, and now so that the funds being consumed by theimperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can go instead torebuilding the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

The 25 percent unemployment rate does not have to be.It won’t be if no expense is spared and the people of theGulf Coast are allowed to rebuild on their own terms andin their own interests.

By Larry Hales

What is painfully obvious about Hurricane Katrina isnot that the hurricane itself had any out-of-the-ordinarytendencies, but that regardless of the storm’s category, themassive loss of life could have been averted.

Until it was far too late, the city, state and federal gov-ernments provided no means, didn’t marshal the NationalGuard, didn’t use the many boats and city buses—somenow under water—to move people out of the city. Noplanes were used to fly people out of danger before LouisArmstrong Airport was closed down on Aug. 27, two daysbefore the hurricane hit the city.

It is not that the hurricane did not consume many otherparts of the Gulf Coast. Some towns in Mississippi are vir-tually gone. However, what happened in New Orleansuncovers the verity of life under capitalism: that regard-less of the great wealth of U.S. society and the fact thatworkers and the poor create that wealth, most are left tofend for themselves in times of need and crisis.

Many articles have been written saying that the citycould not withstand any storm above a category 3. Yetefforts to reestablish the coastal marsh were spurned andwoefully underfunded by billions of dollars; only $375 mil-lion of a needed $14 billion came through. The weakenedlevees were not strengthened. Forty-four percent of thebudget for the New Orleans Corps of Engineers wasslashed and $30 million was cut from flood control.

Coupled with the National Guard being depleted due tothe war in Iraq, and members of the Army Corps ofEngineers—needed to work on the levees—also being sentto Iraq, the real aims of the capitalist class and the Bushadministration become startlingly clear. It is more impor-tant to them to shore up their occupation of Iraq, to stealthe Iraqi people’s oil reserves, than it is to protect the peo-ple of New Orleans and the delta from a storm that yearsearlier had been predicted would level this region.

Without transportation, people were forced to line upat the Superdome, where they were searched and toldthey would need their own food and water. Many thou-sands were turned away and sent to schools or back totheir homes.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the anarchy of the capital-ist system, especially during times of great crisis, and theracism and callousness of the Bush administration. No onewill soon forget that Bush remained on vacation while thecategory 5 storm churned in the Gulf. Neither will it be for-gotten how the victims of the storm were blamed by high-ranking officials like FEMA head Michael Brown.

Race and class underlying factors

The Gulf Coast is predominantly Black.Therefore, much of the area hit by the hur-ricane was predominantly Black, alongwith poor white. Mississippi’s average percapita income, at $24,650, is the lowest ofany state. Louisiana is ranked number 42with $27,581 and Alabama number 40with $27,795, compared to $32,937nationally. All three states have povertyrates higher than the national average.

Racism is inherent under capitalismand the legacy of racism in New Orleans

Workers World55 West 17 StreetNew York, N.Y. 10011Phone: (212) 627-2994 Fax: (212) 675-7869E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.workers.orgVol. 47, No. 36 • Sept. 15, 2005Closing date: Sept. 7, 2005Editor: Deirdre Griswold

Technical Editor: Lal Roohk

Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell, Leslie Feinberg, MonicaMoorehead, Gary Wilson

West Coast Editor: John Parker

Contributing Editors: Greg Butterfield, Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Milt Neidenberg

Technical Staff: Shelley Ettinger, Maggie Vascassenno

Mundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez, Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Carlos Vargas,

Internet: Janet Mayes

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DETROIT.

Sat., Sept. 17Hear a socialist analysis of the cri-sis in the South in the wake ofHurricane Katrina, the flooding ofNew Orleans, and the criminalracist response of the U.S. gov-ernment. Dinner at 5 p.m. $5donation/$2 unemployed. At 5920Second Ave. For info (313) 831-0750.

LOS ANGELES.

Tue., Sept. 27Film: “Poison DUst,” a documen-tary on the U.S. use and theeffects of depleted uranium in theGulf War. Meet the director, SueHarris. Sponsored by theInternational Action Center. 7 p.m.Ay 5274 W. Pico Blvd. #203. Forinfo (323) 936-7266.

NEW YORK.

Fri., Sept. 9Workers World Party Meeting:Racism, Poverty & the GulfDisaster, with Larry Holmes, aWWP leader and InternationalAction Center co-director, andLeiLani Dowell, a leader of youth

group F.I.S.T. (FightImperialism/Stand Together). 7pm. (Dinner at 6:30) At 55 W. 17St., 5th Fl., Manhattan. For info(212) 627-2994.

Fri., Sept. 16Workers World Party Meeting:Hurricane Disaster EyewitnessAccounts by Johnnie Stevens,People’s Video Network videogra-pher, and Teresa Gutierrez, coor-dinator of the Nov. 8 Town HallEvening of Solidarity withVenezuela, who are on a fact-find-ing/solidarity mission for theTroops Out Now Coalition. 7 pm.(Dinner at 6:30) At 55 W. 17 St.,5th Fl., Manhattan. For info (212)627-2994.

SAN DIEGO.

Sun., Sept. 25Film: “Poison DUst,” a documen-tary on the U.S. use and theeffects of depleted uranium in theGulf War. Meet the director, SueHarris. Sponsored by InternationalAction Center. 2 p.m. At SanDiego downtown Central Library,820 East Street, 3rd FloorAuditorium. For info (619) 692-4422

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In the U.S.People of Gulf Coast demand answers. . . . . . . . . . . . 1Racism and poverty in the Delta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Who are the real looters?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3New Yorkers demand justice, not repression . . . . . . . 3Boston: ‘Money for hurricane victims, not war’. . . . . . 3The scandal of the levees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Bush, Pat Robertson and ‘Operation Blessing’ . . . . . . 4Help those abandoned by the gov’t. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4It goes a lot deeper than FEMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5New Orleans community leader: ‘This is criminal’ . . . . 6Letters to WW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Military occupation, repression deepen in Delta . . . . . 7More troops arrive, bringing coercion, not relief . . . . . 7Grassroots relief highlights gov’t negligence. . . . . . . . 8The corporate vultures move in . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9On the road to New Orleans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9The putrid waters of capitalist politics . . . . . . . . . . . 10Militant sit-down supports NYU workers. . . . . . . . . . 11On the picket line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11March supports Northwest strikers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Supporters of Frances Newton work nonstop . . . . . . 12Reproductive rights under attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12Rich-poor gap wider than ever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Around the wor ldPuerto Rico suspends mass layoffs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Eyewitness Philippines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Paris fires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Italian hunger strikers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Haitians reject phoney elections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Editor ia lsRequiem for a reactionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Notic ias En EspañolGobierno de EEUU culpable de negligencia criminal . . 16

www.workers.org Sept. 15, 2005

using the racist view of Black people as“looters” to justify an outrageous lack ofresponse on the part of the federal govern-ment to the needs of the most oppressed inthe delta region—before and after the hur-ricane—as well as to force yet another occu-pation of troops onto a community of color.

The big-business government in Wash-ington has looted the delta region fordecades.

It looted public services for poor peoplewhile giving huge tax breaks for Big Oiloperations in the region.

To pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghan-istan, it looted money from levee repairand other infrastructure upgrades thatcould have prevented much of today’sdeath and destruction.

And then it looted the people a thirdtime by completely ignoring their cries forhelp after the storm hit, failing to providefor evacuation, food, housing or clothingfor the survivors until four days later,when many had already died and a healthemergency had been called.

By Monica MooreheadNew York

Sept. 2—“Relief for hurricane victims, notwar” and “Food and housing, NOT bullets,for New Orleans” were some of the slogansraised at an emergency demonstrationhere tonight. It was called on one day’snotice by the Troops Out Now Coalition inresponse to the catastrophic events in NewOrleans and the delta region in the after-math of Hurricane Katrina.

Anti-war and community activists,trade unionists and concerned people ofall nationalities participated in the protestin front of the military recruitment centerat Times Square during rush hour. Theprotest coincided with the arrival of thou-sands of National Guard troops in NewOrleans, sent to restore “law and order”after days of death and suffering.

President George W. Bush arrived todayin Biloxi, Miss., to pay a “visit” to some ofthe victims of the hurricane there. It wasmore than coincidence that as Bush wascarrying out his photo-op, food supplieswere finally being delivered to the thou-sands of victims who had been languish-ing outside the leaking Superdome in NewOrleans, five days after the hurricane hit.People have been literally starving andgoing without water. Thousands arebelieved to have died, although the gov-ernment is not giving out casualty figures.

Just as the troops arrived, mainly whiteand armed to the teeth with automaticrifles, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blancomade this horrific statement to the press:

Who are the real looters?

“I have one message for these hoodlums.These troops know how to shoot and kill,and they are more than willing to do so ifnecessary.”

The “hoodlums” she was referring to arethe thousands of hungry, homeless poorpeople, overwhelmingly Black, who wereabandoned by government agencies on alllevels before and after the devastationcaused by the hurricane.

Speaker after speaker at Times Squarecharacterized the inhumane treatment ofthe people left to die in New Orleans as“criminal,” “genocidal” and “racist.”Speakers also denounced the oil corpora-tions and the super-rich as the real lootersin society, not the most oppressed, whohave been forced to liberate the necessitiesof life from locked-up stores in order tosurvive unimaginable conditions.

The rally charged that the hundreds ofbillions of dollars spent for war and occu-pation in Iraq should have been spent onstrengthening the deteriorating infra-structure in urban areas like New Orleans,as well as for other human needs. Mean-while, on a giant screen at the militaryrecruiting center behind them, imageswere being flashed that glorified warfareand U.S. military strength.

A national day of solidarity with thehurricane victims has been called for Sept.12. Initiating endorsers include the MillionWorker March Movement; Troops OutNow Coalition; Harlem Tenants Council;Chris Silvera, president of the TeamstersNational Black Caucus, and local leadersand activists from around the country.

By LeiLani Dowell

Many government officials and muchof the corporate media have focusedtheir discussion and coverage ofHurricane Katrina on the so-called “loot-ing” of storm-ravaged cities.

On Aug. 31, two photos published on theYahoo News website caught the attentionof web bloggers. In both, people are wad-ing through chest-deep waters with food intheir hands. One caption describes theyoung Black man shown as “looting a gro-cery store,” while the other describes thetwo white people as “finding bread andsoda from a local grocery store.”

While Yahoo News was quick to offerthe disclaimer that the photos were takenby two different photographers, who wrotethe captions, the effect remained thesame—the criminalization of Black youth.

Racism has always been a tool of thecapitalist ruling class, wielded to keep theworking class divided and to justify war,occupation and poverty. Now the state is

The right to survive

It is criminal that the media wouldeven suggest that people whose onlyway to get food, water andclothing is from locked storesare “looters.” The U.S. govern-ment, in fact, should have imme-diately announced that the peo-ple had the right to take what-ever they needed from the stores to sur-vive.

In trying not to sound too harsh onthose left with no resources, the mediasometimes tries to differentiate between“good” looters—the ones who are only tak-ing food—and the “bad” ones—those whotake other goods from stores. This happensto include clothing, on most accounts,which is badly needed by people who’vebeen wading and swimming through filthywater for almost a week. But even if peo-ple take things other than food and cloth-ing, is that the real crime here? Given thelong history of economic repression in thearea, a history dating back to slavery,they’re entitled to a lot more than that inreparations for generations of suffering.

Yet the capitalist politicians, with themedia as their faithful allies, use tales of“looting” and “lawlessness” to blame thevictims of this disaster for the failure of thegovernment to carry out its mandatedresponsibility to help the people of theregion. It is the same reasoning given byMichael Brown, the much-criticized direc-tor of the Federal Emergency Manage-ment Agency, who said that the death tollfrom the hurricane is “going to be attrib-utable a lot to people who did not heed theadvance warnings.”

This kind of blaming the victims is noth-ing new in the United States. After the ter-rible Johnstown, Pa., flood of 1889, a head-line in the New York Herald blared “Drun-ken Hungarians, Dancing, Singing, Cursingand Fighting Amid the Ruins.” TheHungarians were the most recent immi-grants of that time. After big storms inGalveston, Texas, in 1900 and a flooding ofthe Mississippi River in 1927 that inun-dated New Orleans, the scapegoats wereBlack people, many of whom were roundedup and transported to work camps. (“TheStorm After the Storm,” New York Times,Sept. 1)

Today in New Orleans, police and mili-tary operations against looters have

replaced rescue efforts in some areas.The Associated Press reported on Sept.

1 that “the number of officers called offthe search-and-rescue mission

[in order to go after looters]amounts to virtually the entire policeforce in New Orleans.”

The AP article then describes cityofficials using equipment taken

from an Office Depot and says that “dur-ing a state of emergency, authorities havebroad powers to take private supplies andbuildings for their use.”

Why isn’t this entitlement given to thepeople, especially when the governmentfails to respond to a crisis?

It was the Toronto Star of Canada—nota U.S. newspaper—that put the issue of“looters” into perspective. It reported onSept. 3 about what had happened beforethe arrival of food and water from the fed-eral government, four long days after thehurricane struck: “Thousands of refugeeslined the street outside [the New Orleans]convention center yesterday, weak, beg-ging for help and accusing their govern-ment of leaving them here to die. Insteadof their federal government stepping in,they said, they had been saved by looterswho smashed windows of abandonedstores and distributed food and water tothose left with nothing.”

The imperialists realize that immenseanger is brewing in the region. It is thesame type of righteous anger, maybe evenmore intense, that led to uprisings like the1965 Watts rebellion and the 1992 RodneyKing-related rebellion in Los Angeles.

In those instances, the code words“looting” and “riot” were used to downplayand even ignore the justified rage inpoverty-stricken Black communities occu-pied by brutal, racist cops. Then as now,the images of “looters” were overwhelm-ingly of Black youth. The National Guardis sent in with tanks and guns drawn, thenand now, to protect private property overhuman lives, but also to ensure that self-organization of the masses does not occur.

Anger over the racist policies of U.S.imperialism is not contained to the deltaregion. Across the country and the world,it has only intensified with each newsaccount of the devastation. It is coupledwith anger about the continued U.S. occu-pation of Iraq, which was brewing longbefore Katrina struck.

New Yorkers demand justice, not repression

‘Money for hurricanevictims, not war’

WW PHOTO: PETER COOK

WW PHOTO: DEIRDRE GRISWOLD

Outrage.This emotion of speakers, par-

ticipants and passersby rang out atBoston’s Park Street Station Sept.3 in response to the catastrophicevents in New Orleans and theDelta region in the aftermath ofHurricane Katrina. The Troops OutNow Coalition (TONC) of Bostoncalled the emergency demonstra-tion under the slogan “Money forthe victims of the hurricane—notfor war!”

The rally was endorsed by theBolivarian Circle-Martin Luther King,Boston Committee for Peace & HumanRights, Chelsea Uniting Against the War,Coalition to Defend Reproductive Rights,Committee to Defend the Somerville 5,International Action Center, New EnglandHuman Rights Organization for Haiti,Stonewall Warriors and the Women’sFightback Network. Union members fromAFSCME, the Massachusetts NursesAssociation, Service Employees, theSteelworkers and UNITE HERE also partic-ipated.

Hundreds of passersby expressed sym-pathy with the action.

Another street rally in support of thehurricane victims is scheduled for Sept. 6in the predominantly Black community ofRoxbury. This action is also to raiseawareness about Frances Newton, anAfrican-American woman scheduled to beexecuted in Texas on Sept. 14(www.freefrances.org).

—Bryan G. Pfeifer

BOSTON.


The scandal of the levees Racism and war on the poor

Brian Wolshon, an engineering profes-sor at Louisiana State U. and consultant forevacuation planning, said at least 100,000people in New Orleans were identified as“low-mobility”—elderly, infirm or impov-erished and without cars. In disaster plan-ning sessions “little attention” was givento what would happen to these people inthe event of a hurricane or flood. When thequestion of their needs was raised, he said,“the response was often silence.” (NewYork Times, Sept. 2)

People of color make up 70 percent ofthe New Orleans population—and 28 per-cent live below the poverty line. (BlackCommentator) These were the peopleabandoned to death and devastation byauthorities.

This racism and the criminal disregardof poor people recall the devastating floodof 1927, when levees broke up and down

the Mississippi River after a spring of tor-rential rain. In the segregated South,Black people were “rescued”—and thenconfined in work camps, forced into workdetails to repair white owners’ property.Some were shot for refusing to be re-enslaved. (Pete Daniel, “Deep’N As ItCome: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood”)

As New Orleans was threatened, local,state and federal authorities agreed theCorps of Engineers should dynamite thelevees below the city—where the popula-tion was mostly poor and rural. Thoughpromised compensation, very few of thedeliberately flooded-out people everreceived a cent. (Judd Slivka, “AnotherFlood that Stunned America,” U.S. NewsOnline, Sept. 2)

London’s Financial Times reported onthis year’s disaster with the headline:“Bush’s Policies Have Crippled DisasterResponse.” But these policies, includingwar on Iraq, are a direct outgrowth of cap-italist profit-seeking. Wetlands drainedby land-developers and rendered uselessas buffers against storm, the growth inglobal warming and the rise in sea level—all are spin-offs from unchecked, rapa-cious big business.

With planning and political will, the GulfCoast lands could have been protected.Because of global warming, the Dutch—who are experts in preventing floods—havefor some time been investing an additional$10 billion to $25 billion in “sea defense.”They are upgrading all their “dikes, pump-ing stations and seawalls.” (ChristianScience Monitor, Sept. 4, 2001)

But the political will of both theRepublicans and Democrats in the U.S.reinforces only a system of capitalistexploitation. A different answer can comefrom a rising storm against that system—one coming from the people who have lostthe most and have the most to gain.

Bush, Pat Robertson & ‘Operation Blessing’ By Stephen Millies

George Bush can let Black people drownin New Orleans but he won’t denounce PatRobertson. He needs him too much.

In the wake of a storm of criticism forhis handling of the hurricane and flood,Bush is more dependent on the millionairetelevangelist than ever. Never has an eventmore exposed the utter contempt the cap-italist government has for the lives of poorpeople in the United States.

When he’s not attacking gay rights,Robertson is promoting terrorism. Herecently called for assassinating Vene-zuela’s elected president, Hugo Chávez, onhis “700 Club” television show. However,this hasn’t prevented the Federal Emer-gency Management Administration(FEMA) from urging people to give moneyto Robertson’s Operation Blessing.

FEMA has actually put this outfit thirdon a list of places to receive donations tohelp Gulf Coast survivors. Will the home-less Black people of the Gulf see any of themoney scooped up by Operation Blessing?Or will it be spent on defaming the popu-lar leader of Venezuela’s poor people, whohas generously offered New Orleans $120million in aid?

Robertson may sound like a kook but hepresides over a media empire with assetsestimated at $200 million. Supporters ofRobertson’s Christian Coalition do politi-cal dirty work for Bush.

The reason Pat Robertson is the wealth-iest of all the hate preachers is because hecomes straight from the ruling class.Robertson’s father—Absalom Willis

Robertson—was a U.S. senator fromVirginia for 20 years.

Pat Robertson’s daddy was the juniorpartner of Sen. Harry Byrd Sr. in runninga segregationist dictatorship that keptVirginia a low-wage paradise for Yankeebosses bringing their runaway plants fromthe North. In 1946 the Byrd machine con-sidered drafting VEPCO utility workersinto Virginia’s National Guard becausethey were threatening to strike.

“Too much public education only getsworking people riled and full of backsass,”said Byrd.

Byrd’s response when the Supreme

d

Help those abandoned by the gov’t

Court issued its Brown v. Board of Edu-cation ruling that school segregation wasunconstitutional was to call for “massiveresistance.”

The Byrd machine shut down publicschools rather than desegregate them.African-American children were barredfrom public schools in Prince EdwardsCounty, Va., from 1959 to 1964.

The greatest crime of Byrd and Robert-son occurred in 1951 in Martinsville, Va.,when seven Black men—Francis Grayson,Frank Hairston, Jr., Howard Hairston,James Hairston, Joe Hampton, BookerMillner and John Taylor—were legally

lynched there on phony rape charges. Theonly evidence submitted was their ownrepudiated “confessions.” So many had tobe executed that they were sent to the elec-tric chair in two shifts: four on Feb. 2 andthree on Feb. 5.

The ruling class was taking revenge forits earlier failure to put the Scottsborodefendants—nine Black teenagers simi-larly railroaded—to death. A massive cam-paign led by the U.S. Communist Party inthe 1930s saved their lives.

This is Pat Robertson’s backgroundand the sordid political base he can offerBush.

Following are some of the many grassrootsorganizations providing assistance to thestorm survivors:

HOUSTONSend funds and goods—toiletries, soap, dia-pers, baby formula to: SHAPE CommunityCenter, 3815 Live Oak, Houston, TX 77004.To offer housing in the Houston area, call (713) 521-0641.

LOUISIANAMail or ship non-perishable items to: Centerfor LIFE Outreach Center, 121 Saint LandrySt., Lafayette, LA 70506, Att: MinisterPamela Robinson, (337) 504-5374.

Mohammad Mosque 65, 2600 Plank Rd.,Baton Rouge, LA 70805, Att: MinisterAndrew Muhammed, (225) 923-1400.

Lewis Temple CME Church, 272 Medgar Evers St., Grambling, LA 71245,Att: Rev. Dr. Ricky Helton, (318) 247-3793.

LOUSIANACamp Casey c/o Veterans for Peace is collecting funds, vehicles, Apple computerparts, digital cameras, baby products, more.Drop-off goods at: Pine View Middle School,1115 West 28th Ave., Covington, LA 70434.UPS or FedEx to: Veterans for PeaceChapter 116, c/o 645 Kimbro Dr.,Baton Route, LA 70808. Contact:[email protected], (707) 536-3001.

MISSISSIPPISend donations to: The People’s HurricaneFund, Young People’s Project, 440 N. MillsSt., Su. 200, Jackson, MS 39202, or seewww.qecr.org.

NEW YORK CITYBring funds and goods—towels, linens, diapers. Call first. Malcolm X GrassrootsMovement, 388 Atlantic Ave., 4th flr,Brooklyn, NY, (718) 254-8800.

Northeast & Midwest Emergency CarCaravan to Louisiana & MississippiProvide vehicles, organize a drop-offpoint. Call John Waller at (718) 810-8426. Donate goods, email [email protected] funds for aid and caravan costs to:IFCO/Pastors for Peace, 402 W. 145th St.,New York, NY 10031.

NATIONALThe NAACP has set up a center in Biloxi,Miss. Donate online at www.naacp.org orcall (866) 996-2227 or mail to NAACPHurricane Katrina Relief Fund, 4805 Mount Hope Drive, Baltimore, MD21215. Call NAACP state offices to donateclothing, linens, baby products.

BlackAmericaWeb.com Relief Fund, P.O. Box 803209, Dallas, TX 75240 or donate online at www.blackamericaweb.com/relief

National LGBT Youth and Family Groupshas set up a fund for LGBT youth andfamilies from the devastated areas.Donate at www.nyacyouth.org.

By Minnie Bruce Pratt

Louisiana authorities are saying that10,000 people may have died in the stateas the result of Hurricane Katrina.

Mounting evidence shows the humantragedy and devastation in New Orleans isa direct result of the U.S. war on Iraq.

The local Times Picayune newspaperwarned in nine articles between 2004 and2005 that millions of hurricane and flood-control dollars had been diverted to thewar, saying of looming catastrophe, “It’s amatter of when, not if.”

President George W. Bush, faced withsoaring war costs in Iraq in early 2004,recommended slashing the budget forengineering at Lake Pontchartrain bymore than 80 percent. The breach in theNew Orleans levees allowed water fromPontchartrain to flood the city.

In the last decade, the Corps of Engin-eers has worked to implement the South-east Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project(SELA), authorized by Congress in 1995.

But when Katrina hit, $250 millionworth of projects remained unfinished.One that a contractor was rushing was atthe 17th Street Canal, the location of themain breach in the levees. (Editor andPublisher, Aug. 29)

Walter Maestri, emergency manage-ment chief for Jefferson Parish, said in2004: “It appears that the money has beenmoved in the president’s budget to handlehomeland security and the war in Iraq, andI suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobodylocally is happy that the levees can’t be fin-ished, and we are doing everything we canto make the case that this is a security issuefor us.” (Times Picayune, June 8)

During a 2004 forecast exercise, fed-eral, Louisiana and New Orleans officialssaw a fictitious “Hurricane Pam” producealmost every tragedy now occurring.

But officials abandoned plans to pre-pare for the actual disaster because ofbudget cuts.

So those familiar with the situationlooked on in disbelief when Bush saidSept. 2 on “Good Morning America”: “Idon’t think anyone anticipated the breachof the levees.”

Government agencies had been wellaware of the potential for failure and the horrific human cost.


It goes a lot deeper than FEMAwere totally abandoned by the authorities.

He also told the CBS Early Show that heknew there were “pockets of people” whohad not received the basics but that “wehave the supplies.”

Brown has been attacked for these stun-ning demonstrations of incompetence andignorance—which also reveal the racism ofthe authorities. But the real power behinddestroying FEMA’s effectiveness inpreparing for disasters is Chertoff.

Chertoff is behind Brown’sincompetence

In July of 2005 Chertoff announced hislong-awaited “review” of the DHS. Afterthe review, his main move was to furtherdemote and disempower FEMA. ShaunWaterman of the United Press Interna-tional wrote about this reorganization onJuly 12:

“The change that drew most attentionas the country braces itself for the annualhurricane season is that the department’sEmergency Preparedness and Response isbeing dismantled.” FEMA, the agency“that currently makes up the bulk of thedirectorate,” was demoted and has “adirector, rather than an undersecretary,reporting straight to Chertoff.”

And, “in a move that is most likely todraw howls of protest from state and localemergency managers and FEMA’s allieson Capitol Hill, the agency is beingstripped of its preparedness functions.” Aformer official explained, “Preparedness iswhat you do all year ’round to get ready forhurricane and fire seasons.”

The policy of reducing natural disasterpreparedness was reflected in the refusalof funds to complete a FEMA projectspecifically designed to prepare for a hur-ricane disaster in New Orleans.

FEMA had begun to carry out ProjectPam. This project simulated a level 5 hur-ricane. Level 5 Hurricane Ivan just missedNew Orleans last year. FEMA hired a pri-vate firm to do a $250,000 study of theproblems involved. But additional fundsrequested for a follow-up study on how tosolve the problems were denied.

Brown, a former lawyer for the ArabianHorse Association, is a corrupt buffoon. Hegave $30 million in insurance to Miami-Dade residents who suffered some rainduring a hurricane that hit 100 miles away,while he left residents from other areas,who actually suffered, without funds.

But the person in charge of the opera-tion in New Orleans, with responsibilityfor starving New Orleans of preparatoryfunds, is Bush’s man Chertoff. Brown is hisflunky. In fact, the racist insensitivity ofthe Bush administration is illustrated bythe fact that Chertoff did not even inter-vene in the crisis until Wednesday after-noon. This was two-and-a-half days afterthe people had been left on their own tosuffer the ravages of the flood.

It was not until then that he appointedBrown to be in charge of the operation inthe region. And it was not until then thathe activated the National Response Plan todeal with the crisis. Hundreds, perhapsthousands, had already died, and tens ofthousands were traumatized. Tens ofthousands had still not been evacuatedfrom the watery filth.

Even after Chertoff said the plan wasimplemented, the presence that the peo-ple felt was mostly that of armed troops.Food came slowly and evacuation evenmore slowly. It is still incomplete. Peoplewatched the evacuation of the privateTulane Hospital while 200 critical-carepatients across the street in the largestpublic hospital for the poor, CharityHospital, were without food, medicine,electricity or water. People were dying asreporters watched.

The Bush administration and its pointman, Chertoff, have a reactionary, racist,anti-poor political and ideological posi-tion. This is what explains the willful lackof preparation for the disaster. It explainsthe deliberate delay in bringing even themost minimal aid to the people. And itexplains the militaristic and police reac-tion to masses of people who have beensubjected to a profoundly traumatic ordealinflicted on them by criminal neglect andcapitalist greed.

By Fred Goldstein

The big business media are howling forthe head of Michael Brown, the haplessdirector of the Federal Emergency Man-agement Agency (FEMA), for grossincompetence in his handling of the pre-paredness and rescue mission in the NewOrleans disaster.

Brown should certainly be in jail formurderous and racist criminal neglect.But there are numerous others who belongthere along with him, starting withPresident George W. Bush and his head ofthe Department of Homeland Security,Michael Chertoff.

In this disaster, FEMA has shown utternegligence, in addition to disorganization,lack of communication, confusion andgeneral all-around incompetence. But thestage was set for this long ago. On the scaleof culprits, Brown, the inept fool in thespotlight, is way down on the list.

The political climate for the disaster canbe laid at the foot of Bush, Vice PresidentDick Cheney, Secretary of Defense DonaldRumsfeld and all the others in the Bushadministration who have championed thephony “war on terrorism.” It is under thisslogan that Bush had promoted the war inAfghanistan, the war and occupation inIraq, the repressive, racist Patriot Act andthe creation of the Department of Home-land Security (DHS).

‘Homeland security’ takes over

In March 2003, with great fanfare, theDHS was created and absorbed 22 federalagencies and 180,000 employees. Its bud-get started out around $15 billion and hasincreased every year. It was $30 billion in2005. FEMA was one of the agencies takenover.

FEMA had been the only federal agencycharged with the responsibility to try toprevent, plan for and reduce the effects ofnatural disasters. It was also charged withdealing with the aftermath of disasters,including providing damage insurance. Ithad a cabinet-level status.

As soon as it was put under the DHS, its

budget and its status were reduced. Fromthen on, the so-called war on terrorismpushed everything aside and cut back onall constructive activities of the agenciesthat came under the DHS.

The Miami Herald of Sept. 3 wrote:“The Federal Emergency ManagementAgency, once a powerful independentagency focused solely on responding toearthquakes, floods, hurricanes and othernatural disasters that occur on averageabout four times a month, was placedwithin the huge Department of HomelandSecurity after the Sept. 11, 2001, terroristattacks. Homeland Security sends $1.1 bil-lion each year to the states to combat ter-rorism, but $180 million to help preparefor such disasters as Katrina. Much of theterrorism grant money is given under theconditions that specifically exclude spend-ing it on items or personnel that would beused in responding to hazards other thanterrorism.”

This is a clear attempt to stop anyattempt to use the money for natural disasters.

The Herald quoted George Haddow,former FEMA deputy chief of staff: “Thereare no emergency managers at any level inthe Department of Homeland Security.It’s all law enforcement.”

Trina Sheet, executive director of theNational Emergency Management Associ-ation, told the Herald: “Every state andcommunity has warehouses of haz-mat[hazardous material] suits, personal pro-tection equipment, bomb detectors, bombdiffusers, radiological detectors. … Butwe’ve also got local officials where theiremergency operations center is an officeand a fax machine.’”

Michael Brown has been on televisionmaking a fool of himself. He told CNN’sPaula Zahn on Thursday Sept. 1 that “thefederal government did not know aboutthe convention center people until today.”That was several days after a world-wideaudience of hundreds of millions hadwatched in horror as 15,000 African-American men, women and children des-perate for food, water and transportation

being poor and overwhelmingly Black. The Washington Post reports that 1 mil-

lion people will be homeless for months asa result of Katrina. Clean-up efforts in theregion are expected to take months as well.The draining of the water in New Orleansis expected to create another environmen-tal disaster by killing everything in nearbywaters, including in delicate wetlands andkey maritime spawning grounds.

The Associated Press reports that evac-uees are placing a strain on social pro-grams in various states—programs thathad already been stretched thin by budgetcuts to feed the war budget.

Meanwhile, one of the few optionsbeing offered to Black youth at relief cen-ters is the same that has been offered fordecades in communities of color—that ofjoining the military.

An appeal sent via email from commu-nity organizers in the Houston Astrodomereads, “The National Guard [here] hasengaged in ad hoc recruiting in recentdays. [On] Sept. 7 the U.S. military is con-ducting a Job Fair in the Astrodome in ablatant effort to exploit the despair ofmasses of Americans evacuated from theGulf Coast.”

The other option offered regularly bythe state—that of prison—continues inNew Orleans. A photograph on the NewYork Times web site on Sept. 6 showed aline of overwhelmingly Black men at a“temporary prison ... set up at a Grey-hound bus terminal in New Orleans.”

No consideration has been made for thefact that many have been separated fromtheir families and loved ones—in largepart due to military evacuation plans.Stories in both the Los Angeles Times andthe Detroit Free Press tell of infants andchildren being shipped to one part of thecountry while their parents were sent toanother. A plan to move some evacueesfrom the Houston Astrodome onto cruiseships had to be postponed when manydemanded to stay to continue looking forloved ones.

A mandatory evacuation has beenordered for New Orleans. Mayor RayNagin cites the environmental crisis thatis abounding there, where any number oftoxic chemicals from homes and factorieshave mixed with human waste.

“Mr. Nagin urged stragglers to leaveimmediately, saying he did not want pos-sible explosions and disease to increase adeath toll that Lt. David Benelli, president

of the Police Association of New Orleans,said could reach 2,000 to 20,000.” (NewYork Times)

Along with this is talk of forceablyremoving people from their homes, evenof denying clean water to the peopleremaining.

However, what is not being discussed isthe undoubtedly growing lack of faith ingovernment officials who did little tonothing in the first place, not to mentionsoldiers with their guns trained on thepeople. It becomes completely under-standable, with each new report of thegovernment’s preoccupation with protect-ing property and the wealthy, that somemight want to take their chances ratherthan put themselves in such unsympa-thetic hands.

What is also strikingly absent frommedia accounts is any attempt on the partof government officials to connect withcommunity leaders and grassroots organ-izations to get their input and participa-tion in the process.

Many organizations and individualshave issued demands that are not beingresponded to by the government. One ofthose organizations is Community LaborUnited, a New Orleans coalition of labor

and community activists. It is calling for“the formation of the New Orleans People’s Committee composed of hurri-cane survivors from each of the shelters,which will: demand to oversee FEMA, theRed Cross and other organizations collect-ing resources on behalf of the Blackcommunity of New Orleans; demanddecision-making power in the long-termredevelopment of New Orleans; [and]issue a national call for volunteers toassist with housing, health care, edu-cation and legal matters for the durationof the displacement.”

Saladin Muhammad of Black Workersfor Justice says, “Some of us ... who par-ticipated in the recovery and reconstruc-tion campaign following Hurricane Floydknow the importance of political forceslinked to the African American liberationmovement playing a major and leadingrole in organizing a people’s response tocatastrophes of this nature.

“The demand for self-determination asit applies to recovery and reconstructionis not only a demand for African Ameri-cans, it is also a working-class and genderdemand, as self-determination aims toimprove and change conditions for all whoare impacted by national oppression.”

Continued from page 1

As gov’t cover-up deepens

People of Gulf Coast demand answers


New Orleans community leader:

‘THIS IS CRIMINAL’ own that they just let it all be flooded. Theycould have let a family without a vehicleborrow their extra car, but instead they leftit behind to be destroyed.

There are gangs of white vigilantes nearhere riding around in pickup trucks, all ofthem armed, and any young Black they seewho they figure doesn’t belong in theircommunity, they shoot him. I tell them,“Stop! You’re going to start a riot.”

When you see all the poor people withno place to go, feeling alone and helplessand angry, I say this is a consequence ofHOPE VI [a federal grant program used toeliminate public housing—WW]. NewOrleans took all the HUD money it couldget to tear down public housing, and fam-ilies and neighbors who’d relied on eachother for generations were uprooted andtorn apart.

Most of the people who are goingthrough this now had already lost touchwith the only community they’d everknown. Their community was torn downand they were scattered. They’d alreadylost their real homes, the only place wherethey knew everybody, and now the placesthey’ve been staying are destroyed.

But nobody cares. They’re just lawlesslooters ... dangerous.

The hurricane hit at the end of themonth, the time when poor people aremost vulnerable. Food stamps don’t buyenough but for about three weeks of themonth, and by the end of the month every-one runs out. Now they have no way to gettheir food stamps or any money, so theyjust have to take what they can to survive.

Many people are getting sick and veryweak. From the toxic water that people arewalking through, little scratches and soresare turning into major wounds.

People whose homes and families werenot destroyed went into the city right awaywith boats to bring the survivors out, but

law enforcement told them they weren’tneeded. They are willing and able to res-cue thousands, but they’re not allowed to.

Every day countless volunteers are try-ing to help, but they’re turned back.Almost all the rescue that’s been done hasbeen done by volunteers anyway.

My son and his family—his wife andkids, ages 1, 5 and 8—were flooded out oftheir home when the levee broke. Theyhad to swim out until they found an aban-doned building with two rooms abovewater level.

There were 21 people in those tworooms for a day and a half. A guy in a boatwho just said “I’m going to help regard-less” rescued them and took them toHighway I-10 and dropped them there.

They sat on the freeway for about threehours, because someone said they’d berescued and taken to the Superdome.Finally they just started walking, had towalk six and a half miles.

When they got to the Superdome, myson wasn’t allowed in—I don’t knowwhy—so his wife and kids wouldn’t go in.They kept walking, and they happened torun across a guy with a tow truck thatthey knew, and he gave them his ownpersonal truck.

When they got here, they had no gas, soI had to punch a hole in my gas tank to givethem some gas, and now I’m trapped. I’mgetting around by bicycle.

People from Placquemine Parish wererescued on a ferry and dropped off on adock near here. All day they were sittingon the dock in the hot sun with no food,no water. Many were in a daze; they’ve losteverything.

They were all sitting there surroundedby armed guards. We asked the guardscould we bring them water and food. Mymother and all the other church ladieswere cooking for them, and we have

plenty of good water.But the guards said, “No. If you don’t

have enough water and food for every-body, you can’t give anything.” Finally thepeople were hauled off on school busesfrom other parishes.

You know Robert King Wilkerson (theonly one of the Angola 3 political prison-ers who’s been released). He’s been backin New Orleans working hard, organizing,helping people. Now nobody knows wherehe is. His house was destroyed. Knowinghim, I think he’s out trying to save lives,but I’m worried.

The people who could help are beingshipped out. People who want to stay, whohave the skills to save lives and rebuild arebeing forced to go to Houston.

It’s not like New Orleans was caught offguard. This could have been prevented.

There’s military right here in NewOrleans, but for three days they weren’teven mobilized. You’d think this was aThird World country.

I’m in the Algiers neighborhood of NewOrleans, the only part that isn’t flooded.The water is good. Our parks and schoolscould easily hold 40,000 people, andthey’re not using any of it.

This is criminal. These people aredying for no other reason than the lackof organization.

Everything is needed, but we’re still toodisorganized. I’m asking people to goahead and gather donations and reliefsupplies but to hold on to them for a fewdays until we have a way to put them togood use.

I’m challenging my party, the GreenParty, to come down here and help us justas soon as things are a little more organ-ized. The Republicans and Democratsdidn’t do anything to prevent this or planfor it and don’t seem to care if everyonedies.

speculators that are nowextorting working andpoor people by jacking upgas and heating oil pricesto the highest levels everseen in this country.

The progressive gov-ernment of Venezuela,because it has national-ized oil production, sells

gasoline to its people at 12 cents a gallon.The U.S. government, on behalf of the“robber baron” oil and gas companiesand Wall Street speculators, has twicetried to overthrow the elected Chavezgovernment. Wanna guess why theywant him out?

When people here are unable to heattheir homes this winter, what will theU.S. government do? When workingpeople can’t afford to fill up their cars toget to work, what will it do? The govern-ment will protect the oil and gas compa-nies and Wall Street speculators.

Should there be blame for the leveefailures in New Orleans? Of course. Is itpossible that the government wasunaware that the levee system wasdesigned for only a category-3 hurricaneand that New Orleans was below sealevel? Of course not.

But spending hundreds of billions ofdollars on the military and the wars inthe Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq forthe benefit of the oil and gas companies

and Wall Street speculators while con-currently slashing funds to maintain thecountry’s infrastructure is “a higher pri-ority”! Cutting taxes on the wealthywhile slashing funds for the city infra-structure became the “mantra” inWashington as high-priced corporatelobbyists paid off politicians for theirvotes.

Now the corporate bought-and-paid-for politicians and big-business mediaare screaming about looters. Not the reallooters and price gougers of the boardrooms of the oil and gas companies andWall Street who are jacking up oil andgas prices, but poor people in the midst ofthis tragedy who are just trying to survive.

Possibly millions of working peopleand the poor have lost everything. Whowill care for them once the TV crewsleave? They will be simply abandoned totheir fates. But will they “go quietly intothe night”?

Anger was already building up as bodybag after body bag returned from Iraqand Afghanistan. How high will thatanger rise as 2 million refugees swampthe miserly “social net” while workersand poor all across the country arerobbed at the pumps and as they heattheir homes?

—Mike GimbelExecutive Board memberLocal 375, DC 37, AFSCMENew York

Time for a people’s takeover

Oil companies are gouging Americawhile the people in the Gulf Coast suffer.Should we pay more and more to line thepockets of these greedy monopolies, orshould our money go to help rescue oursisters and brothers in the South?

Politicians, news commentators andthe corporate elite tell us Katrina inter-rupted the supply of gasoline. They saythat gives the oil monopolies some kindof license to almost double gasolineprices. They are making money handover fist while the poor people of NewOrleans are dying in the streets. It’s timefor some fundamental changes.

A couple months ago the SupremeCourt ruled that a Connecticut town hadthe right to seize private property andhand it off to private developers if thatpromoted the “public good.” Well, whycan’t the people take over the oil compa-nies and turn them into non-profit pub-lic utilities for the “public good”?

Outlandish? Not really. The oil is apublic property leased by the energycompanies. The land and water that itsits under is mostly publicly owned.

The war in Iraq is not a war for oil—itis a war for oil profits. Converting thesecompanies into non-profit public utilitiesmeans that our children and Iraqi chil-

dren can stop spillingtheir blood in thisinsane venture mas-terminded by Bushand his corporatefriends.

If the peopleowned the oil indus-try, then we could setstable prices. Wecould compose responsible plans torestore the Gulf marshlands that canhelp protect cities like New Orleans fromthese terrible storms. We could pressforward with less ecologically destructivesources of energy. And in times of crisislike this, we could devote our energyresources first to preserve and protectthe lives of our people rather than toamass huge fortunes for a few billion-aires.

—Chris FryLong Island, N.Y.

Gas gouging and body bags

Two million “refugees” and thousandsdead from Katrina’s wrath.

Washington spends hundreds of bil-lions of dollars on wars in Iraq andAfghanistan in order to benefit the sameoil and gas companies and Wall Street

Following are excerpts from an articlebeing circulated on the Internet byMalik Rahim, a veteran of the BlackPanther Party in New Orleans, an org-anizer of public housing tenants boththere and in San Francisco, and a recentGreen Party candidate for New OrleansCity Council. He was a guest speaker ata 1998 Communist Manifesto confer-ence in New York hosted by WorkersWorld Party. Rahim lives in the Algiersneighborhood, the only part of NewOrleans that is not flooded. What hedescribes is nothing less than deliberategenocide against Black and poor people.

Sept. 1— It’s criminal. From what you’rehearing, the people trapped in NewOrleans are nothing but looters. We’re toldwe should be more “neighborly.” Butnobody talked about being neighborlyuntil after the people who could afford toleave, left.

If you ain’t got no money in America,you’re on your own. People were told to goto the Superdome, but they have no food,no water there. And before they could getin, people had to stand in line for 4-5 hoursin the rain because everybody was beingsearched one by one at the entrance.

I can understand the chaos that hap-pened after the tsunami, because they hadno warning, but here there was plenty ofwarning. In the three days before the hur-ricane hit, we knew it was coming andeveryone could have been evacuated.

We have Amtrak here that could havecarried everybody out of town. There wereenough school buses that could have evac-uated 20,000 people easily, but they justlet them be flooded. My son watched 40buses go underwater—they just wouldn’tmove them, afraid they’d be stolen.

People who could afford to leave wereso afraid someone would steal what they

LETTERS


Sunday , Sept . 4Crisis continues

More troops arrive, bringing coercion, not relief

case that this is a security issue for us.”(Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004)

With all the predictions, with the hurri-cane at category 5 and lumbering towardthe Gulf Coast, President Bush was onvacation in Crawford, Texas, where he hadbeen for weeks. He was busy ignoring thevociferous calls from the Camp Caseysthere and around the country to “Bring thetroops home” from the other imperialistdisaster in Iraq.

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleansordered people to evacuate the city if theyhad the means, and so did KathleenBlanco, Louisiana’s governor. At least 20percent of the people remained, however,with no means to escape. Over 27 percentof the people of New Orleans live below thepoverty line. Thousands were initiallyturned away from the Superdome, andthose who were let inside were told thatthey would need their own food and waterbecause the Dome had none.

Kanye West’s words illuminate the truthof what has happened in New Orleans andthe rest of the Gulf Coast. They shine morelight on the nature of the Bush administra-tion and this capitalist system.

The truth is that workers, especially thepoor and people of color, are left to fendfor themselves in great times of need—thisis the true anarchy that capitalism creates.And when people begin to try to take thenecessities of life, then, as West puts it,“They’ve given them permission to godown and shoot us.”

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco provedWest’s point when she said, “These troopsare battle-tested. They have M-16s and arelocked and loaded. ... These troops knowhow to shoot and kill and I expect theywill.”

In a state where a “former” Klansman,David Duke, got a majority of the whitevote when he ran for governor in 1992, thereports that armed white vigilantes havebeen roaming the streets, threatening thelives of Black people who may be liberat-ing food, are very believable.

By Deirdre Griswold

Sept. 4—As the world watches in horror,the life-and-death crisis continues to growfor thousands of distressed people, mostof them African American, stranded inNew Orleans. Enduring intense heat, theylack food, water and medical help and aresurrounded by putrid water, garbage andcorpses.

CNN reports today from Louisiana:“Time is running out for thousands of peo-ple awaiting rescue six days afterHurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, res-cuers say. Officials say they do not have themanpower, the resources or enough timeto save everyone.”

The report quotes a Coast Guard cap-tain, Bruce Jones: “My guys are comingback and telling me, ‘Sir, I went into a

house, and there are three elderly peoplein their beds, and they’re gasping, andthey’re dying.’ And we got calls today, ‘Weneed you ... to go to a place in St. BernardParish. It’s a hospice, ... and there are 10dead and there are 10 dying.’ But thosepeople were probably alive yesterday orthe day before.”

The CNN report concludes: “For everyperson plucked from the flood, there arehundreds still waiting, rescuers say.”

The authorities have released no figureson the death toll so far, but the Louisianagovernor says it will be “in the thousands.”

Meanwhile, stories keep coming outabout how the Federal Emergency Man-agement Agency and other local and fed-eral authorities have been turning backskilled volunteers who want to help in thisworst disaster ever suffered in U.S. history.

A Virginia newspaper writes: “LoudounSheriff’s deputies and emergency person-nel were on their way to hurricane-strickenLouisiana Thursday night but had to turnaround when the federal governmentfailed to come up with the required paper-work.” (Loudon Times-Mirror, Sept. 2)

The Daily News of Jacksonville, N.C.,wrote today: “[Sherri] Gabel, an emer-gency medical technician from Jackson-ville, is one of thousands of trained health-care providers and emergency personnelwho have flocked toward the ruined GulfCoast in hopes of helping the thousandswho have been stranded without food,water or medical care in the wake ofHurricane Katrina.

“But many are being turned away, saidGabel, a move she believes will cost morelives. In fact, she said the Federal Emer-

gency Management Agency [FEMA] triedto turn her away when she called them ear-lier this week. ...

“Gabel said she has watched authoritiesturn away both emergency workers andtrucks loaded with supplies. ... ‘Everyonesaw this storm coming in,’ she said. ‘Every-one knew this storm was going to be a cata-strophe. Here it is Friday and these peopleare crying and dying on the middle of theroad because they don’t have a single bot-tle of water. There’s a lot of people notdoing anything because they’ve been toldnot to.’ ”

Even people with the Red Cross arecomplaining that they cannot get into NewOrleans. The organization’s website saysthis on its FAQ page: “The state HomelandSecurity Department had requested—and

Saturday, Sept. 3Hip-hop artist blasts gov’t

Mil i tar y occupat ion , r epress ion deepen in de l taBy Larry Hales

Sept. 3—President Bush announcedtoday that he plans to send an additional7,000 combat troops and 10,000 moreNational Guard troops to New Orleans inthe aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, bring-ing the Guard total to 40,000.

The city is looking more and more likeoccupied Haiti with the arrival today ofhundreds more heavily armed troops,whose main role is to repress a thoroughlyfrustrated, angry Black population. Tensof thousands have been suffering fromstarvation along with a lack of water, hous-ing, clothing, health care and other humanneeds so far denied by the governmentsince the hurricane and subsequent flood-ing of New Orleans.

After the flood, tens of thousands werestranded for days at the Louisiana Super-dome and the Convention Center, whichbecame unfit for people to live in. The domeofficials refused to turn on the air con-ditioning and toilets did not flush. Survivorswere housed alongside dead bodies.

The major evacuations did not beginuntil late Thursday, Sept. 1. Food andwater did not arrive in a major way untilthe next day. As of this morning, thou-sands were still stuck at the ConventionCenter, on an overpass near Interstate 10and in their homes or on rooftops waitingto be rescued.

Poor people continue to die, as they’vehad to watch buses pass them by inunbearable heat and humidity. But forthose with money, it was a different story.

“At one point Friday, the evacuationwas interrupted briefly when school busespulled up so some 700 guests and employ-ees from the [Hyatt Regency] hotel couldmove to the head of the evacuation line—much to the amazement of those who hadbeen crammed in the Superdome sincelast Sunday.” (USA Today, Sept. 3) Thetourists were clean, shaved, had recentlyeaten and were mostly white.

There are now more than 220,000

refugees from Louisiana in Texas alone,according to the New Orleans televisionstation WWL-TV.

To date, at least 60 countries haveoffered aid to the hurricane victims. Cubanpresident Fidel Castro announced yester-day that 1,100 Cuban doctors were pre-pared to go to New Orleans and other partsof the delta to help with the overwhelminghealth needs. At this writing, the U.S. StateDepartment has not given these doctorsthe green light to enter the country.

The U. S. government has also charac-terized the offer by Venezuelan presidentHugo Chavez to provide cheap fuel to thepeople of New Orleans, along with foodand other necessities, as “counter-produc-tive.”

Rapper West accuses Bush of racism

The Grammy-winning hip-hop artistKanye West is being lambasted by themedia in a way that many people of colorunderstand. After performing for aHurricane Relief concert aired on NBC andits affiliates last night, West refused to readthe benign script prepared by corporatemedia writers. He instead told a nationalaudience that “George Bush doesn’t careabout Black people. ... America is set up tohelp the poor, the Black people, the lesswell-off as slow as possible.” West’s state-ments were poignant and and heart-felt.The anger and hurt of what has happenedin the delta was clearly shown on his face.

Immediately, the network switchedaway from the African-American rapper toanother performer, and apologized for theremarks. Not only did the network dis-tance itself from West’s statement, but hisremarks were edited out of the West Coastshowing of the relief concert.

This is to be expected from the corpo-rate media. Their aim is to censor heroicstatements like West’s to try to divert peo-ple away from wanting to understand thetruth of how this disaster could happen.But the images don’t lie. Although the

business-controlled media have been try-ing to demonize victims of this adminis-tration’s criminal negligence, calling them“looters” and “hoodlums,” their poison iscontradicted by the realities of what hashappened, especially when someone likeKanye West speaks.

Hurricane a disaster waiting to happen

The negligence and callous disregardfor human life can be seen in the eventseven before Hurricane Katrina hit, as wellas since. One need only look at the state-ments and actions of government officials.

The most glaring is this: HurricaneKatrina was much weaker when it hitFlorida, yet it killed 11 people there. By thetime it approached the Gulf Coast, it hadbecome a category 5 storm—the mostdestructive level. The Army Corps ofEngineers and Louisiana State Universitycreated models of what would happen if acategory 4 or 5 hurricane hit the area, andfound that thousands would be killed;New Orleans would be virtually destroyedand flooded.

In an October 2001 Scientific Americanarticle, Mark Fischetti wrote: “A majorhurricane could swamp New Orleansunder 20 feet of water, killing thousands.Human activities along the MississippiRiver have dramatically increased therisk, and now only massive re-engineeringof southeastern Louisiana can save thecity. ... New Orleans is a disaster waitingto happen.”

The Bush administration’s answer wasto pull money away from efforts tostrengthen the levees and reestablish thecoastal marsh. Walter Maestri, emergencymanagement chief for Jefferson Parish,La., admitted as much in June: “It appearsthat the money has been moved in thepresident’s budget to handle homelandsecurity and the war in Iraq, and I supposethat’s the price we pay. Nobody locally ishappy that the levees can’t be finished, andwe are doing everything we can to make the

Continued on page 8


By John Catalinotto

Sept. 5—With a Labor Day visit to thedevastated Gulf States region, PresidentGeorge W. Bush today tried to conveyoptimism and a sense of turning the cor-ner as he defended his administration’sfailure to rescue tens of thousands of poor,mostly Black, residents of New Orleansand other Louisiana and Mississippi areas.

Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rums-feld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Riceand other officials toured the area. Theyhad spent the first five days of the crisisdoing next to nothing to help. Now theywere posing for photo-ops to cover uptheir criminal inaction.

None was talking about the new threatsof infectious diseases beginning to appearamong the 1.5 million people who have leftthe destroyed area but are still not receiv-ing adequate medical care.

Bush’s optimistic words clashed with thelatest estimates of expected body countsfrom administration and local officials.New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin, Home-land Security head Michael Chertoff andHealth and Human Services SecretaryMichael Leavitt estimated up to 10,000bodies might be found in the wreckage.Hundreds more have died in and aroundBiloxi, Miss.

New Orleans’ breached levee at 17thStreet was reported to be “almost repair-ed,” but officials were talking of needingnine months to make the city habitable.

Anticipating Bush’s visit, the editors ofthe Times-Picayune of New Orleans wrotean open letter attacking the federal agen-cies responsible for disaster relief:

“We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’llbe angry long after our beloved city andsurrounding parishes have been pumpeddry. Our people deserved rescuing. Manywho could have been were not. That’s tothe government’s shame.”

The large concentrations of people whohad been in the Superdome and theConvention Center have finally been evac-uated. The Bush administration, however,is concentrating the power of the state noton mobilizing emergency rescue and med-ical teams, doctors, nurses and nutrition-

ists to help people but onoccupying New Orleanswith some 40,000 police,National Guard and active-duty troops. It’s what hisadministration does world-wide.

The best news came fromthe actions of progressiveand neighborhood organi-zations, mostly in theAfrican-American commu-nities, who were takingaction to provide assistancewhere they saw the govern-ment’s actions inadequateat best, cruel and destruc-tive at worst.

1.5 million displaced persons

Some 1.5 million people have left theirhomes on the Gulf Coast to relocate to 20states, most of them going to other partsof Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama,and to Texas. Some of the biggest concen-trations are in Baton Rouge, Louisiana’scapital, where at least 100,000 displacedpeople and rescue workers have gathered,and in Houston, the largest city in theregion, where a reported 223,000 havebeen taken by bus.

The states involved have pledged toopen local schools for the many displacedchildren, but local officials are alreadyworrying about costs. Texas Gov. RickPerry ordered emergency officials to air-lift some of the people to other states will-ing to take them. And Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden has asked the U.S.Congress for financial help, saying thelocal government won’t be able to pay thehigher bills.

A threat still exists that could have beenhandled with rapid medical care.”Officialsat the Centers for Disease Control saidsome of the refugees have contracted abacterial disease called vibrio vulnificus,”reported the Sept. 5 Los Angeles Times.”Itmay have been picked up by people withopen wounds who were forced to wadethrough badly polluted waters for longperiods of time.”

While vibrio vulnificus is supposed to beless dangerous than the bac-terium that causes cholera, itcan cause vomiting, diarrheaand abdominal pain amonghealthy people. It is generallynot life-threatening and can becured with antibiotics. Forthose who have other illnessesor weakened immune systems,however, it is very dangerous.

The additional crime here isthat Washington has refused

to accept or even acknowledge the Cubangovernment’s offer Sept. 2 to supply 1,100doctors. These physicians have experienceworking in difficult conditions similar tothose along the devastated Gulf Coast—which few U.S. doctors have. They wereready to arrive on Saturday, PresidentFidel Castro said, each fully equipped with53 pounds of medication for immediateuse.

Grassroots initiatives

The grassroots support has beenquicker and often better organized thanthat of the Red Cross, not to speak ofFEMA. Gloria Rubac of the TexasCoalition to Abolish the Death Penalty toldWorkers World that there has been an out-pouring of support from the Houston pop-ulation, especially from the Black commu-nity. “There is a real connection betweenHouston, especially the Frenchtownneighborhood, and southern Louisiana,for both Black and white people, throughlanguage and culture,” she said. “There aremany volunteers, so many that the RedCross has been turning them away.”

Rubac said that SHAPE, which standsfor Self-Help for African People throughEducation and has been a center of polit-ical activity in the Black community since1969, has been “a center of organization”in Houston. “Other groups bring in allsorts of aid to the SHAPE Community Cen-ter, where it is sorted for babies, adults,whatever. These are contributions frompoor working class people in Houston con-tributing what they can. People withhomes are taking families into their home.

“SHAPE has also been keeping track ofwho comes in from Louisiana and con-necting people with others they know. TheRed Cross wasn’t doing this until Sept. 5,so the community group did,” Rubac said.

“We heard that someone in NewOrleans commandeered a bus and filled itwith people trying to evacuate the city. Itran out of gas and got stuck. At the same

Monday, Sept. 5Grassroots relief high l igh ts gov ’ t neg l igence

Sunday, Sept. 4

continues to request—that the AmericanRed Cross not come back into New Orleansfollowing the hurricane. Our presencewould ‘keep people from evacuating andencourage others to come into the city.’

“People are still trapped, starving anddying in New Orleans, but tragically, theRed Cross is not permitted to help them.Orders of Homeland Security.”

Venezuela’s offer of help

Offers of help from other countries arealso getting a polite “Thank you, we’ll seeabout it” from Washington, even as hun-dreds are still dying every day. Venezuelawas the first country to offer help to theafflicted in the Gulf area, saying it couldimmediately send fuel and emergencyworkers.

CITGO, a company in the U.S. owned bythe Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, hasa network of refineries and gas stations inthe United States. One of these is based inLake Charles, La., and was opened to giveshelter and aid to some 2,000 residents ofthe area. But the U.S. government has notgiven the go-ahead for this to happen. Itsattitude toward the ongoing revolution inVenezuela is completely hostile.

Now there is a new flood: criticism ofthe government authorities who allowedthis unprecedented disaster to happen. Inresponse, the Bush administration is seek-ing every possible way to deflect that crit-icism away from itself and its costly war inIraq—which has drained money andresources from the budgets for flood con-trol and disaster readiness—and turn itagainst the local authorities.

An internecine struggle has broken outover who will be in charge. Today’s Wash-ington Post reports: “Behind the scenes, apower struggle emerged, as federal offi-cials tried to wrest authority from Louis-iana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D).Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bushadministration sent her a proposed legalmemorandum asking her to request a fed-eral takeover of the evacuation of NewOrleans, a source within the state’s emer-gency operations center said Saturday.

“The administration sought unifiedcontrol over all local police and stateNational Guard units reporting to the gov-ernor. Louisiana officials rejected therequest after talks throughout the night,concerned that such a move would be com-parable to a federal declaration of martiallaw. Some officials in the state suspected apolitical motive behind the request. ‘Quitefrankly, if they’d been able to pull off tak-ing it away from the locals, they then couldhave blamed everything on the locals,’ saidthe source, who does not have the author-ity to speak publicly.”

The racist attitude of Washington andthe Pentagon to the besieged people ofNew Orleans can be seen in this report fromthe newspaper Army Times of Sept. 2:

“Combat operations are underway onthe streets ‘to take this city back’ in theaftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“ ‘This place is going to look like LittleSomalia,’ Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, com-mander of the Louisiana National Guard’sJoint Task Force told Army Times Fridayas hundreds of armed troops under hischarge prepared to launch a massive city-wide security mission from a staging areaoutside the Louisiana Superdome. ‘We’regoing to go out and take this city back. Thiswill be a combat operation to get this cityunder control.’

“Jones said the military first needs toestablish security throughout the city.”

The reference to Somalia is a dead give-away. Under the excuse of providing“humanitarian aid” during a food crisis,the U.S. military invaded the East African


Camp Casey, Detroit

country of Somalia in 1993 in an outrightcolonial operation. But an uprising of thepeople drove them out.

Instead of rescuing dying people, themilitary has gone to New Orleans to“establish security.” The people are seen as“the enemy,” “the bad guys,” those whohave to be “taken out,” in military jargon.

The hideous, racist character of thestate apparatus, especially in this areawhere 150 years ago Black people weresold in slave auctions to be worked todeath on the plantations of the South’s rul-ing elite, is all too evident.

Why was there no preparation for thisdisaster, which had been predicted by allthe experts? Why was there no emergency

mobilization until it was too late to savethe people from the consequences ofHurricane Katrina?

Because the priority of this capitalistgovernment, which has widened the gapbetween rich and poor in this country asnever before, is first and foremost control,control and control over the working class,especially its most oppressed and poten-tially rebellious sections.

The Bush administration on Saturdaymet with representatives of the Congres-sional Black Caucus, the Urban Leagueand the NAACP. It wanted to “dispel anykind of notions that the administration didnot care about African American people—or anyone else,” said one participant.

But after this monumental disaster, noamount of posturing and media manipu-lation can hide the ugly truth.

After Bush’s much-publicized photo-op, where he played hero and hugged twoyoung Black women in Louisiana, theGerman television station ZDF Newsreported that the president’s visit was acompletely staged event. Their crew wit-nessed how the open-air food distributionpoint Bush visited in front of the cameraswas torn down immediately after he andthe herd of “news people” had left. Othersthat were allegedly being set up wereabandoned at the same time.

The people in the area were once againleft to fend for themselves, said ZDF.

Continued to page 14


The following is from cell phonereports to Workers World newspaperfrom Johnnie Stevens, an organizer forthe Million Worker March, and TeresaGutierrez, a Troops Out Now Coalitionnational organizer, from “Camp CaseyNew Orleans” in Covington, La.

9 a.m: At ‘Camp New Orleans’

Teresa Gutierrez: We’re here, anhour outside of New Orleans, at the anti-war camp where activists have renamedtheir Camp Casey to honor the heroic peo-ple of this besieged city.

The progressive movement is going tohave to work non-stop to make sure thatwhat is really happening here comes out.This totally reminds me of the Trail ofTears and the relocation of NativeAmerican people.

You turn on the radio in Baton Rougeand you hear the white DJs talk about thistragedy and the need to pull together tohelp each other and love each other, andcelebrating how New Orleans is “comingback,” but then they’re talking about thetraffic conditions and weather.

The reality for the most oppressed isextreme horror, terror, displacement andrelocation, and those who did not die willnot have a chance to go back there unlessthere is a mass movement to demand it, tofight for it.

There’s no government attempt to takea census. There’s a woman we talked towho was evacuated to the HoustonAstrodome. She has no idea where herfamily is. She has nothing left. She is sotraumatized. She told us, “I’m just tryingto keep my sanity.”

Imagine losing everything and thenhaving to live with 20,000 people in adome, with all those contradictions, and

not know where your family is. When busestook people out of New Orleans, they drop-ped them off wherever the governmentwanted to. Even if the bus passed righthere on a road where people had familythat could take care of them, the govern-ment wouldn’t let them get off the bus.

There’s this human toll that they’re try-ing to cover up. Everything is left to thecollective good will of people, while theRed Cross and government do nothing.We talked to one of the Veterans for Peacepeople here whose sister, a nurse, volun-teered to come down here to New Orleans,but the Red Cross said no, there wereenough people here already.

People here on the ground know thatthere are not enough.

The movement has to demand to knowwhy is the government turning away help,if not because they want more death anddestruction. The government is calling forforced evacuation right now—people areopposed to that.

Johnny Stevens: Yesterday, we werein Baton Rouge interviewing people at aMuslim outreach center for relief in a pre-dominately Black neighborhood.

The people we talked to told us they liketo be called evacuees—not refugees,because of how that word is nega-tively associated by the press.

We interviewed one guy who saidthere are meetings going on thereabout the neighborhood helpingpeople—the Red Cross and FEMAweren’t helping—they were.

We talked to a 3-year-old childwho said, “I want my father!” Wetalked to a mother who told us shelost two of her kids. Another womanwas saying, like a lot of these peopleare saying, they don’t know where

Wednesday , Sept . 7

On the road to New Orleansanybody’s at. She asked, “How’s someonegonna know where I’m at; that I’m safe?”

We interviewed a white couple who wasforced out of their home. The police cameand told them they had to leave. They weretelling us that hundreds of people werebeing dropped off on the bridge in the hotsun. There was no food, no water, but awhole lot of helicopters—five or six—always in the air, all day long, and theywasn’t helping.

We talked to at least eight white peoplewho said that the real aim now was tobring the rich people in and this was theopportunity. It’s what everybody was say-ing. And everybody is very angry. Themost glaring anger is that they won’t allowpeople to come in to help when the city isunderwater and over a million peopleneed help.

And they’re very young: 18 to 30-some-thing, 40-something. And very angry.They said how come Bush had an aircraftcarrier right there on the port but didn’tbring it in to rescue them? They saying $10billion in so-called aid isn’t equal to theamount of people that was in need. Theywere clear that it was racism, that FEMAand the Red Cross wasn’t bringing anyhelp in to them.

We’re here at Covington where theVeterans for Peace set up Camp Casey andCindy Sheehan gave them a bus to set it up.They’re going out to all the differentparishes and dropping food off daily.Another group here from Tennessee isdoing the same thing. So far the Army isletting them in, but today is supposed tobe the end of that.

Right now, we’re on our way to NewOrleans.

Noon: On a back road to Algiers

Johnnie Stevens: We are trying to getoff the highway into Algiers, a parish ofNew Orleans, but the road is blockedeverywhere by soldiers. Teresa says itlooks like Colombia.

They got us off the highway. Theywaved us away onto a highway ramp andsent us down to a back road, but that wasblocked by soldiers, too.

We’re riding a back road now. You cansee the destruction of slums; a lot of thetrees cut down by the storm. There’s deadanimals all over the place.

The whole time we’ve been on the road—from Baton Rouge, Lafayette, St.Charles parish—we haven’t heard noCajun music, no blues and no jazz on theradio stations. This whole thing seems likeethnic cleansing.

The traffic last night was so incredible.They’re not accepting credit cards athotels, gas stations. We picked up twowhite youth, on their way to the hospitalto visit their parents whose prior medicalconditions were agitated by all the stress,and we stopped to get gas. We met awoman there who couldn’t get no gas’cause that’s all she got was a credit card.

Algiers is right over the bridge. Our aimis to make it into Algiers.

Even before the dying is over

The corporate vultures move in By Milt Neidenberg

Emperor George has no clothes.Hurricane Katrina has exposed his admin-istration and its ruthless indifference tothe needs of a population exploited byclass, race and poverty.

The government has lost its credibilitybecause of the too-little, too-late responseto the colossal catastrophe in New Orleansand the Gulf states. The hurricane hasbrought home death and destruction, hun-ger and disease such as wars of imperialistconquest have brought to the world’s peo-ples—Iraq and Afghanistan, foremost.

Statistics have now taken on a humanface. The contrast—stark and indisput-able—is between a government indistin-guishable from the empire of high financeand a Black community dispossessed andpoor, now more than ever homeless andjobless. The tragic events in the Gulf statesare a brutal reflection of a racist and classvirus, institutionalized and national.

On July 24, the opening day of the AFL-CIO convention, a group of Black tradeunionists had presented this critical issueto the AFL-CIO and the Change to WinCoalition. A statement was distributed byco-leaders of the Million Worker MarchMovement (MWMM), Clarence Thomasand Saladin Muhammad. Entitled“Racism and sexism: Major pillars of thecrisis in U.S. trade union movement,” itsaid that the most immediate problem forthe labor movement, if it is to survive and

grow, is confronting “institutionalizedracism and gender discrimination.”

“The failure to organize the South,” itwent on, “a low-wage region which hasbeen used historically by the corporationsto force billions in concessions fromorganized workers and tax abatementsfrom cities and states throughout thecountry by their threats of plant closingsand runaway shops to the South, standsout as a major indictment of labor’s fail-ure to struggle against racism.

“Organizing labor in the South, espe-cially during the 1950s and 1960s, meanttaking on the struggle against legal segre-gation and white supremacy. It meantaligning with the Black civil rights move-ment and broadening the character oflabor organizing and representation frombeing a narrow economic movement to amovement for social and economic justice.”

The article concluded: “Prejudice meansprofits for the boss. For the worker—Blackand white—it means lower living stan-dards, humiliation, violence, often death.”How prophetic!

Halliburton already at the trough

Cost estimates for restoring the GulfCoast infrastructure have already reached$200 billion—more than enough to attractthe biggest corporate vultures.

“A Halliburton Co. subsidiary that hascome under fire for its reconstructionwork in Iraq has begun tapping a $500-million Navy contract to do emergency

repairs at Gulf Coast naval and Marinefacilities that were battered by HurricaneKatrina.“ (AP, Sept. 4)

Vice-President Dick Cheney headedHalliburton from 1995 to 2000. The gov-ernment is locked into fulfilling the needsof the military-industrial complex.

Halliburton/KBR is a notoriously anti-union corporation. There are 22 “right towork” states and Louisiana, Mississippiand Alabama are among them. They alsohave some of the highest poverty levels inthe country. And now, estimates are thatat least 1 million jobs have been wiped out.

Halliburton, bank lenders, contractorsand subcontractors are licking their chopsover the billions that will be pouring infrom government and humanitarian aid.The oil barons are reaping huge profits asthey hold the public hostage by monopolypricing of energy products. Jacked-up pricesat the gas pumps and for home heating oilensure them more “windfall” profits.

Meanwhile, the cleanup, recovery andrepair work in the stricken areas is too lit-tle, too late for hundreds of thousands.And this after a five-year downward cyclein income and benefits over the wholecountry.

New census data show that 800,000additional workers found themselveswithout health insurance in 2004, bring-ing the total of uninsured to 45.8 million.Some 1.1 million more people fell intopoverty in 2004, bringing the ranks of thepoor to 37 million. Only the top 5 percent

of households experienced real incomegains in 2004.

Yet the minimum wage has remained at$5.15 for the last eight years. Congressrecently rejected any increase.

It’s time for a fightback.

History as a guide to action

Back in 1932, just one year after theinauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, anarmy of poor and unemployed was formedto meet the challenges of a national emer-gency. The Civilian Conservation Corps(CCC) was initiated by a presidential exec-utive order on April 5, 1933. The WorksProgress Administration (WPA) was alsoestablished by executive order in 1935.

Both were created to sidetrack a poten-tial revolutionary development that wasrapidly spreading. The government wasresponding to the continuous demonstra-tions of the unemployed, rebellions andgeneral strikes—the hallmark of Roose-velt’s first term.

Communists, socialists and other pro-gressives organized unions in the WPAand other projects. Labor battalions of theunemployed were formed nationally in theCCC. However, these labor camps werehighly regimented under a military code ofbehavior.

Both organizations built highways,bridges, public buildings and recreationfacilities. New roads were built, telephonelines strung up, federal parks created and

Continued on page 11

Buses removing people from New Orleans.


‘Drowning New Orleans’

The putrid waters of capitalist politics By Fred Goldstein

President George W. Bush, flanked byhis cabinet, deflected media questionsabout the slowness of the federal govern-ment’s response to the hurricane disasterby declaring that he did not want to “playthe blame game.” This is akin to a bank rob-ber caught in the act pleading that “Now isnot the time to make accusations.”

Of course, the Bush-Rove strategy isprecisely to play the “blame game.” TheWhite House is trying to direct attentionto the failures of state and local authori-ties. Michael Chertoff, head of HomelandSecurity, has begun talking about the“breakdown of state and local authorities.”

Rep. Tom DeLay, the Republican Housemajority leader, has canceled House hear-ings on the Katrina response by declaringit is a local and state problem. “It’s the localofficials trying to handle the problem.When they can’t handle the problem, theygo to the state, and the state does whatthey can do, and if they need assistancefrom FEMA and the federal governmentthey ask for it and it’s delivered.” (CNN,Sept. 7)

Of course, the Bush administration isthe primary culprit in this disaster. Itappointed Bush’s national campaign man-ager, Joe Allbaugh, as director of FEMAfor the first two years of the administra-tion. Allbaugh knew nothing about disas-ter management. He resigned and appoin-ted Michael Brown, another Bush crony,to be the new director. Brown also knewnothing about disaster management.

Allbaugh went on to become a lobbyistfor Halliburton subsidiary KBR. VicePresident Dick Cheney was the CEO ofHalliburton, a giant oil services corpora-tion, before he came to the Bush adminis-tration. These two directors, operatingunder Chertoff, choked off funds for NewOrleans hurricane preparations.

Bush created the Department of Home-land Security in March 2003. The DHSabsorbed 22 agencies, including FEMA.

DHS diminished the progressive func-tions of these agencies, such as fundingpublic health and preparing for naturaldisasters. It spent billions on giving outcontracts to corporations for such thingsas “bioterrorism”—part of the campaign tosustain a permanent national frenzy overterrorism. The aim was to justify spendinghundreds of billions of dollars on “stayingthe course” in the quagmire of the Iraqoccupation.

Trying to get off the hook

Scientific American magazine, in itsOctober 2001 piece entitled “DrowningNew Orleans” by Mark Fischetti, revealedhow the New Orleans authorities werepreparing for a major hurricane.

“The boxes are stacked eight-feet highand line the walls of the large, windowlessroom. Inside them are new body bags,10,000 in all. If a big, slow-moving hurri-cane crossed the Gulf of Mexico on theright track, it would drive a sea surge thatwould drown New Orleans under 20 feetof water. ‘As the water recedes,’ saysWalter Maestri, a local emergency man-agement director, ‘we expect to find a lotof dead bodies.’”

The Scientific American article revealedin detail both a computer model of theexpected hurricane and a concrete pro-gram of prevention—including sea gatesthat would stop Gulf storm surges fromreaching Lake Pontchartrain and meas-ures to rebuild the city’s natural defensesagainst storms.

But instead of preparing to prevent thedisaster, New Orleans disaster emergencyauthorities were preparing for 10,000deaths.

It is doubtful that they informed thelargely African American population ofNew Orleans about the 10,000 body bags.They didn’t call for mass demonstrationsto demand funding. Neither did the gov-ernor, the mayor, the congressional repre-sentatives or the senators. They all playedby the rules of capitalism.

Hurricane after hurricane threatenedNew Orleans. Preparations moved at asnail’s pace. Staring disaster in the face—disaster for the people, that is—these cap-italist politicians, mostly from the Demo-cratic Party, confined their efforts to lob-bying and horse trading in Baton Rougeand Washington. They settled for piece-meal handouts that did not come close togetting the job done.

Everyone is now trying to get off thehook.

Big business wants answers

But the Wall Street Journal, the voice ofbig business, is not waiting for Congressor the president to investigate. Their sys-tem has been shaken and they are con-ducting their own detailed investigation.The ruling class wants to know what reallyhappened. They want to know right awayand without the distortions and cover-upsexpected from their own politicians.

As part of its investigation, to which ithas assigned no less than 21 reporters, aWSJ article on Sept. 7 describes in chill-ing detail what Walter Maestri waspreparing for in 2001. The newspaper pre-cisely pinpointed the areas of flooding andhow they developed by interviewing 90eyewitnesses.

“Trapped between three cascades ofwater were the neighborhoods of theLower Ninth Ward, where nearly 14,000African Americans lived, a third of whomowned no vehicle and a third of whom hadphysical disabilities, according to U.S.Census Data ... .

“To the north, water poured throughBlack and Vietnamese neighborhoodscloser to Lake Pontchartrain, where an-other 96,000 people lived ... large num-bers of those people had not evacuated.”

The Lower Ninth Ward is located nextto an industrial canal. “As the hurricanerolled into New Orleans, scores of boatsbroke free or sank. In the Industrial Canal,the gush of water broke a barge from itsmoorings. It isn’t known whose barge itwas. The huge steel hull became a water-borne missile. It hurtled into the canal’seastern wall just north of the major streetpassing through the Lower Ninth Ward,”creating a 500-foot breach.

In less than five minutes the water was7 to 10 feet deep.

The canal is operated “mostly by thefederal government,” according to theJournal. It is a crucial waterway “for ves-sels carrying petroleum products, indus-trial chemicals and oil-field pipes becauseit connects the river to the Gulf. ...

“Barges and ships were routinelydelayed because of growing traffic levelsand the lock was ‘literally falling apart atthe hinges’ in 1998, according to a U.S.Army Corp of Engineers report.” It wasnever replaced.

As for the slanderous reports about peo-ple refusing to obey the mandatory evac-uation, Stanley P. Stewart, a 49-year-oldmechanic from the Lower Ninth Ward,told the Journal: “Where was I to go? I’dlike to ask the mayor how you take 14 peo-ple with no finances and book them in ahotel. It’s not that we didn’t leave. It’s thatwe couldn’t.”

Guilty at all levels

What the Journal may not reveal is whatScientific American showed about how theoil and gas industry has built pipelines andchannels through the marshlands over theyears. It is estimated that these projects areresponsible for a third of the erosion of thenatural protection of the marshlands.Land developers also have played adestructive role.

What emerges clearly from the prelim-inary investigation is that, while Bush is toblame in the short run, all the capitalistauthorities are to blame. They have noconcern for the masses. They let the oilindustry and shipping industry have theirway year after year. The capitalist govern-ment is primarily organized to support theprofit-making enterprises of the corpora-tions and for purposes of repression.

Helping the workers and the oppressedpeople who suffer under this system ofexploitation is the last thing on their list ofpriorities. But now that this disaster hashappened, they will all blame each otherand vie to show that they want to help thepeople.

Bush and the Congress rushed back toWashington overnight when Terri Schiavo,who was brain dead, was going to have alife-support tube removed. But the poten-tial emergency affecting the lives of wellover 1 million people never got their atten-tion. They were too busy making deals andplanning how to enhance their careers.

Suddenly they found $10.1 billion andare promising up to $50 billion more. Anysignificant portion of that money, appro-priated at the proper time and used in agenuinely constructive way, could havesaved thousands of lives and hundreds ofthousands of homes and jobs.

The political managers of the systemrealize that there is a deep crisis—a crisisof confidence in the system among thepeople. They are rushing belatedly torepair the image of the system while try-

ing to balance “responsibility” with polit-ical ambition.

Only the Congressional Black Caucus,among all government bodies, hasunequivocally denounced Bush. FormerPresident Bill Clinton, on the other hand,is trying to shield Bush. He has said thatwe all have to pull together. He has teamedup with George Bush senior to show“bipartisan” class unity between the twocapitalist parties in the crisis.

Senators Susan Collins, Republicanfrom Maine, and Joseph Lieberman,Democrat from Connecticut, have calledfor a Katrina commission to investigate.But they should be investigating them-selves. They are on the Senate Govern-mental Affairs Committee. Hurricane pre-paredness definitely falls under the defi-nition of governmental affairs.

Where were they? The New Orleans sit-uation was known nationally as a disasterwaiting to happen. There were debatesand discussions in the open and behindthe scenes in Congress over appropria-tions to deal with the situation.

Congress is all talk

As far as the people are concerned,Congress is just all talk, with capitalistpoliticians drawing high salaries and hold-ing fancy titles—like chairperson of theGovernmental Affairs Committee or of theenvironmental and coastal subcommittee,etc., ad nauseam. But their real job is togrease the wheels of the capitalist machineof exploitation.

Right now, the Navy has asked Halli-burton to fix its installations damaged inNew Orleans. Halliburton is a firm thatservices the giant oil monopolies, includ-ing Chevron, ExxonMobile, Conoco,Philips, and others. Halliburton is a cor-rupt war contractor in Iraq serving the oilindustry there, among other things.

The oil companies pump hundreds ofthousands of barrels of oil every day out ofthe Gulf. They refine hundreds of thou-sands of barrels in the Mississippi Deltaregion. They are gouging the public at thegas pumps. They have contributed might-ily to the deterioration of the New Orleansenvironment. And their interest is pri-mary in the Iraq war—which is beingfought mostly for oil and fabulous profits.

With all the issues on the table—gasprices, the war, the oil industry’s role inthe floods and the corruption of Halli-burton—the Democrats could have a polit-ical field day and make gains among thepeople. But their orientation is to be theloyal imperialist opposition–-with theemphasis on obsequious loyalty.

In addition, they have to be careful notto dig too deep or they will uncover thedereliction of the Clinton administration—before Bush—and the Democratic-con-trolled Congress. They too allowed the oilcompanies and the industry to have a freehand at eroding the ecology of the regionand failed to fund and carry out responsi-ble disaster management planning that allthe experts said for years was necessary.

The lesson for the workers and theoppressed is that leaving their fate to thecapitalist authorities is a prescription fordisaster. The only way out is to organizeindependently and establish popularauthority through organizations outsidethe framework of the capitalist politicalparties and governmental apparatus.

Community organizations, unions andall other organizations of the people musthave supervisory authority and responsi-bility in matters of public safety. Thatmeans pushing aside the capitalist profitsystem. It must be done.

With all the issues on the

table--gas prices, the war,

the oil industry’s role in the

floods and the corruption of

Halliburton--the Democrats

could have a political field day

and make gains among the

people. But their orientation

is to be the loyal imperialist

opposition–-with the emphasis

on obsequious loyalty.

Bush and the Congress rushed

back to Washington overnight

when Terri Schiavo, who was

brain dead, was going to have

a life-support tube removed.

But the potential emergency

affecting the lives of well over

1 million people never got their

attention. They were too busy

making deals and planning

how to enhance their careers.


76 arrested in solidarity action

Militant sit-down supports NYU workers By Shelley EttingerNew York

Well over 1,000 people massed on the south bor-der of Washington Square Park here Aug. 31 todemand full union rights for New York Universitygraduate employees. Members of many New Yorkunions joined workers and students who came fromup and down the East Coast to protest NYU’s unionbusting.

The demonstration was big, loud and angry. It cul-minated in a sit-down blocking the entrance to BobstLibrary, which houses NYU’s administrative offices.

Police arrested 76 people, including AFL-CIOPresident John Sweeney, UAW Vice PresidentElizabeth Bunn and scores of NYU workers.

NYU President John Sexton had announced earlierin the summer that, as of the beginning of the 2005-2006 academic year and the expiration of Local 2110’sfirst contract, he would withdraw recognition of thegraduate employee union. He now refuses to negoti-ate with Local 2110 for a new contract.

Sexton moved to bust the union after the NationalLabor Relations Board ruled that graduate employeesare not workers and not entitled to collective bargain-ing rights. This reversed an earlier ruling.

The original Labor Board ruling had paved the wayfor legal recognition of Local 2110, also known as theGraduate Student Organizing Committee—and for thefirst union contract for graduate employees at a privateuniversity in the United States.

Graduate employees saythey are not going back,regardless of the latest rul-ing. They are discussingvarious tactics to force thebosses to back off theireffort to bust GSOC.

With the new schoolyear about to start, one ofthe most popular chants atthe rally was, “No contract,no grades.”

The president and two executive committee mem-bers from Teachers Local 3882, which represents NYUclerical employees, were taken away in handcuffsalongside graduate employees. Local 3882’s contractis about to expire. Activists expect a difficult fight tohold onto hard-won benefits.

One of the biggest contingents Aug. 31 was fromUNITE HERE, mostly Yale University workers. UNITEHERE General President Bruce Raynor was amongthose arrested.

This public show of unity was significant, sinceUNITE HERE boycotted the national AFL-CIO con-vention in July and is closely aligned with the ServiceEmployees and Teamsters unions, which split from thefederation. However, other than individual memberswho showed up on their own, those unions had no vis-ible presence.

The writer is a member of Teachers Local 3882, the NYU clerical workers’ union.

Detroit Labor Day

March supports Northwest strikers

Solidarity with striking Northwest Airlines mechanicsand cleaners came through at this year’s Labor Dayparade.

Northwest on Aug. 20 forced 4,400 members of theAirline Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) out onstrike when the company demanded a 75 percent reduc-tion in jobs from the levels four years ago, plus extremewage, benefit and work rule concessions that wouldessentially disband the union.

As they marched to the theme: “Protect Pensions,

Health Care and Social Security,” many workers droppedmoney in collection cans, resulting in a generous contri-bution to the strike fund. Often, parents handed theirchildren cash to place in the buckets. The AMFA is fight-ing for the future jobs and benefits of today’s young peo-ple.

ALabor Day appeal called on the Metro AFL-CIO to con-vene an emergency meeting of all labor to get behindthe Northwest strikers.

—Story and photo by Cheryl LaBash

Boeing machinists strikeAbout 18,500 machinists at Boeing, a major U.S. pro-

ducer of airplanes, set up picket lines on Sept. 2 in Seattle,Wichita, Kan., and Gresham, Ore. The major issues: wages,health care and pension benefits.

During three months of negotiations leading up to thestrike, the best Boeing offered was a 5.5 percent wageincrease—which would be significantly reduced by a hike inhealth care costs—and pension payments of $66 a monthfor every year of a retired employee’s service. Wichitaemployees received a separate offer.

Members of the Machinists and Aerospace Workers wantall workers to get the same package, with $80 in pensionpayments and no increase in health-care costs.

Noting that Boeing profits have tripled in the last threeyears, Mark Blondin, president of IAMAW’s District 751,

said the Boeing offer represented “acorporate strategy to break the work-ers who have built this company.”(Sept. 3, New York Times)

Jaunice Conyers, a mechanic whohas worked for Boeing for 10 years,said, “We make them a lot of money.They can give a lot of money to theCEOs and they can retire for the restof their lives. But they don’t want togive the small people anythingbesides just a paycheck.”

A regulatory filing made by Boeingon Sept. 2 confirmed Conyers’ state-ment: Boeing gave two top interim

executives $2 million in stock awards for their work thisyear.

The strike is expected to cost Boeing about $70 million aday. A 10-week strike in 1995 “depressed Boeing’s earningsas the company delivered fewer planes.” (New York Times,Sept. 2) The workers are in a strong position because thecompany’s worldwide orders have begun to pick uprecently. Go, Boeing mechanics!

Boycott Gallo Sonoma!The United Farm Workers initiated a second boycott of

Gallo wine on June 14. The UFW called the boycott becauseGallo pays its Sonoma County vineyard workers, many ofwhom are immigrants, poverty wages and denies them ben-efits, job projections and humane living conditions.

In recent weeks silent vigils and prayer services were heldin California, including a “No Gallo!” march in SanFrancisco by 1,500 farm workers and supporters.

New talks between UFW and Gallo of Sonoma are sched-uled for Sept. 14. Supporters can put pressure on Gallo bysending the company an e-mail asking them to bargainfairly with the UFW and expressing support for the boycott.To sign, visit www.gallounfair.com.

Immigrant workers at riskImmigrant workers, especially Latinos, are dying on the

job at a far greater rate than other workers, documents anew AFL-CIO report, “Immigrant Workers at Risk: TheUrgent Need for Improved Workplace Safety and HealthPolicies and Programs.”

The study shows that between 1996 and 2000 foreign-born workers increased by 22 percent, but their share offatal occupational injuries nearly doubled, to 43 percent.Between 1992 and 2002 (the latest figures available), work-place fatalities among all foreign-born workers increased by46 percent. But Latino workers died in even higher num-bers: there was a shocking 58 percent jump in on-the-jobdeaths for Latino workers during the same period.

The report noted that many immigrant workers “toil in high-risk occupations, work in the unregulated‘informal’ economy and often fear reporting workplaceinjuries. Many are not aware of their legal rights to safetyand health on the job and to workers’ compensation if theyare injured.” To counter that, the report profiled severalsuccessful outreach projects by unions and communitygroups to educate immigrant workers on worksite hazardsand their legal rights on the job.

The report detailed 13 recommendations to improvesafety and health protections for immigrant workers. Someof these include requiring all employers to provide safetyand health training in a language understood by workersand strengthening whistle-blower and anti-retaliation provisions for all workers, regardless of their immigrationstatus, who exercise job safety rights and raise job safetyconcerns.

On the Picket Lineby Sue Davis

millions of trees planted. The WPA performed theaterand created new art forms that reflected the struggles,the sacrifices, and the bonding of Black and white in apeople’s movement.

In 1937, the Ohio River flooded surrounding areas.It was the CCC that saved lives and homes. They wereindispensable in fighting a Labor Day hurricane in theFlorida Keys in 1935, when winds of 150 to 200 milesper hour knocked out bridges and rail lines; Vermontand New York floods in 1937; and a New England hur-ricane in 1938.

Emperor George and the government have no inten-

tion of organizing and subsidizing the laboring massesin order to rebuild New Orleans and the cities border-ing the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Oilproduction facilities and the corporations that use theports will get their first attention, along with the casi-nos and hotels that bring in the tourists.

Organized protests are spreading rapidly. The peo-ple must be allowed to assemble independently of thegovernment and work out a program to resist theseshameful policies. The $10.5 billion emergency reliefmust be directed to the people’s needs, but it is only adrop in the bucket. The fallout from Katrina will be feltfor years.


The corporate vultures move in

PHOTO: UAW


‘STOP SEPT. 14 EXECUTION!’Supporters of Frances Newton work nonstopBy Gloria RubacHouston

Civil rights activist Dick Gregory andthe president of the American BarAssociation have joined the growing listof supporters of Frances Newton whoare demanding that the state of Texashalt the scheduled Sept. 14 execution ofthis African American woman.

With a week remaining before thescheduled execution, the Committee toFree Frances Newton is working nonstop.

There will be a teach-in, a hip-hop rally,a demonstration in front of the districtattorney’s office, an Amnesty Interna-tional vigil, a meeting at the University ofTexas in Austin and a demonstration infront of the home of Newton’s court-appointed attorney.

The committee is also endorsing theSept. 12 Emergency Day of Outrage calledby the Troops Out Now Coalition and willbe protesting outside the Astrodomehousing New Orleans evacuees.

Twenty-five thousand postcards havebeen printed to send to Texas Gov. RickPerry. The committee itself has mailed inover 5,000. A campaign by the committee

and the International Action Center hasgenerated tens of thousands of e-mails.

After suffering the racist indignities andterror unleashed by the government in thewake of Hurricane Katrina, the Black com-munity is rising above the Bush-made dis-aster to stop this execution.

A recent arrival in Houston from NewOrleans named Corey, who experiencedsix days of waiting to leave his home town,said about Frances Newton, “This coun-try wants us to be Americans, but I am notan American. My people were stolen fromour home, brought here and enslaved.They want to execute that girl? That’s

because this government treats us alllike n———. They don’t care aboutour lives. They shouldn’t executeanyone. They’ve already got toomany problems with us right now!”

Corey is living in temporaryhousing in downtown Houston atthe Convention Center.

Deloyd Parker, executive directorof the SHAPE community centerhere, said about Newton, “Evenamid the crisis, we must not stopfighting to stop Frances’ execution.Our people are under attack and

this execution cannot be allowed to hap-pen.” The community center is providingclothes and housing for flood survivorsfrom Louisiana. It was born out of the1960 civil rights and Black liberationstruggles. SHAPE Center now has people

coming to it who had been referred bythe Red Cross.

“The Red Cross and FEMA are multi-million-dollar organizations and they’remaking referrals to us?” Parkerexclaimed. “If this government can cre-ate a crisis because of a natural disaster,should we trust them to do the rightthing in the criminal justice system?Absolutely not! Frances Newton mustNOT be executed and must be given afair day in court!”

Activist Njeri Shakur concluded, “Theruling elite of Texas, who have announcedthey have no more room for people fromNew Orleans, have the life of FrancesNewton in their hands. The evidenceshows she is innocent. They must stop thisexecution now! We will not allow anotherattack on our people.”

Reproductive rights under attack

Director quitsFDA in protest By Sue Davis

Susan F. Wood, director for the past fiveyears of the Office of Women’s Health atthe Food and Drug Administration,resigned on Aug. 31 in protest over theFDA’s recent failure to authorize over-the-counter distribution of the so-called“morning after pill.”

“I have spent the last 15 years workingto ensure that science informs good healthpolicy decision,” Wood wrote in her resig-nation. “I can no longer serve as staff whenscientific and clinical evidence, fully eval-uated and recommended for approval bythe professional staff here, has been over-ruled.”

Wood was responding to an announce-ment on Aug. 26 by FDA CommissionerLester M. Crawford that the agency wouldindefinitely delay deciding whether toallow over-the-counter sales of the emer-gency contraception, known officially asPlan B, because it didn’t know how to limitsales to women 17 and older.

Pro-choice advocates have sincepointed out that states currently curtailsales of liquor and cigarettes to minors.Eight states already allow non-prescrip-tion sales of the pill without restrictions.Republican governors of Massachusettsand New York recently vetoed billsallowing access in their states, in lock-step with the Bush anti-reproductiverights agenda.

Although an independent advisorycommittee, the FDA’s regulatory staff andthe head of the agency’s drug center allrecommended that Plan B be approved,Crawford took it upon himself to overrulethem. A number of women’s groups,including the Black Women’s HealthImperative, Our Bodies, Ourselves BookCollective, the National Organization forWomen and the National Women’sHealth Network, charged Crawford with

advancing the Bush anti-choice agenda.In fact, Crawford’s unilateral action has

been hailed by anti-abortion groups,which say, unscientifically and mislead-ingly, that the pill causes abortions. Whatthese groups don’t say is that they alsooppose contraception and promote onlyreligious-based, abstinence-only sex edu-cation for teens.

“I feel very strongly that this shouldn’tbe about abortion politics,” Wood told theSept. 1 New York Times. “This is a way toprevent unwanted pregnancy and therebyprevent abortion. This should be some-thing that we should all agree on.”

Ellen Catalinotto, a certified nurse mid-wife of more than 20 years who specializesin teen pregnancies, believes that the pillshould not be restricted to older teens.“The ‘morning after pill’ is very appropri-ate for teens having unexpected andunprotected sex because they often can’tadmit being sexually active and they lackaccess to health insurance and other meth-ods of contraception,” she said.

Noting that the teen pregnancy rate hasfallen in recent years, Catalinotto added,“This pill will only help it drop more.”Statistics compiled by the Alan Gutt-macher Institute show that emergencycontraception was responsible for a 43percent decline in abortion between 1994and 2000. For other such statistics and adescription of how the pill works, go towww.guttmacher.org.

Note: The National Network ofAbortion Funds has set up an emergencyfund to help women in the Gulf regionaffected by the hurricane. In a statementannouncing the fund, it stated that“women who currently need abortionsmay very likely have to seek second-trimester abortions and will needincreased funding necessary for later pro-cedures.” To find out more about the fundand to donate, go to www.nnaf.org.

NEW YORK CITY.

Rich-poor gapwider than everBy LeiLani DowellNew York

The increasing gap between the rich andthe poor in this city was highlighted in aSept. 4 article in the Metro section of theNew York Times entitled, “In Manhattan,Poor Make 2¢ for Each Dollar to the Rich.”

According to recent data, New York, thecenter of U.S. finance capital, now has thewidest income gap in the country: the topfifth of wage-earners make 52 times theamount that the bottom fifth make. NewYork University economist Edward Wolffis quoted as attributing the disparity to anincrease in Wall Street incomes coupledwith a decrease in wages for low-incomeworkers.

Not surprisingly, the article tells thatcompared with the poorest in Manhattan,the top fifth of wage earners are dispropor-tionately white and male. The authordescribes the lowest-income tract inManhattan, a public housing projectcalled the Wagner Houses in East Harlem:“The median household income there is$9,320, most of the residents are black orHispanic and do not have high schooldegrees, 56 percent live below the povertylevel and about one in 10 are foreign-born.”

The highest-income tract is a mere 60blocks away, where, the article says “none

of the residents identified themselves asblack.”

The article also reports that the Bronx,which is both a borough of New York Cityand a county, is now the poorest urbancounty in the United States. These num-bers are striking for the area, especiallyconsidering that the Bronx includes theRiverdale area, an enclave of multi-mil-lion-dollar houses overlooking theHudson River. Yet even with this averagedin, the poverty rate in the Bronx is at 30.6percent, making it fourth in the country onthe list of high-poverty areas.

A Census Bureau report a week earliersaid that across the country incomes havestagnated and poverty rates risen, “even asthe economy grew.”

The only thing missing from thesereports in the corporate media is KarlMarx’s analysis of how capitalism works.He proved conclusively that, without mil-itant struggle by the working class, the ten-dency of capitalism is to drive down work-ers’ wages and other compensation evenas the rich get richer.

This ruthless downward pressure fromthe bosses does not spring from the per-sonal greed of individuals but from thecapitalist system itself, and will only endwhen capitalism has been replaced bysocial ownership of the vast productivewealth now in the hands of billionaires.

Marxism, Reparations & the Black Freedom StruggleRacism, national oppression & the right to self-determination Larry HolmesBlack labor from chattel slavery to wage slavery Sam MarcyReparations & Black Liberation Monica MooreheadHarriet Tubman: woman warrior Mumia Abu-Jamal (Guest Commentary)

Black labor & the fight for reparations Bill CecilAlabama’s Black Belt: Legacy of slavery, sharecropping& segregation By Consuela Lee (Guest commentary)

Black farmers demand justice Monica MooreheadGreetings from Mumia Abu-Jamal to the 3rd UN WorldConference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia & Related IntoleranceNigerian women take over Chevron TexacoMonica MooreheadNigerian women’s takeover ends in victory Monica MooreheadCauses of turmoil in Jamaica PART I PART II PART III Pat ChinThe driving force behind the land seizures Monica Moorehead

Order online at leftbooks.com

Edited by Monica Moorehead

www.workers.org Sept. 15, 2005 Page 13 Sept. 15, 2005 www.workers.org

Under pressure from labor

Puerto Rico suspends mass layoffsBy Tom SotoSan Juan, Puerto Rico

In September 2004, Moody’s InvestorServices and Standard & Poor’s—two WallStreet credit rating houses—quietlyannounced they were downgrading thecredit worthiness of Puerto Rico’s govern-ment bonds.

Moody’s cited a government debt of$39.4 billion—up almost $8 billion overthe last 2-1/2 years—that makes PuertoRico’s per capita debt higher than crisis-racked Argentina’s. Moody’s also pointedto the government’s $1.5-billion deficit inthe fiscal year 2005 budget, which beganin July.

In February 2005, Gov. Anibal AcevedoVilá appointed William Lockwood Benet,“an expert in innovation of economic pol-icy with experience in privatization trans-actions and bond issues,” to preside overPuerto Rico’s Development Bank and tolead the efforts “to reestablish Puerto Rico’scredit worthiness.” Lockwood’s “profes-sional experience” included former posi-tions at Banco Popular of Puerto Rico,Citibank Global Finance, Merrill Lynchand Conservation Trust.

Offensive against workers and poor

In July, Governor Acevedo declaredthat, due to Puerto Rico’s debt and budgetcrisis, his administration had made the“painful and historic decision” to lay off40,000 public employees out of a total of312,000.

In addition, the government announcedthat water usage rates would increase by128 percent, bus fares by 50 percent andhighway tolls by 43 percent. In the lastthree years the price of electricity has risen60 percent, while gasoline prices, evenbefore Hurricane Katrina hit the GulfCoast, were at the all-time high of $3 to$3.20 per gallon. The government has alsoannounced it will increase yearly car reg-istration fees by 100 percent.

In April, the University of Puerto Rico,which includes 11 campuses serving

70,000 working class students, intro-duced a 40 percent increase in tuition fees.A month-long student strike failed torevoke the increase, but students are con-tinuing their struggle.

With many union contracts coming upfor renegotiation, the governor has ruledout wage increases and has declared hewill not sign any bills that requireincreased spending. Several labor laws arepending before the Legislature.

The first immediate victims of theannounced cutbacks in social serviceswere 600 children from the poorest com-munities whose government-supporteddaycare centers were closed.

A developing atmosphere of struggle

The announced layoffs, the reduction ofsocial services, and increased prices forbasic food stuffs and other commoditieshave generated shock, uncertainty andworry among workers and their families.

The most vocal opposition to the layoffsand cutbacks has come from the island’sorganized labor movement, which is call-ing for a fightback campaign.

Unions representing the public employ-ees as well as other sectors of the economyhave denounced the layoffs and cutbacksas “unjust” and have demanded that thegovernment tax the banks and the richinstead. They include the Federation ofPuerto Rican Workers (FederaciónPuertorriqueña de Trabajadores), theUnion of Puerto Rican Workers (SindicatoPuertorriqueño de Trabajadores), theGeneral Union of Workers (Unión Generalde Trabajadores), the Federation ofTeachers (Federación de Maestros), theElectrical Industry Workers Union (Uniónde Trabajadores de la Industria Eléctrica),the Teamsters (Unión de Tronquistas),and others.

The labor movement has warned thegovernment that going ahead with itsplans for mass layoffs and cutbacks couldprovoke a general strike like the one thatoccurred in 1998, when the unions para-lyzed the country to protest the privatiza-

tion and sale of the Puerto RicanTelephone Co.

Forced reduction of working hours

Though the opposition movement isonly beginning, it has been so quick, sharpand vocal that the government hasattempted to dress up its austerity plan by“asking civic-minded public employees tovoluntarily work four days instead of five.”

All the unions have rejected this so-called voluntary reduction of workinghours, but the governor has insisted thatif public employees don’t participate vol-untarily by Sept. 1, the reduced workschedule will be mandatory.

José González, a maintenanceemployee who has worked for 17 years atLa Fortaleza (the governor’s mansion inold San Juan), told the newspaper ElNuevo Día: “A reduction of 20 percent inmy salary would be a serious blow to myfamily. ... I earn $449 bi-weekly. Can youimagine removing 20 percent of my salary,with all the loans and bills to pay?”

In Puerto Rico, on average, 50 percentof a worker’s salary is committed to thepayment of personal debt.

Unions begin to organize fightback

In August, organized labor beganpulling out its members for noon-hour“warm-up demonstrations” in front ofgovernment buildings. On Friday, Aug. 12,5,000 public employees and their sup-porters gathered at the Capitol Buildingdemanding the intervention of theLegislature to avert the crisis. They latermarched to La Fortaleza under the slogan:“Tax the rich.”

Some unions have mobilized delega-tions to lobby the members of the Legis-lature, pressuring them to approve a taxon bank, corporate and Big Oil profits,which are at record levels but declared“untouchable” under the current capital-ist model of this colonial economy. But asoccurs in other capitalist countries, thegovernor blames the Legislature for not

approving his budget, and the Legislatureblames the governor for the current $1.5-billion deficit—all of which is calculated tomask the real problem and deceive theworkers.

Two tendencies in labor movement

The organized labor movement inPuerto Rico is divided into two wings.Most public employees directly affected bythe layoffs are represented by unionswhose orientation is class-collaboration-ist, favoring a non-struggle approach inthe current crisis. Some of these unionsare tied to the AFL-CIO in the UnitedStates.

The left wing of the labor movement isled by the Electrical Industry WorkersUnion, the Federation of Teachers (thelargest union in P.R.), the Puerto RicanWorkers Council, the Teamsters and theBrotherhood of Exempt and Non-Educational Employees, among others.

These unions are more class-consciousand struggle-oriented and are attemptingto forge a fightback alliance within thelabor movement. They openly criticizecorruption within the government as wellas union bureaucracy. They emphasizegreater worker participation and oftenform community-labor coalitions to fightfor working class political and economicobjectives.

What lies behind the debt crisis?

Puerto Rico has been economicallytransformed since the Spanish-American War in 1898, when it wasinvaded by the United States and takenover as a U.S. colony. Having developeda considerable economic infrastructure,Puerto Rico has become highly lucrativefor foreign investors.

A recent advertisement for the OffshoreCorporation explains: “Puerto Rico pro-vides unparalleled value that no otherlocation can match. It is a United Statescommunity with a foreign tax structure.

Eyewitness Philippines

U.S.military actions broaden crisis By Sharon EolisManila, Philippines

An International Solidarity Missioncame here Aug. 8-13 to defend a peopleunder siege from the regime of GloriaMacapagal Arroyo and her government’simperialist backers in Washington.

The week of activities was initiated bythe International League of People’sStruggles-Philippines chapter, Krapatan(Alliance for the Advancement of People’sRights), Promotion of Church People’sResponse, Bayan (New Patriotic Alliance),International Association of People’sLawyers and Bayan Muna Partylist. Ofroughly 90 delegates from 19 countries,about 30 came from the U.S.

This event took place as U.S. troops incollusion with the Armed Forces of thePhilippines (AFP) began a new round ofwar maneuvers against the armed revolu-tionary movement in Sulu Province inSouthern Mindanao. The Arroyo govern-ment has directed and supported militaryattacks and massacres in communities ofMoro people there.

The fighting in Sulu began in February,

when the AFP and the Moro National Lib-eration Front (MNLF) had an encounter.The AFP has accused the MNLF of coor-dinating with the Abu Sayyaf—an Islamicgroup that has been the primary pretextfor U.S. military intervention in thePhilippines.

Broader crisis

Oil prices are going through the roof,food prices rising and real wages decreas-ing. On the political front there is masspressure to oust Arroyo. Congress isdebating whether to set up the procedurefor Arroyo’s impeachment.

It is helpful to look at the effects of glob-alization, government spending, the for-eign debt and unemployment to get anunderstanding of the broader crisis.

Some 86 million people live in the7,000 islands that make up the Philip-pines. While Tagalog, English, Cebuanoand llocano are prominent, more than 80other languages and dialects are spoken.Indigenous people make up 12 percent ofthe population.

Eight million Filipinos work overseas,70 percent of them women. Most work in

Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Taiwan andJapan. A large number of Filipino nurseswork in the U.S.

According to President Arroyo, theseoverseas workers sent $8 billion home tothe Philippines in 2001.

Debt servicing was 55 percent of thenational budget in 2000, military spend-ing was 9.2 percent, and only 2 percentwas spent on health care.

The minimum wage is $5.45 per day inManila and much lower in the provinces.The cost of living per month for a familyof six is $340. Nurses make $180 permonth and doctors $288. This is partlywhy health care workers go abroad.

The income of the bottom half of thepopulation dropped 3 percent between1988 and 2000 while the income of the topfifth increased by 4 percent.

Between 1989 and 2000, after thePhilippines joined the World Trade Orga-nization, imports of rice increased by 540percent and poultry increased 580 per-cent. The Philippines is now the world’ssixth-biggest importer of rice. The growthof agribusiness, with absentee landlords,has left thousands of farmers landless and

homeless. Electricity has been privatized. About 89 percent of the people work

part-time, are self-employed or are unpaidfamily workers, as can be seen in the vil-lages especially.

Eolis was a U.S. delegate in theInternational Solidarity Mission. Next: Talking to Moro refugees.

Continued on page 15

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those struggles were receding. He begana 33-year campaign to overturn thosegains as well as Roe v. Wade and otherpost-Warren accomplishments of themovement.

Bush announced that he intends toappoint Rehnquist’s clerk and politicalprotégé, John Roberts, to take over asChief Justice. Roberts’ record is as clearas a bell. He is a right-winger all the way.He advised the Reagan administration torestrict the Voting Rights Act and hasgenerally been dismissive of civil rightsHe has opposed Roe v. Wade andreferred to the “so-called right to pri-vacy” upon which it is legally based. Hehas opposed family planning. He isopposed to the Endangered Species Act.He opposed protection of the environ-ment against corporate degradation. Hedenied the right of workers to get dis-ability for carpal tunnel syndrome. Heupheld the Bush administration’s rightto conduct torture at Guantanamo. AndRoberts wants to open the door wide toallow religious teachings in schools andgovernment institutions. And—he was alawyer for Bush in 2000. At thatmoment mentor and protégé, Rehnquistand Roberts, worked in harmony tohand Bush a presidency that he had lost.

Nevertheless, the Democrats are goingthrough the motions of treating thisenemy of the people with the dignity andrespect required by the ruling class.

This level of opportunism of theDemocratic Party is reminiscent of whenBill Clinton destroyed welfare, torpedoedthe health care system, signed theEffective Death Penalty Act and imple-mented “Don’t ask, don’t tell” againstgays in the military.

Looking back, it is no surprise that theleading Democrats are praising racist,anti-woman, reactionary Rehnquist inhis coffin and letting it be known that hisright-wing protégé is going to get a passto the Supreme Court. But then, whatcan you expect from a capitalist partythat has passed the Patriot Act, called formore troops to Iraq and declared itsopponents “un-American.” That’s capi-talist politics. Business as usual.

But just as in the days of the Warrencourt, the coming mass upsurge—whichis bound to arise out of hatred for theIraq war, the exposure of the bankruptcyof the regime during Katrina and theeconomic devastation eating away at theworkers and the oppressed—will send allthese reactionaries running for cover.

Requiem for a reactionary

It is a requirement of capitalist cus-tom in the U.S. that when a SupremeCourt justice dies, it is necessary for

the entire establishment to genuflect,praise and admire them. It does not mat-ter if he was a racist, misogynous reac-tionary, like William Rehnquist, or a lib-eral. Democrats and Republicans alikemust fall in line. It is part of the ritual ofengendering awe and veneration for theauthority of the court.

In the case of Rehnquist, it is a stretchfor liberals and moderates. Democratsmust summon all the hypocrisy they arecapable of for the occasion. After all, itwas Rehnquist who stopped the voterecount in 2000 and basically appointedGeorge W. Bush president.

Rehnquist began his career as aRepublican operative in Arizona on theteam of extreme right-wing militaristBarry Goldwater. He was a thug for theGoldwater machine, participating inOperation Eagle Eye at polling stationsduring the early 1960s. The goal was tointimidate and block African Americanand Latin@ voters.

He later became a clerk for JusticeRobert Jackson, a Roosevelt appointee.At the time of the ground-breaking legalchallenge to segregation, Brown v. theBoard of Education, Rehnquist counseledJackson to oppose Brown and upholdPlessy v. Ferguson, which enshrined theracist doctrine of “separate but equal.”He denounced his colleague’s “pathologi-cal” search for discrimination.

Rehnquist was such a low-life liar thatlater on he tried to blame it on Jackson,even though Jackson had ignored hisadvice and voted for Brown. As a cham-pion of the Confederate “states’ rights”ideology, he opposed the Civil Rights Actof 1964. He was against affirmativeaction at the University of Michigan.

Rehnquist twice voted against Roe v.Wade, dissenting in the original decisionand again in 1992 in Planned Parenthoodv. Casey, a 5-to-4 decision to uphold Roe.He also voted with the majority to over-turn the Violence Against Women Act in2000. He voted with the police in manycrucial cases.

Rehnquist’s role was to overturn thelegal gains achieved by the civil rightsmovement and the Black liberationstruggle after World War II. These gainswere codified by the court of ChiefJustice Earl Warren. Warren became thetarget of racists and reactionaries foryears. Rehnquist came to the court as

PARIS FIRES.

African communitydemands safer homes

Monday , Sept . 5

Grassroots relief & gov’t negligencetime, the New Black Panther Party ofHouston took three buses intending topick people up from New Orleans. Theywound up rescuing those from the busthat was stuck and taking them to BossierCity, La., near Shreveport.”

In another development, the anti-warmovement is helping survivors of Hurri-cane Katrina. A delegation from CampCasey in Crawford, Texas—named after aGI killed in Iraq—set up camp in Coving-ton, La., across Lake Pontchartrain fromNew Orleans, to help the people forced toflee the Gulf Coast. The “White Rose” busof the Veterans for Peace, Chapter 116, setup Camp Casey Covington, which is nowproviding food and medical support at theCovington Pine View Middle School on28th Street.

The Camp Casey group has alreadymade deliveries of water to the Red Crossand has been providing communicationsvia its satellite connection. An e-mail fromDennis Kyne says they set up a distribu-tion line that delivered tons of food andsupplies in the first two days. Other Vet-erans for Peace groups are sending truck-loads of goods into the area. The only wayto reach Camp Casey Covington right nowis through Gordon Soderberg at his e-mailaddress: [email protected].

Expanding the struggle

Along with bringing direct relief, pro-gressive organizations have expanded thestruggle to demand more aid from thegovernment. A Camp Casey in downtownDetroit gave the microphone to someonewho had just come from New Orleans tostay with family members. When thegroup then joined the Labor Day parade,

the hurricane survivor carried a sign call-ing for the Cuban doctors to be allowed tohelp the displaced Gulf Coast population,reports Cheryl LaBash. “We hung a ban-ner between streetlight poles that said,‘Bush Lies—New Orleans Dies—Moneyfor Our Cities, Not for War.’”

A number of organizations have calledfor coordinated national demonstrationson Sept. 12, preferably at federal buildings,to demand:

• Immediate relief—food, medicine,water, clothing and emergency shelterfor the people of the region.

• Extended unemployment benefits forall who have lost jobs, and a massivejobs and housing program for the nearfuture.

• Money for hurricane relief, not war!

• End the military occupation of NewOrleans! People trying to feed theirfamilies are not looters!

• An independent international investi-gation of the criminal negligence thatcaused this disaster.

Initiating endorsers include theMillion Worker March Movement;Troops Out Now Coalition; SaladinMuhammad, Black Workers For Justice;Harlem Tenants Council; Chris Silvera,Chair, Teamsters National Black Caucus;Malik Rahim, Greencross, New Orleans;International Action Center; CubaSolidarity New York; Rev. Lucius Walker,Pastors for Peace; Rev. Luis Barrios,Iglesia San Romero de Las Américas; andlocal leaders and activists from aroundthe country. Protests are already plannedin all the large cities and in over 100 areasof the U.S.

By John Catalinotto

Thousands of Parisians demonstratedon Aug. 28 to protest the deaths of 17African immigrants, 14 of them children,in a fire that gutted their decrepit apart-ment house on Aug. 25 in the southernpart of the city. Another 23 people wereinjured.

“Housing for all,” the demonstratorsshouted, and “A roof, that’s the law” and“Government—murderer.” Various hous-ing organizations called the action in frontof the building, which was blackened andcracked by the blaze.

The protesters’ rage was fueled by thememory that in April another fire in asimilar building holding poor Africanimmigrants killed 24 people. Then, onAug. 29, another worn-out building inParis housing Africans burned, killingtwo more people.

The victims this time were immigrantsfrom Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast andGambia. These countries are formercolonies of France that still are tied eco-nomically to French imperialism, rein-forced by language. Just as many peoplefrom Mexico, Central America and theCaribbean are forced to migrate to theUnited States to find work, so do manyAfricans go to France.

According to a law passed in 1945, thegovernment is required to replace defunctapartments in Paris with adequate hous-ing affordable by the poor and people liv-ing in precarious situations. Trade unionsand housing associations continue todemand that this law be applied, but thecity has lagged in replacing housing overthe last decade.

In addition, African immigrants facethe rightist government’s indifference tothe poor as well as the racism of more reac-tionary elements, in and outside officialcircles.

The people in the buildings that burned,as well as many others, have been placedin dangerous run-down hotels, similar towelfare housing in U.S. cities where suchhousing exists. Some homeless in Parishave been waiting for relocation since 1991.

One tenant said that in some apart-ments 12 people lived in three rooms. Chil-dren often roamed the halls. Overall, 130people, including 30 adults and 100 chil-dren, had been staying in the seven-storybuilding near Place d’Italie.

Now they are lodged in a gymnasiumnearby. They said they prefer to stay to-gether and organize rather than leave thegymnasium individually. They will waitfor adequate housing instead, spokesper-sons said.


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Italian hunger strikers demand:

‘Let Iraqis speak at anti-war conference’

Haitian militants reject U.S.-orchestrated elections

Here you can enjoy the benefits and pro-tections of operating within a U.S. juris-diction with the added tax benefits of oper-ating under a Controlled Foreign Corpo-ration (CFC) structure. Profits from salesto the U.S. mainland are free from U.S.taxation, and goods enter the U.S. marketduty-free. In addition, Puerto Rico offersa highly attractive incentives package thatincludes 100 percent exemption frommultiple taxes; special treatment for pio-neer industries and much more.

“With a 7 percent maximum tax rate,tax deductions and exemptions, cashgrants, and a financial environment withscores of financing options, Puerto Ricoeases the financial burden of your com-pany, making it the perfect place for prof-its and growth. The government of theCommonwealth of Puerto Rico is commit-ted to supporting this pro-business view byoffering a wealth of incentives and favor-able tax laws combined with cash grants,tax credits and venture capital initiatives,further enhancing your bottom line.”

Who pays for all the unparalleled “ben-efits and incentive packages” for foreigncorporations alluded to in this advertise-ment? The working people of Puerto Ricodo. According to the Development Bank ofPuerto Rico, in the fiscal year 2004 theisland’s Gross Domestic Product was$78.8 billion; of that, $30 billion wentstraight into the pockets of U.S. investors.In that same year, per-capita income wasreported at $12,947.

If one looks at the corresponding prof-its taken out of Puerto Rico over the pre-vious 107 years of U.S. colonial capitalistdomination, and add that to the debt serv-ice to the banks, which is now at $1 billioneach year, you begin to understand whatis really behind the so-called debt crisis.

The current struggle being generated bythe so-called debt and fiscal crisis inPuerto Rico is a reflection of the funda-mental contradiction of capitalism: thatwhile the working class collectively pro-duces all the wealth of society, this wealthis appropriated by a handful of private cor-porations and banks.

Due to the enormous pressure exertedby the labor movement, the government ofPuerto Rico thus far has not gone aheadwith its announced plans of mass layoffs.

In late August, Benet, the “expert” pres-ident of Puerto Rico’s Development Bank,suddenly resigned for “personal reasons.”Two weeks later the government “foundmonies it had not included in its originalcalculations,” and now claims the deficit isdown to $300 million.

We will see what the Puerto Rican gov-ernment decides to do, but in the mean-time organized labor has begun to lay thegroundwork for any future struggle thatmay be necessary.

By John Catalinotto

Supporters of the Free Iraq Committeein Italy began their sixth day of a hungerstrike on Sept. 5 in front of the ForeignMinistry building in Rome. The hungerstrikers are demanding that Italy’sForeign Ministry grant visas to Iraqisinvited to speak at the international con-ference, “Leave Iraq in Peace—Supportthe Legitimate Resistance of the IraqiPeople,” scheduled for Oct. 1-2. So far, thegovernment has refused to do so.

The invited Iraqis represent diversecivilian organizations that operate legallyin Iraq. They all also politically support theIraqi resistance to the U.S.-led occupationof their country.

The Italian Foreign Ministry office inBaghdad had at first said it would grantthe visas. Only after 44 rightist membersof the U.S. Congress wrote a letter

demanding that the Italian governmentbar the conference did the ministry rejectthe visa applications.

Most Italians, as distinct from therightist government of Prime MinisterSilvio Berlusconi, were against the U.S.attack on Iraq. Most support a democraticdiscussion of the Iraq occupation. Inaddition, growing resentment over U.S.longtime manipulation of Italy’s politicallife has led to more active support for theOct. 1-2 conference.

The Iraqis who accepted invitations tothe conference include Sheikh Jawad al-Khalesi, leader of the Iraqi NationalFoundation Congress; Ayatollah SheikhAhmed al-Baghdadi; Salah al-Mukhtar,former Iraqi ambassador to India andVietnam; Sheikh Hassan al-Zangani,international spokesperson of the move-ment led by Muqtada al-Sadr and formereditor of the paper Hawza, closed by the

occupation authorities; MohammadFaris, Iraqi Patriotic Communist Party;and Ibrahim al-Kubaysi, brother of thekidnapped secretary of the Iraqi PatrioticAlliance.

On Sept. 2 the Free Iraq Committeerequested a visa for Haj Ali to speak at theconference. Haj Ali is the man tortured byU.S. personnel in Abu Ghraib prison whoappeared in photos wearing a hood andattached to electrodes. The committee ischallenging the government, seeing if itdares reject his visa on the basis of“national security,” which is the excusegiven for the other refusals.

The number of hunger strikers hadgrown to seven by the fourth day. Theyinclude veterans of the anti-imperialistmovement and youth active against theoccupation of Iraq. The last report fromthe committee states that the “comradesare doing well.”

By G. Dunkel

In Haiti, which has been under the ironfist of UN/U.S. occupation for a year anda half, the imperialist-supported regime istrying to pull off national and local elec-tions this fall to ease the political crisisthere. This maneuver has led to a split inFanmi Lavalas.

Fanmi Lavalas is the party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the popular presidentwho was forced out of his country on Feb.29, 2004, by armed U.S. officials. Thou-sands of its militants have either beenimprisoned or murdered since then by thecoup regime.

Early in August, Rudy Hériveaux,Yvon Feuillé and Louis Gérald Gilles,three high-ranking leaders of Lavalas,officially registered the party for theupcoming elections.

Their right to take such action was chal-lenged by other leaders closer to the baseof Fanmi Lavalas, particularly in the mil-itant and impoverished communities ofBelair and Cité Soleil, the source of numer-ous demonstrations supporting the returnof Aristide as the rightful president. TheHaitian National Police broke up most ofthese demonstrations by firing on andsometimes killing protesters.

The importance of Cité Soleil is wellunderstood by the imperialists. In an arti-

cle that itself tried to give credibility toelections held under military occupation,the Aug. 29 New York Times observed that“bringing some semblance of order to CiteSoleil and giving its residents a chance tovote in the elections are seen as importantsteps in establishing a new, credible gov-ernment in Haiti.”

Cité Soleil a bastion of resistance

Cité Soleil is part of Port-au-Prince, butwith 500,000 or so people living there, itis more than just a neighborhood. It is abastion of Aristide support. Many peoplein this politically aware, extremely poorcommunity say that without ending theoccupation, restoring justice and the con-stitution, the people of Haiti have nochance of resolving the social and eco-nomic crisis afflicting their country.

On July 6, 1,400 UN soldiers with heli-copter support entered Cite Soleil andassassinated Dread Wilme, a leader of theLavalas Movement there, after a 12-hourgun battle. Yet the UN still doesn’t controlCité Soleil. UN forces conduct no regularpatrols, have no checkpoints and operateonly in armored personnel carriers.

“Political leaders in Cite Soleil are deeplyskeptical of elections,” the same New YorkTimes article admits, “having watched asMr. Aristide, who twice took office in elec-tions, was twice removed... .” But if CiteSoleil does not take part in them, the elec-tions will not be regarded as fair and thecurrent de facto government will not gainthe political legitimacy it is seeking.

Since the February 2004 coup, the Nat-ional Popular Party (PPN) has been work-ing in a coalition with the popular organ-izations of the Fanmi Lavalas base, help-ing to organize demonstrations demand-ing the return of Aristide. In a statementreleased on Aug. 30, the PPN said that “toparticipate in these phony elections willgive legitimacy to the Feb. 29 coup d’etat.This gesture will likewise say we accept theoccupation of our country and the neo-lib-eral plan the IMF imposed.”

One of the first actions of the currentHaitian regime was to open Haiti’s inter-nal markets to competition from U.S.agribusiness, which can produce rice, oneof Haiti’s staple foods, far cheaper than

Haitian farmers can. Faced with losingtheir livelihood, even Haitian peasant org-anizations that once opposed Aristide arenow against the current government.

On Aug. 31, President Aristide issued astatement from exile in Pretoria, SouthAfrica. “In Haiti, in order to have electionsand not a ‘selection,’” it said, “the follow-ing steps must be taken: 1) The thousandsof Lavalas who are in jail and in exile mustbe free to return home. 2) The repressionthat has already killed over 10,000 peoplemust end immediately. 3) Then, theremust be national dialog.”

A wave of renewed violence againstHaitians living and working in theDominican Republic has been accompa-nied by mass deportations. Since manyHaitians working there send a portion oftheir meager wages home to support theirfamilies, this is deepening the economiccrisis inside Haiti.

A coalition of Haiti support groups inthe United States has called for the firstsession of an International Tribunal onHaiti to take place on Sept. 23 at GeorgeWashington University in Washington,D.C., the evening before a national marchagainst the war in Iraq that is expected todraw thousands of protesters.

Prosecutors will present a detaileddescription of what preceded the coup andpreliminary indictments covering theperiod when the National Endowment forDemocracy and the International Repub-lican Institute, two quasi-governmentalU.S. agencies, were training successors tothe Tonton Macoutes and other notoriousparamilitary groups. The tribunal plans topresent the details on actions taken by thegovernments of the United States, Franceand Canada to destabilize the Aristide gov-ernment.

Most importantly, the InternationalTribunal on Haiti will introduce eyewit-ness and expert testimony on the dailyslaughter being carried out by maskedpolice with the criminal complicity, andincreasing participation, of the UN occu-pation forces.

A blue-ribbon Commission of Inquiry,led by former Attorney General RamseyClark, will be announced at the Sept. 23session of the tribunal. Special tickets available from the Haiti Support Network and the IAC 212-633-6646


Puerto Ricolayoffs blocked

¡Proletarios y oprimidos de todos los países, uníos!

Casi todas las muertes, las heridas,los daños y la destrucción resultadodel huracán Katrina son el pro-

ducto de los crímenes de la adminis-tración de Bush.

El Presidente Bush fue criminalmentenegligente al desviar hacia la guerra geno-cida en Irak, los fondos pedidos para pro-teger al pueblo de Nueva Orleáns. Laadministración de Bush lo hizo con plenoconocimiento del peligro inminente. Laprincipal agencia gubernamental a cargode los desastres, la Agencia Federal parael Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA por lassiglas en inglés) ya había advertido delpotencial para un desastre en 2001.

Con la evacuación completa de NuevaOrleáns, decenas de miles de personasatrapadas sin alimentos, agua potable, oluz, con miles de hogares destruidos y latasa de mortandad subiendo cada hora,este es un desastre de proporciones sinprecedente. Afecta profundamente a lagente negra, que representa la mayorparte de la población de Luisiana, Ala-bama, y Mississippi, y está sufriendo des-proporcionadamente porque estásometida a la discriminación racista, loque la deja en condiciones de pobreza ymás vulnerabilidad ante tales desastres.Un 70% de l@s residentes de NuevoOrleáns son afroamerican@s y viven encondiciones parecidas a las de apartheid.

Algunos políticos lo están denomi-nando como “nuestro tsunami”. El tsu-nami del diciembre pasado también cobróun saldo excesivo de muertos por culpa deuna negligencia criminal. Pero lostsunamis ocurren raramente. Los hura-canes en cambio, ocurren en la región deldelta casi todos los años. Este desastre nosólo era predecible, sino pronosticado. Laque parece una tragedia inevitable cau-sada por la naturaleza, fue anunciada hacemucho por científicos, ingenieros, agen-cias gubernamentales, ambientalistas yexpertos en el manejo de desastres.

El escritor sobre asuntos científicos delperiódico Houston Chronicle escribió el 1de diciembre de 2001:

“Nueva Orleáns se está hundiendo.“Y su protección mayor ante un

huracán, el protector delta del RíoMississippi, se está erosionando rápida-mente, dejando a la ciudad histórica peli-grosamente cerca de un desastre. …

“Tan vulnerable, en verdad, que a prin-cipios de este año, FEMA clasificó losdaños potenciales a Nueva Orleáns comoentre los tres desastres probables más cat-astróficos que (podría) enfrentar estepaís”. Los otros dos eran un terremoto enSan Francisco y un “ataque terrorista con-tra la Ciudad de Nueva York”.

Los gobiernos federales, estatales ylocales conocían el peligro. Sabían lo quecausaba el peligro y cómo bregar con ello.Pero poco o nada hicieron. Dejaron a lapoblación de la región del delta sin adver-tencias e indefensa para hacer frente alinevitable desastre.

¿Por qué no hicieron nada? Un reporteen la revista ‘Editor and Publisher’ del 30

de agosto reveló que “$250 millones enproyectos cruciales” planeados por elCuerpo de Ingenieros del Ejército (CIE) enel delta para reforzar los diques y construirestaciones de bombeo no podían ser lleva-dos a cabo. El CIE jamás intentó ocultar elhecho de que las presiones de los gastospara la guerra en Irak, así como la “seguri-dad de la patria”, ocurriendo a la mismavez que los recortes en los impuestos fed-erales, fueran la razón de las dificultades.

“La época de huracanes en el 2004 fuela peor en décadas. A pesar de ello, el gob-ierno federal vino esta primavera con lareducción más severa en la historia deNueva Orleáns, de los fondos para hura-canes y control de inundaciones”.

El reporte del periódico HoustonChronicle de 2001 citó un estudio de unconsorcio de agencias gubernamentaleshecho hace varios años. Este consorciorecomendó que entre $2 y $3 mil milloneseran precisos para proyectos capaces derectificar el problema. ¡Esto es menos quelos gastos de un mes para la ocupaciónmilitar de Irak, que cuesta $4 mil millonesmensualmente, por lo menos! Porsupuesto, parte de los más de $300 milmillones gastados en la guerra pudieronhaberse utilizado para tomar medidas pre-ventivas.

Claro que aunque Bush es el culpableinmediato, no debemos olvidar que elPartido Demócrata votó a favor de laguerra y por cada centavo gastado allá.Entonces, los Demócratas también soncriminalmente responsables por la dev-astación en Nueva Orleáns al igual que porla guerra ilegal y la ocupación militar.

Ya que las autoridades capitalistas handejado ocurrir este desastre, Bush estátomando una postura como si todo estu-viera normal en relación al desastre. Aligual que después del Tsunami, pasarondías para que él interrumpiera sus vaca-ciones y saliera fuera de su hacienda enCrawford.

El gobierno federal es la única autori-dad capaz de movilizar los recursosnecesarios para la misión de rescate yreconstrucción. Se dice que un millón depersonas fueron evacuadas de NuevaOrleáns y los condados circundantesantes del huracán. En realidad, el gob-ierno no desalojó a nadie. Las autori-dades simplemente declararon un desa-lojo obligatorio y entonces dejaron quela gente se fuera por sí sola. Ahora dicenque “por lo menos cien mil personas”quedaron dentro de la ciudad.

La gente no tiene dónde hospedarse.Mucha gente no tiene comida. Sus efectospersonales se han perdido. No hay cui-dado médico disponible. Las escuelas noestán accesibles. Incontables personasestán sin techo. La crisis inmediatarequiere una movilización nacional depersonal médico, asistentes sociales,expertos en rescate, ingenieros hidráuli-cos.

Comida, agua y suministros médicos

deben ser provistos con urgencia por losmonopolios agrícolas, cadenas de super-mercados, empresas farmacéuticas. Wal-Mart y otros gigantes de ventas al detalledeben ser obligados a enviar gratuita-mente ropa y otras necesidades básicas.Productos agrícolas almacenados a travésdel Medio Oeste del país y otras regionesdeben hacerse disponibles.

Toda forma de transporte –aviones,autobuses, ambulancias, helicópteros,barcos pequeños—deben ser movilizadosa la región. Estas y otras medidas debenser implementadas de inmediato por elgobierno federal basado en sus respons-abilidades y en sus poderes de operacionesen emergencia.

En otras palabras, todos los recursoshumanos y materiales de esta sociedaddeben estar disponibles a las víctimas deesta crisis. Las corporaciones tienen con-trol de estos recursos, pero los traba-jadores que los crearon tienen todo elderecho a utilizarlos.

Dejen que el gobierno y los empresar-ios paguen. Poner a la gente–la gentesufrida del delta—antes que las gananciasdebe ser la orden del día. Las restriccionesde la propiedad capitalista deben ser anu-ladas para el bienestar de las masas.

En particular, las empresas petrolerasdeben ser forzadas a otorgar miles de mil-lones de dólares para la reconstrucción, delas súper ganancias que sacan de la regióndel delta a diario.

Exxon-Mobil refina 493.000 barrilesdiarios en Baton Rouge; Chevron,325.000 barriles diarios en Pascagoula,Mississippi; Conoco Philips, 247.000 bar-riles diarios, nombrando sólo a unospocos. Todas estas riquezas han sidosacadas de la región, sin mencionar todoel tesoro gastado en el intento de conquis-tar a Irak y su petróleo. Y no sólo debendevolver las ganancias que sacaron delpueblo al subir los precios de la gasolina amás de $3 el galón, deben ser forzados abajar los precios drásticamente.

En general, las compañías gigantesmultinacionales deben ser obligadas apagar reparaciones a causa de toda lariqueza y trabajo que han sacado de NuevaOrleáns—por donde pasa tanta riqueza deeste país—mientras que la mayoría de lagente se queda con apenas lo suficientepara sobrevivir.

En cuanto al esfuerzo de reconstruc-ción, las autoridades están tomandomedidas limitadas. Están hablando deque va a tomar meses o años para que laciudad se alivie del desastre. La gente quetiene seguro de inundación puede hacercola cuando llegue a sus barrios. La gentepobre que no tiene seguro de inundacióntendrá que arreglarse por su cuenta. Talvez FEMA les dé una limosna para ayu-darles por un tiempito. Toda la histeriaracista que está siendo fomentada sobrelos “saqueadores” es una pantalla paraocultar el hecho de que el gobierno no haprevisto nada para alimentar a la gente, y

que tanta gente afroamericana vive encondiciones realmente precarias.

Pero la verdad es que hay una soluciónmucho más rápida y completa para cam-biar la situación en la misma cara del gob-ierno. Hay millones de trabajador@s quepueden ser mobilizad@s para ir y ayudaren la región.

Ahora mismo hay una explosión en laconstrucción de viviendas en la que cien-tos de miles de albañiles y otr@s traba-jador@s de la construcción están traba-jando asiduamente mientras que losurbanizadores de bienes raíces compitenentre sí para ganar súper-ganancias en laespeculación en el mercado de viviendas.

Lo que se necesita es una movilizacióntotal de l@s trabajador@s de la construc-ción, albañiles, ingenier@s hidráulicos,personal médico, trabajador@s de servi-cios sociales y trabajador@s de todaspartes del país para detener el trabajousual capitalista y movilizarse para ayudara la gente de Nueva Orleáns, Biloxi y laregión del delta—financiad@s totalmentepor el gobierno.

Millones de trabajador@s desem-plead@s podrían ser contratad@s a suel-dos negociados por los sindicatos paraayudar. El movimiento sindicalizadopodría estar en la vanguardia del esfuerzode reconstrucción.

Con toda su tecnología, los patronesestán preocupados con cómo poder recu-perar sus pérdidas de la industria deseguros, con cómo poder hacer funcionarsus refinerías lucrativas, y con cómo podervolver a obtener las ganancias en la zonalo más pronto posible. La clase traba-jadora, al contrario, se preocupa por elfuturo de la gente, especialmente l@s afro-american@s, latin@s, blanc@s pobres yl@s explotad@s que sufren más yrecibirán la menor ayuda.

Una vez comience el esfuerzo de recon-strucción y sea posible comunicarse con laregión, los sindicatos, organizacionescomunitarias, y los grupos del movimientodeben establecer medidas independientespor las cuáles puedan dar auxilio y ayudaa la gente de esa zona afligida.

Movilizando a las masas, poniendo ala gente antes que a la propiedad escómo se hacen los proyectos de recon-strucción en Cuba, bajo la organizaciónsocialista de la sociedad. Debe hacerse lademanda de que el gobierno trate estedesastre como una emergencia y una cri-sis nacional de la mayor magnitud. Hayque tomar medidas proporcionales algrado de la crisis, medidas como porejemplo, dar seguro de desempleo exten-dido a tod@s en la región. Las pérdidasde propiedad personal deben ser com-pletamente restauradas. Y el gobiernodebe subordinar todos sus esfuerzospara dar auxilio efectivo a corto y largoplazo a las víctimas. Pero a la misma vezla clase trabajadora en este país deberíaencontrar una manera para ir más alláde la autoridad capitalista y traercualquier forma de auxilio y ayuda quepueda a la gente del delta.

Huracán Katrina: Gobierno de EEUUculpable de negligencia criminal

E D I T O R I A L .

50¢ As gov’t cover-up deepens People of Gulf Coast … · SEPT. 15, 2005 VOL. 47, NO. 36 50¢...

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