Given Times Picayune Reporter Katy Reckdahl's propensity to usually fair and balanced writing, something sorely lacking in post-Katrina Times Picayune, I was suprised at the slightly disingenuous tone of her recent article on the closure of the homeless encampment at the intersection of Canal St. and Claiborne. Perhaps though, Katy didn't see the recent City Business article that documented how the NOPD is staging entrapments of homeless folks in the downtown area. This was obviously used as a tactic to intimidate and frighten the homeless from the area.
Pay attention folks. Our dreams for a Just America can have us projecting illusions onto what actually falls far below our principles, or using assumptions and wishful thinking in place of the rhetoric that is before us. As our interpretation of reality is subject to the beliefs we hold, we can tend to look at events with rose colored glasses, interpreting them in the best possible light, rather than recognizing the warnings that something or someone falls below our ideals or far short of our principles. And if they fall short of our principles, it is our job as citizens to call them out.
On July 1st, in a speech given in Zanesville, Ohio, Obama promised the expansion of the Bush created Faith Based Initiative. In my view, this is yet another full tilt rightward, and promises to congeal the private enterprise's highjacking of social services, to the detriment of those served.
"I am disappointed," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, "that any presidential candidate would want to continue a failed policy of the Bush administration. The president's faith-based initiative has undermined civil rights and civil liberties and become deeply mired in partisan politics. It ought to be shut down, not continued."
Chris Hedges, former Middle East Bureau Chief for the New York Times, delivers a scathing viewpoint on modern journalists and the politicians served by them. Don't read it if you wish to maintain illusions about the Washington D.C. politicians and their jounalist supporters.
If Congress chooses not to address the issue of impeachment, then I, as a U.S. citizen, hold them accountable as well for war crimes, and crimes against our constitution.
Below the headlines about rocketing food prices and rocking governments, there lays a largely unnoticed fact: bananas are dying. The foodstuff, more heavily consumed even than rice or potatoes, has its own form of cancer. It is a fungus called Panama Disease, and it turns bananas brick-red and inedible.
There is no cure. They all die as it spreads, and it spreads quickly. Soon — in five, 10 or 30 years — the yellow creamy fruit as we know it will not exist. The story of how the banana rose and fell can be seen a strange parable about the corporations that increasingly dominate the world - and where they are leading us.
While you debate superdelagates and primary outcomes, the House of Representatives is preparing to vote for war funding into the next administration. Is this what we want?
An article I found today. My one point of disagreement is that it is not necessarily important to "change" the two parties to make them more responsive to the people. I think we can render their influence neglible by our own caring action.
When the people take responsibility for their world, the parties will seem like child's play.
The failure of the Times Picayune to seriously address the ongoing criminal investigation of HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson provides cover for what may well be the illegal awarding of so-called redevelopment contracts tied to the demolition of public housing in New Orleans. We will protest the lack of coverage at 4pm, Thursday, February 28, at the Times Picayune Building, 3800 Howard Ave., New Orleans, La.
Doing a little research, I came across this web site that reveals that Rudd has committed to continue what is called the Military Intervention into the Northern Territory, and concurrently, the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act will continue, although Rudd has signaled he is open to change.
In the midst of all the cheerleading for the democrats, Rolling Stone magazine is a lone voice, exposing manipulations that have helped to silence the anti-war movement in the Democratic party.
I'm coming out of the closet. Yes, I am fundamentally, a socialist. And I'm still defining what that means for myself politically. It does mean that I wasn't afraid to defend the public housing in New Orleans, as our "leaders" have proposed, and are currently, demolishing viable housing in our city at a time when there is a crisis lack of affordable housing in our city.
I was drawn to the Edwards campaign precisely because he at least acknowledged class differences, whereas Obama seems to have based his campaign on blurring those distinctions.
Here in New Orleans, the politics of class was never more evident than post Katrina efforts to rebuild our city.
And I'm not talking about class as in "classy". I'm talking about the upper, middle and not very often mentioned, lower class in this country.
In New Orleans, there has been a concerted effort to rebuild, and exclude, the lower class, the working poor, and those teetering on the edge of poverty, in our city.
City, state and federal leaders have been blunt in what they hope will be a "new" New Orleans.
John Edwards, in defiance of the "agenda", has visited twice to the lower ninth ward here, hammer in hand, to pound some nails, and make a point.
I wrote this after a recent visit to an homeless encampment in New Orleans. I'm a native Louisianian, struggling to grasp the issues here and present them to the rest of the world.
The rate of homelessness has tripled in New Orleans since Katrina, and the actual numbers are probably far higher than the 15,000 reported. Homeless homeowners are living under the overpass at Canal and Claiborne in New Orleans, along with a host of New Orleans natives, and people from out of town looking for work. Another encampment has sprung up at Claiborne and Tulane Ave., in the shadow of the not shuttered Charity Hospital.
BTW, a homeless, tent encampment has sprung up recently in Los Angeles, spoken about in this Daily Kos diary. I used the link in that diary to a Guardian article, but now the link doesn't work. I think we are on the verge of an explosion in homelessness, both here in New Orleans and across the country.
There was a tornado warning on Thursday, December 20th, with a cool front marching down south. The tornado that touched down though, was the incredible spirit, will and determination of those fighting for public, and affordable housing in this city, and taking on the NOPD and New Orleans City Council in the process.
We were prepared, Thursday, to challenge what we already knew would go down: the vote in the affirmative by the New Orleans City Council to demolish over 4000 units of critical, public and affordable housing in New Orleans. Our intent was to keep the meeting from happening, to prevent the vote, by peaceful, but loud, raucous protest. There was no intent to commit violence. Many of us were quite willing to be arrested. One of the principles decided on by public housing residents in this struggle is that it will be a non-violent struggle.
17,000 plus homeless people in New Orleans right now, a rate that has tripled since Katrina, and HUD and Alphonso Jackson are determined to tear down 4500 units of public and affordable housing in New Orleans, demolition scheduled to begin next week.
20,000 people lived in public housing prior to Katrina. These are the people, the working poor, that city, state and federal leaders have turned their backs on.
My recent article on indy media, "New Orleans: The Perfect Storm", describes some of the forces leading to this crisis in New Orleans. Today, I'm going to let this short video tell the story:
I told my friend this morning, I think the city is coming apart. An outbreak of robberies, some perhaps by teenagers, authorities believe; homeless population exploding; politicians looking the other way when corruption serves their purpose. I'm reminded, I tell her, of the Bugs Bunny cartoon, where he is busy, furiously, digging underground, trying to tunnel his way to paradise, or a beach, or somewhere pleasant; I can't remember exactly.
He pops his head up, in the middle of the North Pole, and says something to the effect, "I must have taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque".
It can feel like that sometimes. That one wrong turn and you wind up in a very cold environment.
