Organize the South

“It Is Not Only Generals Who Know How to Plan Campaigns”
Gandhi, Salt & Chess

This essay's title is taken from a line Gandhi may or may not have said, though it is definitely in the 1982 movie. I hope he did say it, but if he didn’t the quote isn’t any less true.

Originally a military term, the word campaign describes a set of collective actions designed to reach a goal. There are electoral campaigns and fundraising campaigns in addition to issue campaigns, but the issue campaign is basic to organizing in the US. We set up organizations, pick issues, and run campaigns. That’s what organizers do in the US. The 1930 salt satyagraha was a campaign run by Gandhi in the cause for Indian independence. I figure if Gandhi can embrace a military term so can we.

What’s Salt Got to Do With It
In the 1982 movie Gandhi, played by Ben Kingsley, comes up with the idea to march to the sea and make salt while sitting in his hometown and staring out to see. When the idea strikes him, he turns to the reporter, Martin Sheen, and says the line now the title of this essay. I have no idea if that is how it really happened, but it gives us a good place to start.

The Indian National Congress declared independence for India on January 26, 1930. They announced a massive civil disobedience throughout the country, but left the specifics to committee. Gandhi provides a specific campaign within weeks, The Salt Satyagraha, also known as the Salt March to Dandi.

The salt campaign was a brilliant idea. Ultimately the goal was independence by showing Indian people wouldn’t accept colonial rule no matter what. The British Empire taxed salt, it also made producing or distributing salt a criminal offense. For thousands of years those living on the coast of India made their own salt by evaporating seawater, but the British were sticking guns in people’s faces and, through the tax, forcing the Indian people to pay for the pleasure. The people hated the salt tax, it financed colonial rule, and there was a cheaper alternative based on the culture of the oppressed people. It had all the makings of a great campaign.

Breaking It Down, Chess Style (or, It’s Called Class War for a Reason)
Until recently if generals lost a war they were killed. Death can be a great incentive for making sure one excels at a chosen profession. Of course, war games can be expensive and difficult to conduct, especially thousands of years ago. The ancients weren’t stupid; they created their own versions of war games. Chess is a war game. In fact, it may be one of the oldest war games still being played. Chess taught generals how to think about the broader campaign, to think multiple moves ahead. It can do the same for organizers.

Chess strategies are based on three steps: control the center, develop the pieces, and the attack. On the chessboard, the four squares in the center are the key to victory. Whoever controls those squares has greater freedom of movement and is in a better position to box the opponent in. In the organizing world, controlling the center means controlling the framework of debate. It is not just articulating what we are fighting against, but what we are fighting for and why winning the victory is important for everyone in the community. Controlling the center means controlling the parameters of debate and forcing those in power to see the world through the eyes of those most affected.

Once the center is controlled, good chess players spend time developing their pieces. This means putting each piece in the position of maximum effectiveness. Every move is made so when the attack comes, the opponent will be unable to withstand the onslaught. For organizers developing our pieces means developing the leadership and organizing skills of the membership. It doesn’t make sense to wage a campaign unless all elements understand the strategy and have the skills and analysis to see that the campaign wins.

Finally, there is the attack. The attack is strategic and aims toward one goal, capturing the king. While other pieces may fall in the course of the battle, the game is only won with checkmate. We achieve checkmate through a set of coordinated actions designed to win, also known as a campaign. The campaign plan is a way of guiding work toward the ultimate aim of victory. Every action taken, every resource expended moves the group closer to winning the goals. The genius of the salt campaign really comes out when analyzing it through the chess lens.

Controlling the Center
I think most organizers think about framing the debate in terms of media, as in determining how an issue should be cut, but this is just part of the equation. Having a good media strategy is important, even critical, for a campaign. However, good media strategies come from good communication strategies. Controlling the framework of debate is more than having relationships with reporters, it’s about having structures for quick, effective communication within the campaign structure and with the public at large. This includes media, but is by no means limited to it. The cut begins with the people.

Since determining the campaign issue is ideally a collective process of the base framework begins with the base as well. Having the base decide the framework of a campaign, from its principles to its larger aims to how to speak to the press, is an educational process and a critical one. During Gandhi’s time in South Africa his ideas about social change were radically transformed. He had supported Indian involvement in the South African War but became a pacifist. By the time he returned to India he no longer was talking about full citizenship in the British empire. Instead he was, in effect, talking about the end of empire.

The registration campaign is probably Gandhi’s best known work from his time in South Africa. The Transvaal government passed a law requiring Indians to register and carry their papers at all times. In organizing against this law, for the first time, Gandhi announced the concept of satyagraha (total nonviolent resistance to oppression and dedication to truth) and put it to the test. For 7 years thousands of Indians are jailed, beaten, and worse but they strike, refuse to register, and demonstrate. Eventually the campaign is won because while the actions taken by the Indian community are successfully repressed, the lengths the British have to go to result in a worldwide backlash. Gandhi and the other leaders learn a lesson, one that every successful guerilla fighter in history has learned. A lesson best articulated by, believe it or not, Henry Kissinger when he said, “In a guerrilla war, the guerrillas win by not losing and the army loses by not winning.” The frame of the debate now shifted. Gandhi and other leaders call for independence, by any means necessary.

Developing the Pieces
In chess, developing the pieces is about preparing for the attack by giving yourself room to operate and insuring best position for each piece. Small moves now can payoff later. The same is true in organizing. It’s best to have our ducks in a row before we launch an all-out assault on the powers that be.

Another good chess principle to take from this process is about touching each piece only once. In the chess opening it’s best to put a piece in its best place in one move. Translating this into organizing, I find a lesson in unity. It’s best to move everyone out together, even if just a little bit, then it is to have some way out in front by themselves. Leadership development should be consistent and broad. It takes a long time to move a little bit, but it pays off.

Gandhi and the other leaders of the independence struggle knew it would take a long time to win independence and that it would dangerous. People do not lightly participate in activities that lead to prison, beatings, or worse. At least, they don’t on a consistent basis. It’s also true that people will go to great lengths for their own freedom. A good organizer can combine these two elements.

Gandhi took over the leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1918. It took 12 years to launch the salt campaign. These years were filled with training new leadership, working out his theory of satyagraha, study, and more study. There were campaigns during this time as well, but not on the scale of the salt satyagraha. Small actions like cleaning up the villages and building schools not only built the confidence of the people but also generated unity. It’s difficult to call someone untouchable when you’ve picked up trash and raised a building together. This unity is critical for any campaign, big or small. Eventually this unity was tested in tax protests and rent strikes. Small actions, but important ones. Every victory and defeat was a lesson for the struggle. People learned, through action and reflection, how to win their own freedom.

Attack
In chess, one attacks to win the king. Throughout the chess game there are skirmishes, but in the end the winner is the one who mates. Throughout an organizing campaign there are small actions, but the attack I’m referring to is the confrontation with the target (the person who has the power to give you what you want). Forcing the target to cave in to demands is checkmate. The small actions are about fighting for position, building leadership, gaining traction, but the game isn’t won until checkmate.

From 1918 until 1930 there were countless actions organized by Gandhi and others. They were important for building unity, leadership skills, and legitimacy for the effort. Those actions helped develop the idea of satyagraha, but the salt campaign was a direct attack on the British empire. Salt provided revenue the British needed; it was also a method of controlling the Indian population. It was a great choice for a national campaign, and the launch was brilliant.

Gandhi had already established a community of other leaders dedicated to satyagraha when he announced the salt campaign. He wasn’t alone, he had core group but he needed more. He needed the nation, and getting that would take time and tension. Gandhi and his followers could have taken the train to the coast rather than walk. Walking gave them time to spread the word and build the tension with the British.

The difference between a good chess player and a great one is the ability to live with tension. Most of chess is spent threatening to take space or pieces. The opponent sees your knight is in a good position to take her bishop. She can escape, counter-attack, or ignore the threat. A good counterattack is one that threatens a different piece somewhere else on the board. This creates a tension, particularly if your newly threatened piece is more valuable than hers. Generally speaking, the first one to break the tension loses.

The salt campaign was about building tension in the struggle for independence, the walk to the sea was about building tension in the salt campaign. The first thing Gandhi and the others did was send a letter to the British viceroy informing him of their intention to break the law and asking that the salt laws be disregarded. This appeal to the viceroy’s moral nature accomplished multiple goals; it demonstrated to the Indian people that the struggle for independence did not need to hide, it clearly articulated the demands of the campaign and laid out the parameters of the engagement, and it began the tension. Would the British send in troops to block the march? Would they arrest everyone? What would happen? Gandhi acted, the British reacted.

In the end, the British did nothing to interfere with the march. Gandhi and his followers walked the 240 miles to the sea and the British were paralyzed. Thousands upon thousands of Indians came to watch the march. The entire country watched as a small group of people stopped the British empire in its tracks. When he got to the sea Gandhi made salt and called on everyone on the coast to do the same.

Then the British broke the tension.

In Peshawar the British army opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, hitting hundreds. Those fired upon were trained in non-violence and dedicated to satyagraha. They followed their training and their beliefs as the soldiers fired for six hours. When those in front fell, others moved in. Even under gunfire those fighting for their freedom refused to break the tension.

It took 17 more years for India to win independence from the British. The salt campaign was the first in a long series of campaigns to achieve that victory. Tens of thousands of people were arrested during the campaign. It showed that the British could not control India unless the Indians let them. It also showed the world the true face of empire.

Final Thoughts on Winning
Winning is serious business. Given the state of the world, we don’t have the luxury of protest for the sake of protest. We have to win. The odds are against us, but they always are. We don’t have enough resources, but we never do. Yet, we have to win. If we really want our human rights, if we really want to be free, we have to win.

In the 1982 movie, there is a scene where Gandhi is in the middle of a fast. He is talking to the US reporter about the chances of winning. He confides that he is not always optimistic, but when he despairs he remembers that throughout history evil does not last. It has always collapsed under its own weight. I don’t know if Gandhi actually said that, but if he didn’t the quote isn’t any less true.

- For more on Gandhi and the salt campaign check out wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi.

All I know about Wade Rathke is from reputation and having been in the same meeting once a few years ago. The meeting was called by Bill Fletcher and I can’t remember what it was for. I do remember Rathke saying, “The reality is…” a lot.

I think it’s important Rathke faces what he’s done. The essay below is a paternalistic, white supremacist smear campaign. Ahmad Chalabi is a CIA hack, a tool of fascism. When Rathke compares Curtis Muhammad to Chalabi he’s making the allegation that Muhammad is a tool of fascism. Just because Rathke throw’s in “God love him” a couple of times doesn’t excuse the accusation. Why would Rathke make such a serious allegation? Apparently because people are talking about Communiy Labor United instead of ACORN. Rathke’s attack is disgusting and he must be held accountable for it. If ACORN won’t clearly disassociate itself from such smear campaigns, it should be held accountable too.

Below, in order, is Rathke’s attack, Curtis Muhammad’s response, and an open letter in support of Muhammad.

Chalabi and Katrina
Kuala Lumpur 41 days of exile
Wade Rathke

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had a candidate to front for the Iraqi people – Dr. Ahmad Chalabi. He had been running the Iraqi National Congress for many years from the United Kingdom. He had a degree from the University of Chicago. He was connected. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was not as certain and neither was the Army. Each in turn had their own ex-pat Iraqi leaders who they hoped would get traction once repatriated to home soil.

Make no mistake though. When they were not in Iraqi, but working the world promoting schemes for liberation armies or business ventures or this or that, they had friends and sponsors based on the value that these men and their political formations served to their sponsors, not for the Iraqi people. They were tools in the hands of others.

Watching the embarrassment of the Bush Administration when it was trying harder to install provisional and puppet fronts for the invading force, I would have thought we might have all learned lessons about making sure as an a priori in these matters that one should be very, very careful not to anoint someone from afar, who can not operate on the ground. Now in the middle of the post-Katrina shakeout, I can see that this is not the case. Progressives seem not to want to learn what the conservatives have taught us. We want to make sure we learn the lessons the hard way with our own embarrassment.

In the wake of Katrina everyone and their brother seems to suddenly be interested in New Orleans and trying to figure out a way to insert themselves and their issues into the muck that remains of the city. Some of this is a good thing.

Where it gets hairy is when people try to create representatives for the people for the purposes of the sponsors and the donor community, just like we have seen in Iraq.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin tried this strategy slightly with his recent appointments of a commission, but was simply the usual home cooking from the Poydras Street business crowd with their favorite front people and the usual gang of suspects, just a few bigger names.

The most bizarre, and in some ways insulting, question I have been asked in the wake of Katrina is to identify groups to act as sponsor go betweens, just as if New Orleans was another foreign country like Iraq. It is insulting because whether we are talking about almost 10000 family members of ACORN in New Orleans or a couple of thousand members of Local 100 from the city – we have a base, it just doesn't happen to be in New Orleans, since it is caught in the diaspora now.

A good example is something called Community Labor United (CLU). This is a little bitty thing of maybe a dozen or two activists that has convened meetings off and on for years mostly on Saturdays for a while at Dillard and last I heard at the Treme Community Center. Mainly it is not labor but it has a couple of well intentioned AFT teachers that are personally involved and Curtis Muhammad, who ran a small local union for UNITE for a couple of years before he retired, was often in attendance. Mostly I didn't recognize the few other folks there, but some may have been students or whatever. Curtis is a good guy, but good love him, he wouldn't be able to really move any thing in New Orleans, because he doesn't have the base, the weight, the contacts, or the history god love him. To the best of my knowledge CLU was semi-defunct in recent years and certainly never had a paid staff or any capacity. Back 5-6 years ago when it was trying to first get started, we used to send folks to some of the Saturday meetings because they wanted to support our work and act as a bridge to other communities, but over the last couple of years that has also petered out. But now a wave of water moves through New Orleans and I actually get inquires about whether or not CLU can help in some way.

Huh? What? They are nice people and we count them as friends and allies, but are we talking about something real there? Of course not! Could they handle money? No reason to believe that. Do they have a base in New Orleans? No not whatsoever. Heck, I don't know if they could organize a two car funeral if they were driving both cars. They have only convened forums in the past to talk about stuff. If that was needed, they could do that I suppose, but there are a lot of folks who can do that.

How do Calabi's happen? Just this way! CLU was somehow mentioned by Naomi Klein in a piece in the Nation. I have no idea what she knows about New Orleans, but I imagine she was grabbing something out of the hat. The article gets reprinted some places, and all of a sudden Chalabi is out and about in New Orleans.

Habitat and Enterprise have had very small, precious operations around housing in New Orleans which are producing very, very few houses annually. Best believe they are everywhere now as if they could really do something in New Orleans. This is a President Bush prop up.

But, a prop up is a prop up, and there will be a day of reckoning. People will move back to New Orleans. There will be a battle for the future of the city and people will not be able to be ignored or merely represented from afar. Their opinions will matter more than the opinion pages.

Hopefully progressives will not be caught with Chalabi on their hands and learn one lesson from Rumsfeld about this phenomena.

October 1, 2005

MY RESPONSE: (already sent to Wade Rathke and Andy Stern):
Curtis Muhammad

I read with great anger, the public statements made by Wade Rathke, a Vice President of SEIU, about me, Curtis Muhammad, and my work. I waited almost a week before sitting down to write this note. I waited to see if the largest labor union in the United States whose membership is more than fifty percent black and other people of color, would chastise this man for publishing statements which have the effect of a bombing of a church or a civil rights meeting, or the shooting of a civil rights worker during the heyday of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. I asked myself would SEIU and ACORN want to align itself with the sentiments and actions of a new Klu Klux Klan.

I waited to see if a progressive organization or labor union or a civil rights organization or individual leaders would demand that this man be fired or held to account for such racist and slanderous statements. Does Wade Rathke believe that he has the right to appoint and anoint the leadership of black led organizations and coalitions the way that ACORN and SEIU choose their own leadership? While noting no response, I wondered what would have happened if he had made such derogatory and inflammatory remarks and comparisons about a Jewish or other white person or labor leader or Black person, who had won favor from the white liberal establishment of America.

The truth is I have organized poor black folk for 45 years and I have always known that it was okay to do to, and say or say anything about poor blacks in the U.S, including murder them, and not expect to be punished or reprimanded especially if you are a white male. In fact, the leaders of this country have just tried to murder 150,000 poor back folk and succeeded with the death of about 2,000. Because Community Labor United was quickly able to bring together a broad coalition of grass roots organizations and get some national recognition and support for our work, Wade Rathke, ACORN, and SEIU attacked our character and belittled our work and compared me personally to Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi who provided the lies and misinformation about non-existent weapons of mass destruction that gave Bush the cover to invade Iraq.

When one successfully attacks another’s character, that act is the equivalent to murder. What we have here is an arrogant white racist Vice President of SEIU, founder and leader of ACORN, to slander a Black man for his participation in trying to help organize the same poor black people who Bush, Blanco, Nagin and seemingly the whole leadership of the U.S. government left to die just because they are black and poor. These statements and actions are intended to dismantle the legitimate leadership of this new movement for self determination, but they will do the opposite. They will strengthen CLU and the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund because the people who've been abandoned, neglected, left to die... way before Katrina... are determined to lead in the struggle for their future and will NEVER again be compromised, stepped on or stepped over. Statements such as Wade Rathke's only diminish him and his organization because they are unprincipled and reflect character decay.

Mind you, this attack comes while SEIU and the other Change To Win unions are deciding whether to donate funds and organizers to support our work. Further, Andy Stern has allocated millions of dollars to fund a campaign to unionize the workers at Wal-Mart stores under the leadership of this very same racist arrogant white boy who spent millions of SEIU members’ dues money trying to organize hotel workers in New Orleans and never organized a single hotel!

I’ll close with a little story: many people think the Klan stopped shooting us, burning our churches, bombing our offices and freedom houses because the government made them stop. The truth is the movement stopped the Klan, led by poor, black communities of people.

Wade, Andy, ACORN and SEIU we invite you to a face to face meeting. We were taught to try and negotiate with the white power structure before we attacked.

Please see chronology of work below.

It ain’t personal; it’s business,

Curtis Muhammad
People’s Hurricane Relief Fund & Oversight Coalition (PHRF)

Timeline: (August 20 ~ October 16, 2005)
-Saturday, August 20, 2005: Community Labor United (CLU) has monthly breakfast forum at the Treme Community Center in New Orleans; ACORN presents current Living Wage Campaign

-Monday, August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina occurs
-CLU reaches out via phone calls and email to reach CLU activists
-Conference call of available CLU activists
-Thursday, September 1, 2005: CLU sends out Action Alert widely via email
-Vanguard Public Foundation agrees to host PHRF account
-Tuesday, September 8, 2005: Press Conference held in Houston, TX outside of Astrodome
-Speaking engagements
-Conference call of CLU activists- invitation extended widely
-Website www.communitylaborunited.net established
-Jackson, MS, Communication Center established
-Tour of shelters along I-10 (from Jackson to Houston)
-Saturday, September 10, 2005: Meeting held in Baton Rouge of CLU activists and supporting organizations- decision to become the PHRF and to establish workgroups
-Legal, Education, Finance, Health Care, Media, Internal Organizing workgroups begin to meet via conference call

-September 30 ~ October 2, 2005: PHRF retreat held at Penn Center in South Carolina- Interim Coordinating Committee established, more workgroups formed (Economic Justice, Reconstruction, Safety and Accountability, etc)

-New Orleans, LA, Communication Center established, plans for reconstruction in New Orleans

-Education Work Group Summit to take place

-Begin to canvass major southern cities with large numbers of evacuees

-1-800 number to be established


An Open Letter to the Labor Movement regarding Katrina

Brothers and Sisters,

The crisis for the working class (whether employed or not, waged or not) continues to grow. Even as the nation, and especially the poor and Black working class of the Gulf states and New Orleans in particular, tries to pick up the pieces after Katrina's (and Rita's) devastation, the assault by capital and their partners in the government grows more intense -- the suspension of Davis Bacon and OHSA safeguards, plans to defund the safety net to finance business interests in the reconstruction of the region, little thought to how those left behind will find a home in the reconstruction process and its outcome. The Democrats have failed to articulate a credible alternative to this plan or address this crisis in any significant way.

It is also true that the flip side of disaster is opportunity. For the trade unions the moment presents a unique opportunity, not open since the sit-downs of the 1930s, to bring dignity, voice, a living wage and benefits in the form of unions to the masses left behind in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, particularly the poor and African Americans. It is a well-established fact That Blacks are the most pro-union force in the U.S. They have proven time and time again to be this country's most dedicated fighters of oppression. But the trade union movement may not be able to take advantage of this opportunity unless it addresses issues not yet confronted in any meaningful way by the debate and programs of the two new federations.

Now these issues have surfaced in the wake of Katrina, specifically in a piece by ACORN and SEIU leader Wade Rathke entitled "Chalabi and Katrina" (www.ChiefOrganizer.org, 3 October 2005) that disparages an organization, Community Labor United, and one of its principal organizers, Curtis Muhammad, with deep roots in the voter registration drives in Mississippi, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and for the last 20 years a part of the New Orleans community.

Days after the hurricane and while struggling with their own displacement, CLU folks began to pull together what has become the People's Hurricane and Relief Fund. Since then they have held two national meetings, the first on September 10th with participation from 49 different organizations, and the second, September 30th-October 1st, with more than 100 participants from prisoners' and women's rights groups, predominantly black cultural, faith-based, and educational groups, non-union worker organizations, community groups, legal scholars, and the ACLU. A Coordinating Committee, representing the breadth and community organizations throughout the Gulf Region as well as CLU's own base, was chosen by the survivors, and working subcommittees and 6 regional communications centers (organizing offices) have been established. There has been widespread support for the PHRF both nationally and internationally. (For more, see the PHRF website: www.communitylaborunited.net.)

With this background we want to examine the issues raised by "Chalabi and Katrina":

Confront racism within our movement. White leaders, even those whose membership base is predominantly Black and Latino, should be careful about making pronouncements about who is genuine and who has the requisite skills. Confronting racism means understanding that our culture and economic and political system is build on racialized capital and we operate within that context. Diversity should not be confused with power. If we are serious about bringing unions to the south (all those red states and their right-to-work laws), then we need to cede power to those very folks we seek to organize. The job of unions is to help give these forces additional information and resources they might not currently have so that they can chart their own future.

This movement must be built democratically from the bottom up, engaging the base to develop tactics and strategies that speak to their constituencies' own needs, culture, and history. The grassroots must control their own organization and movement. Remarks that belittle the work of grassroots activists of many years standing, organizing on a model based on experience among working-class and poor Blacks of the south that does not fit the union template, have no place in the labor movement. We have too much to learn from each other.

Fund and collaborate, and be prepared to take leadership from indigenous Black (and Latino, Asian, and Native American) forces on the ground. Many of these forces prior to the hurricane were not organized in ways that the unions are. They do not have a large paid staff, or offices with all the trappings. But that does not mean that organizations like CLU are "little bitty" or insignificant or cannot "handle money" or could not "organize a two car funeral" (as Rathke puts it in "Chalabi and Katrina"). This disrespect fails to acknowledge, on one hand, that the base of the labor movement (and with it dues dollars) and that of the CLU are the same, and on the other hand, the severe obstacles, principally racism and the legacy of slavery, that on-the-ground folks face in the south. Networking and informal ties have protected and nourished their organizing long after efforts like Operation Dixie or the Civil Rights Movement have moved on or declared victory. Organizations like CLU demand our respect and support.

Build a united front against the enemies of working people, employed or the unemployed poor. Our task is so huge that we can not afford to undercut each other with name-calling, patronizing statements, and inappropriate remarks. We must air differences in a principled way. Many of us work with ACORN in our cities and are on good terms with many organizers from that group. We cannot believe that such a provocative and destructive letter was circulated by Rathke to other ACORN leaders or reflects their views. We hope that people of good will in ACORN will give some signals to disassociate themselves from this divisive and chauvinist tactic. None of us has discovered the sure-fire way to organize or build a movement. Let's not give our enemies more fire power than they already possess. The Cold War era purges of the labor movement should have taught us that.

We exist at what one might describe as a "Katrina moment." It is a moment of both reflection and action. It is a moment to better understand and unpack the issues of race and class that have become so obvious through this disaster. It is also a moment to challenge the prevailing neo-liberal economic theories that were partially to blame for the scope of the disaster and seem to be central to the discussion of the nature of reconstruction. It is also a moment for a mass response to the disaster, which means that this is not the time for any one organization to hold itself up as the central core or the provider of franchises. To put it in other terms, this may be a moment to lay the foundations for a rebirth of a labor movement that is in synch with other social forces that share our opposition to the steady slide toward barbarism.

In solidarity,

(In alphabetical order)

Ajamu Baraka, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network

Gene Bruskin, co-convener of USLAW*

Kathy Engel, founding Executive Director MADRE, cultural and communications worker

Ray Eurquhart, retired UE 150 volunteer organizer

Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica Forum

Badili Jones, member, SEIU Local 1985

Elly Leary, Vice President and Chief Negotiator, UAW 2324 (retired)

Eric Mann, veteran of CORE, SDS, and UAW

Marsha Steinberg, Field Representative/Organizer SEIU Local 660

Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project

Jerry Tucker, former member, International Executive Board, UAW

Steve Williams, Executive Director, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)

* for identification purposes only

Why was Wal-Mart merchandise more important than saving people’s lives?

Why was every foul rumor about Black people killing, raping, and destroying reported as fact? Why has the fact that New Orleans police were killing, raping, and destroying not been widely reported?

Why was the first institution immediately rebuilt in the aftermath of Katrina not a hospital, school, or information center but a jail?

I don’t think these questions can be adequately answered by saying George Bush doesn’t like Black people, although he sure doesn’t. Or by saying FEMA, Michael Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, and a host of others are incompetent, although they sure are. The answer to these questions is bigger than one person or institution. The answer is corporate globalization, more specifically neoliberalism.

For the last 30 years there has been a struggle to determine what the future of the world economy will look like. The last time such an event occurred was in the waning years of World War II. In 1944 the political leaders of the US and Europe met to lay down the expansion plan for the world economy. This meeting was officially known as the International Monetary and Financial Conference of the United & Associated Nations, but anti-globalization activists call it simply Bretton Woods since it was held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The general feeling at the time was capitalism could get ugly and a social safety net was needed. In this climate the forces of social democracy basically won. Harry Dexter White’s plan, written for the US treasury in 1934, formed the basis of the agreement at Bretton Woods. The countries agreed to form the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and create the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Now don’t think it was all over. While White was writing the plan for Roosevelt and the social democrats, another was working out the philosophy we live under today. Friedrich von Hayek at the University of Chicago was and is a hero of neoliberalism. Mentor to Milton Friedman, von Hayek laid the foundation for the philosophy that is kicking the ass of workers and poor people around the world. In the 1970s when the economy was in deep recession, neoliberalism really took off. In the wake of mass movements making significant gains, including the racial integration of the social safety net, the elite hit upon a “brilliant” idea; destroy the safety net. The recession allowed the elite to restructure the economy and promote a neoliberal agenda. We’ve been living with the consequences ever since.

Neoliberalism is a philosophy, a vision of what the world should look like. It’s main points are rule of the “free” market, limited (if any) social spending, deregulation, privatization, and increased political and military dominance. For the last 30 years or so all plans put out by the US political and economic elite have followed those principles. What passes for policy debate in most elections is little more than editing of a pre-approved plan. That’s what hit New Orleans, and it hit long before August 29. Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause the devastation, it revealed it. The devastation happened when funds that could have been used to support the levies were diverted to military spending; when a 6,000+ bed prison was operating in the middle of the city; when public transportation for tourists instead of poor people was a priority; when FEMA was slashed with the assumption the Red Cross and other charities would pick up the slack; and countless other times.

To win the battle over the rebuilding of New Orleans, we can’t just focus on the rebuilding of New Orleans. We have to develop and push for our own vision of what the world should look like. This development can’t just happen in New Orleans, and it sure can’t happen by joining Food Not Bombs for a week. We have to fight the battle over what our own communities should look like. Yes another world is possible, but what does it look like? We can’t just imagine a world where the beer is free and the boss has to get a job. We also have to have a plan for how the buses are going to run.

There are no short cuts and no easy answers. Our task ahead is to build community controlled organizations that, regardless of the issues being worked on, express an open opposition to neoliberalism. This opposition isn’t just no to neoliberalism, it’s about articulating and building on common collective values. Based on these values we build strategies that insure the marginalized have power in our own lives. Notice I said strategies. A march is not a strategy, it’s a tactic. Explaining how a march builds power and uses that power is a strategy. It’s long past time the US left learned the difference.

In fact most of the US left is struggling with what the hell we’re suppose to do come Monday morning. No matter what the strategy or strategies for struggle, I think there are two principles that are central.

· Organize where the relationships are
Bring the Ruckus has been working closely with FFLIC (Families & Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children) since almost immediately after Katrina. Although a small organization, our impact on this work has been great because we’ve focused on relationships we built long before Katrina. Through personal relationships built through common work we were able to quickly provide organizing help. Almost all of our members were able to provide support by working where they live because a strategy was built based on existing relationships. This proved to be extremely effective. More than 75 volunteers in more than 20 cities distributed thousands of flyers and conducted scores of interviews in only a couple of weeks. The volunteers used the relationships they already had, all we did was link this network of relationships. I firmly believe this is the most effective way to truly build a mass base capable of defeating neoliberalism.

· Create a space where democracy can happen
From now on most of the Katrina organizing should probably focus on helping displaced people create their own structures. The experience of an institution run and controlled by “the common folk” is not widespread in this country. People who’ve had direct experience in making decisions about their own future are better organizers, regardless of the outcome. I think we should be focusing on helping build these structures and learning the lessons from them.

Remember Hurricane Ivan in 2004? There are still people living in shelters. While it’s possible privatization efforts will close the shelters permanently this time around, the struggle of displaced people is just beginning. This fight is going to go on for a while and we have to be strong in every round.

I really didn't want to believe this. For the last couple of weeks there have been rumors on the net about this happening. Unlike most Net rumors they have had names attached and there were specific details that kept getting repeated. This release is from Human Rights Watch, they did the study of names of people in the jail and researched the stories on the ground.

New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters
Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells

(New York, September 22, 2005)—As Hurricane Katrina began pounding New Orleans, the sheriff's department abandoned hundreds of inmates imprisoned in the city’s jail, Human Rights Watch said today.

Inmates in Templeman III, one of several buildings in the Orleans Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there were no correctional officers in the building, which held more than 600 inmates. These inmates, including some who were locked in ground-floor cells, were not evacuated until Thursday, September 1, four days after flood waters in the jail had reached chest-level.

"Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst," said Corinne Carey, researcher from Human Rights Watch. "Prisoners were abandoned in their cells without food or water for days as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling."

Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into the conduct of the Orleans Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, and to establish the fate of the prisoners who had been locked in the jail. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which oversaw the evacuation, and the Orleans Sheriff’s Department should account for the 517 inmates who are missing from list of people evacuated from the jail.
Carey spent five days in Louisiana, conducting dozens of interviews with inmates evacuated from Orleans Parish Prison, correctional officers, state officials, lawyers and their investigators who had interviewed more than 1,000 inmates evacuated from the prison.

The sheriff of Orleans Parish, Marlin N. Gusman, did not call for help in evacuating the prison until midnight on Monday, August 29, a state Department of Corrections and Public Safety spokeswoman told Human Rights Watch. Other parish prisons, she said, had called for help on the previous Saturday and Sunday. The evacuation of Orleans Parish Prison was not completed until Friday, September 2.

According to officers who worked at two of the jail buildings, Templeman 1 and 2, they began to evacuate prisoners from those buildings on Tuesday, August 30, when the floodwaters reached chest level inside. These prisoners were taken by boat to the Broad Street overpass bridge, and ultimately transported to correctional facilities outside New Orleans.

But at Templeman III, which housed about 600 inmates, there was no prison staff to help the prisoners. Inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch varied about when they last remember seeing guards at the facility, but they all insisted that there were no correctional officers in the facility on Monday, August 29. A spokeswoman for the Orleans parish sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch she did not know whether the officers at Templeman III had left the building before the evacuation.

According to inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch, they had no food or water from the inmate’s last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench.

"They left us to die there," Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.

As the water began rising on the first floor, prisoners became anxious and then desperate. Some of the inmates were able to force open their cell doors, helped by inmates held in the common area. All of them, however, remained trapped in the locked facility.

"The water started rising, it was getting to here," said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. "We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying."

Some inmates from Templeman III have said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out from their cells.

Inmates broke jail windows to let air in. They also set fire to blankets and shirts and hung them out of the windows to let people know they were still in the facility. Apparently at least a dozen inmates jumped out of the windows.

"We started to see people in T3 hangin' shirts on fire out the windows," Brooke Moss, an Orleans Parish Prison officer told Human Rights Watch. "They were wavin' em. Then we saw them jumping out of the windows . . . Later on, we saw a sign, I think somebody wrote `help' on it."

As of yesterday, signs reading "Help Us," and "One Man Down," could still be seen hanging from a window in the third floor of Templeman III.

Several corrections officers told Human Rights Watch there was no evacuation plan for the prison, even though the facility had been evacuated during floods in the 1990s.

"It was complete chaos," said a corrections officer with more than 30 years of service at Orleans Parish Prison. When asked what he thought happened to the inmates in Templeman III, he shook his head and said: "Ain't no tellin’ what happened to those people."

"At best, the inmates were left to fend for themselves," said Carey. "At worst, some may have died."

Human Rights Watch was not able to speak directly with Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gussman or the ranking official in charge of Templeman III. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch that search-and-rescue teams had gone to the prison and she insisted that "nobody drowned, nobody was left behind."

Human Rights Watch compared an official list of all inmates held at Orleans Parish Prison immediately prior to the hurricane with the most recent list of the evacuated inmates compiled by the state Department of Corrections and Public Safety (which was entitled, "All Offenders Evacuated"). However, the list did not include 517 inmates from the jail, including 130 from Templeman III.

Many of the men held at jail had been arrested for offenses like criminal trespass, public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted.

From: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm

Below is a response to an email about the Bring the Ruckus southern strategy. The strategy makes Atlanta a focal point and the question was, given the recent events, should New Orleans be made the focal point.

We should recognize that we are still in the middle of a response to Katrina. I think we all have had a visceral reaction to the intellectual truth of this government. It's one thing to say the US government will let people die, even encourage it. It's another to see it, and another still when many of those people are friends and colleagues. My feelings of rage are fueling my work right now, but I don't wan them to color my analysis. At least not too much.

That said, I'm unsure if it makes sense to make New Orleans a physical focal point. I do think it has to be a political one. What I mean is, NOLA right now only exists in the minds of people. What it will look like will depend on a battle still to be fought. To my mind, this is a concrete fight against neoliberalism. The US political and economic elite want NOLA to become an R rate Disneyland free of the poor, Black and brown. To defeat this plan will require more than resistance, we will have to present an alternative vision and a build a national power base capable of implementing it. While the leadership for building this vision must come from NOLA residents it can't be left to them.

For the last week or so I've been referring to BtR's project as solidarity work. Joel disagrees with me and I may be convinced of his position, but here's why I've been using the word. Samora Machel defined solidarity as "International solidarity is not an act of charity. It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible." So in my reading, NOLA is a site of struggle against neoliberalism but it's a struggle we are simultaneously waging in our communities. What if, during the same week, communities across the country held meetings, forums, doorknocking, etc. that asked residents what they would like their home to look like? NOLA would be the kick off but since neoliberalism is kicking the ass of the entire countries poor, this visioning session would be linked across the country. In fighting for this vision we can reframe the struggle from what should NOLA look like to what should the US look like. Solidarity with NOLA is not direct aid or charity, but opening multiple fronts in the struggle.

Right now is probably not the time to run with a tactic just because it's proposed. But I do think it's time to think much bigger.

Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led Hurricane Katrina Relief
Click http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/katrinarelief.html

In particular I want to highlight Friends & Families of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC). Their info is below.

"It is not in our organizational "mission" to find people homes and reunite incarcerated kids with their families. Nor is it our mission to go shelter to shelter helping people focus the kind of rage and fury that leads to riots into something powerful, productive, and potentially future-altering. But we have cried and yelled and talked about it for days and today we finally pulled out the butcher block and markers and planned."

"1) Donate: Send a check to the "FFLIC Hurricane Relief Fund" to 920 Platt Street, Sulphur, Louisiana, 70663.

2) Volunteer: Come and help us walk through the shelters, find people, help folks apply for FEMA assistance, figure out what needs they have, match folks up with other members willing to take people in. We especially need Black folks to help us as the racial divide between relief workers and evacuees is stark. Email us ASAP if you would like to help with this work.

3) Send supplies for the effort: We don't need tee-shirts and underwear. We need things like cars, computers, a copy machine, a fax machine. All of these items are going to what we need to have in place to better help our families. To find out exactly what we need, call us at the number below.

4) Organize others to send donations, supplies or come down here and help.

5) If you are of modest means and you can't volunteer your time, do what you believe gives us strength. Pray, write op-eds or letters to the editor, organize your block, write FEMA and tell them what you think, protest local racist media coverage

We can't promise you a 501(c) (3) letter to make your donation tax deductible. We are trying are hardest to get this in place soon but its not our priority. We can promise you that every dime will be spent helping the beautiful people of New Orleans who have lost everything they have, survive and resist.

Please e-mail all four e-mail addresses: kdhiggs@hotmail.com, familiescantwait@yahoo.com, deenv_2000@yahoo.com,xochitl@mediajumpstart.org"

I simply don't believe in reports of widespread looting or gang violence. This is rumor reported as fact. The facts are that people were forced to survive without food or water for days. To anyone who took what they needed, good for you.

Myths of Katrina
Gary Younge in Baton Rouge
Tuesday September 6, 2005
The Guardian

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.
In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.
New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.

New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.

Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.

During a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of established facts.

One French journalist from the daily newspaper Libération was given precise information that 1,200 people had drowned at Marion Abramson school on 5552 Read Boulevard. Nobody at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the New Orleans police force has been able to verify that.

But then Fema could not confirm there were thousands of people at the convention centre until they were told by the press for the simple reason that they did not know.

"Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.

"There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.

"You can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist. "But nobody is doing that."

Either way these rumours have had an effect.

Reports of the complete degradation and violent criminals running rampant in the Superdome suggested a crisis that both hastened the relief effort and demonised those who were stranded.
By the end of last week the media in Baton Rouge reported that evacuees from New Orleans were carjacking and that guns and knives were being seized in local shelters where riots were erupting.

The local mayor responded accordingly. "We do not want to inherit the looting and all the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Kip Holden was told the Baton Rouge Advocate.
"We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."

The trouble, wrote Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune is that "scarcely any of it was true - the police confiscated a single knife from a refugee in one Baton Rouge shelter".

"There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes."

Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".

But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".

"She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns," wrote the LA Times.

"We have sick kids up here!" she shouted.

"We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!"

Most posts over the next few days will be related to Katrina. Below is a post by Jordan Flaherty. His journal entries have been circulating on the internet and have also been posted on Zmag (www.zmag.org/weluser).

Dan

Its been a day since I evacuated from New Orleans, my home, the city I love. Today I saw Governor Blanco proudly speak of troops coming in with orders to shoot to kill. Is she trying to help New Orleans, or has she declared war?

I feel like the world isn’t seeing the truth about the city I love. People outside know about Jazz Fest and Bourbon Street and beads, and now they know about looters and armed gangs and helicopter rescue.

What's missing is the story of a city and people who have created a culture of liberation and resistance. A city where people have stood up against centuries of racism and white supremacy. This is the city where in 1892 Homer Plessy and the Citizens Committee planned the direct action that brought the first (unsuccessful) legal challenge to the doctrine of “Separate but Equal.” This is the city where in 1970 the New Orleans Black Panthers held off the police from the desire housing projects, and also formed one of the nations’ first Black Panther chapters in prison. Where in 2005 teens at Frederick Douglas High School, one of the most impoverished schools in the US, formed a student activist group called Teens With Attitude to fight for educational justice, and canvassed their community to develop true community ownership of their school.

I didn’t really understand community until I moved to New Orleans. Secondlines, the new orleans tradition of roving street parties with a brass band, began as a form of community insurance, and are still used to benefit those needing aid. New Orleans is a place where someone always wants to feed you. Instead of demonizing this community, instead of mistreating them and shooting them and stranding them in refugee camps and displacing them across the southern US, we need to give our love and support to this community in their hour of crisis, and then we need to let them lead the redevelopment of New Orleans. As Naomi Klein has already pointed out, the rebuilding money that will come in doesn’t belong to the Red Cross or FEMA or Homeland Security, the money belongs to the people of New Orleans.

Hurricane Diary
Many people have asked for more information about my experience in the past week. I was one of the fortunate ones. I had food and water and a solid home. Below are notes from my week in the disaster that was constructed out of greed, corruption and neglect.

Saturday, August 27
I’m in New Orleans, and there’s word of a hurricane approaching. I don’t consider leaving. Why? Because I don’t have a car, and all the airlines and car rental companies are sold out. Because the last two hurricanes were false alarms, despite the shrill and vacuous media alarms. Because I have a sturdy, second floor apartment, food, water, flashlights, and supplies. Because there is not much of an evacuation plan. Friends of mine who evacuated last time sat in their cars, moving 50 miles in 12 hours.

Sunday, August 28
As the storm approaches and grows larger, everyone I know is calling. “Are you staying or going? where are you staying? Are you bringing your pets? What should I do?” Governor Blanco urges us to “pray the hurricane down” to a level 2. I relent to pressure somewhat and relocate to a more sturdy location, an apartment complex built out of an old can factory in the midcity neighborhood. The building is five stories high, built of concrete and brick. There are seven of us in the apartment, with four cats.

Monday, August 29
Its morning, the storm is over, and we survey the streets outside. There has been some flooding. A few of us explore the neighborhood in boats, and we see extensive damage, but overall we feel as if New Orleans has once again escaped fate.

Later in the day, we hear some reports of much greater flooding in destruction in the ninth ward and lower ninth ward neighborhoods, New Orleans’ most overexploited communities.

Tomorrow, we decide, the water will lower and we’ll walk home. We expect power will start coming on in a week or so.

There are many relaxed and friendly conversations, especially on the roof. With all of the lights in the city out, the night sky is beautiful. We lie on our backs and watch shooting stars.

Tuesday, August 30
We wake up to discover that the water level has risen several feet. Panic begins to set in among some. We inventory our food and find that, if we ration it tightly, we have enough for five days. As we discuss it, we repeatedly say,“not that we’ll be here that long, but if we had to...”
We continue to explore the area by boat, helping people when possible. The atmosphere outside is a sort of post-apocalyptic, threatening world of obscure danger, where the streets are empty and the future seems cloudy. The water is a repellent mix of sewage, gas, oil, trash and worse.

We meet some of our neighbors. Most of the building is empty. Of at least 250 apartments, there are maybe 200 people in the building, about half white and half Black. Many people, like us, are crowded 7 or 10 to an apartment. Like us, many people came here for safety from the storm. Some have no food and water. A few folks break open the building candy machine and distribute the contents. We talk about breaking into the cafe attached to the building and distributing the food.

We turn on a battery-powered tv and radio, and then turn it off in disgust. No solid information, just rumor and conjecture and fear. Throughout this time, there is no reliable source of information, compounding and multiplying the crisis.

The reporters and politicians talk 80% about looting and 20% about flooding. I can’t understand how anyone could blame someone for “looting” when they just had their home destroyed by the neglect and corruption of a country that doesn’t care about them and never did.

Tomorrow, the news announces, the water level will continue to rise, perhaps 12-15 feet. Governor Blanco calls for a day of prayer.

Wednesday, August 31
White people in the building start whispering about their fears of “them.” One woman complains of people in the building “from the projects and hoarding food.” There is talk of gangs in the streets, shooting, robbing, and lawless anarchy. I feel like there is a struggle in people’s minds between compassion and panic, between empathy and fear.

However, we witness many folks traveling around in boats, bringing food or giving lifts or sharing information.

But the overwhelming atmosphere is one of fear. People fear they wont be able to leave, they fear disease, hunger, and crime. There is talk of a soldier shot in the head by looters, of bodies floating in the ninth ward, flooding in Charity Hospital, and huge masses (including police) emptying WalMart and the electronic stores on Canal street. There are fires visible in the distance. A particularly large fire seems to be nearby - we think its at the projects at Orleans and Claiborne. Helicopters drop army MREs (Meal Ready to Eat) and water, and people rush forward to grab as many as they can.

After the third air drop, people in the building start organizing a distribution system.
Across the street is a spot of land, and helicopters begin landing there and loading people aboard. Hundreds of people from the nearby hospital make their way there, many wearing only flimsy gowns, waiting in the sun. As more helicopters come, people start arriving from every direction, straggling in, swimming or coming by boat.

A helicopter hovers over our roof, and a soldier comes down and announces that tomorrow everyone in the building will be evacuated.

Across the street, at least two hundred people spend the night huddled on a tiny patch of land, waiting for evacuation.

Thursday, September 1
People in the building want out. They are lining up on the roof to be picked up by helicopters - three copters come early in the morning and take a total of nine people. Seventy-five people spend the next several hours waiting on the roof, but no more come.

Down in the parking garage, flooded with sewage, a steady stream of boats takes people to various locations, mostly to a nearby helicopter pickup point.

We hear stories of hundreds of people waiting for evacuation nearby at Xavier University, a historically Black college, and at other locations.

Our group fractures, people leaving at various times.

Two of us take a boat to a helicopter to a refugee camp. If you ever wondered if the US government would treat US refugees the same way they treat Haitian refugees or Somali refugees, the answer is, yes, if those refugees are poor, black, and from the South.
The individual soldiers and police are friendly and polite - at least to me - but nobody seems to know what's going on. As wave after wave of refugees arrives, they are ushered behind the barricades onto mud and dirt and sewage, while heavily armed soldiers look on.
Many people sit on the side, not even trying to get on a bus. Children, people in wheelchairs, and everyone else sit in the sun by the side of the highway.

Everyone has a story to tell, of a home destroyed, of swimming across town, of bodies and fights and gunshots and looting and fear. The worst stories come from the Superdome. I speak to one young man who describes having to escape and swim up to midcity.

I‘m reminded of a moment I read about in the book “Rising Tide,” about the Mississippi river flood of 1927. After the 1927 evacuation, a boatload of poor black refugees is refused permission to get on land “until they sing negro spirituals.” As a bus arrives and a mass swarms forward and state police and national guard do nothing to help, I feel like I’m witnessing the modern equivalent of this dehumanizing spectacle.

More refugees are arriving than are leaving. Three of us walk out of the camp, considering trying to hitchhike a ride from relief workers or press. We get a ride from an Australian tv team who drive us to Baton Rouge where we sit on the street and wait until a relative arrives and gives us a ride to Houston.

While we sit on the street, everyone we meet is a refugee from somewhere - Bay St Louis, Gulfport, Slidell, Covington. Its after midnight, but the roads are crowded. Everyone is going somewhere.

Friday, September 2
In Houston, I can’t sleep, although we drove through the night. Governor Blanco announces that she’s sending in more national guard troops,

“These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets. They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.”

Many people have called and written to ask what they can do. I don’t really have answers. I’m still tired and angry and I don’t know if my home survived.

But, here's some thoughts:
1) Hold the politicians accountable. Hold the media accountable. Defend Kanye West.

2) Support grassroots aid. A friend has compiled a list at http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/ katrinarelief.html

3) Volunteer. The following is a call for volunteers from Families and friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, an excellent grassroots group:
“Come and help us walk through the shelters, find people, help folks apply for FEMA assistance, figure out what needs they have, match folks up with other members willing to take people in. We especially need Black folks to help us as the racial divide between relief workers and evacuees is stark. Email us ASAP if you would like to help with this work.
kdhiggs@hotmail.com, familiescantwait@yahoo.com, deenv_2000@yahoo.com, xochitl@mediajumpstart.org"

4) Organize in your own community.

5) Add your apartment to the housing board at www.hurricanehousing.org.

6) Support grassroots, community control of redevelopment. Don’t let New Orleans die.

Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn Magazine (www.leftturn.org).