Organize the South

I lived in Orlando for 12 years. While I don’t think much of the Food Not Bombs strategy, I can’t remember the last time I fed someone who was hungry. Well, I did buy flan for a colleague at lunch, but I don’t think that counts.

My point is I’m disappointed in Patty Sheehan. I remember when she was first running as the only openly gay candidate for city council. There was some controversy because she viciously opposed the building of a shelter for homeless youth in her neighborhood. It appears she now is opposing FNB food sharing in the park because the businesses don’t like it. The lesson here is that we shouldn’t hate people because they are gay, we should hate them because they are poor. Thanks Patty, that clears a lot up.

For more information on Orlando’s attempt to starve homeless people.
http://orlandofoodnotbombs.org/

The main campaign I'm on right now is the Racial Justice Campaign Against Operation Meth Merchant (www.stopoperationmethmerchant.org). It's a campaign against the racial targeting of the South Asian community in North Georgia for the meth problem. The authorities there are scapegoating South Asians for meth. What better way to make the point then with our very own scapegoat. Here's a link to the statement made by Methi the Government Scapegoat.

http://www.atomicavenger.com/jyoti/methi/methi.html

Just fyi, methi is a green leafy vegetable similar to spinach. Some of the defendants didn't know what meth was and thought the authorities were talking about cooked vegetables. Sad, but true. If you have a moment, stop by and view the video. It's a bit large so if you don't have a higher speed connection it could be a problem. I really do encourage you to look. This is funny stuff in not so funny times.

It would also help the campaign if you forward the link. The more media on the Racial Justice Campaign the better.

The weekend of June 16-18 was a historic moment for the US. The Southeast Social Forum was held in Durham, NC, and about 500 people from around the South and the country came together. The social forum was a conference of those struggling against corporate globalization. That last sentence shows some issues with the event, but not enough to say the weekend was anything but wonderful.

The US Social Forum website (www.ussf2007.org) states, “The US Social Forum is more than a conference, more than a networking bonanza, more than a reaction to war and repression – The USSF is the next most important step in our struggle.” The Southeast Social Forum was, in my opinion, a conference. It was a great conference, but it was a conference. I don’t understand what it would mean for it to be more than that. The website also says, “The USSF will provide spaces to build relationships, learn from each other’s experiences, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, and begin to vision and strategize how to reclaim our world.” The Southeast Social Forum did that, at least for me. I met people I hadn’t seen in 10+ years. I had a great opportunity to talk to people engaging in a wide range of struggle. Because of the forum I’m thinking about organizing, particularly the Racial Justice Campaign (www.stopoperationmethmerchant.org) in new ways. This isn’t more than a conference, it’s what a good conference is suppose to do.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have never been to a social forum before. I didn’t go to Brazil, India, Kenya, or Venezuela. I wasn’t really interested in attending either. It seemed like a lot of money to go to a conference that looked like it was about space for Global South organizers to come together. I did go to the first national weekend planning meeting of the US Social Forum in Atlanta last year. I was skeptical, and still am, of the social forum process given how little experience US citizens have in democratic process. At the end of the weekend I pulled out of the planning process, given the workload with launching a new organization I didn’t think it was wise to spread myself out. While I was excited to attend the Southeast Social Forum, and will be attending the US Social Forum, I won’t be working on it.

The format for the Southeast forum was typical conference. Plenary in the morning, workshops, lunch, plenary, workshop, plenary, dinner, plenary, party. It’s a tried and true format that has it’s strengths and weaknesses. One strength I found was that I could skip out on a plenary and spend that time talking to folks outside. I have a very difficult time sitting still for most plenary sessions. After working at Project South (www.projectsouth.org), I just don’t have it in me to be talked at for more than 10 minutes. I have to get up.

There were an amazing number of workshops. The first session on Saturday had 18 not including the spontaneous sessions. This was repeated again on Saturday and on Sunday. The Racial Justice Campaign did a workshop on Saturday with 6 people. Not a big turnout at all, but it was a great space for conversation since 2 of the folks were from Georgia and the others do racial justice work. I was thrilled with the result.

By far the most talked about dynamic all weekend was building an alliance between Black and Latino communities. I estimate about 40-50% of the attendees were Black, about 30% Latino, 20% white (maybe 30%), and 10% everyone else but mostly South Asian. Given the mass mobilizations in the last couple of months this makes sense. However, there seemed to be more to this than just a response. Folks in North Carolina have been organizing around Black/Brown alliance in a serious way since the late 1990s. Black Workers for Justice and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee have a long, successful history of intercultural organizing. Other groups like The Miami Workers Center (www.miamiworkerscenter.org) and the Tenant and Workers Organizing Committee were also present and sharing the challenges and opportunities they have faced in doing this type of organizing. While I was present at many of these discussions, I didn’t learn about any new principles that would provide a magic bullet. Rather, the conversations were more about honestly stating what the problems were and are, and why overcoming those problems is so crucial. Frankly, I think not pretending we have answers is a mark of a good conference.

I will be making some dramatic changes in my professional life very soon. I'm hoping these changes will mean more time for writing and keeping up with this blog. In any case I want to keep the posts more updated so not every post will be an essay. They may just be questions I have about what's going on.

In other news, look for a personal website to be launched soon. Details to come.

By Jordan Flaherty and Tamika Middleton
From Colorlines Magazine (http://www.colorlines.com)
February 2006

When hurricane Katrina hit, there was no evacuation plan for 7,000 prisoners in the New Orleans city jail, generally known as Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), or the approximate 1,500 prisoners in nearby jails. According to first-hand accounts gathered by advocates, prisoners were abandoned in their cells while the water was rising around them. They were subjected to a heavily armed "rescue" by state prison guards that involved beatings, mace and being left in the sun with no water or food for several days, followed by a transfer to state maximum security prisons. Although their treatment brought national attention to the condition of prisoners in Louisiana, and comparison to prison abuse scandals from Attica to Abu Ghraib, local government officials have attempted to dodge accountability and continue with business as usual.

Raphael Schwartz, a 26-year-old Missouri man arrested and imprisoned for public intoxication in New Orleans on August 27, was sprayed with mace and abandoned by officers in a locked cell with seven other prisoners. According to papers filed by the ACLU of Louisiana, the man had no ventilation and nothing to eat or drink for four days.

Quintano Williams, a 31-year-old office manager picked up on marijuana charges just before the storm hit, testified in ACLU papers to being abandoned for days and then relocated to Hunts Correction Facility, a rural Louisiana maximum security prison, where he was left with thousands of detainees on a football field. There, he witnessed stabbings, but, he said, prison staff "did not interfere with anything that was going on as long as people did not try to get out of the area."

Rachel Francois was arrested in mid-August, and as far as her family was able to discover never had charges filed against her. "We tried to bail her out," her mother, Althea Francois, said. "It was the day before Katrina, and the bail bonds places were all closed. If they had been open, she would have been released that day. Instead, we could not get her released until two months later." Francois, a prisoner-rights advocate, searched for two weeks before she found out where her daughter was being held.

Rachel and other women were taken to Hunts and then Angola, an all-male prison. "When I found out she was at Angola prison, just the idea really broke my heart," her mother said. "She didn't have a bed until the last few days she was there. She had no food for four days. She saw them throw food at the men like they were animals, but even then they didn't give the women anything. The women were having panic attacks and were in fear for their lives. "

Most of the people trapped in this brutal web of governmental abuse and neglect would have been released within a few weeks even if convicted. However, as of this writing several months later, many remain locked in maximum security prisons such as Angola, Louisiana's notorious former slave plantation.

The flooding of New Orleans showed vividly the results of local, state and federal governments' misplaced priorities, as well as the privatizing and militarizing of relief. In the months after the disaster, while the people of New Orleans wanted to return and rebuild their city, what they got instead was "security." Hundreds of National Guard troops, as well as police forces from across the U.S. and private security forces including Blackwater, Wackenhut and an Israeli company called Instinctive Shooting International began patrolling the nearly empty city.

Long before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was hit by hurricanes of disinvestment, deindustrialization, corruption and neglect. Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration in the country-816 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 state residents. By comparison, Texas comes in a distant second place with 694 per 100,000. Although Blacks make up 32 percent of Louisiana's population, they constitute 72 percent of the state's prison population. Pre-Katrina, New Orleans industry had already left, and most remaining work involved low-paying, transient, insecure jobs in the service economy.

Orleans Parish Prison was the eighth largest jail in the country, made up of several buildings located in Midcity New Orleans. The population of the jail was predominantly people from the city's many low-income communities and communities of color. The jail also rented out cells to the federal government to house immigration detainees and other federal prisoners. However, most of the prisoners left behind as the jail flooded had not been convicted of any crime, but were being held pre-sentencing. Lawyers and researchers working on behalf of the prisoners say that most were accused of misdemeanors, such as minor drug possession, parking violations and public drunkenness.

Mary Howell is a civil rights lawyer who has been active in defense of prisoners from OPP for years. "Last year, 80,000 people came into OPP as arrestees," she said. "Very few were eligible for rehabilitation programs. This prison has mostly been warehousing people. We've suffered under a policy where the city builds a huge jail that is then required to be filled with human beings, or else it's a waste of money."

"Being a sheriff in Louisiana is one of the most powerful positions in the state," adds Howell.  " There's virtually no oversight. At the time of the hurricane they had about 1,200 employees under the Sheriff in Orleans Parish. Those employees, under state law can also be used by the sheriff for political campaigns. That adds up to a political empire and a patronage empire."

Ursula Price is a staff investigator for A Fighting Chance, a nonprofit organization that works for indigent defense in Louisiana, as well as a part of Safe Streets Strong Communities, a coalition dedicated to transforming New Orleans' criminal justice system. She has been working around the clock since the hurricane hit, despite losing everything she owned in the flooding of New Orleans. "Investigating what happened to these prisoners and where they are is not supposed to be our job. This should be the city's concern," she said.

Initial reports gathered from testimony of both inmates and guards put the number of inmates unaccounted for anywhere between a dozen and several hundred. Sheriff Marlin Gusman has been sticking with an official statement that, "all inmates housed in Orleans Parish were safely evacuated from our 10 facilities by boat and transported to state and parish facilities by bus." He also suggested to media that reports of abuse come from "disgruntled" inmates who "lie." Human Rights Watch and ACLU responded that these reports are consistent from many different prisoners and also match with reports from interviews with guards at OPP. In late November, Gusman's office quietly put out arrest warrants for 14 inmates, while still denying that any were missing, other than two who had been recaptured.

The defense of these prisoners has been managed by just a few organizations and individuals. Phyllis Mann, a lawyer from rural Alexandria, Louisiana, found that many of the OPP prisoners had been moved to a prison near her, and she started visiting them. According to Price, Mann dropped everything in her private practice to dedicate herself to their legal defense-and had 12 former prisoners living in her house.

Official negligence is just the beginning of the obstacles advocates have faced. "Immediately after the flooding, the governor issued an order suspending the clock on court proceedings," Price said. The state no longer had a time limit-formerly 60 days-under which to present charges or release prisoners. "It's stopped due process," Price continued. "Almost all of the public defenders have been laid off. There are only seven left in Orleans Parish. Meanwhile, in trying to defend these folks, we have massive travel costs and almost no funding."

For the prisoners, there are other hardships. "These are Katrina survivors, but they're not getting their FEMA money or Red Cross aid or food stamps," said Price. " They've lost contact with their families; many have children and they don't know where they are."

Ross Angle, who has since been released, told Human Rights Watch, "Picture waking up everyday in a prison somewhere-you don't even know where you are-knowing you were supposed to be free, not knowing how long they were going to keep you there. Not knowing if it would ever end. After they moved me, I kept asking for someone to look at my case, and they just kept telling me, 'We're waiting on the DOC guys, we don't know anything.' If my lady wasn't seven months pregnant, calling them everyday and yelling, then I would probably still be there.It made me feel worthless."

After the hurricane, the incarceration of suspected "looters" was the first city function to restart. Due process and civil liberties were almost nonexistent for new arrestees, who were put in cages in a makeshift prison at a Greyhound bus station, with no access to phones or lawyers. When ACLU attorney Katie Schwartzmann went to observe proceedings, a sheriff's deputy at first refused her access, as well as taking and reading her notepad.

According to advocates and recently released prisoners, new arrestees are offered a choice-either plead guilty and be put to work on city cleanup crews, or plead not guilty and face months in Angola prison with no access to a lawyer.

>From the initial images broadcast around the world, demonizing the people of New Orleans as "looters," and criminals, there have been two very different visions struggling for the future of the city. One vision is a vision of "security," exemplified by Governor Blanco bringing in National Guard troops with the words, "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." This is a vision of corporate security and restructuring, handing the city over to Blackwater Security's armed guards and Halliburton's disaster profiteers, while "redeveloping" Black neighborhoods into golf courses and luxury housing.

The other vision is of justice and human rights. This vision involves restoring jobs, health care and housing for New Orleans, rather than offering minimum wage dead-end jobs, crumbling infrastructure and more prisons. It is a vision supported by the work of countless activists and organizers from around the US, as well as the overwhelming majority of the people of New Orleans.

"Despite all of the horror we are seeing daily, my hope is this is an opportunity for change," Price said. "OPP corruption is being laid bare-people being held past their time is nothing new in this system, it's just more extreme now. This is something to organize around and fight against."

(This article has been slightly altered from the version appearing in Colorlines Magazine) =====================================
Tamika Middleton is the Southern Regional Coordinator for Critical Resistance and a member of the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Oversight Coalition.
---------------
Jordan Flaherty is a resident of New Orleans, an organizer with New Orleans Network and an editor of Left Turn Magazine. His previous articles from New Orleans are at
http://www.leftturn.org/articles/SpecialCollections/katrina.aspx

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GRASSROOTS, PEOPLE OF COLOR-LED GULF COAST ORGANIZATIONS TO DONATE TO:
http://www.leftturn.org/Articles/Viewer.aspx?id=689&type=W

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“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