Red Pepper News

Nothing Stops Mardi Gras in New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty writes: In New Orleans’ Central Business District, a prominent billboard advertising Southern Comfort liquor proclaims “Nothing Stops Mardi Gras.  Nothing.”  The festive ad haunts me, seeming callous and cruel, "you've faced a huge loss, and now we want to use your city and cultural traditions to sell a lot of alcohol."

Citywide, Mardi Gras is everywhere, but not without controversy. Many are angry at the idea of a huge party taking place while bodies are still being recovered in Ninth Ward houses, And in diaspora communities such as Atlanta, there is a lot of anger at the idea of a huge party going one while they are kept out.  A past leader of the Zulu Mardi Gras Krewe even sued his organization (unsuccessfully) to stop them from parading this year.

 

Death, Abundance and New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty of Left Turn magazine continues his series of articles from New Orleans (apologies this took a while to post here!). Wednesday, December 14, 2005. On Sunday, I drove past streets named Abundance, Pleasure and Humanity to a memorial for Meg Perry, a 26 year old Common Ground Collective volunteer from Maine. Meg died on Saturday when the bus she was in crashed near downtown New Orleans. She had come to New Orleans in September, then left and returned with more volunteers. The memorial was in a community garden she had been working on in the Gentilly neighborhood. All around were empty houses. It was a small moment of mourning, in a city of mourning. Mourning that feels like it won’t end, because the disaster hasn’t ended.

Community and Resistance in New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty writes: A couple months before New Orleans flooded, I remember walking through my neighborhood on a beautiful weekend afternoon and hearing music.

I followed the sound a couple blocks, to where about thirty people, all of them Black, followed a few musicians through the streets. They were mourning the death of a loved one, New Orleans-style. Most folks were wearing custom t-shirts with a picture of the deceased. Next to the photo were the words “sunrise” along with the date of his birth, and “sunset,” above the date of his (recent) death - he was 20. Also on the shirt were the words, “No More Drama.”

Changing New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty writes: It’s bittersweet being back in New Orleans.  Although the architecture is the same, and it’s a relief to walk the streets and reunite with old friends, already this is a very different city from the one I love. It’s a city where some areas are quickly rebuilding and other parts are being left far behind.  A city where people who have lived here for generations are now unwelcome in a hundred different ways.

White New Orleans is steadily coming back, and Black New Orleans is moving out.  A grassroots organizer with New Orleans Network tells me she has been speaking to people in every moving truck she sees.  She reports that in every case, “they’re Black, they are renters, they’re moving out of New Orleans, and they say they would stay, if they had a choice.”

Free Trade Deadlock in Americas

The Summit of the Americas, which the US government would restart talks on the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), failed to reach agreement last weekend. Campaigners celebrated, massive protests 'greeted' Bush, and you can read more here:
People's Global Action on protests
Zmag article on Argentina vs Bush
Account of People's Summit vs FTAA

Crime and New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty writes: People from New Orleans were not surprised to see video of police beating a 64 year old man in the French Quarter. The only surprise is the increased attention the incident received due to the continued media focus on New Orleans, although news reports I saw took pains to point out the “high levels of stress” New Orleans police are under.

Despite the attempts to explain away the officer’s behavior, the incident fits into a well-defined pattern of police conduct in New Orleans. In the last year, seven young Black men have been killed by New Orleans police, and none of the officers involved have been punished. 

The New Orleans prisoner abuse scandal

Jordan Flaherty: If you’re in the USA you have probably seen the reporting in the New York Times, LA Times, and elsewhere, on the continuing revelations about prisoner abuse and torture in the aftermath of Katrina.

Here are a couple quotes from yesterday's NYTimes article, which, according to a friend who has been working tirelessly on this issue, understates the case:

"(Inmate's lawyers) estimate that as many as 2,000 people arrested for minor crimes just before the hurricane are still in prison five weeks later. They said that under normal circumstances, such low-level offenders would have seen a judge and been released within days. " 

Fighting for New Orleans

Jordan Flaherty, New Orleans. A month after Hurricane Katrina, many of those dislocated and displaced from New Orleans are still trying to reunite with family members, still trying to find out information about their homes and belongings, still grieving over their losses. Parents are still trying to find a school district for their kids, and local schools are over full and some are not welcoming. One Louisiana school suspended all New Orleans students as punishment for the actions of one child.

I Spy

The FBI has been busily spying on anti-war activists. Ok, no big surprise. But The Nation magazine’s report on the use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs), FBI-led teams of state and local police and federal agents, still makes interesting reading. As well as keeping a close track of Cindy Sheehan’s Gold Star Families for Peace, JTTFs have a presence on virtually every campus in the US.

Meanwhile, back in London, the Met's Forward Intelligence Teams are gearing up for a busy week of harrassing activists at the DSEi arms fair.

Guantanamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike

200 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are on hunger strike, according to a lawyer representing a number of clients at the base.

Clive Stafford Smith, who returned from Guantamo a week ago, told an audience at the Greenbelt Christian Festival in Cheltenham: 'The world needs to know that these guys are going to die in the next two to three weeks. They are starving themselves to death.'