New Series of Short Videos on Al Jazeera Highlight Election Issues

Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour news channel available in more than 250 million households in over 130 countries. They have 65 bureaus across the globe, mostly rooted in the global South. As part of their US election coverage, they are airing this series of short videos focused on some of the issues that have shaped this election. The videos were produced by a team that includes New Orleans journalist Jordan Flaherty and filmed in cities across the US.

Miami - Immigration

Washington, DC - Foreign Policy

Arlington, VA - Health Care

Chicago - Money in Politics

Fort Lauderdale - Economy

Milwaukee - Economy

The channel has also been airing shorter versions that can be seen at the following links: Miami, Washington, Arlington, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, and Milwaukee.

Six Years Since the Storm and Six Years of War Against the Black and Poor in New Orleans, By Endesha Juakali

From our friends at Survivors Village:
Once again, the Katrina Commemoration Committee will sponsor its annual march from the base of the Industrial Canal in the 9th ward to Hunters Field on the 29th of August 2011.

The March will begin with a healing ceremony at 10 AM the levee breach at Jourdan & Galvez in the 9th ward. The Katrina Commemoration march/secondline begins immediately following the healing ceremony. The march/secondline is a combination of traditional New Orleans secondlining, African drummers, New Orleans brass bands, Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, various community organizations and the community-at-large. It travels through the streets of New Orleans down North Claiborne Avenue for about 3 miles to St. Bernard Avenue. The march/secondline ends at Hunter’s Field, located on the corner of North Claiborne Avenue and St. Bernard Avenue.

Last year the prevailing thought was that the 5th year event was going to be the last chance to really make a statement because after that the media and others around the country/world would definitely move on to other events and disasters. That is probably true from a media/marketing perspective, but for those of us that lived and are still living the disaster, moving on is not an option.

The storm that brushed by New Orleans on August 29, 2005 was never the cause of the disaster. The shoddy work of the US Government that led to the levee failures and flooded the city was only the beginning of our troubles. The real disaster began immediately after the storm when the city’s white supremacist economic elite and its “colored” collaborators decided to remake the city in their image, which strongly resembles a 21st century plantation. These collaborators which included the mayor, city council, head of HUD, and almost every black elected official, thought that the plan would only affect the poor, who they never represented anyway. They were not only unprincipled, but misguided in not realizing that the majority of people in New Orleans were working poor and anything that affected them would change all the power relationships in the city.

It started almost immediately with the governor labeling blacks in New Orleans looters and giving the police department and National Guard the power to shoot to kill. This was parroted by the then-mayor. We now can see how that worked out. Then the state took control of the public school system, firing all the experienced teachers and breaking the union. This was done for the expressed purpose of privatizing the industry, so now profit is the goal, not serving the children. Than it was decided that certain areas in the city should not be repopulated; all of these areas such as New Orleans East, the Lower Ninth ward, and all of the traditional public housing developments were areas that were almost exclusively black and working class. Then the decision was made to not open the public hospital that was a critical life line for the black working poor community.

Then the political attacks began, and are still going on!! Though the city is only 30% white, the white supremacist economic elite has used the weakened state of the black community— as well as the failure of blacks, other people of color, and progressive whites to forge any kind of united front–to take away any semblance of power by blacks and people of color in the city. All of the major power bases in the city that were majority black are now majority white. This includes the mayor, city council, district attorney, police chief, school superintendent, and judges elected since the storm; in fact any position of power that has been filled since the storm has most likely been filled by a white person or a non New Orleans native. This has been accompanied by a sustained war against the poor, the homeless and all other lower working class persons in the city. Since New Orleans was declared a blank slate, we are the social experimental lab of the world. Anyone with money and a new idea…come to New Orleans…"they will accept anything.”

This is just meant to be a sample of what has happened to the city since the storm, as a native New Orleanian and a Black person, I could go on and on with examples of how sad it feels to be politically and economically powerless in my own city. Suffice it to say calling this a 21st century plantation is not meant to be a joke.

All people that believe in social justice should make it a point to march on August 29th, we cannot afford to move on because the disaster is not over, its an on going living event that seems to get worse each year since 2005.

Therefore we must march each year in order to remind ourselves that we are in a fight and cannot rest!! We have lost many battles, but the war is ongoing and we must not quit!

I hope to see you at the levee breech on the 29th!

AND after the march and program at Hunters field, everyone is invited to join the residents and former residents of the St. Bernard community in their annual Unity in the Community Celebration of Life at 3820 Alfred St (the 3800 block of St. Bernard Ave.) from 4:00pm-until.

Haiti Facts Seventeen Months after Earthquake

By Bill Quigley
Haiti experienced a major earthquake January 12, 2010. Tens of thousands died, estimates range from 65,000 to 230,000 people killed. About 2 million more people were displaced. Haiti was already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with a per capita income of about $2 a day. Seventeen months later, Haiti remains deeply wounded. The numbers below give an indication of some of the challenges that remain for the Haitian people.

Housing

570,000 people in Haiti have moved back into 84,000 buildings which are heavily damaged and marked by engineers as “yellow” because they may collapse in foul weather or in the event of another tremor (USAID Draft Report 2011). “I see little children sleeping next to the heavily cracked walls every day,” said one of the experts quoted in the USAID report.

465,000 people have moved back into 73,000 buildings that are so terribly damaged they are designated for demolition and are categorized as “red” because they may fall at any moment (USAID Draft Report 2011)

Homeless

250,000 to 800,000 people in and around Port au Prince Haiti are still living under flimsy tents or tarps where water and electricity are scarce, security is poor and people are exposed to diseases. UN Report – January 2011 and USAID Draft Report 2011.

166,000 people living in tents have been threatened with evictions, nearly one in four of the people living under tarps and tents (International Organization for Migration, April 2011).

1000 people were illegally evicted at gunpoint from three tent camps in the Delmas suburb of Port au Prince during one week in May 2011. They are part of a series of illegal evictions of over 50,000 homeless people in Haiti in the last several months (June 16, 2011 human rights complaint filed with the Inter American Commission on Human Rights by IJDH, CCR, BAI and Trans Africa).

Health

320,000 cases of cholera have been reported in the epidemic in Haiti since the earthquake (Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) Haiti Reconstruction Watch).

170,000 people with cholera have been seen at hospitals (CEPR).

5335 people have died from cholera since the epidemic started (CEPR).

172 temporary toilets serve the approximately 30,000 people living in tents in downtown Port au Prince around the National Palace. That is one toilet for every 174 people (Haiti Grassroots Watch June 9 2011 report).

Zero is the number of people who died of cholera in Haiti before the earthquake. The epidemic originated with UN troops brought into Haiti whose waste was inadequately treated and discharged by UN subcontractors into rivers used by people for washing, cooking and bathing.

US Funds for Reconstruction of Haiti

$918 million is the amount allocated by Congress for US reconstruction development in Haiti in July 2010 (May 2011 GAO Report on Haiti Reconstruction).

$184 million was actually obligated as of March 2011 (May 2011 GAO Report on Haiti Reconstruction).

Another $63 million was allocated to emergency services. Another $1 billion was allocated for relief funds to reimburse US emergency and humanitarian activities. (May 2011 GAO Report on Haiti Reconstruction).

Human Rights

In 1998, the United Nation Commission on Human Rights received the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement which guarantee human dignity and human rights to many groups of people including all people displaced by natural disasters. On a visit to Haiti, the UN expert on internal displacement said, “Haiti is living through a profound humanitarian crisis that affects the human rights of those displaced by the disaster.”

The people of Haiti are our sisters and brothers. The systematic violation of their human rights is a violation that must push us to greater solidarity and action. Do what you can.

Bill teaches at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and is Associate Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). He volunteers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Bureau de Avocats Internationaux (BAI) in Port au Prince. You can reach Bill at quigley77@gmail.com.

Photo of supporters of Aristide by Wadner Pierre.