Monday Sept 5, 8pm: protest/vigil at Fed Bldg for Hurricane Katrina victims
RCYB(Seattle) .
We have just received word of a protest/vigil around the Hurricane
Katrina catastrophe & the government's criminal complicity in
exacerbating the mass suffering & death. It will take place at 8pm,
at the Federal Building in Seattle (2nd & Marion). The RCYB
encourages everyone to show up, show your compassion for the people &
show your anger for these racist oppressors who are totally unfit to
rule! See y'all there!!
"Revolution" newspaper, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party
USA, has put out a special issue about the hurricane. Read the whole
thing online at revcom.us ; below are 2 short articles from it, 1st a
statement by the RCPUSA's national spokesperson Carl Dix, & 2nd a
report from some "Revolution" reporters currently in New Orleans.
* * * * * * * * * *
FROM SLAVE SHIPS TO THE SUPERDOME IN NEW ORLEANS
Revolution #14, September 4, 2005, posted at revcom.us
New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. People trapped amidst
squalor and chaos in the official shelters. People facing death from
starvation and disease on the streets.
Most of the people trapped in the misery and chaos of post-Katrina New
Orleans and along the Gulf Coast were Black. When people took what
they needed to survive, they were condemned as animals and dangerous
criminal gangs by the authorities. What were they supposed to do—just
die quietly?
This is what the authorities must have thought. In a hundred thousand
ways Katrina laid bare the unequal and oppressive relations Black
people are forced to endure under this system.
Why are the two major oil pipelines running out of the New Orleans
Gulf area called the Plantation line and the Colonial line? This
underscores the reality confronting Black people in this country.
Black people remain concentrated on the bottom rungs of this society.
This is the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow segregation and continuing
oppression of Black people as a people. The sight of thousands of
Black people packed into sports arenas brought back haunting visions
of the holds of the slave ships which forcibly dragged millions of
Africans to the shores of the New World in chains.
But the masses weren't going out like that. They defiantly went into
the streets to see to their survival. Some organized efforts to meet
not just their own needs but the needs of groups of people trapped in
the mass shelters like the New Orleans Convention Center.
The New York Times reported that: "On Friday morning, some young men
broke into the kitchen of the Marriott Hotel, across the street from
the center, fixed a gigantic batch of scrambled eggs, grits and bacon
and served it to storm victims." A retired teacher at the Convention
Center praised these youth as "Robin Hoods"—bringing food to the
people.
It is especially outrageous to watch federal and state officials
threaten people who were put in this desperate situation by government
inaction with imprisonment and even death. The Governor of Louisiana
said, "I have one message for these hoodlums. These troops (being sent
into New Orleans) know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than
willing to do so if necessary." The Mississippi State Police Chief
promised to deal ruthlessly with any looters. This is Mississippi,
where the police used to arrest people and hold them for the KKK to
lynch—where sheriffs and judges and preachers would often join lynch
mobs in carrying out murderous deeds. And this is New Orleans, where a
person's racial ancestry was calculated down to great-great-great
grandparents. Being found to be even 1/32nd Black would subject
someone to a life as a second class citizen.
George Bush said there should be zero tolerance for any lawbreaking.
What about zero tolerance for a system that has not and cannot end the
oppression of Black people? Or a system that now threatens people
facing starvation and disease with official violence for trying to
feed themselves and others? These rulers have shown what they and
their system are capable of in how they dealt with this hurricane. As
long as power is left in the hands of these capitalist exploiters,
we'll continue to see the kind of suffering seen in New Orleans and
the Mississippi Delta area in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
It's Way Past Time To Throw Off the Chains of Oppression and Get With
the Emancipators of Humanity!
Carl Dix, National Spokesperson, Revolutionary Communist Party, P.O.
Box 941, Knickerbocker Station, New York, NY 10002-0900, 866-841-9139
x2670, Comra...@hotmail.com
* * * * * * * * * *
VOICES FROM LOUISIANA — "WE'RE WAY PAST ANGRY"
Revolution #14, September 4, 2005, posted at revcom.us
Revolution correspondents in Louisiana submitted this report:
On the way towards New Orleans, I talked to a man from Thibodeaux who
had flown into New Orleans by helicopter to help repair generators.
"They're not telling people what's happening there," he said. "There
are bodies everywhere. There are dead bodies on the streets of New
Orleans. A natural disaster has become a human catastrophe; a furious
storm has broken open a torrent of fury and bitterness among the
people."
A man who grew up in New Orleans' 9th Ward—right up against the levee
and the banks of Lake Pontchartrain—spoke to me. He broke down sobbing
as he said he still didn't know where his mother, aunt, and sisters
were. He then told me this: "Don't say they didn't have a plan. That
ain't the problem. They had a plan, and this is their plan. Block off
the city and let the people who don't get out die. They're poor, and
they're black. Let them die, that was their plan."
A woman called in to a radio show, desperate for help. She told of an
elderly friend who had been holed up for days, desperate, sick, and
dehydrated. On Friday, he tried to walk across the Mississippi River
bridge. But he was turned back by heavily armed troops because he had
an Orleans Parish ID, and wasn't allowed to cross the "border" into
Jefferson Parish. "He's going to die in his apartment," she said.
Everyone we talked to is seething with anger and bursting with sorrow.
People are shocked—that they are being treated like refugees; that
they are being called refugees. They are shocked that government at
every level did nothing to help them. "How can we be refugees in our
home state? My family has been here since slavery days," a man from
Kenner said. "And now I'm supposed to be a refugee?" "We're not angry.
We're way past angry," one young man from Uptown New Orleans said. "If
someone could look inside us and see how we feel, they'd see that.
We're way past angry."
New Orleans is now under military occupation. Tens of thousands of
military personnel have been sent in to suppress and control the
remaining residents. Orleans and several surrounding parishes have
been put under martial law. After days of letting the poorest people
in a major city struggle to survive in a sewage-filled, water-soaked,
disease-ravaged city, with temperatures approaching and festering at
100 degrees, with no food, water, or medical supplies, the government
sent in the military. A brother named Reginald spoke what is on many
people's minds. "They've got the port here they use to send things to
Iraq every day to kill people. But they can't use that port to help
the people of New Orleans?"
The shockwaves from this storm will be felt for a long time. How they
influence the future depends a lot on how the people respond right
now. Looking around at newly homeless kids playing on a makeshift
basketball court at a shelter in Baton Rouge, one young man said, "The
city is gone, but we're still here."
Funds are urgently needed for continuing coverage. Send contributions to:
Revolution Reporters Travel Fund
RCP Publications
P.O. Box 3486 Merchandise Mart
Chicago, IL 60654
* * * * * * * * * *
Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (Seattle)
http://seattle.rcyb.info
"Revolution" newspaper
http://revcom.us
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RCYB(Seattle) .
The vigil will take place at WESTLAKE PLAZA, not federal building as
previously announced. Sorry for any confusion... Also, people are
encouraged to wear black clothes &/or red armbands in memory of the
dead.
--
Laal salaam / Red greetings!
Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade (Seattle)