Audio: 9 min 2 sec via DC radio pirates WSQT
From about 1 to about 2:15 PM on Dec 13, streets were blocked off for about five blocks around the HUD building at 451 7th st-because SDS and the rest of the coalition behind the "Stop the Demolitions" solidarity protest was occupying the 7th and D st intersection.
The core of the blockade was some SDS kids locked arm to leg each to the next in line lying down on the pavement. A large cardboard sign demanding an end to the Demolitions(held by Code Pink) took care of another lane of traffic. Finally, people from all of the groups involved milled around and reinforced the blockade.
As cold drizzle soaked the clothing of the young people lying on the ice-cold streets in the blockade, cops chose not to make arrests, so the blockades continued until the end of the planned rally.
While the civil disobediance was at its peak, Congresswoman Maxine Waters showed up ON FOOT(to pass the closed streets) and spoke out against Hud Secretary Alfonse Jackson, one of Bush's nominees and one of the key architects of the plan to destroy New Orleans's entire supply of public housing.
A New Orleans resident who spoke in front of HUD said that "economic development" means displacement for poor and oppressed residents. She went so far as to compare it to the theft of the continent from Native Americans!
In New Orleans, protesters on Dec 12 managed to halt bulldozers at the B W Copper housing complex to a dead stop on Dec 12. Googoe does not bring up news of any further demolition today-only protests in New Orleans! Earlier this week,New Orleans residents blocked the planned demolition of the Lafitte housing project in the Housing Conservation District Committee, and now a second demolition has been at least temporarily delayed.
"For Every Public Housing Unit Destroyed, A Condo Will be Destroyed. If there will be no homes for us, no relief from high rents, there will be no homes for the rich either! Sincerely, The Angry and Powerless."
The FBI is crying about "domestic terrorism' over the fliers, but remember-the FBI has not been able to stop the ELF in ten years-and until 2005 had not even been able to get any leads in the giant Vail fire!
Looks to me like what speakers in the DC solidarity rally described as the ethnic cleansing of New Orleans is starting to run into some serious resistance. It's all one war from Occupied Bagdad to Occupied New Orleans, and things are about to get real fucking ugly...
I wonder if the 'dozers being used to knock down poor people's homes in post-Katrina New Orleans are of the same make (Caterpillar) as the one used to kill peace activist Rachel Corrie when she was defending Palestinian poor people's homes? Bush's War is one several fronts, including New Orleans, and it must be stopped.
The Stop the Demolition Coalition, a large and broad group of over thirty New Orleans organizations fighting for human rights in the city, has denied any involvement in putting up the posters mentioned in this story. A respected representative, Louisiana Justice Initiative lawyer Tracie Washington, said the person who posted was not involved intimately with this struggle, likely someone acting as an agent provacatuer to discredit the movement with the public.
We were simply reporting on the posters for HUD officials on the one hand and condo-hating DC residents on the other hand to hear on pirate radio. We will not run further coverage of the poster issue if the coalition prefers that it not be run.
When we made the story, this was fresh, breaking news with little further information available. As many sources as possible were Googled for as much information as possible.
We try to report on all facets of resistance to these demolitions-both those from the coalition and anything that local residents(even local criminals) might have done on their own.
Of course, if whoever hung the posters does NOT live in New Orleans or did NOT live in low-income housing prior to Katrina, then chose to act outside the only organized structure that asked outsiders for help, shame on them for being a loose cannon! We've got more than enough of those in DC. Only those directly affected by an attack on a community have a right to make decisions concerning tactics.
As a general rule, WSQT will endorse without restriction any and all means(however militant) communities use to defend themselves. Our Iraq coverage makes this clear to anyone hearing an entire WSQT broadcast.
