Two years after Katrina

Two years after Katrina and Rita slammed the Gulf Coast, there are still too many unanswered questions and too many people whose lives are still on hold.

On the People's Freedom Caravan to the US Social Forum, we spent a day in New Orleans hearing stories of communities working to recover, including the people of the Lower Ninth Ward, which is still in shambles.



We learned that this was once among the top neighborhoods in the U.S. for African-American home ownership. Families who had lived there for generations are still struggling to return with the help of others in the neighborhood, but with little help from government.

We learned of public housing projects, unaffected by the storm, that have not allowed tenants to return, even to pick up their belongings. Some are calling the post-storm policies "ethnic cleansing."

The questions about why the levies broke, where the federal disaster money is going, what the new New Orleans will look like—way too many of these questions remain. An International Tribunal is meeting now in New Orleans to look for answers to why a moderate natural disaster became an unspeakable human tragedy that continues two years later.

(One thing I learned in Cuba is that people on that island, although frequently battered by hurricanes, rarely lose their lives. Here's a piece on how they manage.)

News on the continuing struggles can be found at the Katrina Action Network. And we continue to follow Common Ground and its visionary leader, Malik Rahim, and their work for the long-term recovery of poor communities in New Orleans and the restoration of wetlands that form a natural buffer to storms.

Other pieces from the YES! archive:

The rights of internally displaced people to return under international law, by Ajamu Baraka and Tonya M. Williams of the US Human Rights Network.

Katrina and the US Social Forum, by Alice Lovelace, organizer of the USSF.

Leave Us Alone ... to Drown? by YES! contributing editor Frances Moore Lappé.

Resurrect New Orleans: A Better City is Possible, by YES! contributing editor Van Jones.

Where FEMA Feared to Tread, by Tim Shorrock

Economic Rebirth After the Storm, on the Houma Tribe's struggle for recovery, by Meizhu Lui of United for a Fair Economy.

Katrina's Climate Chaos, by your editor and blogger.

Just received this email from the Miami Workers Center:

Community organizations and public housing residents from across the nation, along with Miami Workers Center and Power U Center for Social Change, stormed the Housing Agency of New Orleans (HANO) office at around 12:30 PM today. The organizations we are acting in solidarity with displaced residents of New Orleans public housing. HANO, under federal HUD leadership, has fenced off four public housing projects and will not let people return to their homes even though the units were not damaged by the storm two years ago.

After a three-hour standoff, surrounded by police, the National Guard and the SWAT team the residents and activists gave up their occupation of the building and held a national press conference. They put out the message that housing is a human right, not only in New Orleans but throughout the country, and that communities faced with displacement will not go down without a fight. The action was also a move to claim dignity for public housing residents from New Orleans, most of whom are African-American, who have been criminalized, disregarded, and robbed of their homes.

Below is an account of the takeover from Ms. Yvonne Stratford, LIFFT leader, and Tony Romano, Organizing Director of the Miami Workers Center.

Ms.Yvonne

People from New York, from Chicago, from Miami, and California, we all went into the HUD office. We were looking for the director of HUD. They said he wasn't there. They said he was out of town. So we decided we wanted to see the second in charge.
A lot of people around here don't have places to go. They need housing down here. We said we were going to stay down here until 5 PM. We were occupying the place. They told us that if we left we wouldn't be arrested. We decided that since the media was there we could hold a press conference and tell people about what is going on instead of getting arrested, so we did.
We were demanding to get the housing back. I wasn't scared. I didn't back down. I would have gone to jail. People are getting displaced everywhere. You know, you get tired, and when you get really tired that's when you got to take a stand.


Tony Romano

This was a national action of groups from around the country. We are calling for justice for public housing residents in NOLA. We all stormed the HANO office. The key objective was to meet with the man in charge. He has played a strong role in keeping public housing residents out of public housing. All the military was there. This is the beginning, this is part of a national movement of public housing residents, not just for justice in NOLA, but through out the country. After a three-hour standoff we held a press conference.
We see today as victory even though we didn't meet with the head of HANO because of the unity and the message that got out. Housing is a human right and this wont go down without a fight.

Liberating spaces

The fall issues of YES! on standing up to corporate power have not yet arrived from the printer, but we're already deep at work on the next issue. Here's our thought about what the issue might involve (and a request for your ideas), and afterwards, there is a question for you.

YES! #44: Winter 2008

Liberated Spaces
or
Whose Space? Our space.
or
DIY—creating free spaces

People ask the powerful for what they already have. There exists another notion of power: the idea that the people already have it. In this conception, power has another name. It is called dignity.
-Gustavo Esteva

I believe it to be perfectly possible for an individual to adopt the way of life of the future. . . without having to wait for others to do so.
-Mahatma Gandhi

In the game of chess, you win by confronting and vanquishing your enemy. In the game of Go, you win by taking over spaces. You simply surround territory and make it yours.

The “liberated spaces” issue of YES! magazine is about taking the game of Go into the way we live our lives. Instead of waiting for the world to change so we can live as we would like to live, we create the spaces where we can make it so, now.

Instead of looking for policy changes or the right job, we create the lives we want, along with others, without waiting for permission of the authorities. This is the approach of the autonomists, the street artists, the tent city dweller. Some people are on the fringes of society because they have been excluded -- because they are poor, a sexual minority, undocumented. Some because they choose not to fit in. In either case, they can, together or separately, create a different world within which to live their lives.

Spaces that can be liberated include physical spaces, virtual spaces (on line), and consciousness spaces (the freed mind).

Examples of possible article topics:

• The Critical Mass bike rides — taking over the streets for bicycles
• Street art that creates community space
  
• Egalitarian communities
• Villages in Colombia that declared themselves peace zones
• A death-row inmate who has found inner freedom although he remains behind bars.
• Your idea here (leave it as a comment or email: editors ( at ) yesmagazine ( dot ) org. Put the word "free" in the subject line.)

OK, here's the question: Where have you felt most free? Leave your answer in the comment field below or email as above. By participating in this process, we assume that you are giving us permission to publish your response in YES! or on our website.

Taking on corporate power: it's not only possible, it's patriotic

The talented and hard-working editorial interns, Catherine and Zach, came to work last Friday wearing ugly ties. They were celebrating the completion of work on the fall issue of YES! on corporate power, which comes with an assortment of ugly ties on the page corners, each accompanied by a shocking, but true, fact about corporations.

If you're a YES! subscriber, you will soon be receiving a copy of this issue. (If you're not a subscriber, try it out for free here.)*

We worked with a team of leading activists who each have won some important victories in human rights, the environment, globalization. But each also came to see that their victories are short-lived or partial if we don't take on one of the root causes -- the overwhelming power of corporations.

As it turns out, taking on corporate power is not only possible, it's patriotic

In addition to articles on corporations, we have a piece by Barbara Kingsolver on growing her own food, a piece I wrote on the US Social Forum, humor, up-to-date news and reviews, No Comment on the latest from the YES Men, and of course, the Page that Counts.

Like the health care issue, this issue highlights an emerging movement to take on corporate pwer, which has yet to be recognized by the mainstream press -- and probably won't be recognized by the corporate press.

*(Note: You probably gathered, given the topic, that YES! doesn't get funding from corporations, and we don't take ads. We rely on you to subscribe and make donations to support our work.)