How Corporate NOLA Murdered Charity Hospital

You remember Charity Hospital, right? The public teaching hospital in New Orleans that survived Katrina thanks to the genuine heroism of employees and volunteers who kept the lights on and the patients alive and cared for.

Charity Hospital is a living, breathing testament to the power of public investment.

Or it would be, if the rethuglican corporatists running the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and Louisiana State University hadn't deliberately killed it in order to get a private boutique clinic for billionaires built with taxpayer dollars instead.

I've been a fan of public teaching hospitals my whole life. Friends, coworkers, family members all work, teach, learn and heal in publicly-supported university teaching hospitals. They are the foundation of any community. You wanna know if a borderline neighborhood is moving up or sliding down? Look for the public hospital. It will tell you everything.

Roberta Brandes Gratz:

Before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Charity Hospital was the pride of New Orleans. A 1930s Art Deco–style icon built with WPA funds, Charity was one of the oldest continually operating public hospitals in the country and was regarded as one of the most vital and successful. “Charity was one of the best teaching hospitals in the country, where students from Tulane and LSU did their training,” says Dr. James Moises, a former Charity emergency room physician, noting that it served 100,000 patients a year before the storm.

Today Charity is a skeleton of its former self, with smaller, temporary facilities. The interim coverage does not include “urgent and chronic outpatient care,” notes Moises, and reaches a vastly reduced patient population. Meanwhile, the money that has flowed from the state and federal governments to compensate for the storm’s damage to the hospital is set to be spent on a highly controversial new $1.2 billion complex on an entirely different site, separated from the downtown core by an interstate highway.

The abandonment of the old Charity Hospital stands as a potent symbol of the many disappointments and betrayals experienced by the residents of New Orleans after Katrina. The loss has been a huge blow to the poor African-American community Charity served—an outcome that is all the more tragic, critics say, because it didn’t have to happen.

Charity flooded only in the basement during Katrina. In an extraordinary act of dedication and volunteerism, a 200-person medical and military team brought in a 600-kilowatt generator, pumped out the water and prepared the hospital for service. It was cleaned (to a condition better than before the storm) and was “medical ready” within weeks, according to doctors and military personnel present at the cleanup, as well as Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, the retired Army general who was commander of the joint task force on Katrina.

Read the whole infuriating thing. Print it out and carry it around with you to shove down the throat of the rethuglican moron who starts braying about running government like a business.

ACORN's Real Crime: Saving New Orleans After Katrina

This is what repug election-frauders and fraidy-cat dems destroyed, not for what ACORN did wrong, but for what it did right.

John Atlas in The Nation:

A week after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans—while government officials and charities were still discussing how to send aid to the area—ACORN was already moving into action. ACORN staffers quickly discovered that many displaced African-American homeowners were in danger of losing their homes. Banks were giving their middle-class, mostly white customers ninety days or more to make their payments, but borrowers who had subprime, high-interest loans (like many black homeowners in the Lower Ninth Ward) were given only one month. Three weeks after the storm, ACORN released a report exposing the industry's double standard and demanded meetings with lenders. Along with labor unions and consumer groups, it successfully negotiated plans to prevent foreclosures for dozens of homeowners. This campaign was only one of many victories, large and small, that ACORN achieved by mobilizing Katrina survivors to confront banks, insurance companies and public officials.

SNIP

Since the 2008 presidential election, ACORN has been the victim of a ferocious attack by the GOP, Fox News and Andrew Breitbart, including false accusations of "voter fraud" and the infamous doctored "pimp and prostitute" videos. This storm ACORN couldn't weather. Although the organization was subsequently exonerated of any wrongdoing, it dissolved itself as funders and Democratic allies abandoned the group. ACORN was dismantled, but its legacy—in New Orleans and elsewhere—continues. One group, A Community Voice, led by former ACORN leaders Vanessa Gueringer and Gwen Adams, continues ACORN's mission in New Orleans, regularly confronting local officials over issues like policing and the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward. The group is one of at least a dozen former ACORN affiliates that are now independent—but continuing the work of organizing the poor for power in cities across the country.

This article is adapted from John Atlas's Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America’s Most Controversial Antipoverty Community Organizing Group.

Read the whole thing.

Rebuild a Community by Restoring Its Books

Successful, responsible, valuable citizens are readers. Readers of books. Make the world a better place: Donate a book.

Katha Pollitt in The Nation:

St. Bernard Parish, three miles from downtown New Orleans, was hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. All its buildings were damaged, and all its schools were destroyed. Amazingly, little by little, the district is coming back, and on August 11, the last of its public schools, Andrew Jackson Middle School, will reopen with 350 students. Just in time for the BP oil disaster, you may be thinking. Yes. This is indeed a community that has been hit by catastrophe. And that’s where you come in.

ReadThis is a volunteer organization of people who love books and want to spread the joy of reading. (Truth in advertising: I’m on the board.) We collect new and gently used books for public schools and other underbooked places; we’ve sent books to a pediatric AIDS center, a homeless shelter and to troops in Iraq. This summer, we’ve taken on a big task: gathering 1400 books for the Andrew Jackson Middle School’s library, which was ruined along with everything else. Imagine a school library with no books and no money to buy books! Can you chip in by buying a book or two from the excellent and varied wishlist prepared by the school librarian? It has lots of terrific choices, from Harry Potter to Walter Dean Myers. As a bonus good deed, you’ll be helping the Garden District Book Shop, an independent book store.

Find out more about ReadThis here. If you’d like to get involved—collecting books and mailing them to the school, helping out at our table at the Brooklyn Flea on July 24 , or, if by some miracle you happen to be a publisher, donating a box or two shiny new age-appropriate books -- email us at readthisorg@gmail.com. For latest updates, join us on Facebook.

Here in Kentucky, Jake at Page One is launching his own Book Donation Project. Check it out.

Krewe of Dead Pelicans

Count on New Orleans to protest BP's crimes in its unique way.



Lisa Derrick at Firedoglake:

During New Orleans monthly art walk, the newly formed Krewe of Dead Pelicans staged their first parade through Julia Street, New Orleans’ gallery district, to mourn and protest the BP oil spill. Traditionally krewes parade for Mardi Gras, itself a final celebration before the sorrow of the Lenten season. The KoDP was organized by real estate agent and carnival costume designer Ro Meyer in late May who told the Times-Picayune

The thing is out there in the Gulf circulating and we don’t have any power. We’re not even able to go anywhere to get out of the way. Nobody appears to be doing anything about it, and I don’t have the power to do anything about it, and I don’t know anyone who’s stepping up, saying they have the power to do anything about it…

I just needed a place to channel my frustration and I felt like, ‘If I feel that way, other people must feel that way.’

Ro set up Facebook pages for the krewe and march which now has over 6000 friends from around the country. Several hundred–some in costumes, others dressed in black and blue to represent the ocean and oil and wearing shrimp boots–participated in the march which included a coffin, banners recycled from Katrina tarps, signs, flags featuring pelican (the state bird) and of course jazz bands. The parade permit was paid for by country music singer Sammy Kershaw a conservative candidate for Louisiana Lt. Governor (seems there are some Republicans who are putting “conservation” into the conservative platform…).

The krewe will be marching again, and a wing has formed in Tennessee. Expect to see other wings and supporters in Halloween parades across the country as well.

See more pictures here.

Lessons from the Saints

Personally, I saw the Saints-Colts Super Bowl as politics: the scrappy, minority-dominated, take-all-comers, party-loving, chronic underdog liberal dems from the abandoned city vs. the dominating machine wingnut freakazoid repugs from all-white, KKK-founding rural Indiana.

I couldn't bring myself to watch the game re-enact how the repugs have cleaned dems' clock in D.C. over the past year.

But dog-DAMN, Saints! I actually cried.

In that rewarding-the-faithful victory are lessons for our liberal Democrats, as Garlin Gilchrist explains:

Progressive organizers, activists, and politicians can learn a lot from these World Champions about how to win this year and beyond. Here are 3 key lessons.

Be who you are

The Saints have been a gutsy team all season. Their high-powered offense was planned and executed by a coach, offensive coordinator, and quarterback aligned with common purpose. They knew one another well and believed in each other. They gave each other space to be themselves.

Drew Brees doesn’t have the strongest arm in the league, but he’s the NFL’s most accurate passer. Instead of throwing long balls, they played to Brees’ strengths and ran quick, short plays that relied on timing and precision.

Progressives must do the same and play to our strengths. Let’s quit trying to act like people we’re not and pretending to hold views that we don’t. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t grow our thinking or our skills as a movement (see below), but it does mean that we must look at what makes us who we are and work with that.

SNIP

Be bold or go home

The Saints didn’t get to the Super Bowl by playing not to lose. They went for it on 4th downs. They kicked an onside kick to open the 2nd half. They went for the 2-point conversion. Some gambles worked, some didn’t. When they were down 10-0 after the 1st quarter, they didn’t forget the traits that made them the highest-scoring team in the NFL and NFC champions.

Progressives must do the same: Be courageous enough to be boldly progressive. Stand up for your vision of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. If something is disgusting, call it disgusting. If someone is dishonest, call them a liar. If something is possible, tell that story. Wimpy politicians finish 2nd. Wimpy organizers don’t win. Sick of losing? Get sick of being timid.

The dirty little secret is that this makes us more attractive to the debutantes everyone is courting: independents. Persuadable, undecided voters are more likely to vote for candidates/support parties that stand strongly for something. Shyness wins neither dates nor political victories.

Remember your supporters

We neither win nor lose alone. The problem is that when we win we salute ourselves, and when we lose, we focus on our opponents. This must cease. Movements, like football teams, thrive on passion. Every player, coach, and representative of the New Orleans Saints thanked their fans first during every interview they gave. They know who propelled them to the top, and they didn’t forget them.

SNIP

Let’s invest in ourselves and our allies. Training. Networking. Leadership development. Technology infrastructure. You want donors of talent, time, and treasure? Invest in your fans. They’ll love you for it.

Congratulations New Orleans.

Thank you for showing me and the rest of the Progressive movement what it takes to win.

Read the whole thing.

The Real Katrina Criminals: Vigilantes

A.C. Thompson and The Nation document yet another ignored post-Katrina outrage.

There was criminal violence in New Orleans after Katrina, all right, but it wasn't perpetrated by gang members, looters or the black underclass blamed by even Mayor Ray Nagin.

No, the worst violence, including cold-blooded murder, was committed by white vigilantes, who used the evacuation of poor blacks from flooded areas as an opportunity for some ethnic cleansing.

Over the course of an eighteen-month investigation, I tracked down figures on all sides of the gunfire, speaking with the shooters of Algiers Point, gunshot survivors and those who witnessed the bloodshed. I interviewed police officers, forensic pathologists, firefighters, historians, medical doctors and private citizens, and studied more than 800 autopsies and piles of state death records. What emerged was a disturbing picture of New Orleans in the days after the storm, when the city fractured along racial fault lines as its government collapsed.

Herrington, Collins and Alexander's experience fits into a broader pattern of violence in which, evidence indicates, at least eleven people were shot. In each case the targets were African-American men, while the shooters, it appears, were all white.

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs--Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins--in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

SNIP

Some of the gunmen prowling Algiers Point were out to wage a race war, says one woman whose uncle and two cousins joined the cause. A former New Orleanian, this source spoke to me anonymously because she fears her relatives could be prosecuted for their crimes. "My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all--white against black--that he could participate in," says the woman. "For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy."

"They didn't want any of the 'ghetto niggers' coming over" from the east side of the river, she says, adding that her relatives viewed African-Americans who wandered into Algiers Point as "fair game." One of her cousins, a young man in his 20s, sent an e-mail to her and several other family members describing his adventures with the militia. He had attached a photo in which he posed next to an African-American man who'd been fatally shot. The tone of the e-mail, she says, was "gleeful"--her cousin was happy that "they were shooting niggers."

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.