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EcoUnionist News #64: Gulf South Rising Edition
Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, September 3, 2015
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.
Ten years ago, between August 23-31, Hurricane Katrina overran the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, destroying major portions of the city, killing at least 1245 people. The destruction and death disproportionately affected the poor, mostly nonwhite, working class people and neighborhoods of New Orleans, and the response by the capitalist class and every government from the local municipal authorities to the State of Louisiana to the United States, was to render aid to the mostly white employing class while letting the working class suffer. Law enforcement and the capitalist, in an orgy of racism and class bias, displayed blatant double standards, greatly exaggerating the actions of black survivors, labeling their actions as "violent", "looting", and "thuggish" while ignoring at least as serious actions by white survivors. Then, they used the disaster to bust unions, privatize public institutions (including the public school system), and shred environmental laws, so they could remake New Orleans into a hyper capitalist mecca. Ten years later, the devastation of Katrina is still wreaking havoc on the 99%, however, as a result, broad based, intersectional working class resistance has arisen among them and they are fighting back. A good portion of the resistance is working under the banner of #GulfSouthRising and Katrina Truth. Following are just some of their stories:
- Amid Katrina Commemoration Spectacle, a Southern Freedom Movement Takes Shape - By Anna Simonton, TruthOut, September 1, 2015
- Bush Administration Exemption Allowed Contractors To Steal Wages From Katrina Reconstruction Workers - By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, Think Progress, August 31, 2015
- Dodging potholes in New Orleans: 10 years after Katrina - By Hannah Bonne, RoarMag, August 31, 2015
- Social Justice and Climate Justice Movements Merge in New Orleans 10 Years After Hurricane Katrina - By Julie Dermansky, DeSmog Blog, August 31, 2015
- Still left behind in the new New Orleans - Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky interviewed by Elizabeth Schulte, Socialist Worker, August 31, 2015
- Gulf South Rising Remembers Katrina, Builds Campaign - By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance, August 30, 2015
- How the Ruling Class Remade New Orleans - By Thomas Jessen Adams, Jacobin, August 29, 2015
- These New Orleans Residents Are Still Trying To Go Home - By Bryce Covert, Think Progress, August 29, 2015
- Change Everything or Face A Global Katrina - By Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything, August 28, 2015
- Katrina Plus Ten: Climate Justice in Action - By Scott Parkin, CounterPunch, August 28, 2015
- Shock Doctrine: A Look at the Mass Privatization of NOLA Schools in Storm’s Wake & Its Effects Today - Wendell Pierce and Gary Rivlin interviewed by Juan González and Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, August 28, 2015
- Ten years on: Katrina, militarisation and climate change - By Nick Buxton and Ben Hayes, Open Democracy, August 28, 2015
- Was the Katrina Oil Spill Disaster a Harbinger for the Atlantic Coast? - By Sue Sturgis, Facing South, August 28, 2015
- Still Waiting for Help: Lessons of Hurricane Katrina on Poverty - By Laura Lein, The Conversation, August 27, 2015
- A Decade After Katrina, RNs Reflect on What We’ve Learned and Refuse to Learn - By Staff, National Nurses United, August 26, 2015
For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC; Hashtags: #greenunionism #greensyndicalism #IWW
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