Category: Uncategorized

Protest the crimes of British Petroleum and the painfully slow and woefully inadequate response by both BP and the US Government

From the People’s Gulf Emergency Summit Saturday in New Orleans, we found out that the Deepwater Horizon Unified Response Command Center has moved to New Orleans, near the infamous Superdome where many poor and black people were forced to evacuate to after Hurricane Katrina.

We will be delivering provisional demands. Come out to show your opposition to the destruction of the Gulf.

When: Monday, June 21

Time: Noon to two

Where: 1250 Poydras St (Eni Petroleum)

Bring: your signs, bullhorns, and energy.

(There may be opportunity for Civil Resistance)

for more information: 504 644 7214 gulfemergencysummit (at) gmail. Thanks to Cindy Sheehan for design.

1) Stop oil drilling in the gulf, full compensation, retraining and new employment, including public works, for all affected

2) The government and entire oil industry must allocate all necessary resources to stop and clean up the spill, prevent oil from hitting shore, protect wildlife, treat injured wildlife, and repair all devastation. Full support, including by compensation, must be given to peoples’ efforts on all these fronts and to save the Gulf.

3) No punishment to those taking independent initiative; no gag orders on people hired, contracted, or who volunteer; those responsible for this crime against the environment and the people should be prosecuted.

4) Full mobilization of scientists and engineers. Release scientific and technical data to the public; no more lying and covering up. Immediately end use of dispersants; full, open scientific evaluation of nature and impact of dispersants. Fund all necessary scientific and medical research.

5) Full compensation for all losing livelihood and income from the disaster.

6) Provide necessary medical services to those suffering health effects of the spill. Protect the health of and provide necessary equipment for everyone involved in clean up operations. Full disclosure of medical and scientific studies about the effects of the oil disaster.

New Orleans, La. C3/Hands Off Iberville and other New Orleans Community groups will hold a press conference on June 29 at 5:30 PM in front of the Housing Authority of New Orleans headquarters to demand the federal government create a massive federal public works program to address the current housing, jobs, and Gulf oil spill crises. We will then attend HANO’s public hearing on their 2010-2011 annual plan and deliver this message to the federal-government controlled agency.

Instead of cutbacks planned by HANO, and other city, state, and federal agencies and officials across the country, we need an expansion of government services to meet unmet and pressing human needs. This initiative can be financed by immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and closing foreign military bases, ending and forcing repayment of bank and other corporate bailouts, and taxing the wealthy.

New Orleans remains devastated 5 years after Hurricane Katrina. Affordable housing remains scarce, with the city having the nation’s highest percentage of renters–41%–paying at last half their wages in rent and utilities. Homelessness has quadrupled, per capita, since Katrina, while over 34,000 families are on waiting lists for public housing and section 8 vouchers–and thousands more would sign up if HANO reopened the waiting lists! Charity hospital, the major provider of health care pre-Katrina, remains closed–not because of a “natural” disaster, but rather due to the very human, and intentional actions taken by Governors Blanco, and now Jindal, to kill public health care.

New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast are now being hit with the oil drilling disaster that is putting thousands more of people out of work and destroying communities and the environment. These city and regional disasters are on top of the worst economic depression since the 1930s facing the entire country, with over 20% of the workforce either unemployed or underemployed.

How are governments from the national to local level responding to these multiple crises? With more cuts to social services, further privatizations, while the wars and bailouts of the wealthy, and their corporations, continue. HANO’s proposed cutbacks for fiscal year 2010-2011 are representative of the austerity measures being taken by Republicans and Democratic Party-controlled legislatures, administrations, and agencies across the country. HANO executive director David Gilmore, who has played a major role in public housing demolition and privatization across the country over the last generation, is continuing that legacy in New Orleans. The 2010-2011 agency plan he crafted, in collaboration with the Obama administration, includes:

• Demolition of all 127 apartments at the Florida development, and no plans to rebuild. Before its redevelopment, pre-Katrina, Florida had 734 units (see p. 33, HANO Annual Plan, 2010-11)
• Demolition of approximately 500 scattered site apartments (of a total of over 700), with no plans to rebuild. HANO is working with the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to decide their “best use”–i.e. handing over highly valued real estate parcels to developers (see pp. 34-43; 63, Attachment K, p,.10; HANO Annual Plan, 2010-11 ).
• Privatization and demolition at Iberville. HANO plans to apply for a HOPE VI grant to “redevelop” the Iberville project into a “mixed income” development. As happened at St. Thomas, “redevelopment” and “mixed income” are code words for drastically reducing the current stock of approximately 850 public housing apartments, resulting in further displacement, hardship, and reduction in affordable housing (see p. 30, HANO Annual Plan 2010-11 )

Is there an alternative to the austerity and further misery planned by HANO and other levels of government? Do we have to sit idly by while BP destroys the Gulf and the government subordinates itself to these corporate criminals, relegated to providing security and public relations services? The success of US’s public works program shows there is an alternative: 75 years ago the Civil Works Administration, in four and a half months built or repaired 33,850 public building, carried out 3,220 flood control projects, built from scratch 1,000 airports and 3,700 playgrounds. Within the first week of its operation, it employed 1.1 million workers and employment peaked at 4.2 million. The total cost of the project was $30 billion in 2006 dollars.

In 6 years the Works Progress Administration (WPA) built 116,000 bridges, 5,600 new schools, 30,000 new public buildings, financed thousands of public murals, put on thousands of plays and concerts, paid for local histories and employed nearly eight million people –in a country with less than half our present population.

We can, and must, do it again.

New Orleans Community Groups Demand Federal Government Create Massive Public Works Program to Address Housing, Jobs, and Gulf Spill Crises.

No to Austerity. Public Works to Stop the Spill, Clean up the Gulf, and Rebuild America and World.

Press Conference: Tuesday, June 29, 5:30 PM at the HANO office, 4100 Touro St., New Orleans

For more information, contact Jay Arena at 504-520-9521

By Nick Braune

Each year billions of dollars are ripped off from workers, through all sorts of little scams. It is very common apparently, when workers leave a job, for their employers to “forget” to pay for the last week or so of work. And employers scam billions of dollars annually by underpaying overtime hours. Whether lots of money is involved or not so much, it is still a fairness issue, and wage theft hurts the wage-earners, their dependents and the community. Checking online, I found several organizations fighting against wage theft nationally; it is a huge problem.

One new attorney working on this issue is in the Rio Grande Valley. I met him at the groundbreaking for the new South Texas Civil Rights Project (STCRP) office planned in Alamo. (Their current offices are getting too crowded at Cesar Chavez Road and Business 83.) The lawyer is Elliott Tucker, and he recently joined STCRP after graduating from Georgetown University and spending a year or so with another non-profit organization. I asked for an interview.

Braune: When I spoke to you at the groundbreaking, I was interested in your project and have since looked online and found that this is not a small issue at all. Could you please tell the readers a bit about what you are doing.

Tucker: I am the employment justice attorney for the South Texas Civil Rights Project, where my job is to find both legal and non-legal solutions to the rampant problem of wage theft in the Valley. In Hidalgo County and Cameron County, we offer monthly legal clinics for victims of wage theft. At these clinics we give a brief presentation on labor law, conduct a legal intake, and then provide legal orientation to the appropriate non-profit or government agency.

I am working closely with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, LUPE, and the Start Center. For instance, in close coordination with LUPE, I have developed a Justice of the Peace workshop which empowers workers to file their own small claims lawsuits. The goal of this project is to both empower workers through civic participation and also ensure that all victims of wage theft have legal redress.

Braune: What are the most common offenses you are expecting to find?

Tucker: Two patterns are perhaps the most common. Simply stringing along the workers, telling them it will be another week or so before they will be paid…

Braune: …a little later and a little later….

Tucker: Yes, and the second most common one is just as simple, paying the workers less than minimum wage.

Greed and ignorance are the driving force behind wage thefts. The range of excuses for non-payment runs the gamut from “But I didn’t get paid either” to “You didn’t do a good job.” However, under federal and state law, an honest day’s work deserves an honest day’s pay. No excuses.

More disturbingly, in the Valley confused individuals feel that just because a worker does not have a social security number, they can pay that worker whatever they want. Oftentimes these individuals feel they are doing the worker a favor and get offended when the reality of the law comes barking. However, state and national law set the wage rate for all human beings, regardless of immigration status.

Another common problem is willful ignorance. Many reputable businesses hire an under-capitalized subcontractor to do the recruiting, supervision, and (scant) payment of workers who have questionable immigration status. It’s an assumed win-win for the business because they get labor on the cheap and they think they can plead ignorance. However, state and national law was drafted with this trick in mind, and workers can often demand wages from both entities as “joint employers.”

Braune: Do undocumented workers hesitate to come forward with complaints?

Tucker: Yes, but they should have far less fear. Although some build up unnecessary worries in their minds, there are a good number of protections in place if they do come forward.

Braune: What further developments do you envision? — Lawsuits? New state laws?

Tucker: My first goal is to educate low wage workers in the Valley about their rights, so all workers know the basic minimum wage and, if violated, know they have legal recourse regardless of their immigration status. Education is the key. However, education cannot open the eyes of the willfully blind, so I do anticipate lawsuits being necessary in the cases of extreme and systemic abuse.

As far as new state laws go, given the current political climate in Texas, I am not optimistic about new laws to address wage theft. Unless there is a fundamental shift in the political winds in Austin, I view my project as focusing primarily on education and litigation, not pushing legislative reform.

[This article also appeared June 23, 2010 in the Mid-Valley Town Crier]

Those who fail to remember the patterns of oil wars are condemned to repeat them.

by Greg Moses

Houston IndyMedia / DissidentVoice / CounterPunch / PetroleumWorld

Shock and awe, misdirection, the whole truth turned upside down? Could it be that the obscenity-driven confrontation between Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was a more exact replica of oil war shock tactics than I thought?

Kirk James Murphy, MD, argues in the firedoglake blog that the sand-barrier plan to block the oil slick on the Louisiana coast is being pushed to completion by interests who would rather be rid of the marshlands than save them.

Is our grief over the deathwatch at the Gulf Coast being crassly manipulated for the purposes of real estate development? Dr. Murphy’s blog-post quotes at length a May 8 report by Josh Wingrove of the News and Mail, pointing out that the barrier-island plan has been three years in the making.

What wrenched our hearts out this week was the CNN presentation of Anderson Cooper’s visit to a dead marshland, recently killed off by a gooey assault of crude oil. Not even the bugs had survived, we were shown. Nungesser pleaded for immediate action. James Carville bore witness to the fact that nothing was being done anywhere in sight.

Jindal and Nungesser have been arguing that barrier berms would stop oil from reaching more marshland. And their arguments make obvious sense under the circumstances.

The danger in the dredging plan, argues Dr. Murphy, is that the dredged material would be drawn from polluted shipping channels and washed ashore during the volatile hurricane season coming soon. The oil will not be stopped, yet the toxic damage will be multiplied.

There is money involved, of course. And already by Thursday evening Nungesser was on CNN demanding more.

The CNN media campaign this week has the shocking effects that we remember from oil wars past. And the effects are especially felt among those of us who like Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon find it difficult not to cry at the sight of our dying Gulf. And there is no doubt that our shock is being played like a football on its way to one goal line or the other.

But why does Dr. Murphy opine that the berms probably won’t survive the hurricane season, while he argues that they would dry out the marshes? And what good are wetlands anyway once they have been covered by bubbling crude?

Dr. Murphy’s argument would place our shocked grief in alliance with the Corps of Engineers, who apparently resisted the berm idea until CNN tossed Nungesser a lateral pass this week. Given the velocities of these shock tactics, there is never very much time to decide things. And maybe the velocity alone is enough to raise suspicion. Except.

Except in this case there actually is an enemy attacking the marshlands, and Nungesser appeared to be making his arguments in the company of lots of people. The image of Nungesser in a crowded room makes it more difficult to believe that his plan runs counter to the interests of people who live along the marshlands and who are working up a campaign of self-defense. But this is the way shock psychology would work with the power of images.

It’s also curious that the Corps of Engineers is not more forthcoming for the cameras. Nungesser does make a point when he asks: where’s the plan? And compared with the images of oily death in the marshes, it would seem that the risk of drying wetlands is less inhumane to the doomed creatures of the Gulf. Once upon a time I walked to work through those coastal marshlands on my way to an offshore drilling job. On the Gulf Coast, from Corpus Christi to New Orleans, there is no such thing as a non-toxic option.

Marshland protection is one of at least three scientific issues that are being fought on the fly during this oil spill. Thursday evening brings news of an “oil plume” that is about 1,000 yards deep and six miles wide drifting in the direction of Mobile Bay, Alabama. Reports say the plume is a toxic cocktail of dispersants and oil. Is it better or worse than an oil slick? Oil slicks either repel life or kill it. Plumes, apparently, allow life but at the cost of a living toxicity that will work its way up the food chain. Cancer clinics for everyone.

When CNN flashes pictures of the oil operation, there is a ship spraying cascades of fluids onto the water. Is this the dispersant? Here and there we see comments from scientists saying that nobody knows if the dispersant is such a good idea. Is it better or worse than a slick of thick crude? LIke Nungesser’s berms, dispersants also raise questions of money trails.

The third scientific issue of course is how to plug the hole. Speaking on Larry King Live, the legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens says either you get lucky or you drill a relief well. August is the frequently cited expectation for when the relief well will be completed.

“We’ve been here 38 days,” said Pickens, “and we’ll probably be here 38 days more.” If Pickens is right, will it be possible to stop the oil from washing ashore?

They say the first stage of grief is denial, and I don’t want to believe that any of this is happening. What Congressman Melancon did in public yesterday, we have been doing in our homes this week all along the Gulf Coast. You cannot love the Gulf Coast, witness this shocking trauma, and control your tears at the same time.

But now on top of it all we have to watch out for the ways that our tears are being maneuvered into contracting strategies that may have no other uses beyond profiteering. I’m not convinced that there are worse things than a raw oil slick, not even if they are barrier berms or 6-mile plumes of noxious crap. But if it is the best thing for all God’s creatures on the Gulf Coast to just stand aside and accept the sacrifice that oil slicks bring once they are imminent, then it’s time we started moving from Denial to Acceptance at some improbable speed.