The National Security Agency collected more than 530 million US phone call records in 2017. This is more than three times the 151 million collected in 2016. The new statistics were first reported by Reuters. The report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is mandated by the USA Freedom Act passed by Congress in 2015 that aimed to restrict and boost oversight of the NSA’s surveillance program. Guess its not restricting, it’s certainly not freedom
Raise Wages, Outlaw Predator Interest on Payday Loans
By Anthony Mangano
As prices continue to rise while wages remain stagnant, it’s no wonder that workers are more and more often running short of money at weeks or months end, causing a terrifying debate between keeping the electricity on or feeding their children. Not satisfied with driving workers to the edge of starvation or homelessness, greedy capitalists have created a new system to rob the workers -the “payday loan”. Touted as an “emergency stopgap measure”, the interest on these short-term loans is so usurious as to force borrowers into permanent debt, a modern day version of debt peonage or sharecropping.
While big banks and corporations can borrow OUR money at 1-2% from the Federal Reserve Bank, payday loan interest rates can be almost 400% plus hidden fees, entrapping workers in an unending cycle of poverty and misery. Nationally, 83% of payday loans are paid to borrowers already stuck in several other loans. In Louisiana, which sucks $240 million yearly from workers, 79% of payday loans are lent to borrowers on the same day as they pay back a previous loan. In fact, 87% of borrowers are forced to seek new loans within two weeks of paying off an old loan. As the economic crisis worsens, more and more workers find themselves in desperate circumstances. In response, payday lenders flood TV and radio with ads offering workers a “magic solution”. Of course, more than two times as many offices are located in Black and LatinX communities. The 12 million workers who use payday loans every year are most commonly characterized by being separated or divorced renters who do not have a four-year college degree and earn less than $40,000. A majority are African-American.
While payday loan and auto title companies don’t break workers legs (yet) for falling short on their payments like organized crime syndicate loans of TV legend, the results are often no less devastating including homelessness, job loss, family breakup and depression. Payday loan vultures give millions of dollars to politicians for laws making these practices “legal”.
The Workers Voice demands that the Louisiana Legislature outlaw all predatory loans as part of our overall fight to improve the economic conditions of the workers. However, we also know only socialist revolution will end this criminal exploitation of the workers.
Two Cantrell Appointees No Good for New Orleans Workers
Norman White has been appointed by Mayor Cantrell to be the Chief Financial Officer (CFO )for the City. This is a position most of us have never even heard of or thought about. But it is a powerful job, advising on our tax dollars and all spending matters. (Despite many phone calls to city agencies, his salary remains undisclosed).
White comes to us as the twice former CFO of Detroit, under two discredited Mayor’s. He was also the former head of the Detroit Department of Transportation who was sued over illegal or excessive parking tickets and fines. Oops, watch out!
According to the lawsuit, the city of Detroit has issued about 300,000 parking tickets annually over the last three years, during which the city implemented a high-tech, $3.5 million meter system that accepts cash, credit cards and smartphone payments. The new system generated $13 million in 2015 alone, 30% more than the year before — but the lawsuit says this money is being made illegally.
At his appointment, Mayor Cantrell said of Norman White, “He helped right the ship there during a challenging time.” This is disturbing. Recently, Detroit has cut off thousands of people’s water, and this is not the first time. Tens of thousands have lost their homes and schools were closed. Why? Detroit, during White’s tenure, was under state control, depriving the people of the city from any say in their budget and policies. The state authorized the city receiving millions in loans from the big banks. In exchange, the banks demanded austerity and cuts to all social services. It was a dictatorship of the banks. Norman White’s job was to ensure that these cuts went through and the banks got their tax-free interest payments. Millions are suffering. Norman White may be good for the bankers and developers but not the working class.
CRIMINAL “INJUSTICE” COMMISIONER
Another disturbing appointment is Tenisha Stevens as Criminal Justice Commissioner. She was the deputy chief of investigations for Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro who has shown himself an arrogant, law breaking racist who is responsible for continuing mass incarceration. Recently, his office issued phony subpoenas and arrested domestic violence victims to force them to testify. We need someone who is working to keep people out of jail, not put them in. Stevens, as Cannizzaro’s Deputy Chief, is not the one we need.
Only One Place for Trump: A Jail Cell
By Gavrielle Gemma
Forget all that claptrap about the Russia investigation. That ignores what by law and decency Trump and his cabinet of war crazy generals, billionaire bankers and capitalists should be indicted for.
He has a deep hatred of the working class, Black, white, Latinx and Asian. He is a danger to humanity and is destroying the planet. His conduct towards women and his policies affecting women are criminal. They’re meant to push us down to domestic servitude. Trump wants to immerse the world in war, possibly nuclear. He is disrupting the peace in Korea, preparing war against Iran by tearing up a treaty the rest of the world wants, and giving a trilliondollar payout to war profiteering corporations. He is most happy when his non-stop racism results in a record number of hate crimes across the U.S.
His main job is to try to infest white workers with racism using vile anti-immigrant rants, and portraying other countries in the most demeaning of terms. But just like the Confederate slaveholders detested poor white southern farmers, so do today’s capitalists detest white workers. They put on a hard hat as they laugh all the way to the bank when the working class is divided.
Trump’s policies are tax cuts for the already filthy rich, to increase their accumulation of wealth to even more obscene levels. For us, the workers, employed and underemployed, of all ages and nationalities, Trump’s goal is to destroy our standard of living to make us desperate. He is aided by his clones in the Louisiana legislature who are cutting every program that we the people have already paid for. That is what fascists do, and they count on people blaming scapegoats rather than them, the cause of all our problems. Every time Trump opens his mouth he lies and spews racist filth and every day as he becomes more unpopular, his anti-working class policies revealed, he escalates his rhetoric.
Trump can be found seated on his gold toilet or almost daily on his golf course. He should be arrested and jailed for crimes against humanity
Labor Briefs for June 2018
GEORGIA BUS DRIVERS STRIKE
After months of meeting with school board officials and being ignored, bus drivers and monitors in DeKalb County, GA went on strike. The workers are currently not unionized. On April 17, driver representatives presented the district superintendent with 50 demands; these included pay raises, fair pay for sick leave days, and reclassification as full-time employees. On April 19, 400 drivers and monitors called in sick. The school board retaliated by firing 7 drivers. The fight for better conditions, and the reinstatement of the fired drivers, is not over. Drivers, parents and supportive organizations held a press conference condemning the school board’s actions. Drivers are also consulting with lawyers about further action in regard to the firings. Whatever happens, the April strike was historic, being the first work stoppage carried out by Atlanta bus drivers since 1980.
DISNEY WORLD WORKERS ORGANIZE
Disney World is not the happiest place on Earth for workers. Many employees of Disney’s parks and resorts can barely afford housing. Long-time Tomorrow Land worker, Mike Beaver, told Shadowproof.com that he has “lived in a motel for two years and nine months,” sharing the room with another staff member. Workers are fighting back, however. A collection of unions represents 38,000 Disney Workers in Florida. A major demand is that the company raise its minimum Florida pay rate from $10 an hour to $15 an hour. Management has offered a 50 cent annual pay bump, which 93% of union members rejected in a December 2017 vote. Disney withheld bonuses up to $1,000 from 41,000 union employees in Florida and California in an attempt to make them cave. In response, the unions filed a federal charge with the Department of Labor against Disney over these tactics. Workers themselves have taken their grievances to the streets. On March 23, hundreds (including hospitality workers, cast members, and custodians) marched to the entrance of Disney Springs in Florida. Demonstrators carried signs chanting, “We work, we sweat, put a raise on our check!”
25,000 to 50,000 Las Vegas Casino Workers Vote to Strike at 34 Resorts
“I’m here to show the younger generations that this is the way we fight to maintain our jobs, job secuirity, health benefits and to gain a pay raise.” – Louis W Thomas, Utility Porter at Tropicana Casino Hotel
South Carolina Short-haul Truck Drivers Vote to Join Teamster Union
Tens of Thousands in South Korea Demonstrate for Peace
The overwhelming majority of Koreans in both North and South Korea are longing for peace and, eventually, a reunification of the Korean nation. Because of US occupation of Korea by troops and nuclear weapons, the people of both countries live with the constant anxiety of another devastating war on their soil. They are demanding peace and their leaders are beginning to meet that demand. A poll in early May showed that 75% of South Koreans said that they trust Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile the US war machine insist upon their “maximum pressure” strategy on North Korea and has continued to hold massive military exercises which simulate an invasion of North Korea. While Koreans organize for peace, the US recklessly continues to sabotage their efforts. For a real lasting peace in Korea, the US must withdraw its military forces and warships from the Korean Peninsula.
From Nakba to New Orleans: Coming Home is Our Right
PROTEST CONDEMNS ISRAELI GENOCIDE AGAINST PALESTINIANS
By C. T.
On May 15, Students and Workers Against Racism and Militarism (SWARM) held an action to commemorate Nakba. This action included speaking out against Zionist atrocities towards the Palestinian people, funded by U.S. tax dollar, and Trump’s decision to open the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, despite an international outcry. ‘Nakba’ in Arabic means ‘catastrophe’. It refers to the mass ethnic cleansing and displacement of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland on May 15, 1948. Similarly, Hurricane Katrina was both a “natural” catastrophe and an artificial one. Just like Palestine, New Orleans has been sold off piece by piece in the name of white supremacy and capitalism.
Palestinians have been demonized and pushed off their land for decades. Claiming it was for a safe haven for European Jews (remember the U.S. refused to allow Jewish refugees from Nazism into the U.S.) the real purpose was to set up a military outpost for Western war interests. Palestinians daily face home demolitions, Israeli terror and death. In only two days, 58 Palestinians were murdered and 2,700 injured by Zionist weapons that are bought and paid for by the US.
Similarly, post-Katrina, Black New Orleanians have been robbed of their land and right to return through the closure of public schools, public housing, and erasure of entire neighborhoods in the name of “progress” and “development”. Over 100,000 Black New Orleanians have yet to return home due to the “conservative recovery agenda”, started by George W. Bush, that makes money off of theft of land and denial of our human dignity. Palestinians and New Orleanians have a common enemy: rich white supremacists trying to profit off our misery. From Palestine to New Orleans our roots run deep and we will return!
Community Solidarity Makes the Difference Rodneka Shelbia – Stood Up to Police Abuse
By Antranette Scott
I first met Rodneka Shelbia over a year ago at the Peoples’ Assembly Community Sing as she shared her song ‘Thankful’ with the group. As her voice rose, her hands clapped, and she expressed that every moment is something to be grateful for, I found myself nodding in agreement. Then she shared her story with us.
For coming to the aid of a young woman and infant who were being abused by an NOPD officer in the name of an unwarranted arrest, Rodneka was falsely accused of battery on a cop and resisting arrest. In her pleas with the cop to “be human”, Rodneka stood firm in her unwillingness to be desensitized to police brutality and injustice. Rodneka knew that she needed support and solidarity but was unsure of where to turn to for it. After the Sing, I introduced myself to Rodneka and invited her to the People’s Assembly weekly organizing meeting. I knew that the Peoples’ Assembly could offer on the ground support, magnify her story to our working-class community, and most importantly, provide comradeship and solidarity. When Rodneka joined the PA, the motion to stand with Rodneka’s fight for justice was overwhelming. With many other justice organizers, we created social media outreach for her upcoming court dates, formed community coalitions to get folks to fill the court room, and a variety of other tasks to get Rodneka’s story out to the working-class community.
We stood with Rodneka through a yearlong struggle of 12 court date postponements, subpoenas being served back and forth, change of legal representation, and a myriad of other obstacles. Rodneka was just as much a pillar of strength for the PA as we were for her. It was a symbiotic relationship that affirmed that only through collective strength is our liberation guaranteed. A few weeks ago, Rodneka closed that chapter of her life a free woman who has now welcomed her warrior daughter Iamme into this world, and I gained a beloved comrade and sister heart friend.
Trump Kills Iran Nuclear Deal
U.S., Israel Stockpiling Nuclear Warheads
Hands Off Iran!
By Quest Riggs
In early May, the head of the US, our would-be emperor Trump, arrogantly declared he was “pulling out“ of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. The entire world agreed that Iran had completely adhered to the deal, but Trump ignore everyone. This was a move to crush the people of Iran and take over their country for U.S corporate interests.
Trump’s decision also, in violation of all international law, moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. These two actions were also similar because they were both aggressive “stand-alone” actions on the part of the US and Israel, and they were not even supported by their imperialist allies like France and Saudi Arabia.
Both decisions have been met with world outrage by those who see them for what they are – naked imperialist aggression at the expense of the Palestinians, Iranians and all people of the Middle East.
What was the Iran Nuclear Deal?
Iran has always denied having the ability or desire to start developing a nuclear weapons program. Nevertheless, the U.S. used Iran’s small nuclear energy program to start an aggressive sanctions and military campaign against it.
The agreement was that if Iran phased-out its nuclear energy program and allowed regular inspections by international organizations, then the imperialist countries would drop their harsh decades-long sanctions on Iran. Iran accepted the deal despite its obvious unfairness because sanctions have devastated their economy and society since their republic was started. International organizations have inspected Iran dozens of times and certified there is no nuclear weapons program.
What does it all mean?
The US breaking the nuclear deal should be seen as another event in a string of aggressive moves in the Middle East by imperialists that represent their desire for world domination. The U.S. ignores any respect for Iran’s sovereignty and independence and has been planning for decades to destroy the country.
It was the U.S which openly admitted it engineered a coup in Iran which overthrew a democratically elected government in 1953, bringing decades of brutal tyranny and oppression under the Shah (king). Now it wants to destroy the Iranian Islamic Republic and seize their resources.
Who is the real nuclear threat?
The US has 7,000 nuclear warheads and Israel has 80. This makes them the first and third largest nuclear powers. The US government has proven itself barbaric enough to use atomic weapons on people. In 1945, they dropped, not one, but two atomic bombs on Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They did this even though they knew the allies had already defeated imperial Japan, which was preparing to surrender. The monsters simply did it to send a message to the people of the world: don’t resist us or we can and will annihilate you. The people of Japan still wear the physical and emotional scars today.
There is no moral or security reason that the US and Israel should be dictating who can and can’t have nuclear weapons. Instead we, the people in the US, should join with the people of the world to demand that both countries suspend their nuclear programs. Our lives and the lives of people everywhere depend on it.
Take ‘Em Down NOLA Takes on Mayor Cantrell’s Backwards Ways
By A Scribe Called Quess
After Take ‘Em Down NOLA’s groundbreaking summit last March, welcoming Take Em Down organizers from around the country and ending in the disruption of Mayor Landrieu’s book signing, the coalition celebrates the one-year anniversary of forcing the city to remove four monuments to white supremacy by continuing to charge unapologetically forward. This time, TEDN’s sights are set on mayor Latoya Cantrell. TEDN recently issued a letter and held a press conference calling Cantrell out for her latest flubs regarding white supremacist monuments.
It’s not the new mayor’s first time being on the wrong side of this issue. During the infamous monument hearings of 2015, the former City Councilwoman earned the nickname Latoya “Cant Tell” for refusing to pick a side as pro or anti-monument removal. She recently revisited her compromised stance by allowing leaders of the pro-monument movement to set up a committee to determine what to do with the four monuments removed last year. That committee included renowned racist Tulane professor Richard Marksbury, bigoted Monumental Task Committee president Pierre McGraw, and multi-millionaire Frank Stewart, who publicly faced off with Mitch Landrieu over the former mayor’s attempt to remove monuments.
TEDN’s letter informed mayor Cantrell that “we are very disappointed and angry that [she] would set up a secret working group to discuss the fate of these monuments, not meet in public.” On May 16, TEDN cofounder Malcolm Suber stated that “we are calling on Mayor Cantrell to get rid of that committee and to have a public forum where she discusses with the public what are her plans not only towards the removed statues, but what is her attitude toward our ordinance that mandates that the rest of these white supremacy monuments be removed from our city.”
Cantrell’s enlistment of these men to make decisions about the future of this city is reminiscent of the Yankee government that squashed the progress of Reconstruction after the Civil War by compromising with racist white militias that carried on the legacy of the Confederacy. By removing federal troops from the South in 1877, the US government allowed groups like the KKK to rise as monuments to white supremacy went up all over the South. Likewise, Cantrell has chosen to compromise with the present day losing defenders of white supremacy. And their ideas promise harm for the city’s future like their ancestors’ did for the city’s past. They proposed to put Robert E. Lee up in Greenwood Cemetery and make that place a landmark for Confederacy defenders nationwide. This would only turn New Orleans into a hub for the lowlife types that swarmed Charlottesville in August of last year, leaving Heather Heyer dead under the wheels of a racist’s car.
TEDN’s next step this summer to push the ordinance to remove all signs, symbols and statues to white supremacy will be a large public forum. Community members will be informed and speak their piece on next steps around dealing with the already removed monuments as well as the remaining symbols. Mayor Cantrell and other community politicians will be invited to this forum and thereby be forced to pick a side in the fight for racial and economic justice as opposed to hiding in back rooms making deals with the oppressive ruling class.
Take ‘Em Down NOLA invites everyone to come out and be heard and take a stance against the symbols that represent the system that continues to oppress working class Black, brown and white poor people in the city. If Cant Tell—ahem, Cantrell’s actions show nothing else, they show that she, like so many New Orleans mayors before her, will bow down to the money system of the ruling class rich white elite unless we the people force her to do otherwise. Take ‘Em Down NOLA encourages you to come out, be heard, and take part in shaping the future of this city to be free from the chains of its past.
Take Em Down NOLA’s next moves: Take Em Down NOLA Zine is looking for experienced educators, writers and copy editors interested in contributing to our first Zine. Email us at info@ takeemdownnola.org for more info.
In June, TEDN will hold a public forum to speak on the remaining monuments and our ordinance to remove ALL remaining symbols to white supremacy.
TEDN continues to support its comrades in other cities and states making major moves against white supremacy. To that end, shout out Take Em Down JAX, who completed 40- mile march against white supremacy in May. This is the largest march against white supremacy by a Take Em Down coalition and we are hugely inspired by their efforts!