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Peoples’ Assembly Women’s Dinner In Solidarity with Immigrants

By Shera Phillips

May 2nd was my second People’s Assembly Women’s Dinner. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I knew there would be women of different religious and cultural backgrounds speaking about their unique experience in the “Land of the Free and Brave”.

The evening was entitled Solidarity with Immigrant Women. The guests were from Central America, Haiti as well as a Muslim woman. Our sister from Central America allowedus, the audience members, to see a glimpse of what life was like for her as an undocumented woman. She explained that the act of merely paying a traffic ticket could mean the end of life as she knows it. I immediately could draw from my own experience as a brown woman in the U.S., but listening to her amplified my experience and overwhelmed me with emotion. I had never before heavily considered what being pulled over might mean for an immigrant. When I go to court, praying that my ticket will be thrown out, Maria is praying that she can pay hers and go home. I had never even thought about the variation of discrimination that immigrants have to endure here, being mistreated by employers and landlords, fearing to speak out about injustices because it could mean deportation, imprisonment or worse. This one conversation caused a change in perspective in which I was able to awaken to an entirely different existence, one that would cause fear to pulsate through the veins of any suspecting body.

Most people build a reality and only include in it things and people that correspond with it. Many of us rarely socialize with people who aren’t a part of our social and cultural existence. We live in a bubble, and our circle becomes a focus group that confirms and reaffirms variations of our own experience. We travel through life in this vortex, in which we are the center of the universe and anything that doesn’t conform to this matrix is unpleasant and therefore we defend our position or avoid anything outside of it. Just take a look at yourself and your friends. Are any of them from different countries or states, different social, religious, economic or racial backgrounds? If your answer is yes, congratulations. You are unlike a majority of the population. The People’s Assembly provides a safe space for people of different walks, to come, learn and work together towards liberation.

The Women’s Dinner is the first Wednesday of every month. Transportation, childcare and dinner are provided all by the men of People’s Assembly. Women are appreciated, celebrated, encouraged to relax and converse about the issues we experience, find resources, and learn how we can collectively combat our oppression.

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Jefferson Parish Residents Demand Justice for Black Youth Choked to Death

By Malcolm Suber

Hundreds of Jefferson Parish residents have poured into the streets demanding justice for 22-year old Keeven Robinson, who was choked to death by 4 Jefferson Parish Sheriff Office (JPSO) narcotics agents on May 10. Keeven Robinson died after he fled from detectives at a Shell gas station in the Shrewsbury neighborhood of unincorporated Jefferson Parish. At some point the four detectives caught up with him, choked him, put him in handcuffs, and he wound up dead. None of the detectives were wearing body cameras, so one can only  surmise what happened when the detectives caught up with him.

Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joe Lopinto immediately began an attempt to create a cover for his detectives by claiming that Keeven Robinson had asthma and that his death was probably due to his breathing problems and not any thing such as choking that his detectives had done in apprehending Robinson. The family and the Black community were in no mood to accept this rationale given the brutal history of JPSO deputies and the almost daily killing of Black victims by the police forces of the USA. Family and friends immediately organized a rally and vigil on Robinson’s block and demanded an independent investigation. This action forced the Jefferson Parish coroner to issue his findings on the cause of death. He ruled that Keeven Robinson’s death was a homicide caused as result of asphyxiation. In other words, he was choked to death, just as Eric Garner was. Reformist organizations such as the NAACP have been active in their role of containing the spontaneous resistance. They are advising the masses to be patient and let the so-called wheels of justice prevail. But the masses recognize that only militant struggle will get any measure of justice for Keeven Robinson. They have witnessed time and again cops being indicted, tried for murder, but still get off.

We in the New Orleans Workers Group urge on resistance to police murders while we also try to spread the understanding that these police murders of Black victims is part of capitalist rule. The police serve the rich exclusively and  attempt to keep the rest of us in our place. The entire justice system, including the  police, is organized to protect the state apparatus that serves the ruling class  alone. This scourge will only be ended when the workers organize a fight against the capitalist oppressors, become the rulers and control a state apparatus that will serve exclusively the interest of working people.

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Republicans and Clinton Got Millions From Gas and Oil Companies

Clinton received between $2.5 million and $3 million from major fossil fuel companies back when she was running for president in 2008 and during her time as head of the State Department, according to research conducted by International Business Times. IBT reported that Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and ExxonMobil all contributed funds to Clinton’s campaign and super PAC during her 2008 presidential bid, just a year before she approved the 400-mile Alberta Clipper pipeline, for which those three companies had long been lobbying. All in all, Chevron has donated between $500,000 and $1 million to the Clinton Foundation. ExxonMobil gave $2 million into the Clinton Foundation and nearly $17 million into another nonprofit group co-founded by Clinton since 2009. ConocoPhillips, which lobbied the State Department during every quarter of 2009, supported Clinton with donations of $10,000 and $25,000.

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Entergy Paid Actors to Support New Gas Plant

WHO ELSE DID THEY PAY?

COUNCIL SHOULD VOTE TO REPEAL THEIR CONSENT

The people of New Orleans East have worked hard to stop the building of a new gas plant in the East.Most folks feel the same way. We want nonpolluting, renewable energy.

Entergy will be raising our bills to pay for the plant. But the City Council including Mayor Cantrell voted for the plant anyway; only outgoing Councilwoman Susan Guidry voted no. The Lens has exposed that the orange shirts that you saw all over TV were paid actors hired to be a crowd in favor of the plant at the City Council hearing. In a practice called astroturfing, corporations hire companies that provide this service. Even as members of the East community — Black, white and Vietnamese — spoke and poured their hearts out, the vote still went to Entergy. Entergy doesn’t think we the people should have an opinion or offer it on the radio. After WBOK, the city’s Black radio station, had a discussion with plant opponents, Entergy cancelled a check they had written to the station. But Thomas Oliver of WBOK made it clear that the station is not for sale.

We think it goes deeper than that. We want to know all of contributions Entergy has made to any politicians, directly or through family and friends or super-Pac pals. Now that this horrific scam and suppression of working people’s voices has been exposed, the City Council should immediately repeal their vote. For more information go to No Gas Plant on Facebook.

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Hospitality Workers Committee Fights for Medical Coverage – Wins!

By Margaret Maloney

On May 15th, The New Orleans Hospitality Workers Committee shook up the Tourism & Marketing Board Corporation meeting. The Tourism & Marketing Board Corporation is an unelected board that gets over 140 million dollars of the tax payers money to play with. This money completely bypasses the general budget without the people’s consent. Several members of The New Orleans Hospitality Workers Committee gave statements demanding that
the Tourism Corporation return the people’s money by building a FREE FULL-SERVICE medical clinic for hospitality workers & paying ALL Laura’s medical bills. Laura, a career Hospitality worker, is critically ill  because of a lack of insurance. The committee demanded that the Tourism  Corporation give them an answer to their demands in ten days.

The NOHWC then opened a banner and chanted “Tax money for Worker’s needs, Not Tax Money For Corporate Greed!”. And “We are the Ones Who Make Your Profit, We are Dying When You Can Stop It”.

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Who Controls the Louisiana Government?

FAT CAT LA LEGISLATORS THREATEN TO EVICT 37,000 SENIORS, DISABLED FROM NURSING HOMES WHILE BIG CORPORATIONS WITHHELD  $15 BILLION IN TAXES SINCE 2011!

Pay Them $7.25 an hour, Cancel Sales Tax

Take Away Legislators’ Health Care, Pensions

4,760 Corporate Lobbyists,  Right Wing Groups in Louisiana Bankrolling Candidates & Writing Legislation.

A People’s Budget Commission Should Investigate Campaign “donations” (bribes) from these corporations

All we hear is that there is a whopping budget deficit and the only thing that can be done is to take away medical care, education, housing. In truth, it is only the working class and poor people paying all the taxes. According to a state study, the budget is being defrauded of $2 billion a year due to corporate exemptions, loopholes, and rebates. See this on who’s not paying taxes and which right wing billionaires are funding state legislators.

The majority of state legislators belong to:

ALEC: American Legislative Council.

This is made up of the biggest oil  companies, banks, military industries, and pharmaceutical companies. They give ALEC millions. They host lavish meetings with state legislators to tell them what laws to propose and how to vote. They write the legislation and word for word their puppets introduce it. Louisiana legislators are hosting the national ALEC Conference in New Orleans in August.

If you have $30,000, you can have dinner with them. Koch brothers: ultra-right wingers, major players in ALEC and other right-wing organizations. Made billions from oil and gas.

State Policy Network – similar to ALEC

What is their legislative agenda: To oppose equality for women, raising the minimum wage, environmental laws, and workers’ rights. They are anti-immigrant, homophobic, defend police killings and are rabidly pro-war. They are against Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Food Stamps and Housing Assistance. They are for mass incarceration in for profit jails. They believe only the very rich count.

GOVERNOR’S OFFICE REVEALS 7,000 CORPORATE TAX EXEMPTIONS COSTING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS YEARLY

A few companies that get tax breaks are:

Exxon Mobil: $263 million
Valero Oil: $315 million
Cleco Oil: $180 million
Fracking companies: $1.2 billion
Walmart: $700,000 to build stores in prosperous neighborhoods fraudulently obtained money slated for poor neighborhoods
Cheniere Energy: $117 million

Property Tax Refund to Corporations: $427 million

The state paid out, in one year, $210 million more in tax credits and rebates than it has collected from corporate taxes. Former Secretary of Revenue,
Barfield, admitted that of 87 largest companies, only l/4 paid any taxes
while 96% were profitable.

Sources: The Advocate, Office of the Governor, Good Jobs First This does not include the millions in tax abatements given locally in New Orleans, especially to hotels, casinos, private medical facilities and more

UNITY IS NEEDED TO FIGHT BACK TOGETHER FOR ALL THE NEEDS OF LOUISIANA’S HARD-WORKING PEOPLE.

The legislature is supposed to protect the well being of the people of Louisiana. However, they are only looking out for their own bank accounts and the corporations who fund their campaigns. In exchange for campaign money (while “legal”, Workers Voice calls it bribes) they make sure the super wealthy and big corporations are piling up profit at the expense of the people. These greedy politicians are creating misery, suffering and death, while enjoying their mansions. There is not a shred of democracy in this. Just like the U.S. Congress, another millionaires club, they have declared war on the working-class people of this state by cutting the wealthy’s taxes and taking away money from food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, housing assistance and more.