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Lower the Insurance Rates!

No More Bribes for the Insurance Commissioner!

By Adam Pedesclaux

The insurance rates in Louisiana are outrageous. Car and home insurance rates are nearly the highest in the country, and if you live in New Orleans, you also need flood insurance. If you’re poor or oppressed, you are punished doubly, since nearly all high elevation land is populated by rich people, a feature of the city established during the violent conquering and settling of the city landscape. Just as the landscape of New Orleans reflects the oppressive rule of the capitalists, the insurance rates also reflect their tight grip on power.

Before James Donelon (R), the latest politician to take the seat of Insurance Commissioner in Louisiana, there were three politicians: Doug Green (D), Jim Brown (D), J. Robert Wooley (D) all of whom went to prison for taking bribes/money laundering. Given that the Insurance Commissioner controls insurance rates and allows/bars insurance companies from operating in Louisiana, whoever serves in this position sits as the gatekeeper to insurance companies. So that the insurance companies can suck as much out of Louisiana ratepayers as possible, they keep plenty of cash on hand to “grease the palms” of the commissioner.

Whether or not Donelon has taken illegal bribes has yet to be revealed. That he has accepted more than $680,000 in legal bribes—aka campaign donations—from insurance companies and agents since 2015 ought to be a scandal.

Donelon, who hates workers, has even had the guts to say that car insurance rates are so high because of all the uninsured/underinsured drivers. But the lies don’t add up: nationwide, Louisiana ranks twentieth for the number of uninsured drivers, and yet we have the second highest rates in the country. How could working people even afford to have more insurance when the ruling class steals from of us left and right?

Insurance rates do not fall out of the sky. They are not “mathematically determined” nor are they set by any other scientific means. The reason so much of our hard-earned money is stolen each month is because the capitalist owned media conceal the true nature of the capitalist government. The news media would have us believe that Santa or the Easter Bunny sets these rates as much as they avoid the facts of this important issue.

The people ought to have the final say in how prices are set, but we workers have to fight for better conditions or we will continue to be taken advantage of. No more closed door negotiations and off-shore bank accounts! No more politicians in the pockets of the insurance companies! All power to the people!

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Louisiana Cities Are Being Taken Over by Banks

Eight Louisiana municipalities have been put under the control of a “fiscal administrator.” As many as fifteen others are being considered for take over.

By Joseph Rosen and Nath Clarke

Across rural Louisiana, villages and towns have seen their elected governments replaced with the dictatorship of a “fiscal administrator” appointed by a committee run by Attorney General Jeff Landry. Without the input of any of the towns’ residents, these “administrators” are authorized to lay off public workers, raise fees, and make cuts to education, utilities, and other public services—all in order to make payments on the debts incurred by past municipal governments.

The Fiscal Review Committee is made up of multi-millionaire Attorney General Jeff Landry, Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera who has spent years trying to cut Medicaid funding, and State Treasurer John Schroder who is bought off by the Louisiana Association of Business & Industry, a group of ultra-rich CEOs and corporate bosses.

Every year, the Fiscal Review Committee declares towns, villages, and cities “financially unstable”—which can mean anything from the failure of a city government to pay back bank loans to a failure to provide an audit. Eight towns are currently under the rule of a fiscal administrator; as many as fifteen are being eyed by Purpera.

Clayton, Louisiana has been under the thumb of a fiscal administrator since 2017. Because their water system is not “profitable enough,” the Fiscal Review Committee is suggesting they increase the monthly water rate by $10. In a town where 40% of residents live below the poverty line, an extra $10 monthly expense can send a family down the path of ruin. Elsewhere, the committee has proposed cuts to public hospitals which have often been left to ruin for years already, cuts to public schools, and water shutoffs for entire villages. In Clarence, Louisiana, the Fiscal Review Committee recommended increasing traffic fines and fees in a village where fines and forfeitures already comprise more than half of the village budget.

Under the capitalist mode of production, the infrastructure that supports a community of workers is left to rot as soon as capitalists find another place to get their profits from. This applies to cities like Detroit and Flint whose workers produced billions of dollars of wealth for the owners of auto manufacturing plants just as it’s true for Bogalusa, once home to the most productive sawmill in the world. The workers of these cities now live under “emergency managers” where even the elected members of the capitalist government do not have a say over the direct appointees of the banks. Their “fiscal administrators” demand that the working and oppressed residents not only fend for themselves but pick up the tab for the debts incurred by their previous capitalist rulers. Add to this the cost of living with the environmental ravages left by capitalist exploitation.

Workers around the world are standing up to free themselves from the stranglehold of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund that demand that workers sacrifice their pensions, their jobs, their land and their security so that their capitalist governments can keep an open line of credit with the imperialist banks.

Just as workers across the world from Haiti to Chile have stood up to the dictatorship of the banks, so must Louisiana workers rise to defend their right to a life of dignity. Louisiana workers, demand your freedom: Cancel the debts! Fire the fiscal administrators!

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Fighting Environmental Racism

Protesters picket outside SASOL, a billion-dollar industrial chemical company polluting Mossville, LA.

From South Africa to Louisiana, Mossville to New Orleans

By Sanashihla

Saturday, October 19, Residents of Mossville, LA, and Gordon Plaza, New Orleans, LA, had an opportunity to learn about each others struggles against the environmental racism that the capitalist system uses to divide, exploit and extract the labor, resources, and land of workers. This exchange occurred during a documentary screening of Mossville: When Great Trees Fall in New Orleans.

Mossville is a small Black community on the outskirts of Lake Charles in Calcasieu Parish. The residents have been fighting against SASOL, a billion-dollar industrial chemical company.

SASOL got its start in South Africa. Rather than the people of South Africa benefiting from the abundance of resources that the land offers, the country has been a haven for white supremacist capitalists who exploit and pollute with complete disregard for the harm done to the Black indigenous people of the land.

A report about the harm done in South Africa, “Burning Coal,” stated that, “Under colonialism and apartheid, black South Africans were deliberately put in the way of pollution: at work and at home, as is evident in the experiences of both workers in the dirty industrial area of Ferrobank, South Africa and residents next to it in Ackerville, South Africa.” This is the same approach that capitalist chemical industries take right here in the state of Louisiana.

Despite SASOL forcing a $21.2-billion-dollar expansion upon the people, they only offered Mossville residents crumbs to move. Residents were forced to leave their “paid off” homes to incur debt in the process of finding another place to live. Some residents were even left homeless because of the ever-increasing cost of homes.

Residents are fighting illnesses, having been subjected to extreme pollution from the 14 petrochemical plants surrounding them already.

New Orleans is facing its own case of environmental racism. New Orleans East faces a $700 million polluting gas plant, and in the Upper 9th Ward Desire Neighborhood, the City of New Orleans built homes in Gordon Plaza on the Agriculture Street Landfill.

Mr. Jesse, a resident of Gordon Plaza, let the audience know about the residents’ fight for fully funded relocation. He explained that according to the Tumor Registry Report, the Gordon Plaza neighborhood— New Orleans’ own Cancer Alley— has the second highest cancer rate in Louisiana.

Residents are fighting for a long overdue fully funded relocation and cannot afford to be compensated with crumbs. The residents have put their working-class life savings into their homes; they bought into the so-called American Dream only for it to become a horrific nightmare.

From Gordon Plaza and Death Alley to South Africa, communities around the world are teaching each other about their struggles and learning we must band together to fight the common enemy of the capitalist class that exploits and oppresses workers and residents wherever they rule. We must say NO MORE!

Residents are asking for your help by telling everyone you know about this injustice. They invite you to hit the streets with them. You can call Mayor LaToya Cantrell at (504) 658-4900 and (504) 658-4945. You can email her at mayor@nola.gov to express support for the residents’ demands and REMIND the mayor that when she was running for office, she PLEDGED to use the city’s resources to ensure the residents of New Orleans would live in a safe and healthy environment. Now is the time!

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Abolish the City Planning Commission!

By Milton Meyer

The capitalists’ media outlets and their educational institutions boast that the United States is a bastion of democracy uniquely endowed with the duty to spread its democratic vision around the world, often by military force.
But for working people, our so-called democracy is a sham. This becomes clear as day when we examine the workings of the New Orleans City Council (NOCC). When we vote for a city councilperson or a mayor, we assume that they will have the interests of all citizens in mind when they make decisions that affect the whole citizenry. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A favorite trick of the capitalists is to have mayors or city council members cede their decision-making power to non-elected boards such as the City Planning Commission (CPC). Unlike elected politicians, these boards don’t have to pretend to answer to the electorate. They openly govern on behalf of the capitalists at the expense of the working majority.

For example, the RTA board doesn’t include hospitality workers or drivers and mechanics; the Sewerage and Water Board doesn’t have laborers or renters making decisions. The capitalists and their lackeys make all the decisions while shielding the council and mayor from criticism for their unpopular decisions.

Who are the nine members of the CPC who decide on life and death issues like the expansion of the Orleans Parish Prison or a variance to build the Hard Rock Café Hotel?

Nolan Marshall is a VP of External Affairs and Policy for the New Orleans Business Alliance, an organization of city politicians and rich capitalists dedicated to “urban development”, aka gentrification. Katie Witry owns a real estate firm and Kathleen Lunn is a real estate broker. Robert Steeg heads a law firm that specializes in real estate transactions. Kyle Wedberg is a former administrator with the Recovery School District which pushed the charter school system on New Orleans. Lorey Flick heads an engineering firm with several multi-million dollar building contracts in New Orleans. Sue Mobley is a non-profit professional who specializes in projects funded by the Ford Foundation.

It’s clear that no one on this board represents the working class. There are no renters or hospitality workers, no one to stop the relentless gentrification of working class neighborhoods and the pushing of working people further and further from their jobs, no one who is forced to rely on an underfunded and mismanaged transit system.

And yet, the CPC “makes recommendations” regarding a variety of land use laws and codes that affect working class people including the Master Plan, the anti-worker gentrification plan created by the capitalists after Katrina. While the CPC supposedly only makes recommendations, it may approve, modify or deny applications, and its recommendations are rarely opposed by the City Council.

The City Planning Commission (CPC) was also asked to recommend whether or not to expand Orleans Parish Prison. That the city with the highest incarceration rate in the world, a crumbling infrastructure and a budget which spends only 3% on children and families wants more jail cells is itself obscene. That the decision is left up to an unelected board shows that our democracy exists only for the rulers and their flunkies. It’s only because of public outrage they backed off the recommendation to expand the jail.

It’s time for New Orleans, the Mayor and the City Council to stop governing behind closed doors where the whims of the capitalists give sway over the needs of us workers. Abolish the CPC and all other non-elected boards!

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How We Normalize the Evils of Capitalism

By Enigma E

Capitalism creates a world of haves and have-nots. The many suffer, while the few prosper—that’s the way of capitalist AmeriKKKa. Stop and think: Why do people go hungry? Why doesn’t everyone have a home? Why isn’t there universal quality education & healthcare? Why are more and more privately owned prisons popping up? Why does the economic inequality gap widen year after year? All this in the self-proclaimed “richest/most powerful nation the world has ever seen!” Why do people regard the rich as if they’re so much more deserving of nice things than we are?

I want us to rethink how we approach the world. Think about why you do what you do daily. We do it to fit into the structure of capitalist society. Our labor generates much more value than the portion we get as wages. But since the rich privately own the land and the factories where we work, they take the bulk of that value for themselves. We as the working class are literally working ourselves to death. People are more stressed, and they have little if any leisure time. We have to get rid of the false notion that economically poor people “don’t work hard” and that’s why they are poor. That notion is bullshit, perpetuated by the ruling class and their media henchmen. Working class people are the hardest workers that do the most crucial work for the betterment of society. Shout-out to the sanitation workers, the school cafeteria workers, bus drivers, service workers and day laborers. They deserve vacations, sick days, livable wages, time to spend with their children and much more.

The working class masses pay the salaries of the cops, judges, and politicians at every level of government. We have to get rid of the notion that they’re better or do more than us! Politicians are crooks that get bankrolled by the capitalist class to do their bidding, repressing the masses of people economically and socially. Electoral politics was best described by Karl Marx who said, “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.”

This is a pattern of programming that must end! We are the vast majority, we create everything, we deserve to live a rewarding life. We deserve livable wages, good housing, education and healthcare. Through mass struggle these goals are more than attainable. This planet is full of resources for every living creature to coexist in harmony. We, the majority, MUST rise up—it is the only salvation for this planet. We, the workers of the world, are powerful beyond measure. It is our duty to fight to win the class struggle. All Power to the Proletarians!

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We Need a Tenants Union, Rent Control!

By Sally Jane Black

There is more than enough housing for everyone.

The housing crisis in New Orleans is not caused by a shortage. It is caused by predatory developers and landlords who see every opportunity to develop as a chance to gouge workers and raise rents. Meanwhile, the few rights tenants have in Louisiana are often impossible to uphold because there is no support for workers in civil courts, and most of these laws were written by landlords in the first place.

There are thousands of housing units sitting empty in New Orleans and thousands of workers struggling to afford apartments that are often infested with vermin, rotting or covered in mold, over-crowded, and with no guarantee they won’t be kicked out tomorrow.

Recent attempts at relieving the housing crisis have included inclusionary zoning, limitations on short-term rentals, and property tax loopholes that all fail to address the fundamental issues: high rents and unsafe, inadequate housing options available to the working class. 64% of renters in the city pay more than a third of their income on rent (and a third of renters pay over half of their income). History shows developers will drop affordability requirements (which usually last a few decades at most) the instant they are able to, as they did at the American Can apartments. The city’s legal eviction rate (5.2%) is twice the national average and does not include the many who are evicted only with a threat, forced out with rising rents or harassment, or simply come home to find their possessions on the curb. Tenants cannot even withhold rent to force a landlord to make vital repairs to their homes.

Without a powerful tenants movement, this will not change. We must demand rights for tenants that empower workers, and we must demand rent control.

Unless a powerful tenants’ movement puts pressure on law-makers, “solutions” will always favor the rich. There is no way to make a tax cut big enough to make raising the rent less profitable. While working class homeowners deserve relief from the property tax increases, landlords need to be restricted more directly. Shelter is a basic human need, and landlords know tenants will pay anything to keep a roof over their heads. Strong rent control laws can put a limit on what landlords and property managers can charge tenants, including those who are already cost-burdened.

In New Orleans, every new development is taking tax payer money to build hotel rooms and condos while workers are being pushed out of neighborhoods by gentrification. The failed Amendment 4, backed by local nonprofits and conservative law-makers, was designed as a concession to developers before the fight had even begun. In Germany, mass movements have won rent control and have succeeded in forcing landlords to shut down developments and concede to demands for better housing regulations.

The laws we have are a reflection of the class struggle; law-makers answer to us only when we take militant and mass action against them, loud enough to drown out the money of the capitalists who fund their campaigns. With a tenants union strong enough to pressure the landlords, the people can fight back and protect the rights they win.

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Impeachment Hearings Keep Needs of the Working Class Off the Agenda

By Malcolm Suber

What is the American public to make of the impeachment inquiry taking place in Washington, DC? Daily we are tantalized with the prospect of some government “whistleblower” finally producing the “smoking gun” that will nail the criminal Donald Trump. The Democrats promise eventual evidence of Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors,” never mind the criminal U.S. wars that have seen 44,000 U.S. bombs dropped in the first year of Trump’s presidency. The Democratic Party leaders and their backers know that the Republican majority US Senate will not vote to remove Trump from office. Instead Trump is being given the opportunity to pose as the victim of the Democrats who failed to nail him during the Russiagate investigation. To his base of true believers, Trump is fighting the Washington establishment who seek to undermine his plans to put “America First” on the world stage.

The U.S. working class has more pressing problems than Trump’s crooked attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating his rival crook Joe Biden. We should follow the lead of the workers and oppressed in Puerto Rico, Chile, Sudan, Honduras and Haiti. They have all taken to the streets to demand the resignation of their corrupt bourgeois governments. Millions of Puerto Ricans took to the streets to demand #RickyRenuncia and a change in government followed. Millions in the U.S. can do the same by demanding #TrumpResign.

The U.S. imperialist ruling class regime requires endless war abroad and intensified state repression at home, both of which are rooted in white supremacy and the arousal of hatred for non-whites. Democrats are carrying out an impeachment inquiry that casts doubt on Trump’s loyalty to their program of war mongering. This lets the Democrats tout their pro-war and anti-Trump credentials, all while skirting the real problems of income inequality and cuts to social programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. Just like Russiagate, Pelosi and the rest of the war-loving Democrat leadership have united to condemn Trump for pressuring a foreign power to interfere in the so-called “democratic” U.S. electoral process while the suppression of working class and oppressed voters continues to rise across the country.

Millions of Puerto Ricans took to the streets to demand #RickyRenuncia and a change in government followed. Millions in the U.S. can do the same by demanding #TrumpResign.

To support this impeachment inquiry is to suspend our knowledge that the U.S. is a sworn enemy of both Ukrainian workers and domestic whistleblowers.

The Nazi-loving regime in Ukraine receives direct U.S. government support. Recorded phone conversations between U.S. State Dept officials reveal that the top U.S. ambassador to Europe Victoria Nuland actively promoted the violent opposition forces which took power in the 2014 coup that toppled the Ukrainian government. The Obama/Biden government helped turn Ukraine into a failed state beholden to international finance capital and the rule of Nazi hordes. At home, the Obama administration prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than any other administration in US history.

The current probe into the quid pro quo call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the height of hypocrisy. The truth is Trump’s brazen bribery upsets the capitalist ruling class who would prefer that the oppressed masses not know how these gangsters operate. Both Republican and Democratic Administrations have used the State Department and the CIA to influence international politics to benefit their individual electoral positions. The imperialist U.S. government has staged coups, invasions and proxy wars abroad, all to secure a world safe for US investments in capitalist exploitation.

The current efforts to impeach Trump allow the US ruling class and its politicians in Washington, DC to ignore the needs of the working class and the poor. Guaranteeing a living wage, ending mass incarceration, jailing racist police, addressing the climate catastrophe, ending imperialist war and opposing capitalism are all off the agenda. By exposing their hypocrisy—much less their own dirty deeds—the Democrats have only improved Trump’s chances for re-election. Revolutionaries and forward-looking workers shouldn’t be put off course by this political theatre. We should focus on educating the working class that our only salvation is organizing class struggle for our own interests, not those of the U.S. imperialist ruling class whether they fall into the camp of Pelosi’s Democratic Party or Trump’s Republican Party.

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Migrant, Citizen Worker Solidarity is Key

By A New Orleans Resident

The collapse of the Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans is a clear example of how the blood and sweat of workers are exploited only to make the rich even richer. Because rich bosses hire workers, exploit their labor, and show time and time again that they do not value us, worker solidarity is more critical than ever for the well-being and safety of the working class.

Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma is one of five workers who rightly filed a lawsuit seeking damages for the physical wounds suffered during the building collapse. The workers are taking a stand because they know that the building collapsed as a result of materials that were inadequate and supports too thin and insufficient for the building.

After filing the lawsuit and speaking to the media about the experience, Ramirez Palma was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), preventing him from telling his firsthand experience, preventing him from fighting for his rights, and preventing him from accessing much needed medical attention for the injuries he suffered.

The capitalist system which exploits the labor of workers for the benefit of the rich does NOT care if the labor is provided by Black workers, poor white workers, or migrant workers.

Mourn for the Dead, Organize for the Living: Construction unions, migrants’ supporters gather to honor Hard Rock workers. The Oct. 17 vigil was organized by the Southeast Louisiana Building and Construction Trades Council. These unions should p[ledge to open organizing campaigns in every construction site and open their doors to all workers, including migrants.
The capitalist system uses racism, documented vs undocumented, or gender-based discrimination to create roadblocks to worker unity. In the end, these forms of divisiveness only end up hurting workers. When we come together and turn our attention to those who exploit us, then and only then, will workers win what is rightfully ours.

It’s intolerable that in pursuit of tourist dollars in the city of New Orleans, which already brings in the most tourist dollars in the world, the rich business owners are putting workers, residents, and tourists in harm’s way by cutting corners. They are putting the safety of the workers and the general public at risk.

Migrant workers (and all other workers) gave labor, blood, sweat and tears to rebuild this city, so we must stand together when workers need to speak up, rise up, and fight for rights and safety. This is our duty!

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Hard Rock Hotel: The Real Story

What You Won’t Read in The Advocate or City Hall’s Press Releases

By Gavrielle Gemma

Without even knowing the technical specifics of the collapse, it’s obvious that capitalist greed, faulty construction and engineering, and city complicity are to blame.

City approves crooked developer, extra height
Company gave campaign $$$ to politicians
In 2011 the City Council approved a waiver for extra building height. They authorized a crooked developer, Kailas, to manage the project although this company was criminally guilty of robbing Road Home funds after Katrina.

While only one family member was jailed, the judge in his sentencing said that he was taking the fall for the whole family. This company, Kailas, and the building company they contracted, Citadel Builders, both donated thousands of dollars to Mayor Cantrell’s campaign.

Though one building inspector has been indicted and two more have been suspended, the full details of the unfolding scandal involving the New Orleans Department of Safety and Permits remain closed to the public. There is suspicion of widespread payoffs.

Citadel Builders was cited by the State of Louisiana for 11 safety construction violations in 2018 alone. They do not make public the nature of these violations. Still the building proceeded.

Workers in shut down area must get emergency pay
Lawsuits are already being filed by workers who were in the building and workers in the surrounding area who are losing income. The city is demanding the developer reimburse the city $400,000 for police and fire, etc. but is ignoring the daily crisis hundreds of other workers are now experiencing. The mayor should issue an executive order to pay these workers from a city fund that should be made immediately available to all those out of work. The city can sue the developer for compensation. Unemployment insurance will not cover many hard-hit workers or be enough to survive on in the coming months.

Independent investigation needed
An independent investigation must be conducted with the involvement of Hard Rock workers, construction unions and community leaders. We cannot depend on the city, inspectors or developers to fully disclose reasons for this extraordinary event.

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Convention Center Rip-Off of Public funds for Private Profit Ramps Up

Where’s the Money for Our Kids?

A gang of thieves—aka private developers—are celebrating in their St. Charles mansions over their latest scheme to rip off public funds and tax money. The Convention Center, with the blessing of their bought-off state and city politicians, will build a huge hotel with $114 million of public funds and millions more in property tax exemptions (Bureau of Governmental Research).

The policy of allowing private hospitality capitalists to profit from public funds, tax exemptions and the wholesale theft of tax dollars is outrageous. Only 3% of the city budget goes to families and children while the rich steal $160 million. It shows that the government is solidly in the pockets of the rich.
Just one example is the Convention Center hiring of State Rep. Walter Leger III as vice president for Strategic Affairs. While in office, Leger sponsored legislation to enable public funding for the Convention Center hotel. A high paid position is his reward. If that ain’t corrupt, what is?

DECEPTIVE “FAIR SHARE” IS A NET LOSS FOR RESIDENTS
While Mayor Cantrell boasts of getting a “fair share deal” with a return of some city taxes to the Sewerage & Water Board, most residents don’t know that she agreed to legislation which included public funds for the hotel.

The total tourist tax dollars bypassing the city budget and going into private profiteers’ bank accounts was $180 million a year. Now “only” $160 million in taxes are being funneled to these private interests. To offset the money that the hospitality capitalists “lost,” legislation was passed that grants them even more money by way of new taxes. They also scored whopping tax exemptions for themselves. The net result of this “fair share” is that the people are getting less, the tax dollars are still stolen and the Convention Center is getting even more money.

Knowing this deal is unpopular, Mayor Cantrell is now criticizing what she agreed to. Convention Center President and General Manager Michael J. Sawaya said, “the mayor, when we agreed to the PILOT [payments in lieu of taxes] and agreed to give her $28 million, she agreed to support the hotel project,” he said. “She committed to it in front of the governor, in front of all of us.”

So, who is really running the city— the mayor or the mainly conservative, white, super-rich capitalists pulling the strings? We need to build up the independent power of the working class to fight this theft and have money for our kids.