City of New Orleans Promotes Tourism Amid Rising Pandemic Numbers

by Daniel Meinecke, musician

Musicians in New Orleans are outraged over the decision from the city to spend money on Dick Clark’s ‘New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’ concert production. Initially Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser pushed for the state’s involvement in the even to the tune of $500,000 only if singer Lauren Daigle was to be the representative for Louisiana. This caused outrage amongst the community because Lauren Daigle was also partially responsible for the super spreader event in November that Sean Feucht hosted and the city police and leaders failed to shut down. Mayor Cantrell requested to the event promoters that they remove Daigle from the concert, which caused the outrage of Nungesser and the removal of state funds from the project. Mayor Cantrell should have used this opportunity to vilify Nungesser, who is more aligned with Daigle than the needs of the people of New Orleans. However, the Mayor was insistent on the event happening, so she funded the spot in the concert through the New Orleans Culture and Heritage Fund (NOTCF) and used it to keep the event in New Orleans, but with the New Orleans artists PJ Morton and Big Freedia.

The funds were pulled from this account because the slot in the NYE production was to be an advertisement for tourism to New Orleans. This is despite the current spike in COVID-19 cases. “New Orleans cannot market itself out of the situation it is in,” said a representative of Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleanse.

City’s misuse of Culture Fund benefits tourism companies, not artists

The biggest issue of the misuse of these funds is that the board of the NOTCF has been unable to pivot the use of these funds to help the community, but instead goes ahead with an advertisement to promote tourism. Even Kristin Palmer of the City Council who also sits on the NOTCF board said, “NOTCF is not in the business of promotion, but to invest in our people,” according to meeting minutes from an NOTCF meeting on December 18th. Kristin Palmer was also the only dissenting vote on the measure to allow the use of the funds for the concert. The NOTCF is out of touch with the community and actively digging itself into a hole as it fund projects not related to helping the community through a pandemic that has left people out of work for 9 months.

Workers Voice Socialist Movement

We are workers, employed and unemployed, youth, students, and seniors. We are multi-racial and multi-national and organize for the unity of the working class. We are funded by and for workers, for the liberation of all workers and oppressed people.

We organize for jobs and higher wages, against racism, women’s, and LGBTQ oppression, and for solidarity with immigrants. We organize for community schools, lower rents, and food on our tables. We organize for workers’ power so that everything will one day be removed from the capitalists’ private ownership.

We oppose the Pentagon, which is looting our tax dollars and handing them over to war-profiteering private companies, while social programs are gutted. We oppose war for empire which is pursued only to lower our wages and plunder the world’s resources while destroying the environment. We reject the monopoly media who feed us lie after lie.

The labor of workers produces enormous wealth here in Louisiana, the U.S. and the world– so much wealth that everyone could have housing, meaningful jobs, education, healthcare, and genuine equality. But this wealth is stolen and privately owned by the capitalist class for their greed and profit. We believe that we, the workers of the world, can unite in revolution to overcome capitalism and build a better world.

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