Posted on

Honor Molly Tibbetts by Sharing Her Family’s Words: “You Do Not Get to Usurp Mollie…for Your Racist, False Narrative.”

Recently Molly Tibbetts, a young Iowan, was brutally killed. This is a terrible tragedy. Because the alleged killer is an immigrant, politicians and the media seized upon this to vilify all immigrants and justify their racist demonization, led by the white supremacist Trump administration.

But Molly’s family refused to allow this to happen, saying this is not what Molly stood for. This is what they said:

“The Hispanic community are Iowans,” he said during his eulogy this past Sunday, revealing that they “had embraced him as he searched for his daughter in recent weeks,” the Des Moines Register reported. “They have the same values as Iowans. As far as I’m concerned, they’re Iowans with better food.”

The paper reported that during the several weeks Tibbetts was in Iowa searching for his daughter, “he ate at a number of Mexican restaurants, where employees were sensitive and kind. They knew when he needed space or when he needed to joke.” He continued: “Today, we need to turn the page. We’re at the end of a long ordeal. But we need to turn toward life—Mollie’s life—because Mollie’s nobody’s victim. Mollie’s my hero.” He hasn’t been the only member of Tibbetts’s family to reject the false narrative pushed onto her by anti-immigrant figures.

“No,” wrote her cousin Sandi Tibbetts Murphy in a Facebook post. “Especially for those of you who did not know her in life, you do not get to usurp Mollie and her legacy for your racist, false narrative now that she is no longer with us. We hereby reclaim our Mollie.” There’s still uncertainty regarding her alleged killer’s immigration status, but that doesn’t matter to the people doing the fearmongering anyway, because “immigrants-are-criminals” has always been their fall-back narrative despite the fact that immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born Americans to commit crime. Enough, said Tibbetts’s cousin. “You do not have permission to callously use this tragedy to demonize an entire population for the acts of one man. No. We reclaim our Mollie.”

Posted on

Hollywood Works for the Pentagon

According to released government documents obtained by investigative journalists Tom Secker and Matthew Alford, the US military has controlled the production of over 800 American movies and 1,000 TV shows. They oversaw popular films like Top Gun, Transformers, and Tomorrow Never Dies, but their hand also extends into other genres, like horror, documentary, sci-fi, and even talk shows and culinary series (even Oprah and Top Chef are on the list!).

This is just one part of a broader pattern of the US military taking over every aspect of civilian life. Factories become weapon producers, universities become military science labs, energy research makes bombs, oil companies fuel fighter jets, and Hollywood turns into a war propaganda machine.

On the silver screen the Navy SEAL is a fearless freedom fighter, the CIA agent is an unsung hero. But in reality, the US military slaughters millions worldwide and the CIA sells guns to death squads that kidnap children and murder families.

Posted on

The Bourgeois Media Spin Cycle

By Enigma E

The Bourgeois media is blood thirsty and totally one sided. “If it leads it bleeds” is the motto they subscribe to. They barely come to Black neighborhoods to report on the positive things happening, they only show up after somebody got shot, then deem our neighborhoods as “troubled”.

They use menacing mug shots when it’s black folks accused of a crime, but whenever it’s a white terrorist that has shot up a bunch of innocent people, his mug shot is nowhere to be found and/or he is deemed a victim of mental health problems.

None of the main news stations was around when the Black owned businesses “Jazz Daiquiris” and “Chicken & Watermelon” on S. Claiborne gave out bikes, school supplies, Christmas gifts, health care screenings, a summer youth program, all for free for the kids and families in the neighborhood. But those same news stations were all over those Black-owned businesses once there was a tragic violent shooting. It goes to show just what they think about the Black community. It’s either they are covering crimes that’s happening or politicians talking about how they’re going to solve the crime problem. Black life doesn’t matter to the elitist press, their purpose is to oppress and control narratives.

To quote Doughboy from Boyz-N-Da-Hood, “Either they don’t know, don’t show or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood”.

This is by design. The television and radio stations spew the talking points of the two monopoly political parties in this country, that’s all funded by the ruling class. It’s troubling because most oppressed people in New Orleans just go along with the programmed talking points.

The problem of perception comes into play, because of the fact that other groups that never interact with economically poor neighborhoods deem us as unworthy of a good quality of life. That misconception occurs because the elitist media attacks poor communities and sell-out politicians enact laws or cut programs that cause an even deeper oppression in the community.

We as the working class need to keep communicating with one another, actually speaking and spending time in community, not just on the internet. This is the way we kill off the false narratives the media spews as an attempt to keep the people from uniting. As Brother Malcolm once said, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” Not this newspaper though. We say All Power to the people and continue to Educate! Agitate! and Organize!

Posted on

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way: Pitting Young Against Old Won’t Work

By Gregory Williams

For several years, the Buzzfeed articles, memes, and all manner of sensational news reports have hammered it into our heads that young workers and retired workers are fundamentally opposed to one another. Every time a retail giant closes, for example, we see a slate of articles saying that youths caused it to tank. “Millennials don’t buy diamonds” – fair enough, young workers are not paid enough to afford rent.

From the other perspective, we see commentary to the effect that older workers ruined the economy or have trashed the environment, leaving future generations to deal with the emerging catastrophes. Nevermind the fact that – even if some of them are of that age, – the top dogs in Washington and on Wall Street are a tiny fraction of the population. The people who have any real impact in shaping the economy, or destroying the planet, are the capitalist elites and their lackeys, regardless of when they were born.

Some of us have probably laughed at a meme poking fun at generational differences. But, as I always ask in this column, does it have to be this way? Must we really have this inter-generational animosity, even if it’s mostly just a bunch of online jokes?

The Need for Inter-Generational Solidarity

I’m not raising this question idly. There is an urgent need for young and older working class people to band together. The fact is, young workers as well as older workers are getting massively screwed, and to think of millennials or baby boomers as opposed groups is to miss the point. We can only avert disaster if we work together.

We know that young people are saddled with debt and low-paying jobs. But let’s take a moment to consider the situation of older workers in this country. One telling measure is the number of seniors filing for bankruptcy.

The Consumer Bankruptcy Project recently analyzed the data from bankruptcy court records and written questionnaires, taken from all over the U.S. They found that bankruptcy among seniors has risen fivefold since 1991. And that’s not just because there are more seniors. The percentage of seniors filing for bankruptcy has radically increased. Now, 12.2% of bankruptcy filings come from households headed by seniors.

It’s not hard to understand why seniors are filing for bankruptcy: There are far more seniors in poverty than there were in decades past. This is especially true for older women.The retirement age keeps going up. More and more older people are in debt just like their younger counterparts. Medical costs keep going up. Very few workers in this country nowadays have real pensions.

None of this is accidental. The capitalist class, represented by both the Republicans and the Democrats, have systematically destroyed the social safety net and most of the protections that workers and oppressed people won through struggle. On an almost unimaginable scale, they have stolen the wealth generated by the society and hoarded it for themselves. And just as they don’t care about the brutality of putting a child in a cage, they don’t blink an eye at the thought of elderly people on the street.

One day young workers will need Social Security. The carefully crafted attack blaming selfish seniors for the falsely reported bankruptcy of the the social security fund, is to cover the grab of this pot of money to hand over to the bankers, Pentagon and super-rich.

To sum up, we need to start thinking about the total situation we’re facing in this rotten, every-worsening society. I don’t care if I repeat myself everywhere we go. We have to organize a fight back, and it needs to be inter-generational.

Posted on

Activists Expose Convention Center for Stealing Tax Dollars

On Wednesday, August 24th, a delegation of militant activists went to a meeting of the Exhibition Hall Authority (the bureaucrats and wealthy capitalists running the Convention Center) to publicly criticize the Ernst E. Morial Convention Center for trying to steal $329.5 million in tax dollars from the city budget. The Convention Center wants this money to build a hotel for its own profit, even though $329.5 million is more than enough to provide health insurance to every uninsured worker in New Orleans and house every homeless person in the city.

Alec Arceneaux and James Ponder of the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Committee attacked the hotel project for being a “grand larseny.” In their joint statement, they said: “We demand an end to this robbery. Return the people’s stolen tax dollars back to the general budget, and use it to SERVE THE PEOPLE.”

Gavrielle Gemma of the People’s Assembly: “We’re not here to appeal to your morals, because we know you have none,” she said. “We’re only here to warn you that there will be an eruption in this city.”

Dylan Borne of the New Orleans Workers Group: “The NOPD is terrorizing and locking up black and brown youth every day. Yet the biggest gangsters and criminals in the city still aren’t behind bars, they’re sitting right here in front of me.”

Belden “Noonie Man” Batiste, Congressional candidate, exclaimed that the whole board should be arrested. He also shamed Robert “Tiger” Hammond, so-called union leader of the AFL-CIO, for selling out to the board instead of representing the working class.

Kim Ford called the Exhibition Hall Authority the worst board she’s ever seen and criticized its members for living like Kings while the workers who showed up to the meeting spend “our last dollar trying to park outside.”

Posted on

Take ‘Em Down Takes the Streets

By Antranette Scott

On the 4th Thursday of every month Take Em Down Nola, takes to the street to continue the struggle to bring down ALL monuments and symbols of white supremacy from the landscape of New Orleans. In this current phase of the work, TEDN is focusing on 5 monuments in and around the French Quarter.

On August 23, the protest began with a rally at Lafayette Square where there are two especially egregious shrines to racism, Henry Clay and John McDonough. The community gathered and were educated by speeches from organizers. Lea Thompson from Mississippi Rising gave a passionate talk about the work that is happening in Ocean Springs, Mississippi against the racist flag of the state of Mississippi. Lea spoke on the commitment of the organizers, particularly the youth of the city to making sure the flag, embedded with the Confederate emblem, is not risen in public space.

The crowd then got into formation, and took to the streets. Chants of “White Supremacy Got To Go!” rang through the French Quarter. Protesters were joined by passersby, and raised fists of solidarity came from many hospitality workers in various shops and restaurants. The next stop was in front of the Louisiana Supreme Court building where stands a monument to E.D. White, known member of the white supremacist Crescent City White League and Supreme Court justice of the racist “Separate but Equal” Plessy v. Ferguson verdict that sanctioned segregation and ushered in Jim Crow area violence for decades to come. Spoken word artist, Chuck Perkins gave a moving piece following an informative speech. Next up was Jackson Square where those dedicated to the end of white supremacy gathered to listen to Sonny Patterson speak truth to power at sunset after an indigenous activist spoke on the multitude of atrocities that slave owner and architect of the Trail of Tears Andrew Jackson committed against the Indigenous Peoples of this land.

The final stop was on Decatur St where a statue glorifies colonization and mass death at the hands of Jean Baptists Le Moyne de Bienville. After a closing affirmation, protesters marched down Canal St loudly and proudly declaring that the fight against white supremacy is not over. The citizens of New Orleans will not be satisfied with a job partially done. Next month join Take Em Down NOLA in demanding that Mayor Cantrell FINISH THE JOB!!! REMOVE ALL MONUMENTS TO WHITE SUPREMACY FROM THE LANDSCAPE OF NEW ORLEANS!!!!

Posted on

John McCain Was No Hero

HE WAS A WAR CRIMINAL and DEFENDER of WALL STREET

Vietnamese Children fleeing U.S. bombing with napalm. 8 bombs a minute were dropped. Did John McCain drop this bomb?

Just because you’re not the best friend of the other criminal, Donald Trump, doesn’t make you a hero.

Senator John McCain was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War— a war that took the lives of 3 million Vietnamese and 57,000 U.S. GI’s. The U.S. dropped 7 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It destroyed village after village. Many of the bombs dropped Agent Orange and napalm, chemical warfare that destroyed crops, forests, fields, rice paddies and tortured any human being hit by it. Decades after the bombing, Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers developed cancer and other illnesses from agent orange which took the Pentagon and U.S. government decades to admit.

McCain vigorously supported Bush’s war against Iraq and more recently backed the Saudi fascist government in their genocidal war on Yemen which both bombs and starves the people. Joining all presidents, Republican and Democrat, who do not view the lives of other people as important, McCain embraced every war waged by the US imperialist state. During his 2008 campaign for President, McCain sang the song “Bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”.

Domestic Policy
The Children’s Defense Fund called McCain the worst Senator in Congress for children. Running against Obama in 2008, McCain promised to balance the budget by cutting social security, Medicare and Medicaid. He also supported spending billions on the profit-making domestic surveillance and homeland security. McCain was firmly against taxing big business. During 5 terms as Senator his record on labor rights, women, LGBTQ, racial equality, women’s rights and consumer rights was terrible.

And we cannot forget he chose Sarah Palin, a maniac far right racist as his vice-presidential running mate. Not that he ever made much of an attempt to conceal his own racism: this is a man who in 1983 voted against the establishment of MLK Day. The same man who in 2000 said, “I hate the g**ks… I will hate them as long as I live.”

McCain swayed in the political wind. At one point he supported a path for citizenship for immigrants. Then when running for President he endorsed the plan of the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association (giant ranchers on stolen land) to deploy armored tanks to the border and deprive immigrants of water in the desert. He accused immigrants of intentionally causing car crashes to collect money from insurance companies.

It’s understandable that the big business media would follow the script of this “great man” nonsense. But there is no excuse when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic Socialist of America member and Democratic Party Primary winner for Congress from New York, chimes in: “John McCain’s legacy represents an unparalleled example of human decency and American service.”

Clearly, the multi-millionaire McCain, whose father and grand-father were navy Admirals, lived a life of pandering to the rich, bombing other countries, and trying to destroy social programs. No great man, no hero, not even close.

Posted on

The Great Louisiana Car & Home Insurance Swindle

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER OWNED BY THE COMPANIES
NEW STATE TASK FORCE WON’T SOLVE PROBLEM

By Gavrielle Gemma

Once again car insurance rates went up this year, just like every year before. Some hugely profitable companies got rates hike of 15%. Orleans Parish and Baton Rouge drivers are charged 25% more than surrounding areas. Louisiana homeowners pay 143% higher rates that other states Despite low wages, Louisiana has the second highest car and homeowners insurance rates in the whole country.

Why is this? Because the Commissioner of Insurance, Jim Donelon, like those before him are owned lock stock and barrel by the industry. The Commissioner of insurance is elected every 4 years, but it is hardly democratic. The Insurance industry turned over a million dollars to Donelon. As one opposing candidate Donald Hodge put it : “Louisiana doesn’t actually have an Insurance Commissioner. The insurance companies have an Insurance Commissioner,” This shows once again we don’t have a real democracy, we have a capitalist state that functions to shovel profits to big business at the expense of the workers.

HOW MUCH MORE CAN WE TAKE?
A whopping 18% of our family budget pays for insurance, sometimes more. But in a crisis, it doesn’t even cover our losses. Donelon complains the high cost is because so many drivers lack comprehensive coverage. You need a car for work, but you only make $7.25 or even $11 an hour. We can’t afford even basic liability. A ticket for no insurance and your life can spin out of control fast. Insurance has become a tax imposed by the government to subsidize the insurance industry, which makes record profits.

Louisiana has given exemptions to corporations that have totaled $11 billion in 10 years. These taxes should be collected, and we can set up a people’s insurance fund, with a board of residents to oversee it, all prohibited from payoffs from the companies. This board could insure drivers and homeowners in the event of any catastrophe, accident, fire or flood.

THIS IS CORRUPTION
If the Insurance Commissioner got a free driveway from a company, it is corruption. But in the eyes of the law, if he takes a million dollars in campaign contributions, it’s legal. In actuality, campaign contributions are bribes, and you are guaranteed a cushy job in the industry if you leave the post. Prior to being the Commissioner, Donelon was on the legislatures Insurance Committee, also the recipient of campaign contributions (bribes) to pass favorable laws for them and against the people.

While the rich members of the state legislature have allowed and aided in this corruption they finally had to admit it’s out of control. Their answer is to set up the Louisiana High Auto Rates Task Force. But who is on it? Legislators, insurance companies, lawyers and corporations. They were appointed by guess who? Jim Donelon, the puppet of the insurance industry.

Once again it is clear that independent working class organizing is necessary on this critical hardship. We should be wary, not hopeful, of this Taskforce, which may try to enact measures forcing drivers to buy more insurance or impose more fines.

Posted on

Grassroots Organizing Does the Trick – Missouri Workers Win Big

If your only source of news is CNN, FOX, MSNBC, or other corporate-owned (and corporate-oriented) media outlets, you would not know much about the organized peoples’ struggles in this country, and around the world, that are, in some cases, making real advances. The recent union victory in Missouri is a case in point. Workers have achieved something really remarkable, with long-range implications.

The labor movement in Missouri galvanized voters to strike down anti-union, and anti-worker “right to work” legislation in an August 7th referendum. The legislation was defeated with a 2-1 margin. 100 out of 114 counties voted it down, with St. Louis voting 88 percent “no.”

“Right to work” is a policy that is designed to take away workers’ rights. By making union membership optional in unionized workplaces, the power of the union is weakened, tilting the scale in favor of big corporations.

The strength or weakness of unions affects all workers, not just union members. This is born out by the fact that – in “right to work” states like Louisiana and Mississippi – workers have lower average wages, more workers uninsured, and higher rates of on-thejob injuries and deaths. In other words, overall conditions for workers are lowered for workers, and poverty is exacerbated, in states with these anti-union laws.

What is, perhaps, most remarkable, is the ways that the unions went about organizing. Over the course of six months, the unions sent out over 1,000 volunteers (mostly rank and file union members) across the state to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to call a referendum. They actually collected over 300,000.

Almost anyone active in movements today understands the need for having a digital media presence. But these recent union campaigns show that meeting people face to face is still one of the most effective ways to organize. Union volunteers knocked on 770,000 doors (think about that for a moment!) and went wherever workers were gathered.

As Labor Notes reported (labornotes.org), “Robert W. Shuler II, a forge operator and president of IUE-CWA Local 86821 in Centralia, recruited 35 members to go to poker runs, the state fair, bike runs, and festivals all summer.”

Shuler says that these efforts have fundamentally changed his union local for the better. “We have more attendance at meetings. People are asking about stuff to do. Something like this gives people hope.”

Posted on

Coastal Alabama and Mississippi: Coca-Cola Workers Go on Strike

In August, Coca-Cola workers in coastal Alabama and Mississippi carried out a multi-day strike. The strike – organized by the 250-member Teamsters Local 911 union – has affected four Coca-Cola distribution plants. Workers organized work stoppages in Robertsdale, LeRoy, and Mobile, Alabama, as well as in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

This has certainly gotten the attention of the Birmingham-based Coca-Cola Bottling Company United Inc. Since the start of the strike, the company has resorted to the classic union-busting tactic of hiring replacement workers, also known as “scabs.” But, the union has stuck to its guns.

On August 13, protesters gathered along U.S. 90 at Coca-Cola Road in Mobile. Picketers carried signs expressing union solidarity and denouncing the company’s scab-hiring maneuvers.

According to the union, the main complaint is starting pay. New hires could see a pay cut of $5-$7 an hour. Union representatives say that with new hires making so much less than current employees, workplace relations will sour. Workers in the same operation will be divided. And, of course, the company will want want to bring in more of the lower wage employees and force out existing employees who are in the $19 an hour range