The World Can’t Wait organization, a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party, staged a day of protests around the nation on Thursday this last week. A respectable number of people participated considering it was held during the work week. Most cities are reporting numbers ranging from 500 to 1,000 and over 2,000 for some of the larger cities. The protests were peaceful in most cities except for reports of police violence in Portland, OR.
Reports from selected cities:
Protesters at the White House: Hundreds tape off White House, declare Bush's lair a crime scene
Disturbing reports of police violence in Portland, OR O5: World Still Waiting
Critique and commentary on the New York protest: Some Notes after the World Can't Wait Protest
Report from Los Angeles: El Mundo No Puede Esperar, Anti-Bush Protesters March in Downtown LA
In San Francisco: October 5th - Day of Mass Resistance
Video From Cleveland: World Can't Wait Collage
In Seattle: Report from October 5th Demonstration
From Olympia, WA: October 5—the World Can’t Wait in Olympia
In Florida: THE WORLD CAN'T WAIT! Demonstration in Ft. Lauderdale
At 2pm on Monday Gregory "DJ" Christy, a resident of the Lafitte housing development, joined by more than 70 supporters entered his apartment with the intention of reoccupying it for the first time since August 2005. 9 supporters of Christy were arrested in the attempt to reopen public housing. All 9 have been bailed out of the Orleans Parish Prison.Christy’s apartment was opened by a group of activists including C3/Hands Off Iberville and the United Front for Affordable Housing. Legal observers from the Common Ground Collective were onsite to monitor the police response. Read report...
Related: Pay To Be Saved: The Future of Disaster Response by Naomi Klein | San Diego IMC: Warped Priorities Exposed on Eve of Katrina Anniversary as Public Housing Resident Reoccupies Apartment | Boston IMC: "The source of the flood is not the water; it's gentrification." | Philly IMC: A Call for Housing on Katrina Anniversary | Portland IMC: Once You’ve Been Homeless, You Can Never Go Back | NY IMC: Blogwire Roundup - Katrina Plus One | DC IMC: Demonstrators demand climate justice on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
A strong scientific consensus exists that the 2005 hurricane season was fueled by global warming -- and the crimes of the oil industry in the Gulf go beyond global warming. On Friday, August 25th -- one year from the day Katrina reached hurricane strength and slammed into the coast of Florida -- cyclists from at least 28 cities around the country joined forces in a solidarity bike ride with Katrina survivors to highlight this reality. Their goal was to remind folks that the racist tragedy in the Gulf continues, to demand that it never be repeated, and to raise awareness about the role of the oil industry and global warming in environmental injustice."Critical Mass" is a celebration of bike culture, a meaningful alternative to car culture and greenhouse gas generating fossil fuels. It takes place wherever there is energy, often on the last Friday of the month.
Additional remembrance events will continue over the next week. The New Orleans Network lists over 50 commemorative events in the New Orleans area. New Orleans Indymedia reports that the People's Hurricane Relief Fund is helping to organize an August 29th memorial march.
NYC IMC Report: Pedestrian is Killed during Critical Mass
Other Local Coverage: Los Angeles | New York City | Philadelphia | Portland: 1 - 2 | San Diego | San Francisco Bay Area
Related Coverage: Katrina survivors face eminent deadline | New Report Outlines Six Steps to Beating Global Warming | New Orleans a Year After Katrina | One Year Later Katrina Didn't Close the Racial Divide | Mayor Nagin Tells Black Journalists ‘No One’s Covering’ His City | Ethnic Media Share Survival Stories One Year After Katrina | Katrina’s One–Year Anniversary Yields Harsh Retrospective | Spike Lee's New Film "When the Levees Broke" | Portland IMC Interview with relief workers, 8/22: stream | download
Background Links: New Orleans IMC | US-IMC Katrina Page | Climate Change IMC | Common Ground Collective | ACORN Katrina Survivors Association | People's Hurricane Relief Fund | Rising Tide North America | Beehive Collective Katrina Anniversary Artwork
A number of Katrina volunteers who organized the Common Ground collective have organized into a new organization named “Critical Response” in order to provide emergency response to disasters, both natural and human-made. Critical Response is working to send a rescue and relief team into Southern Lebanon to assist with humanitarian aid efforts. The Critical Response team will go into areas that are not currently being served adequately by relief organizations due to the high risks involved. As was the case in New Orleans, innocent civilians in Southern Lebanon are being sentenced to death through delayed relief efforts. Critical Response is asking for ideas and help by networking from people of conscience. Critical Response | Common Ground Collective | Indymedia Global coverage of crisis: 1, 2, 3, 4
On Monday, February 13th, the New Orleans homeless population will skyrocket, and the survivors of Katrina will be victimized again. FEMA's short-term hotel program expires for most of the 26,000 displaced hurricane survivors and most of these evacuees have not been provided with long-term, or even transitional housing solutions. The National Guard is even on call to evict these survivors at gun point. 
Members of the PhillyIMC have joined the Poverty Initiative on a fact-finding tour of the South. The group, which also includes 40 Columbia Social Work and Union Seminary students, is meeting with community groups, evacuees, and politicians in five cities to document first-hand the struggle against poverty that Katrina has brought to the nation's attention. The U.S. is the richest nation in the history of the world, yet 45 million have no health insurance, soup kitchen visits are up 150%, and child homelessness is at an all time high. PhillyIMC is highlighting the grassroots efforts that offer real solutions to poverty in this country. [Continuing Coverage] 
A man known to the neighborhood around Felicity and St. Charles as a harmless but friendly mentally-disabled individual was shot Monday afternoon by Sixth District New Orleans Police. Witnesses reported at least ten bullet casings on the ground after police opened fire on the man. Although the police spokesman said that the man lunged at a police officer with a [three inch] knife before he was shot, witnesses all say that the man was backing up when he was shot numerous times by police. Staff at the Burger King nearby say that the victim was a daily customer there, and never hurt or threatened anyone. Onlookers expressed anger at the police for responding with excessive force to the situation, and for taking this man's life unnecessarily. One shouted at police after the incident, "Are your officers not trained to disarm a man with a knife without using lethal force?"
Oxygen Collective Arrives in New Orleans 12/8/05 - After a long trek across the country, covering 2600 miles in three days, the Oxygen Collective bus finally arrived in New Orleans on Wednesday. We made our way to the Common Ground Media Center, where we connected with our dear friend Kerul who has been hard at work here for over 2 months. From there, we took a short tour of the heavily damaged 9th Ward. It is hard to describe what we are witnessing. After more than 3 months since the storms hit, it is shocking to see the state of this neighborhood. Trash and debris are piled everywhere. There is no electricity on most streets. With residents discouraged from returning home by military blockades, curfews, and the perception that everything is destroyed, It feels a ghost town.
We made our way to our home for now, at the Common Ground Collective 9th Ward Community Center. This space is one of many operated by Common Ground across New Orleans. Less than 2 weeks ago, the Community Center was a flood damaged church center filled with black mold. Now it is an ever evolving Community Center housing and feeded the volunteers who have come to New Orleans to help out.
12/10/05 - I am in a surreal and deeply inspiring hell- New Orleans is a post apocalyptic wonderland where utter devastation is everywhere and all relationships of culture, race, society and politics are richly counter-intuitive, nuanced and have gone from backward before to upsidedown now. I am floored. No account of what is occurring here can be given without a brief review of the stunning reality on the ground. The scale and scope of the destruction is really not possible to grasp if you have not driven the streets here. There are over a hundred thousand cars that will never drive again that have yet to be moved- they are in all manner of disarray- on curbs, upside down, in front lawns and perhaps most eerily- parked right where they were left when their drivers suddenly fled more than 3 months ago. There are currently 1.3 million households from the Gulf Coast still residing elsewhere. Bodies are still found every day. Vast areas sit festering, powerlines strewn across streets, trees sliced right through houses, two story homes crushed to the height of their front door. Tens of thousands of homes are filled with rotting furniture, warped floors and swollen drywall.
12/12/05 - I just wrote yesterday but each day here feels like a week of life experience. Today we joined with the People's Hurricane Relief Network, Common Ground and a number of black power groups for a march on City Hall- or what's left of it anyway. We gathered first in Congo Square- a park with ancient live oaks who were already mature trees when slavery was in effect here and this was the only place in the city where slaves were allowed to gather freely and play their drums. Today, a rocking drum circle like none I've ever seen accompanied a vibrant consortium of black leaders as they gave stirring speeches to a crowd that reached thousands by the time we took the streets towards City Hall.
The march was in support of the Right to Return of the scattered residents of New Orleans, who are overwhelmingly poor and black and who are soon to be kicked out of the temporary housing FEMA has thus far provided. It is clear that were this California destroyed by an earthquake, or New York by another 9-11, there would be no protracted debate about whether or not to rebuild, it would just be done and it would be done quickly with massive federal aid. The cost of a day of war in Iraq would be enough to retrofit all New Orleans levees to withstand a category 5 storm. The people of this richly historic city are rightfully outraged and today they raised strong and eloquent voice to their demands for equality.
Over two months have past since the destruction unleashed by Hurricane Katrina devestated the lives of thousands in Gulf Region, and ever since the Common Ground Collective has been on the ground with food, supplies, and restoring hope to those who are struggling to return to their homes.
During the Thanksgiving week, the Common Ground Collective organized The Roadtrip for Relief, and asked for volunteers to come to New Orleans with their skills, supplies and support to the communities of The Big Easy.
The week was dedicated to helping restore housing to those who lost most everything in the 9th Ward, an area neglected by federal, state and local officials. During the roadtrip, hundred of volunteers from all over the country came to "return, restore and rebuild," the 9th Ward community.
In the 9th Ward, Common Ground volunteers cleaned out 30 homes, made 5 roof repairs, gutted and cleaned a community center, started a women's center and created a mutli-media center, including a free internet lab made out of salvaged machines. In Houma, a largely indigenous community southwest of New Orleans, volunteers helped to create a new community distribution center, power washed a cemetery, gutted houses, cleaned up trash and debris, and provided outreach with a mobile distribution unit to the local community.
During the week, Common Ground Collective also hosted Playback Theatre Group of New York, a group of improv actors that performed for the volunteers as well as residents of New Orleans. Visiting volunteers also completed a 22 minute documentary, Solidarity Not Charity, about the state of New Orleans and the work of Common Ground Collective.
Stay tuned to New Orleans Indymedia for updates on the Common Ground Collective, future Roadtrips for Relief, and other organizations providing disaster relief.
[ New Orleans, Two Reports | The Peoples’ Relief Caravan: journal #2 | Katrina Indymedia ]
"Nothing about us without us is for us."
On December 8, 2005 through December 10, 2005 scores of survivors and their supporters,(people who believe in freedom and justice) will gather in Jackson, MS and New Orleans. We will gather for the National State of Emergency Conference in Jackson on the 8th and 9th of December. Supporters, representatives and leaders from over 50 black organizations and labor unions and their third world and anti-racists allies will meet in solidarity with the survivors and initiate an action plan to rescue the Black population and all oppressed populations from their dependency on racist and incompetent governments. Most important the Katrina Survivors will gather at the same place and time to form a General Assembly to speak and to exercise their rights to self-determination.
The New Waveland Cafe in Waveland MS, initiated by a group of Rainbows, was the first recognized relief kitchen in Hancock county after Hurricane Katrina. The Kitchen has become a community center for locals and volunteers in Waveland and the surrounding areas. People are drawn to this kitchen because the food is healthy, much of it is organic, and it is always cooked with style. The kitchen is run completely by volunteers who focus on empowering this community to continue helping one another even after the kitchen is gone. Anyone who expresses interest is welcome to facilitate a meal. Now we have 9 and 10 year-olds chopping vegetables for dinner, and spooning out soup in the serving line. Most nights during the week different local bands come to play on the stage at dinner time. Often, when dinner is finished, tables are pushed back and a spontaneous community dance party ensues. Afterwards, locals and volunteers work together to clean the dining room. The New Waveland Cafe is closing down on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It is re-opening at a new location in St. Bernard's Parrish, just outside of New Orleans. The folks who are continuing on with this mission are in need of a larger volunteer force and many resources in order to carry out this project. Many of the people moving to St. Bernard's Parrish have been working for 1 to 2 months, seven days a week, with very few breaks. This move is going to take a lot of work, and some brand-spanking new creative vibrance will be enthusiastically welcome.
Please keep in mind that no amount of carrying signs, marching, meditation, prayer, signing petitions, or voting will ever carry as much power as helping one person gut out her ruined house, or feeding a single mother at the end of another stressful day of red-taping it to a Fema trailor. This is a chance to extract yourself from our traditionally divided and materialistic American culture, shake off the stagnant mundane, and participate in true community building during a time of suffering and hardship.
Portland IMC Katrina Aftermath page | www.emergencycommunities.org
Related: www.remarelief.net | The Forming of the New Waveland Cafe | Ongoing reports from Waveland | Pics of the Cafe in NOLA | Rainbow Katrina Relief Effort | compilation of onsite reports from both kitchens
11:30pm Thursday: A common ground volunteer was jailed at central lockup in New Orleans and received death threats from 4th district officers and ICE. They said they "would shoot him and throw his body in the river."
Update: Volunteer relief worker Greg Griffith has since been bailed out.
Audio: FSRN headline | Interview with Common Ground spokesperson | Audio and statement from a second Common Ground volunteer arrested for double parking several days later
pdx-imc coverage: Common Ground relief workers in New Orleans arrested, threatened by NOPD
The only kitchen serving fresh, nutritious meals to the people of New Orleans east of Canal St. is being threatened with closure by city officials. The loose-knit coalition of groups known as 'the Rainbow Family of Living Light', best known for their yearly 4th of July Rainbow Gatherings at rotating locations throughout the country, have been instrumental in the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina. The mobile kitchen they founded in Waveland, Mississippi, the area hardest hit by the storm, has been consistently serving 2,000 people a day since its inception in early September. The "Welcome Home Kitchen", as the Rainbow Family's Kitchen is known, has been serving well over 700 people each day for three meals a day, as well as providing free medical care, a distribution center of clothing and supplies, a community bulletin board and information table, and a sense of camaraderie that has brought smiles and hugs from people in the most desperate of circumstances.
But now the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer of the New Orleans Emergency Operations Center, Ms. Cynthia Lear, has declared that the city will unilaterally shut the kitchen down on Wednesday, providing no alternative and no resources for the underserved in New Orleans. Ms. Lear has stated that there is no appeals process for this decision, even though community members at the Fauberg-Marigny neighborhood council meeting on Monday gave virtually unanimous support to the ongoing work of the kitchen.
Please call ms. cynthia sylvan lear, the deputy chief administrative officer of the new orleans emergency operations center at 504-658-2180 and Mayor Nagin at (504) 658-4924, Fax: (504) 658-4938 to express your dismay that such a resource would be unilaterally dismantled by the government while it is providing such an important resource for the community.
Related: www.remarelief.net/ | The Forming of the New Waveland Cafe | Ongoing reports from Waveland | Rainbow Katrina Relief Effort |After The Flood, There Were Rainbows | Pics of the Cafe in NOLA | compilation of onsite reports from both kitchens
On Monday, October 24, Hurricane Wilma tore a path of destruction through Florida, leaving millions without electricity and untold numbers homeless throughout the state.
For a unique, ground-level report on the storm's impact, be sure to visit the Coalition of Imokalee Worker's website, at http://www.ciw-online.org, where you will find photos taken by CIW members immediately following the storm and a description of the conditions left behind by the Category 3 hurricane.
Today, nearly a week later, life is slowly getting back to normal in Immokalee, with electricity and water restored for over 80% of Immokalee's residents. But it will be some time before the storm's longer-term impact on the community's already marginal housing and on the area's vulnerable agricultural industry are fully known.
See also: "In the Wake of Wilma." A Report from The Miami Workers Center | MIAMI: Wilma and FEMA vs. the Poor - The underreported story...
A CorpWatch analysis of FEMA's records shows that "fully 90 percent of the first wave of (the post-Katrina reconstruction) contracts awarded - including some of the biggest no-bid contracts to date -- went to companies from outside the three worst-affected states. As of July 2006, after months of controversy and Congressional hearings, companies from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama had increased their share of the total contracts to a combined 16.6 percent." The CorpWatch analysis shows that more federal reconstruction contracts have gone to Virginia and Indiana - usually large, politically connected corporations -- than to any of the three Katrina-devastated states.
'...as of early August, not one house in those two Gulf Coast states had been rebuilt with that money.'
A strong scientific consensus agrees that the 2005 hurricane season was fueled by global warming -- and the crimes of the oil industry in the Gulf go beyond global warming. Ride Critical Mass Against Climate Change - demand Climate Justice - for Hurricane Katrina's survivors! Portland will be joining 26 other cities - see the complete list.
The goal of this ride is to take to the streets with a reminder that the racist tragedy in the Gulf continues, a demand that it never be repeated, and to raise awareness about the role of the oil industry 
and global warming in environmental injustice. We'll also be fundraising at rides around the continent for advocacy and relief groups in New Orleans.
related links: Beehive Collective creates new artwork for August 25th Katrina Anniversary Critical Mass | Post-ride movie showing | Rising Tide North America | portland indymedia katrina aftermath page | katrina.indymedia.us
http://neworleansworkerjustice.org/). Many former New Orleans inhabitants are forced to live on low wages and cannot find employment in the cities where they have since sought refuge. In addition, those who attempt to return find that they have no schools and no housing. This is why, both organizations felt the need to come out yesterday and spread the word that they are thriving, but need our help to keep on doing what they do.