On this week's show...
* People in Pittsburgh and across the US are organizing to fight Walmart
* we have a preview of Spike Lee's new documentary on New Orleans titled "When the Levees Broke"
* NSA's wiretapping program is declared illegal by a federal judge
* Protests, violence, and repression continue in Mexico and Palestine
* and also our local and global headlines
Welcome to this week's edition of Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of the news from the grassroots, news overlooked by the corporate media.
On today's show...
People in Pittsburgh and across the US are organizing to fight Walmart
we have a preview of Spike Lee's new documentary on New Orleans titled "When the Levees Broke"
NSA's wiretapping program is declared illegal by a federal judge
Protests, violence, and repression continue in Mexico and Palestine
and also our local and global headlines
Rustbelt Radio airs live every Monday from 6-7pm on WRCT 88.3FM in Pittsburgh, PA, every Thursday from 11am to noon on WARC-Meadville from the campus of Allegheny College, and every Saturday from 5-6pm on WVJW Benwood, 94.1 FM in the Wheeling, West Virginia area. And we're now on WPTS 92.1FM from the campus of the University of Pittsburgh, also Saturdays at 5pm.
We're also available on the internet, both on WRCT's live webstream at W-R-C-T dot ORG and for download, stream or podcast at radio dot I-N-D-Y-P-G-H dot org.
We turn now to local headlines.
Headlines
Local News
[0:45] Allegheny Co. Landfill Fined
On Wednesday, August 16th, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced it would fine BFI Waste Systems $32,500 for failing to properly implement its radiation protection plan at the Imperial Landfill in Findlay Township, Allegheny County.
DEP Southwest Regional Director Ken Bowman said in a statement (quote) "What makes this case particularly troublesome is that the department provided instruction and guidance to BFI staff on implementation of the plan." (endquote)
The DEP said a March 8th inspection found improperly calibrated monitors, an audio alarm shutdown, improperly completed contamination surveys, undocumented radiation detection events and waste trucks allowed to move through the scale-mounted radiation detection system at speeds too high to effectively detect any radioactive material that might be on board.
A spokesman at the landfill said Wednesday that the company had no comment. In 2005 BFI also paid a $250,000 fine it had been assessed for violations occurring from 2002 through 2005 at its Philadephia TRC transfer station. Those violations also included failure to comply with the radiation monitoring plan.
[ 3:00] ACLU, Others to Challenge Hazleton PA's Anti-Immigrant Ordinance
Last week, Rustbelt Radio reported on the recent ordinance enacted by Hazleton, Pennsylvania called the “Illegal Immigration Relief Act Ordinance”. This piece of legislation, set to be implemented on September 11th, is targeted towards the town’s Latino community, which has grown to 30% of Hazleton’s population since the year 2000.
The ordinance defines certain persons as “illegal aliens” using a definition so broad that it actually includes many lawful residents and naturalized citizens. Under the ordinance, landlords and business owners are subject to fines if they rent to, or hire individuals classified as “illegal aliens.” In addition, businesses would be barred from selling merchandise to undocumented people, including basic necessities such as food.
Since the Hazelton City Council passed the ordinance in July of this year, much attention has been drawn to the community, by immigrant’s rights and civil liberties groups. The ACLU, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and several lawyers have joined with the immigrants and business owners of Hazleton to battle this ordinance in the court system. On August 15th, they filed a lawsuit against the ordinance.
Cesar (seh-sar) Perales of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund describes the basis upon which they are basing their lawsuit against the ordinance.
Cesar 1 (0:55)
Rustbelt Radio also asked Perales to explain the importance of this case in setting an example for other cities and towns who may try to enact or have already enacted legislation similar to that of Hazleton.
Cesar 2 (1:00)
[1:50] Marsh Fork Elementary- Second Silo Denied
Rustbelt Radio has previously reported on the struggle of a community in Sundial, West Virginia to ensure the health of children at the Marsh Fork Elementary School, which has a coal processing facility directly adjacent to it. Although surface mining laws forbid permits within 300 feet of a school, the initial permit for this operation was granted before that law was enacted, and the Department of Environmental Protection has continued to grandfather renewals of the permit.
The facility, owned by Goals Coal Company, a subsidiary of Massey Energy, includes a coal storage silo and an earthen dam permitted to hold 2.8 billion gallons of toxic sludge. Despite concerns that the toxin-containing dust from the current processing operations at the silo may be affecting children and teachers' health, Goals Coal applied for a permit to build a second storage silo at the site, and on June 30th the West Virginia DEP granted the permit. However, after widespread publication of several improprieties with the permit, the DEP has now rescinded that permit. Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward published reports that Goals Coal began construction of the second silo before the permit was issued, and that the new silo actually fell outside of the area that the permit applied to. The existing silo also falls outside of the permit boundaries, making it illegal as well. The new DEP order requires Goals to demolish work already done on the second silo and to reclaim areas disturbed by construction.
Ed Wiley, the grandfather of a recent Marsh Fork Elementary School graduate, has taken action to bring attention to the dangers facing the school by walking the 455 miles from Charleston, West Virginia, to Washington, DC to meet with elected officials there. He is supporting the Pennies of Promise campaign, which is independently raising money to build a new school in the community after continued inaction by state officials. You can read more about the campaign and Ed Wiley's progress on his walk at www.pennies of promise.org.
Wrapup
For more on local news, you can visit pittsburgh dot I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot org.
[ HMB BREAK RUSTBELT - 0:20 (fades down 0:10 in to start global intro) ]
Global News
Intro
You are listening to Rustbelt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news overlooked by the corporate media. We turn now to news from other independent media sources around the world.
[2:30] NSA Wiretapping Declared Illegal
A federal Judge ruled on Thursday that the National Security Administration's Warrentless Wiretapping program is illegal and unconstitutional, and granted an immediate injunction to halt it. The ruling, by U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit, rejected almost every argument and justification put forth by the Bush Administration and the NSA, and stated clearly that [quote] “It was never the intent of the framers[of the constitution] to give the president such unfettered control, particularly when his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights.” [unquote]
The Warrentless wiretapping program is a Bush Administration initiative carried out by the NSA in which the Government monitors the telephone conversations of millions of American citizens. For the previous 230 years in the United States, government agents and law enforcement personal were prevented from monitoring citizens without first proving to a court that there was some reason to believe that illegal activity was taking place. This requirement is spelled out in the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides protection against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires probable cause for the issue of warrants.
A 1967 Supreme Court Ruling found that the Fourth Amendment also applied to private telephone conversations.
The Bush Administration - after first denying the existence of the program, then stating that it only covered calls outside of the United States - currently claims that it is legal to monitor the domestic telephone conversations of it's citizens because, according to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois [quote] “our terrorist surveillance programs are critical to fighting the war on terror and saved the day by foiling the London terror plot.” [unquote]
In addition to being a major blow to the Bush Administration, the ruling has potentially serious consequences to the telephone companies that aided the Government in it's illegal wiretaps. Verizon, AT&T and Bell South are facing class-action lawsuits brought by civil liberties groups and consumers for illegally turning over call records and otherwise aiding the illegal program.
In response to the ruling, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated: “We’re going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue ... it has been effective in protecting America.”. But with court rulings against them stating that [quote] “the Government appears here to argue ... that because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws Congress, but the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, itself.” [unquote] it is unclear exactly how the Bush Administration intends to make that case.
[4:00] Oaxaca Protests Continue
The escalating violence and repression in Oaxaca, Mexico has once again taken a new turn. Early, in the morning of August 8th, there was a raid on the offices of Las Noticias, a local newspaper, who is a supporter of APPO, the popular assembly of Oaxaca. On the same day, Catarino Torres Pereda, a leader of the indigenous rights group CODECI, was arrested and transported to a maximum-security prison, although he was not charged with serious crimes. In addition, a professor of dentistry was fatally shot in his car. On August 10th, during a peaceful protest against the government repression, Jose Jimenez Colmenares was fatally shot, while two others were wounded, and several vehicles and a pharmaceutical building were set on fire.
Later in the day three members of the Independent Unifying Movement of the Triqui Struggle (MULTI) were also shot and killed. Three police officers dressed in civil attire, who infiltrated the movement to get access to Radio Universidad, damaged the installations of the radio station when they entered the station and poured corrosive acid on the equipment. After these violent acts, Ulises Ruiz's government announced that there was no connection between the government and the attacks, and assured that it will open an investigation.
Soon after the protest, the Oaxacan government announced that it will arrest all the leaders of the APPO in order to guarantee the safety of the state. Various arrests have taken place, among them the arrest of Erangelio Mendoza Gonzales, who is the former general secretary of the Oaxacan magistery. Officers in civil attire and vehicles without license plates have carried out all of these arrests.
Approximately 80,000 people united on August 18th to peacefully protest in the Oaxacan streets. Bus service was shut down, classes were suspended and streets and main highways were blockaded. Three presumed police officers came out of a car and tried to assault one of the protesters, but when they saw their plans failed, they shot and injured Benito Castro Juárez in the chest. Protests are still continuing at different points of the city.
The following recording was originally broadcast on Channel 9, the TV station that has been taken over by the women of Oaxaca.
* recentoaxaca.ogg: 2:05
That was just a Oaxacan man speaking out against the repression being commited by the Governor Ulises Ruiz.
[0:45] Mexico City Protests continue
In other news from Mexico, protests in Mexico City continued last week. Supporters of Presidential Candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador have been occupying large parts of the city since the disputed results of the July 2nd Presidential election were announced. After weeks of camping out throughout the city and in front of congress without incident or challenge from law enforcement, last week Federal Police skirmished with some protesters on the pretext that they were blocking access to a federal building. At least eight were injured when the police used tear gas and batons to attempt to clear the crowd.
The protests and occupations, however, continued to expand. Last week, protesters begin an occupation of toll booths on some highways into Mexico City, further paralyzing the city. Further, protesters have vowed to disrupt Current President Vicente Fox's September 1 state of the nation address as well as vowing to hold a Calderon Administration under [quote] siege [unquote] if he attempts to take power.
Mexican Law requires a final decision and a President to be declared by September 6th.
[3:30] Protests at 16th intl AIDS conference in toronto
Last week's 16th International Conference on AIDS in Toronto was the setting for a torrent of angry protests by a broad spectrum of groups and individuals, ranging from grandmothers from Zimbabwe to injection drug users from Toronto to sex workers from Thailand.
The five-day conference, which drew more than 20,000 people from 170 countries, brought together researchers, government officials, celebrities, pharmaceutical executives, care providers and people living with HIV/AIDS themselves. But ever since ACT UP first protested the Third International AIDS conference in Washington DC in 1987, these now biennial gatherings have also been the target for street protest or outright disruption, as the people most affected by AIDS generally regard the response from government, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry to be woefully inadequate.
This year marked the first return of the International AIDS Conference to North America since the 1996 conference in Vancouver. The last conference to take place in the U.S. was in 1990 in San Francisco, which was also the setting for some of the largest and most disruptive AIDS protests in history. Since then, no conference has taken place in the U.S, which also has a policy of denying visas to HIV-infected people.
The Toronto conference protests began Sunday morning with a march through the streets that included celebrities, UN officials and 100 grandmothers from 13 African countries who've been forced to raise their grandchildren since their children died of AIDS. The following day more than a thousand demonstrators swarmed downtown Toronto to demand that women and girls become more of a priority in AIDS policies and programs. Then on Wednesday about 500 protesters blocked Toronto intersections to demand that the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper continue that country's safe injection sites exemption from federal drug laws that is due to expire next month.
Protests and disruptions took place inside the conference as well. On Wednesday, over 200 people marched through the conference halls into the press room to demand an end to U.S. Free Trade Agreements in 12 developing countries that have expanded the scope of pharmaceutical patents and prevent countries from importing drugs from countries where they are cheaper. Chanting “FTAs kill people with AIDS,” activists draped a large banner over the press room that said “FTA: Death Under Patent.”
Later in the day, U.S. activists took over the stage prior to the speech of Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Disease, challenging him to use his influence with President Bush to prioritize genuine HIV prevention and treatment access. Activists held signs saying “U.S. Gov: Sex and Drugs Cause AIDS” while chanting “Condoms and needles are under attack.”
Chanting "Sex Workers' Rights: Time to Deliver," sex workers from more than 20 nations also held a rowdy protest through the vast Toronto conference center to demand recognition of their frontline role in the war on AIDS, as well as a place at the conference and in their own societies.
Finally, on Thursday, South Africa's exhibit was stormed by members of the Treatment Action Campaign to protest their government's reluctance to make anti-retroviral drugs more available. South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki does not believe that HIV is the cause of AIDS, which claims lives of almost 1,000 people every day in his country.
Globally, 25 million have died from AIDS since the start of the pandemic 25 years ago. As many as 50 million are believed to be living with HIV.
[4:00] Anti Wall Demonstration in Palestine
jonasintro.ogg: :20- FADE out after people start speaking
The Israeli Army and Border Police fired rubber bullets and sound grenades on protestors on Friday August 11th as they marched through Bil'in (pronounced beelaiyin) a village in the West Bank. For over a year the people of Bil'in have been holding weekly demosnstrations against the Apartheid wall that is being constructed through the West Bank. Israel claims it is a security barrier that merely exists to separate the West Bank from Israel. Palestinians and many internationals feel otherwise. The Wall in Bi'lin annexes 618 acres of land that is the livelihood of many Palestinian olive farmers. This annexed land will be used for Israeli settlements. Bil'in does not stand alone in their struggle against the wall. Communities throughout the West Bank have protested the land confiscation, restriction of movement, and limited access to water that accompanies the construction of the wall.
During this recent protest, fourteen people from Bil'in, Israelis and internationals, have been injured, including an Israeli in critical condition who was shot on the neck and head with 3 rubber bullets at close range. He has had surgery at Tel Hashomer hospital to remove a rubber bullet that was lodged in his skull. Another demonstrator has suffered a fractured skull and brain contusion after a soldier beat her with the butt of his gun. Jonas Moffat, a Pittsburgh activist who has been working with the International Solidarity Movement or ISM and the First Palestinian Circus School was also shot with rubber bullets. He recounted the day's events:
Jonas then told us he tried to get away from the protest by hiding behind a construction site, but was still unable to escape the soldiers.
* jonas2.ogg: 1:33
That was just Jonas Moffat describing the force that Israeli Soldiers used on a non-violent demonstration in the West Bank village of Bi'lin. This past Friday another demonstration took place and the Israeli Army responded with a water cannon filled with a blue liquid. You can see a video of August 11th's demonstration at mishtara.org and also on youtube. A full length interview with Jonas Moffatt can be heard at the Pittsburgh IMC website, indypgh.org
[2:00] Squat Eviction in France
On August 17th, one of the largest squatted buildings in France was evicted. Inhabitants have been occupying the building – a five story structure built in 1961 known as “Building F” which is now scheduled for demolition – since 2003. Most inhabitants are from the Ivory Coast, or Mali, though other African countries, including former French colonies, are also represented.
Rumors of an evacuation had circulated since the day before. As of 5:30 in the morning a committee of support from the groups league of human rights, right to housing, and the group education network without borders, or RESF as it is known by its french acronym, had gathered outside the building. Marc and Annie Bonnet of RESF stated: 'We were posted in front of the building with the squatters. In total there were about sixty people to make a peaceful barrier and to testify in case of police intervention. Nothing happened for three hours. Around 8:30 we left confident that the eviction had been cancelled or delayed as it had been in the past.'
Evictions of the building had been previously scheduled on six or seven other occasions but these efforts had all been cancelled or postponed. This time French police abandoned the normal procedure of performing evictions early in the morning, and instead police waited until about 9:00 a.m. to begin the evacuation. At approximately 12:20pm a bus filled with evacuees, escorted by police cars, left the town of Cachan. Contrary to popular belief, not all the inhabitants of Building F are 'sans papiers', that is, undocumented immigrants. One Malian man said of he and his family quote "we are in a common circumstance here in France. We have our papers. Our children were born here. I have a job as a cook. But we do not have housing."
According to Minister of the Interior Nicholas Sarkozy a total of 508 people were evacuated from Building F. Inhabitants who were not at home at the time of the evacuation, however - many of whom may have been at work - were not apprehended. According to the government more than half the squatters were undocumented immigrants; the police arrested 49 at the eviction on immigration-related charges. Former inhabitants of Building F who were not evacuated are planning to set up a camp near their previous residence.
Wrapup
You can read more independent global news stories by visting indymedia: I-N-D-Y-M-E-D-I-A dot O-R-G.
Features
Intro
That was ....
Welcome back to Rust Belt Radio, the Pittsburgh Independent Media Center's weekly review of news from the grassroots.
[19:00] Wake-Up Walmart
What US corporation is known for violating child labor laws, providing less than half of its 1.5 million employees with healthcare, discriminating against women and African Americans, outsourcing jobs and destroying local economies, all while earning profits larger than McDonalds, Boeing and Microsoft combined?
The answer is Wal-mart, a discount retailer started in 1962 by Sam Walton in Arkansas. The company began with a mission of driving costs out of the merchandising system all in the service of driving prices down. But the strategy of discount pricing required high volume of sales, and in order to achieve this goal, Walton sought to open as many stores as fast as possible. Now, nearly 45 years later, Wal-mart has grown to be the largest retailer in the world, and one of the largest companies in the US, often sharing the number one spot with Exxon.
With annual profits of over 11 billion dollars and a Walton family net worth of 77 billion dollars, Americans are beginning to question the company’s effects on local economies, and their treatment of workers who are employed at the nearly 4,000 stores across the country. The corporation has also come under widespread criticism that many of the company's American employees and their children are on public assistance, that workers manufacturing Wal-Mart products are subject to abusive conditions and sub-poverty wages, and that the company is a definitive symbol of unchecked global capitalism.
One such organization leading the fight against this retail giant is Wake Up Wal-mart, which began in April of 2005.
This organization has defined its mission as [quote] “the fight for health care and good paying jobs.” Earlier this month, the Wake Up Wal-mart tour bus rolled through Pittsburgh. As part of a 35 city tour entitled 'Change Wal-mart Change America', local progressive political leaders and members of the campaign, came to the Hill House in the Hill District to mobilize people into taking action against the retailer. This grassroots organization has been able to garner over 250,000 supporters since its start in April of 2005.
The organizers with Wake Up Wal-mart created a short movie, which highlights the increasing attention to the company's practices, and the growing nationwide movement to change this corporation. Rustbelt Radio brings you a segment of that film:
dvd clips (2:30)
The Change to Win coalition which is made up of 7 different labor unions, is one local organization working with the Wake Up Wal-mart campaign. Gabe Morgan of the coalition addressed the audience:
gabe morgan (0:50)
A representative of Wake Up Wal-mart spoke to crowd of several hundred gathered at the Hill House. He first describes the unparalleled growth of the corporation, and how the sheer size of Wal-mart makes it such an important issue to fight.
Power point 1 (2:20)
Wake Up Wal-mart organizers also provided facts on Wal-mart's treatment of workers, and their impact on the American economy and tax-payers.
power point 2 (2:30)
Finally, we learn about the importance of fighting not only Wal-mart, but also their business model which has already been adopted by other US corporations.
power point 3 (2:00)
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina also took part in the Change Wal-Mart Change America tour. He explained how it is possible for Wal-mart to provide healthcare to its employees, based on the example of Costco, a Sam's Club competitor, who has been able to provide healthcare to over 80% of their workers. Wal-mart currently insures less than half of their employees.
And according to a July 2005 New York Times article, Costco's average pay is $17 an hour, 42% higher than Sam's Club.
Critics argue that because Wal-mart pays its employees low wages and does not insure the majority of their workers, the employees must rely on public assistance to receive adequate healthcare coverage. This means American tax-payers are footing the bill for Wal-mart employees' healthcare costs. In 2005 in the state of Pennsylvania the Wal-mart health care crisis cost tax payers nearly 60 million dollars, and in Ohio the price was nearly 71 million dollars. In just 19 states the total estimated cost to tax payers was 540 million. Based on these numbers, and the Costco example, John Edwards claims there should be an end to American tax payers subsidizing the healthcare of Wal-mart employees.
edwards (2:00)
While people across the country are mobilizing to fight Wal-mart, in 2005 one student in Pittsburgh decided to target the company's charitable wing, called the Wal-mart foundation. Dan Papasian, a 2006 CMU graduate now living in DC, describes the parody site he created of their website entitled walmart foundation. org .
danny 1 (2:23)
When Dan borrowed images from the Wal-mart foundation’s site for his parody site, felt this constituted fair use of the images under copyright laws. Wal-mart disagreed:
danny 2 (1:12)
That was just Dan Papasian speaking about his website Wal-mart DASH foundation.org which was censored by Wal-mart. For more information about the national fight against the retailer, the Wake Up Wal-mart tour, and other criticisms of Wal-mart’s business practices, log on to wake up walmart.com and also walmart watch. org
You're listening to Rust Belt Radio.
[12:00] When the Levees Broke
As the one year anniversary of the Lousiana landfall of Hurricane Katrina approached, thousands of people attended the premiere of When The Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Movie stars, politicians, rappers -- and average New Orleanians -- went to the New Orleans Arena, adjacent to the Louisiana Superdome, for an advance screening of the four-hour film.
The documentary will be released publicly this week, on HBO; the first two hours on Monday the 21st, the second two on Tuesday the 22nd; and the whole four hours will be broadcast again on the anniversary of the storm.
Rustbelt Radio's Matt Toups attended the premiere last week and brings us this report from New Orleans.
**BEGIN CLIP** preview_rustbelt.flac (everything after this is in the voiceover) (12:01)
Spike Lee's new documentary, When the Levees broke, is a portrait of New Orleans and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. An important theme in the film is the failure of levees designed to protect the city from hurricane storm surge. The first of several levee breaches in the city of New Orleans was at the Ninth Ward.
This section of New Orleans has a rich history, dating back to the 1870s when African Americans and European immigrants settled in the area. It was a center of working-class civil rights activism where African Americans and the poor could own their own homes. However, the latter 20th century saw a serious economic decline in the area, as the formerly plentiful sources of jobs -- longshoremen and laborers at chemical refineries -- dried up. Another blow to the neighborhood was Hurricane Betsy in 1965, which made landfall in Lousiana as a Category 3 storm. Storm surge entered the Ninth Ward and other parts of New Orleans as levees failed 30 years prior to Hurricane Katrina; at that time, Betsy was the costliest hurricane to strike the US.
After the storm and further economic hardship, many white residents of the neighborhood left and the area has been overwhelmingly African American since then, who still retain their high rate of home ownership and strong sense of community. Many in the 9th Ward harbor a mistrust for the government which goes back through generations of struggle against racism and poverty; many residents suspected the 1965 levee breaches were intentional, though no evidence to support that claim exists today. However, the memory of levees destroyed by the government with dynamite is rooted in history; during the 1927 Mississippi River flood, levees downriver of New Orleans were blown up, flooding poor rural homes downriver to save expensive property upriver.
Since Hurricane Betsy, the relationship between residents of the Lower Ninth Ward and the US Army Corps of Engineers has been openly hostile, as the Corps' plans for widening shipping lanes and canal locks have been resisted by groups fighting to preserve the neighborhood.
It is in this atmosphere of longstanding mistrust, conflicting priorities, race and class tension, that flood waters roared into the Lower Ninth Ward on August 29th, 2005. Many locals believe that the 9th Ward flooding from Hurricane Katrina was due to intentional destruction of the levees, and survivors support this claim with descriptions of explosions shortly before the break. These factors have combined to create an extremely powerful Urban Legend that many New Orleans residents hold as fact.
Spike Lee's film touched on this controversy -- and was harshly criticised by a front-page review written by the white TV columnist in the New Orleans newspaper -- for allowing the widely-believed story to be told and then refuted. In this excerpt, residents of the Ninth Ward discuss the explosions heard and the mistrust of local officials; former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial explains the Hurricane Betsy levee myth; and local historians connect it to the 1927 flood.
dynamite.wav (3:44)
Those last two speakers were historian Douglas Brinkley, and author John Barry.
One voice that stands out in Lee's film, and in Louisiana media, is that of Garland Robinette of WWL Radio. His straight-talking style evoked cheers from the crowd when he denounced the failure of the ill-maintained federal flood protection system.
garland.wav (1:03)
The last speaker was a resident of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, downriver of New Orleans.
One outrageous story that came out of post-hurricane New Orleans was not a myth; days after
the storm had passed, thousands of people suffered without food or water in extreme heat outside the
New Orleans convention center. The convention center is at the foot of the Crescent City Connection, a
massive bridge that crosses the Mississippi River to the west bank suburb of Gretna, which suffered no
flooding. Gretna is in Jefferson Parish, a majority white suburban area, which was declared a
"dictatorship" by the Parish President after the storm. Interviewees in the film describe how suburban
police fired their weapons to prevent Orleans Parish residents from evacuating, as well as preventing
West Bank residents from delivering aid to the Convention Center - citing safety concerns, based on
rumors of "thugs" and "looters" in the city.
bridge_gretna.wav (2:53)
Those are just some of the many voices in Spike Lee's new documentary When The Levees Broke. In New Orleans, this is Matt Toups for Rustbelt Radio.
**END CLIP**
Ending
[1:00] Calendar of events
And now we present the Indymedia calendar of events:
This Saturday August 26th, POG will be holding an Anti-War/Counter Recruitment Protest at the Recruiting Station in Oakland. This demonstration will take place from 11 to 1 at the Army Recruitment Station, located at 3712 Forbes Ave.
Also this Saturday, August 26th, local youth in Edgewood and Swissvale have organized a March Against Police Brutality and Racism! Due to recent targeting by police towards children as well as adults, they will be holding a march to tell the police that they will no longer be able to cover up their racism. This march will begin at 7pm, starting from the parking lot across from Applebees in Edgewood Town Center S. Braddock and Schoyer Ave. For more information contact 412-760-6141 or lets_stand_up@ yahoo.com.
And finally, also on Saturday the 26th, the Shadow Lounge will be hosting a fundraiser for the Sankofa Community Empowerment Project. This event starts at 9pm and will feature hip-hop, spoken word, art, fashion, vendors, and raffles. The Shadow Lounge is located at the corner of Baum and Highland Ave in E. Liberty. For more information contact 814-517-5521 or sankofa empowerment . org
MP3 at 28.0 mebibytes
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