This war abroad, as some sections of the U.S. anti-war movement have argued, cannot be seen in isolation from the war at home. The brutal colonial war in Iraq is but the flip slide of the war at home against workers, immigrants, and other oppressed people. Indeed, New Orleans, and the whole Gulf coast, has become the latest front in this domestic conflict. Grass Roots activists in the region argue that the Bush-led regime, with support from the Democrats, are using hurricane Katrina to deepen and expand the racist and anti-working class neoliberal offensive of privatization, austerity, and attacks on civil liberties. In short, the U.S. government is coupling its' Salvador option abroad with a "Chilean option" at home. Just as the U.S. and Latin American ruling classes used Pinochet's Chile as a template for the rest of Latin America, the Bush regime wants to "shock and awe" the U.S. working class by rapidly creating a neoliberal wonderland in New Orleans to be exported across the country. This article documents the neoliberal offensive in New Orleans, with a particular emphasis on public housing, both before Katrina and during its' post-disaster intensification. I conclude by highlighting how grass roots movements are challenging this agenda and showing that another anti-racist, pro-working class world, is possible.

The Bi-Partisan Neoliberal Assault on Public Housing

In the early 1980s New Orleans had over 14,000 public housing apartments that was home to over 60,000 people, almost all African Americans. The response of the local and national authorities to tenant demands for improved public housing and services was to destroy it and displace families. Local Democratic Party elected officials, such as former Mayors Sidney Barthelemy (now director of governmental affairs for the New Orleans-based real estate outfit HRI) and Marc Morial (now head of the National Urban League), helped lead the charge. Working closely with the Republican and Democratic Bush (I), Clinton, and Bush (II), administrations, and acceding to the demands of white controlled real estate and tourist interests, these Black Democrats cut the public housing stock by over half, from 14,000 to approximately 6,000 apartments during the 1990's and early 00's.

Ethnic and Class Cleansing: The Case of the St. Thomas Housing Development

The location of the pre-hurricane demolished housing developments is important for understanding the destruction Katrina heaped on poor families. For example, the now-destroyed St. Thomas development, which at one time had been home to over 1,500 Black, and some white, working class families, was located along the riverfront, where flooding did not occur or quickly receded. In the late 1990s, after a decade long effort, local and federal officials demolished the St. Thomas development. The political leaders, along with bought-off community activists, dutifully responded to the demands of real estate and tourist interests who saw this working class Black community as being "in the way" of "growing" tourism. Due to the gentrification that followed in the neighborhoods surrounding the St. Thomas, even more working class families were driven from the area. Many of the displaced residents were pushed out to New Orleans East or the Lower 9th ward, where flooding was extensive.

In contrast to the misery faced by most of the former Black working class residents removed from the area, influential white businessmen prospered. For example, real estate tycoons like Pres Kabacoff and Joe Canizaro--both of whom Mayor Ray Nagin has appointed to the Rebuild New Orleans Commission--made millions through the ethnic and class cleansing of the area. In addition, community activist Barbara Major, a close associate of Joseph Canizaro who helped facilitate and legitimate St. Thomas's destruction, has been awarded for her services my being named co-chair of the Commission by Nagin.

In contrast to the "winners," only a handful of residents have been able to return to the renamed, privatized, "River Gardens" development, which is being built on the 60-acre site of the old St. Thomas. In fact, the new development, partly financed through the Clinton administration's so-called HOPE VI grant designed to "reform" public housing, has now become a subsidized housing development for, mainly, the upwardly mobile. In addition to the HOPE VI funding, sales and property tax proceeds from a nearby, newly constructed Wal-Mart--another beneficiary of the project--are being used to subsidize the developer and the wealthy residents.

The "public-private partnership" that oversaw the St Thomas "redevelopment" was clearly a disaster for the poorest segments of New Orleans Black working class. Nonetheless, federal, state and local governments are using the St. Thomas as a "role model" for "redoing" the remaining public housing developments. In fact Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Alphonse Jackson, who infamously stated, in the wake of the hurricane that New Orleans is "not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again", unveiled this plan during a visit in early November to the city. Surrounded by supportive local elected officials, he exclaimed: "St. Thomas [will] be the model" for further reconstruction of the remaining development in New Orleans. The result will be, if Jackson has his way, the further gutting of the remaining 6,000 to 7,000 public housing apartments in the name of "reinventing" public housing and "de-concentrating poverty". It seems that Alphonse Jackson shares the same sentiments expressed by Baton Rouge congressmen Richard Baker, who crowed following Katrina: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."

What will happen to the residents at these former developments, you might ask? Well, HUD secretary Jackson reassured people that "We will be involved…If they want to go back home, we will do everything in our power to make sure they are comfortable." Yet, he added that most people, after staying away for over six months, will not want to come back. Adonis Expose, communications director of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) concurred, having concluded earlier "the reality is, if they're doing better where they are, they're probably not coming back." HUD and HANO are helping make that "reality", that is helping guarantee people will stay away, by refusing to provide alternative housing in the city in the interim while developments are reconstructed, albeit in vastly reduced numbers. In fact, in a further attempt to keep Black public housing residents away, HANO awarded a no-bid contract to Vacant Property Security, Inc. to place steel doors on apartments so residents cannot even return to retrieve their belongings. The message being sent by government officials to public housing tenants, as well as the Lower 9th ward homeowners not able to even view their homes, is clear: you are not welcome in the city of New Orleans.

Iberville Housing Development: Katrina as Pretext for Seizing Prime Real Estate

The policy of refusing re-entry to homes is particularly criminal in the case of the Iberville housing development, where floodwaters did not enter apartments. HANO is not allowing the over 600 Black working class families that resided at Iberville, which sits next to the French Quarter, from moving back into their homes. The official explanation is that soil and other environmental tests must first be undertaken to guarantee safety--yet this "concern" is only raised with regard to public housing residents. No timetable is given for when tests will be completed.

Timothy Ryan, a pro-business economist and University of New Orleans chancellor, in another brief instance of public candidness by local elites, pointed to the real motives behind blocking re-entry of Black working class families to the development: "[Iberville] has retarded French Quarter development for 30 years", he bemoaned [NB: Housing authority officials began desegregation of the-then all white development beginning only in 1965]. The good professor proffered "taking Iberville and mak[ing] it a retirement community" as a "solution" to the (Black working class) "problem."

More Neoliberal Air Strikes Launched Against Education, Health, Civil Liberties

The over 60,000 students that attended New Orleans public schools before Katrina came primarily from Black working class families. As with public housing, public education had faced a barrage of attacks from business and government officials. For example, over the last several years the New Orleans school board have instituted rules--such as not posting important agenda items until just before meetings start-- to make it much more difficult for parents and other members of the public to give input at school board meetings. To further stifle debate, the local press and school board members, such as James Fahrenholz, have vilified courageous local activists, such as Assata Olugbala, who consistently speak out at board meetings. In addition, semi-privatized charter schools, often with pressure from the state department of education, have been imposed. Finally, this summer the State legislature and Board of Education, along with local school board "reformers", hired a private management "turnaround" firm, Alvarez & Marsal, to manage the district. This outfit was previously used in St. Louis to carry out draconian cuts and privatize services.

Under cover of the disaster, Alvarez and Marsal, with full support from local and state officials, are systematically dismantling the school system. First to go were teachers and support staff, who were all laid-off indefinitely, and their union contracts ripped up. Next, local and state school officials announced that schools opened on the non-flooded west bank of New Orleans would re-emerge as semi-privatized charter schools. The federal department of education helped the effort by providing $20 million to open 13 west bank New Orleans schools, but only if they were opened as charters. To speed up the charter conversion, State officials intervened and "waived" democratic procedures, such as the requirement that parents and staff must approve a school becoming a charter. Like Geneva conventions rules in another context, democratic rights get in the way of "reform" and "progress."

On the east bank of New Orleans most of the schools are not even opening for the school year--a further way to keep working class families away from the city. The handful of schools to open on the east bank will also be converted to charters and these disproportionally serve white and middle class students, such as Lusher, located next to Tulane University, and Ben Franklin, located on the University of New Orleans campus. In a final coup de grace to public schools and local (Black) control over them, Governor Kathleen Blanco is pushing a plan, which the legislature is expected to support, to allow the State to take over 104--out of a total of 117-- city schools designated as "failing." The State will then have the power to turn them over to private foundations or businesses, or, as may be the case for many schools, refuse to reopen them at all.

The same pattern of using the hurricane to deepen the neoliberal agenda is evident in the health care arena. Since taking office two years ago Governor Blanco has decimated the public Charity hospital system budget, partly by allowing private nursing homes and hospitals to raid the state's Medicaid allotment. As a result, the state closed or reduced vital services, such as the walk-in clinics, over the last several years. Now, State officials plan to permanently close New Orleans Charity Hospital, built by Huey Long in the 1930s and the main provider of health care to the uninsured. The pretext is the damage it received during the hurricane. Just as with schools and public housing, working class people, with Black workers being the most immediately affected, are rapidly seeing the neoliberal agenda intensify from simply cutbacks, to privatization and elimination of vital public services.

To manage the discontent these cuts inevitably generate the government is beefing up its repressive forces. Wherever working class people go for help in the New Orleans area--from the offices of FEMA, to unemployment insurance, to food stamps-- they are greeted by intimidating, heavily armed National Guard troops and the ever-present private, Blackwater security forces. As Mike Howells, a New Orleans "hold out" and activist explained, "the message to working class people is clear when you enter these facilities: don't dare challenge authorities or we will be in your face." In addition, the Blackwater forces have also joined National Guard troops in patrolling streets and intimidating local residents. In sum, like the "reforms" instituted in the social service sector, the Bush regime, with either open support or acquiescence from Democrats, is using the hurricane to undermine Posse Comitatus, and other controls on the use of the military domestically.

Join the Working Class Fightback!: New Orleans Convergence, MLK Day 2006

The racist, anti-working class agenda being pursed by the ruling class is not going unchallenged. Local social justice activists, some of whom have the spent decades on the front lines in New Orleans fighting for economic justice and social equality are currently involved in ongoing struggles in the Greater New Orleans area to stop unfair evictions, reopen public housing, schools, and secure alternative housing for storm victims. They recognize that it will take a national movement to stop the post-Katrina offensive against affordable housing, public healthcare, public education and police repression now besieging the community. Yet, they also realize that this struggle must incorporate the people of New Orleans here and currently in exile.

In contrast to the neoliberal agenda, activists in New Orleans-based grassroots groups, such as the anti-war, pro-public housing group C3/ Hands Off Iberville, are proposing a pro-working class, anti-racist reconstruction plan that demands:

" No to ethnic and class cleansing-a pro-worker and African-American friendly environment, affordable public and private housing, universal healthcare, a mass public works rebuilding program that pays a living wage, an end to police brutality in our community.

" We call for financing this through, one, taxing the oil companies---$1 tax for every $1 price increase since the run up the Iraq war. Two, immediate withdrawal from Iraq-money to rebuild the U.S,, no money to destroy Iraq.

These activists, argue that "the utter failure of all levels of government to look after the most basic needs of the working class and the African-Americans of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that we must organize ourselves in a mass movement to defend our interests." To fight for this agenda local activists are inviting supporters from across country and world to converge on New Orleans for the "Martin Luther King Day March To Rebuild The Gulf Coast And The World! On January 16, 2006."