No Occupation In New Orleans
photo’s by TempleBlackSnake
Yesterday, PSL gathered in the amphitheater at Jackson Square because a president who claims to be “protecting” us is in reality preparing to occupy our city. These troops are not coming here to defend our neighborhoods. They are coming here to control our people, to police our pain, and to criminalize our survival. This is nothing less than an occupation of our people — rooted in the same racism that built mass incarceration and fills ICE cages in Angola. They call it crime control, but what they mean is control of the working class.
The crimes they claim to be fighting are not the real crimes tearing our communities apart. They are targeting working class survival itself. They target people buried in debt, families forced to beg for medical care on GoFundMe, and workers who haven’t seen the minimum wage raised in decades while CEOs grow richer every year. The truth is, this system doesn’t exist to help us. It exists to squeeze us — to extract every ounce of surplus value from our labor in order to feed the ruling class. We live under a vulturistic capitalism that preys on working people at every turn.
Photo’s by TempleBlackSnake
And don’t get it twisted—this isn’t just the fault of Republicans. Democrats have built and defended this system too. Democratic President Bill Clinton’s three-strikes law in the 1990s helped fill prisons. Democratic New Orleans DA Harry Connick Sr. used racist “tough on crime” prosecutions that swelled the population of OPP. Democratic President Joe Biden misused our tax dollars to fund bombs falling on Gaza. Democratic President Barack Obama deported more undocumented workers than any president in recent history. Mass incarceration, ICE detention, and deportation are not just right-wing projects — they are bipartisan policies. The repression of the working class is the foundation of the two-party capitalist system.
And what about the crimes that actually shape life in New Orleans? Where are the troops when it comes to the real criminals? Wage theft is the most prevalent crime in this city, but no soldiers are being sent to stop it. Home insurers triple their rates, forcing families to sell their homes. CEOs in the CBD charge 30 percent interest on credit cards, burying us in debt. Entergy executives raise rates again and again while paying themselves bloated salaries. Employers violate the United Nations’ declaration of human rights by denying workers the right to form unions. City officials hand out contracts to private profiteers instead of guaranteeing union jobs with our tax dollars. Even Supreme Court justices who legalized racial profiling are free from accountability. None of them are being targeted. None of them will be arrested and jailed by the National Guard.
Photo’s by TempleBlackSnake
Instead, they come for us. They come for the working class that is exploited and abandoned by the capitalist two party system. Don’t be fooled — the same forces that once rode through our communities in white sheets now patrol in face masks and uniforms. The KKK hasn’t disappeared; it has changed costumes. Just like during Reconstruction, they are still cowardly vigilantes, unleashed to keep working people in line. The truth is that the so-called majority in this country is not the people — it is the billionaire class. They are the true minority, and they are the true criminals. They are the ones who should be arrested and imprisoned, not us.
That is why we raise our collective voices to decry occupation. We demand a different kind of safety — one that comes from housing, healthcare, and living wages. Safety that comes from unions, community power, and public investment in people, not troops.
This is our city. It does not belong to Trump. It does not belong to corporations. It does not belong to the billionaire class. It belongs to us. We will not be controlled. We will resist occupion—and we will not rest until we have an economy that’s planned by the working class to benefit the people and the planet.
While the hour is dark and we are living in an age of fascism, we remain revolutionary optimists. The future can and will be brighter — but it is a future we must organize and fight for. Join the PSL on Monday, September 22, at 6 PM at 1529 Newton St. for an organizing meeting. Be part of the movement to reject Trump’s extreme right-wing agenda! We will hold a political orientation, engage in discussion, and plan the next steps to fight back. Free dinner and childcare will be provided. We look forward to seeing you there.
Another World is Possible,
Eric Gabourel