SRLC Welcoming Committee BBQ, this Saturday!

Have you heard about the SRLC Welcoming Committee? We are a coalition of New Orleans individuals and groups (including the Committee to Save Charity Hospital) coming together to welcome the Southern Republican Leadership Committee to New Orleans by letting them and the world know what we think of Republican governor Bobby Jindal's ruthless assaults on Louisiana healthcare and education. We're throwing a big ol' Second Line on Friday, April 9th, at 5:30 at Lafayette Square Park, and we'd love to see you there.

In the meantime, please help us organize and plan, to make this the best event it can possibly be. You can find our meeting schedule, as well as lots of flyers and other info, at the SRLC Welcoming Committee website . We would love the involvement of more people and more groups. Our coalition is steadily growing!

We're meeting at the Rail, Friday at 4 pm and Monday at 8 pm, but more importantly, please join us Saturday at 2pm for a glorious time making and eating BARBECUE and also making but not eating SIGNS and BANNERS for the Second Line!

Please bring yourself, and as much banner/sign/craft supplies as you can gather, and also all your artsy friends and their supplies. This is a lovely thing to do on a Saturday!

The Only Good Cop Is A .................

On Saturday, November 7, 2009, the New Orleans Bookfair was in full swing, with blocks of tables full of local independent, radical, and alternative literature. A cop had been cruising the streets of the outdoor fair, stopping to stare at punk-looking musicians and the kids in the bouncey castle (pedophiles on the force?), making several passes as the otherwise festive day unfolded.
Like a hyena marauding at the edges of the event, he eventually pounced, stopping a bicyclist for riding the wrong way down the street, which was being harmoniously utilized by walking customers, bicyclists, musicians, and cars, all giving each other the space they needed. The officer stopped his car in the middle of the street, in the middle of the fair, and blocked traffic for over 30 minutes while he proceeded to slowly write a ticket to an unfortunate one of the dozens of people riding up and down the street on bicycles in both directions.
This cop was mistaken in thinking he could get away with his harassment of cyclists unchallenged, and soon a crowd gathered to witness and confront this blatant harassment. Chants began of "Stop Police Harassment" and "Riding a bike is not a crime," as bookfair attendees, neighbors, and onlookers joined in. Soon the lone cop was facing down a crowd of dozens, clapping, chanting, and exposing the routine function of the police as arbitrary bullies, enforcing the version of "law and order" they choose to enforce: against the poor, against cyclists, and against alternative cultures.
The cop was completely shamed, humiliated, and embarrassed, as not one person in the crowd of hundreds of onlookers supported his actions. He succeeded in further, and thanks to the spontaneous protest, very publicly, delegitmizing the role of the police in New Orleans for hundreds of people. The unemployed cyclist, who the cop no doubt saw as an easy target, was grateful for the support he received, and local anarchists pledged to stay in touch and bring a full courtroom to his hearing, as well as help him pay his ticket if he is convicted. Solidarity is our power.

His court date is set for December 23rd, and New Orleans bicyclists, anarchists, and anti-Prison Industrial Complex activists will be there to see this fight to its finish and show the cops that harassment of bicyclists and poor people in our city will not be tolerated.

To stay informed and get the details of the court-hearing, join the NOLA-anarchists email group:Send a blank email to nola-anarchists+subscribe@googlegroups.com

PROTEST! New time! Keep the heat on wage-stealing TONY MORAN'S ! Time to escalate!

NEW TIME!

Meet up Thursday, October 29th at/outside Tira Misu 55, a bar at 123 Carondelet, at seven thirty P.M. to organize and plan. From there, we'll march over to the location of the protest: TONY MORAN'S "Italian" restaurant on Bourbon st. near the corner of Bourbon & Conti.

Tony Moran's management have been demanding workers do hours of prep while off the clock, have CONSISTENTLY STOLEN TIPS, and have withheld, bounced, and fiddled paychecks, often hiring people for catering jobs and then just refusing to pay them.

This behavior will continue-- more hard-working restaurant employees will be fucked over-- unless we send them a strong message that this behavior is unacceptable!

New Orleans restaurant workers are NOT interchangeable or disposable. All employees deserve fair pay, honest treatment, and dignity-- NOT bullying, discrimination and theft.

Attendees of the last protest got a chance to meet arch-villain Jobert Salem, the owner of (among other things) Tony Moran's and a world-class charmer : he was out there slapping at cameras, attempting to bully and shove protesters, press and passers-by, cussing, threatening, calling the cops, dancing with rage like a tantrum-throwing sweater-wearing child.

Have you or anyone you know had an abusive, bullying boss? Have you been underpaid or maltreated by your employer? This is a chance to stand in solidarity with others, united and strong, and say: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. We must send an unmistakeable message to Jobert and bosses like him: Treat your workers fairly.

This protest is being organized by ROC-NOLA, Restaurant Opportunities Center of New Orleans on behalf of its members who've been cheated and robbed by Tony Moran's.

All of us must KEEP THE PRESSURE ON this restaurant until management agrees to sit down and negotiate. It is vital that all New Orleanians concerned with social justice join in this effort. Last week, ROC's initial protest, went well, but let's bump the turnout up and let Jobert Salem and fat cats like him know the era of screwing over workers has ENDED.

Our city is overdue for some social justice victory... let's take a stand for our fellow restaurant workers! Please join in this important action, please invite friends and associates, please help spread publicity, and together, we'll stand strong against worker exploitation!

Thanks... and we'll see ya on the picket line!!!

PUT DOWN THE CAMERA, PICK UP A BRICK

From windows, I see lights flashing
and maybe
somebody's takin pictures...

HEY LISTEN... do you have photographic imagez of or pertaining to thee Iron Rail? Newer? Older? Whenever? Us (derrick) tabling? The outside of the space? The inside of the space? The big Kimya Dawson love-in? The Rail defiantly open during police curfew? Something expecially clever written on the open-door chalkboard?

Please make such photographic materials available via a link in the comments, and/or e-mail it to nolabookcollective@hotmail.com . We'd like to put it on our website, and we will give you a credit & link if ya want...

Thanks! 

p.s. FNOPD

HONOR, AID, RESIST

It's a tragedy when people die, when anyone dies. It's a tragedy when people who lived genuinely anarchist lives and believed in resisting authority die, and sadder when and their death prompts allies to collaborate with police.

The police-- especially the NOPD-- are enemies of the people. This is not only true when you're wearing a "Stop Snitchin'" t-shirt, in ironic homage to black communities' silence in the face of oppression and interrogation; it's true when crime happens to you and "yours." It remains true when someone with your own complexion and economic background is killed. It remains true when kids steal the tip jar from the coffee shop you work at. It remains true when a New Orleanian without adequate mental health care flips out and is shouting at invisible stuff outside the house you rent.

The NOPD will never be part of a solution. Not short-term, not long-term.

Collaboration with the police sells out everything Brydrum LIVED for and fought so hard for. Let's celebrate her rich, bold, uncompromising LIFE, her optimism, and her rejection of authority, including violently repressive authority such as the NOPD. Let's work to eradicate the misogyny and social inequities that leads to tragedies such as her death. Let's not be hypocrites.

SEASON'S GREETINGS FROM THE NOPD