Can we win the battle for New Orleans using a Gandhian approach?
Louisiana Weekly – New Orleans musicians to hit the streets in silent protest
A Fast For Nia – organized by Peace Is Possible New Orleans
Let’s not forget that it was Gandhi who said “It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.” I think it’s time to eat and make more noise.
I totally agree with you.
Our Psych services are shattered, and even pre-Flood NOPD was less than helpful. These facts however should never be used to lessen our rights and liberties as citizens, even in the name of “safety”.
Nia’s murder was a random act of violence, not a planned robbery or a mugging. This is not in the catagory of a home invasion. To allow the PTB to carry someone off to a psych ward because they are having a bad day is unacceptable in a free society.
The best way to control this problem we are living with here is to be ourselves and to extend a helping hand to those around us who are hurting. It is always a risk, but that’s how it goes in a land dedicated to freedom of the individual.
Life is Life… there are no certainties. If someone wants a controlled life, let ’em move to North Korea.
And yes… make all the noise you can in order to make things better within the system and philosophy that our Nation lives by.
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t fast because they consider crime uncontrollable here and NOPD useless in the case of Nia Robertson. “Regular” crime in NOLA and this incident cannot be put in the same category, as you say. I’m not even saying people shouldn’t fast. I just wonder what good it’s really going to do and what change it will effect other than an exercise in auto-placation … and hunger.
You have to admit, Morwen, that our city attracts a certain sort of person, including itinerant ex-military PTSD headcases. Also, life has no certainties but NOPD and psych services should be nets we can rely on in a taxpayer-based city in 21st-century America. Nia’s killer should not have been carried off to the psych ward because he was exhibiting “suspicious signs,” but his odds of checking his ass into a mental institution would have been higher if we had better and more abundant services.
Trust me Maitri, I do understand your point. Having lived in S.F. for decades, I watched many unstable people come into the landscape. And yes I’ve had some scrapes with them when I was on the Mayor’s Commission concerning the homeless.
The major difference between here and there is that we do not have the normal amount of psych services (since I’m Trans, I must be overseen by a therapist, and since the VA Hospital is shattered, I have to pay for my sessions with a therapist in Metairie). It is very hard for someone to get help.
We also have the NOPD that can’t find it’s bottom with two hands, a mirror, GPS and a searchlight.
How the Heck can a club or other business, call in to the polizi (who you know won’t arrive until after the crime is committed) in order to prevent a possible crime? Should we just accept the Bushite Doctrine that preemptive strikes are valid?
I have to live with this each and every day. Trans folk, in a survey from 2001, rank just below pond scum but above evangelicals when it comes to public acceptance. Yet still I walk my areas, knowing that some crazed person may come at me. They have their freedoms, and I have my right to protect myself from un-warranted aggression.
To paraphrase Franklin: I’ll take my Liberty to be myself over “safety that is mandated by others.” Otherwise, I don’t deserve safety nor Liberty.
Well, you know what’s going to and will happen: Pal’s, like some other places, will put a buzzer on the door and a gun under the bar for the bartender.
The places I hang out in have been`been doing this for the last two years.
I wouldn’t put the fasting and the silence into the same category. Crime will affect business profits as fewer people opt to go out, and that gives the musicians less power to make their demands. Also, crime affects the tourism. I can see the effect of a silent Second Line if you take it to be a forebearer of things to come, but the press release reads partly like a demand for citizens to step up their purchasing. I don’t think that’s a problem with those who still have pocket change; we try to support our own wherever possible.
But with regard to the expression of fasting versus the expression of noise and feasting – as it relates to getting the message across that citizens, if not the city administration, want PEACE on our streets – I’m all for it. If they can get a permit and gather across from City Hall for the duration, encompassing the homeless already there, even better. I think we need visuals of our desperation in these matters, both that multiple murders are taking place on almost a daily basis, and that the mayor’s office doesn’t give a damn.