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TechnoratiAnti-Govt Protests Planned to Mark Second Anniversary of Katrina Tragedy
NEW YORK - Thousands of protesters are expected to converge on New Orleans Wednesday to raise awareness about what they believe to be the Bush administration's failure to help Americans who lost everything in the wake of a ferocious storm that hit the United States' Gulf Coast some two years ago.
Organized by a number of civil rights and advocacy groups, the demonstration is part of a series of events taking place in New Orleans this week to mark the second anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, which destroyed the beautiful city and swaths of other settlements along the Gulf Coast on the night of August 29, 2005 and the days that followed.
Organizers said they expected people would join the rally in large numbers to demand swift action from the Bush administration to create a kind of "Marshall Plan" to restore New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region.
"We are soliciting all people of conscience to join us for 'A Day of Presence' to show the people of the Gulf that we do care," said Melanie L. Campbell, executive director the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
Statements from Campbell's group and its allied organizations suggest that, though there has been some progress in recovery efforts, a large part of New Orleans' population remains displaced and those that have returned to their homes are still desperately seeking help.
"Too many people who want to return have not been able to do so. Emergency rooms are overcrowded and uninsured poor people find it almost impossible to obtain specialty care," according to the Louisiana Justice Institute, one of the groups planning Wednesday's protest.
In addition to killing 1,800 people, the hurricane left more than 800,000 homeless -- most of them African Americans and poor people of European descent.
Independent researchers hold that biased and discriminatory practices on the part of some authorities have prolonged much of the deprivation and suffering of Katrina's victims.
A recent study by the nation's largest civil rights watchdog, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), points out that incidents of racial injustice and human rights abuses on the Gulf Coast have increased since Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005.
In the report, entitled "Broken Promises: Two Years After Katrina," the ACLU has documented numerous civil rights violations in Louisiana and Mississippi over the past two years, including a number of incidents involving racially motivated police actions, housing discrimination, and prisoner abuse.
In light of its findings, the ACLU demanded the U.S. Congress adopt legislation to address post-Katrina injustices, including racial profiling, voter disenfranchisement, and the dearth of health care facilities and low-income housing.
"Two years ago, Americans were glued to their television sets, outraged at the images of poor people of color cast aside in the aftermath of Katrina," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, in a statement. "Politicians made promises, but they failed to fix the problems."
"The government must be held accountable for its mistakes," he added, "rather than allowed to perpetuate the systemic racism and discrimination that only added strength to the storm."
The ACLU report also highlights the plight of prisoners in New Orleans jails who were abandoned during the storm. The jail system is now plagued by inhumane and dangerous conditions, inadequate health care, and a lack of preparedness for possible future storms, the group said.
Protest organizers said they will demand at the rally that President Bush redirect the money being spent in the war on Iraq to rehabilitate Katrina victims.
Bush is due to arrive in New Orleans Tuesday after giving a speech about the Iraq. He is expected to examine recovery efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
In addition to Bush, many other politicians, including leading presidential hopefuls, are also expected to visit New Orleans in connection with the second anniversary of the deadly storm. It's not clear if they will also join the rally.
Organizers said they have asked all the presidential candidates to join in.
Among others invited to speak include Rev. Al Sharpton of the National Action Network; ESSENCE magazine editorial director and entrepreneur Susan L. Taylor; the National Urban League's Marc Morial; Thomas W. Dortch, Jr., representing 100 Black Men of America; and author and professor Michael Eric Dyson.
Copyright © 2007 OneWorld.net.
13 Comments so far
Show AllIf Katrina hit an unpopulated area and caused minimal death and destruction, the Democrats wouldn't even have their congressional majority. The Democrats are damned lucky. The country is damned lucky things aren't even worse here than they are.
st john,
I think you are correct that we are all a part of God ...or the infinite universe.
Our nation in the middle of finding new wars and new nations to destroy is in no way capable of fixing New Orleans or the crumbling infrastructure of the USA or anything a civilized government is expected to do anymore..
I have hope though that if God did want something from us, God would sound like thunder with a mighty vibration that would be heard by all... "Impeach The Rats Already!"
Love, Jim
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1005-24.htm
Published on Wednesday, October 5, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Arrogance in the Face of Disaster
The Bush Administration's Refusal of Cuba's Offer for Medical Assistance Following Hurricane Katrina
by Stephen Zunes
One of the most tragically irresponsible decisions of the Bush administration in the critical hours following Hurricane Katrina was its refusal to accept offers by the government of Cuba to immediately dispatch more than 1500 medical doctors with 37 tons of medical supplies to the devastated areas along the Gulf coast.
... I don't give a three-legged rat's ass HOW in love with Ron Paul white folks are, the state has its role in life; fuck the libertarians! Denying the world free doctors all so some spoiled elite can go without ever being taxed ... WRONG!
And if you're trying to spite Castro, remember, the pot can't call the kettle black. So long as Gitmo is torturing people in America's name on, ironically, Cuban soil, the U.S. ain't gotta right to talk shit ...
Where were all these desperate people today when the Bush Brigade came to town? I am sick of hearing about how the residents of this area still allow this person to even set one foot on their saturated soil. There are no victims, only volunteers. Yes, I have compassion, but I am tired of seeing and hearing the cries of the desperate with no action to back it up. This man and his like should never feel safe again anywhere they go. New York City or New Orleans. Walter Reed Army Hospital or Bagdad. The mercenaries and military guards must have families who are negatively effected by his decisions. How can they, in good conscience, continue to provide him security.
George W Bush is the epitomy of our individual and collective dysfunction and fear, outpictured in our unwillingness to take a stand for peace and justice. And, God has nothing to do with it, one way or the other. He/She/It set the game in motion and we have free will as to how we play it. Fight each other for our need to be right and live in an illusion of separation from our brothers and sisters, or learn to live in harmony and treat each other as we would desire to be treated, not how we think God wants us to treat each other. God doesn't want anything!!! What could God want? If God wanted something, don't you think s/he/it could just create it? It created you, so doesn't that make you part of God? Then that makes me part of God. Then that makes us part of God. Then we must be One with God. How great is that? But, if I hate you, what does that make me? God Hater? And, do you think God cares if S/He/It is hated? God is All There Is, no matter what you call It. Do you get the drift? Yes, I know I drifted way off the topic, but not really. It is about how we treat each other, not how God treats us or what God wants from us. GOD WANTS NOTHING FROM US! Think about all of this and get back to me.
Peace,
st john
It's obvious that there will be no Marshall Plan for the Gulf or anything resembling it. The powers that be are simply going to wait it out until they can buy up property for next to nothing and redevelop the area with casinos, resorts and homes for the wealthy. Screw the poor.
I found this amusing and insightful bit abt Katrina on the Draft Cynthia McKinney for President effort on MySpace.
Cynthia McKinney for President 2008
"As a maverick member of the Congressional "Select Committee" that was meant to help cover up the Bush regime's failures and neglect around Katrina, Cynthia McKinney confronted Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff with this scathing rebuke of both him and his boss: "Mr. Secretary, if the nursing home owners are arrested for negligent homicide [for abandoning 34 clients who died in the floodwaters], why shouldn't you also be arrested for negligent homicide?""
Hurricane Katrina missed hitting New Orleans directly and hit the Gulf Coast. The hurricane damage in N.O. was minimal. What caused the damage was the failure of the levees because of substandard maintenance on top of substandard construction of levees which the Army Corps of Engineers knew full well would not hold off a strong hurricane.
I lived in N.O. in 1969 when Hurricane Camille passed through on the same trajectory, hitting the Gulf Coast at 190 mph and about 70 mph in N.O. Prior to the hurricane's arrival, we were all told not to evacuate. Then the mayor repeated that advice from his underground bunker! At the time, there was no I-10, so it was not possible to evacuate so many people on two-lane highways. On the Gulf Coast, friends of ours drowned from the 25-ft. wave in the attic of their 3-story home. A year later, the Army Corps. of Engineers said that had the hurricane hit directly, the Gulf waters would have pushed up the Intracoastal Waterway and poured Lake Ponchatrain over the city. They knew in 1969 how dangerous the area is, but they never built the promised levees to a higher hurricane standard. The only reason the disaster did not happen sooner was because no huge hurricane passed over until Katrina.
So what are they doing now to protect the people of the area, especially with the protective more southern marshes disappearing by miles due to oil drilling? THEY ARE REBUILDING THE SAME SUBSTANDARD LEVEES!
The federal government is still not willing to spend the funds to protect Americans from the inevitable much stronger hurricanes due to global warming, but they are willing to waste billions in foreign wars.
This is a cautionary tale to all those who, understandably, want to return to rebuild their homes. When the next strong hurricane hits, the same thing will happen, and there will be more preventable deaths.
The Marshall Plan wasn't as benevolent as it is made out to be. Granted, the US government spent a lot of money on it, but it was primarily a vehicle to expand US markets and corporate power. Sure, it helped rebuild Europe after the war, but the way it was done involved hiring ex-Nazis, crushing labor organization and funneling billions of aid dollars back to US corporations. The goal was not so much to rebuild Europe but to extend and consolidate the US's power.
The entire Gulf region *does* need rebuilding, and the US government should tax the hell out of the wealthy and corporations in order to pay for it. However, whatever plan they come up with should not be another giveaway to corporate interests.
Check the People's Tribunal
This is where everyone should be - it's what the organizers on the ground planned for the anniversary...
don't expect bush co. to have anything for new orleans but lip service and doublespeak.
Symbolic of the worst of Government, the partial dismemberment of an agency by rogue gangsters, and the continuing punishment of the disenfranchised. It isn't enough to see human destruction in a lottery funded sports arena to demand an end to our current dysfunction. Diversion tactics will go forward, the tv addled lie of street crime, the race to stupidity, and a hollow fool talking about nothing in particular.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall south of New Orleans at 6:10 a.m. Aug. 29, 2005, as a strong Category 3 hurricane that flooded 80 percent of the city and killed more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
"Look at the Landscape, then feel your heart break" - Landscape (for NOLA).
Our love goes out to NOLA this day. May America find the strength and compassion to take care of it's own.
http://myspace.com/marsarizona
great oppourtunity to tar and feather the son of a bitch!! The CMSM will downplay the protestors and pro peace advocates. GUARANFVKINTEED!!!!!!!