Just wanted to point out a few more things that made me even angrier, which I didn\’t think was possible.
+ Halliburton has been hired to be the primary contractor in the clean-up at the Navy facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana. Joe Allbaugh was director of FEMA in the first two years of the Bush presidency; he is now a lobbyist for KBR, the branch of Halliburton that has been awarded the Navy reconstruction contracts.
+ The Red Cross are not being allowed into New Orleans as they are civilians. Only military and FEMA are being allowed in and they don\’t want any volunteers from other cities or countries, oh, except maybe that urban rescue team from Canada that Homeland Security denied border access to.
+ And according to some, people weren\’t being allowed to leave the city, either. Then there\’s this case of this 18-year-old kid who hadn\’t had shelter in NoLa; he found an abandoned school bus and headed for Houston, picking up around 100 people along the way. Police are now trying to decide if he should be charged with grand larceny.
+ Don\’t forget the bit about blacks being told to move to the back of the bus outside of the Hilton hotel.
+ But really, this is the most frightening of it all — beyond all the outrages witnessed on video and relayed through reporters and word of mouth, beyond the babbling rumors on the web and all that, this is by far the worst. This is the blow by blow coverage from the opposite point of view, the Council of Conservative Citizens, who are giving minute details of their version of what\’s been going on in NoLa. They are enraged about the brutal hate crimes taking place — against white people!
How are people dealing with this? Seriously, anyone reading this, how are you dealing with this? I want to DO something; I\’m so madly upset, furious, frustrated, and want to do more than send the paltry few dollars I can spare. I tried talking about the situ with Dr. Maude last night but he brushed me off, saying it was too heavy and he didn\’t want to deal with it, as he had other things to worry about. Well that\’s the difference between us, I guess. What is everyone else doing? Going? Support? Activism? I\’ve been trying to find some sort of organizing being put together about the discrimination and I haven\’t found anything. It\’s more than disheartening.
Oh, and Kayne West, I haven\’t really been able to get into your album at all, but THANK YOU for this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And freaking hell, thank you, Robert Siegel; thank you, Geraldo Rivera; thank you, Anderson Cooper; thank you, Shepard Smith; thank you, Rev. Jackson; and thank you, Ray Nagin.
