Ben DeSoto/Houston Chronicle Jesse Jackson, center, U.S. Rep. Al Green left, and U.S. Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee hold a press conference before touring the Astrodome.
Posted on 09/05/2005 2:04:37 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Ben DeSoto/Houston Chronicle Jesse Jackson, center, U.S. Rep. Al Green left, and U.S. Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee hold a press conference before touring the Astrodome.
Joining two of Houston's most prominent black legislators in slamming the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said today that evacuees shouldn't be shipped to distant states and shouldn't be referred to as "refugees."
Jackson said he appreciated the willingness of states as far away as Utah and Minnesota to take in evacuees but suggested such plans take them too far from their families and the homes that must be rebuilt.
"It's a long ways from home," he said. "It's a long way from where they have lived, where they were acculturated."
If evacuees are living thousands of miles away, he said, they can't be in on the jobs and economic opportunities that will arise as their communities are rebuilt. He proposed using military bases in Louisiana, such as the mothballed England Air Force Base in Alexandria. Evacuees could live in dorms and tent cities.
Jackson said evacuees from the Gulf Coast are not refugees, a word he believes suggests subhumans or criminals.
"It is racist to call American citizens refugees,'' he said.
After touring the Reliant Astrodome today, Jackson blamed the federal government for many of the problems evacuees now face. The government should have assisted New Orleans with evacuation efforts before the storm struck and has been far to slow in its wake to rescue those left in the city and provide aid, he said.
"As the waters subside, the death toll could be astronomical, of frightening dimensions, because we've been so slow to act," Jackson said
U.S. Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, D-Houston and U.S. Rep. Al Green, D-Houston, also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency left New Orleans unprotected.
"This was a test case, and we failed," Jackson Lee said.
Jackson also lambasted the Louisiana office of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, saying it should have let the Red Cross into New Orleans immediately after the hurricane passed one week ago.
Homeland security officials told the Red Cross not to enter the city because they were trying to get residents out, not encourage them to stay, because most of the city was still under water, and because armed gangs of looters were in the streets.
Marsha Evans, president of the American Red Cross, said today the agency was ready to go in. Its volunteers understood the danger and were willing to do their jobs, she said.
"The decision not to let them in was not sound," Jackson said. "The danger was exaggerated."
The federal government has been taking criticism from all quarters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, in an open letter, called upon Bush to fire every official at FEMA.
"We're angry, Mr. President,'' the newspaper said in an open letter.
If criticism of the federal government has been sharp, Jackson and other political leaders were happy to praise the efforts of Houston and the state of Texas, where one quarter of a million of Louisiana's refugees have landed.
"I'm so proud of Houston," Jackson Lee said. "This city has done a wonderful job."
Well, that's it, of course. Losin' all they culture, see, and the nex thaing they be gitt'n jobs, payn' taxes, an vot'n fer Publicans! We cain't have dat!
We're getting 3000 up here in MN in the next couple of months. That's about as far from N.O. as you can get.
Time to go back to your English-Mexican dictionary, Vicente, amigo mio. If there is anything Mexicans are good at, it is corruption.
As anyone who's ever been shaken down by the Federales for a contribution to El Presidente's Swiss bank retirement fund can tell you.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I PROMISE you one thing;
The Vietnamese who were also disproportionally made refugees (again) by this storm will do just fine in rebuilding their lives after it has passed.
It will not be easy since they came to the gulf because they had been 'acculturated' to rural, sea coast, fishing, lives for generations. Now they've been here long enough to be able to step away if needed and to do just as well in other places.
Jessie, eat your hart out, if you can find it.
There are two possible translations:
Oh, no, don't ship those Democrat voters out of Louisiana. A Democrat might never win in LA again.
Like I said before, the leftists are more interested in rebuilding the Democrat Party than they are in rebuilding NOLA.
lol
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