Posted on 10/10/2005 4:48:34 PM PDT by LA Woman3
ST. LOUIS -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Monday accused the Bush administration of using Hurricane Katrina to reconstruct Louisiana politics, saying the U.S. had no plan to return displaced residents.
Jackson also criticized the government's awarding no-bid contracts to outside contractors importing out-of-state and foreign workers to rebuild New Orleans, while thousands of displaced former city residents are "languishing in 40 states" looking for work.
"There is no plan for massive rescue, relocation or return of residents," Jackson said in St. Louis, one stop along a route that a bus caravan of Katrina evacuees is taking to New Orleans to claim those jobs. The evacuees, escorted by Jackson's Chicago-based Operation PUSH, are due to arrive in New Orleans on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at wwltv.com ...
You must be coming across the Causeway? Hear anything about when the Twin Span will reopen?
Nah, really? Why would anyone want to change the politics of such a functional state as Lousyana.
Compare to an earlier thread saying
businesses reopening after Hurricane Katrina have a surplus of jobs and not enough workers to fill them.
Which means he's probably really taking 50..... hope some reporter follows up to see how many he really arrives with but I'm not counting on the MSM to report accurately on anything Jesse does.
Oh, believe me, if Jesse Jackson thinks he'll have some cameras rolling, he'll have a huge entourage of people with him. You should have seen what he pulled here in Pineville, LA.
After Katrina, Jackson got on this soapbox about how military facilities should be used to house evacuees (and how it wasn't politically correct to call them "refugees" even if it was what they freely called themselves). His caravan of buses came up to our neighboring city of Alexandria, LA from the Superdome with about 200 evacuees in the middle of the night, with Jackson demanding that the old England AFB barracks immediately be made available to them. If he had bothered to do his homework, Jackson would have known that the barracks had been uninhabitable for years due to toxic mold, asbestos and a lack of plumbing and air conditioning, and that a $1.6 million plan to rehabilitate them had been scuttled. But noooooooo, he was too busy preening for his midnight photo op.
The City of Alexandria had already announced that its shelters were full to capacity well before Jackson brought the caravan there. After finding that his tantrum was not being well-received by the local authorities, Jackson's buses finally dropped their passengers at a former Wal-Mart building in Pineville which had been set up as a shelter.
Yep, you can definitely count on Jackson to stir things up. Here's the original link from the Alexandria Town Talk:
http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050905/NEWS05/50904001/1086
I find most of the comments here quite distressing.
I've criticized Jackson several times in the past and even a month ago.
However, what he's trying to do is get American workers to rebuild the city rather than illegal aliens.
So, given a choice between supporting Jesse Jackson in something good, and supporting corrupt contractors in something bad, some here end up making the wrong choice.
If you don't like Jackson, do what he's doing, only do it without his usual race-baiting. That might pick up some votes and do some good.
I think it's many of the displaced residents who have no plan to return to NO.
ROTFL! The Bush administration is holding LA residents hostage!!! Breaking!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
I do agree with what you're saying -- i.e., do good, but do it without the grandstanding.
I also agree that it's disconcerting to read that, while thousands of Louisiana residents suddenly find themselves unemployed, the bulk of the workers involved in rebuilding New Orleans are Mexicans. I've often wondered if the people who orchestrated the "Hurricane Pam" drill scenario ever threw that factor into their mix.
Freedom of choice is the bottom line here. If you find a better life in whatever city you've been evacuated to, then seize the opportunity. If you honestly want to come back to New Orleans to handle hazardous waste and sleep in a trailer with your co-workers (as the Mexicans currently do), then you should have the right to apply for that job, too. Just don't let anybody else with an agenda make that decision for you!
Just my $0.02...
That comes as no surprise to the contributing members of the area's tax base, I can assure you.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. BLAH-BLAH, BLAH-BLAH, BLA--DE--DAH.
Thank you LA Woman3. This is great news. Repair is faster than I expected. I won't be able to move back home until the Twin Span is functional.
I don't really mind seeing people who are willing to work step off the bus, but this runs counter to Jackson's stated purpose.
Betcha the most important criteria were met, though...
On nola.com, there are some AP photo galleries with pictures of Jesse Jackson dated today. One shows him in the parking lot of a Memphis motel, and another giving an interview in front of some buses in St. Louis. Both captions state he is returning evacuees to New Orleans. The workers are wearing identical t-shirts, but it's not possible just by looking at them whether these men really come from New Orleans.
Also on nola.com today is an article about a poultry company dealing with 52 million pounds of rotting chicken that needs to be disposed of. I couldn't help but wonder whether this task would be given to Jackson's workers or whether it will be business as usual for the Mexicans.
Why does anyone even bother to print anything Jackson has to say any more?
He's nothing but a selfish political hack and a media whore.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.