Cindy Sheehan is going to be giving a talk at Boxcar Books today at 11:00. Afterwards I have heard she is going to be speaking in People’s Park (around 12:00).
I know that right now many of us have our attention focused on the NOLA situation, but I would urge people to remember that the people there are not the only people suffering in the world right now. Personally, I hold our government accountable for the NOLA situation (in terms of preventable measures that weren’t taken, and incompetence within the bureaucracies that were supposedly developed to deal with this type of situation), but there can be no mistaking that our government *is* responsible for the loss of life and the long-term economic devastation that the people of Iraq face at our hands. Cindy Sheehan lost a son, and wants to know *why* she had to lose a son to this situation, when all the reasons given in support of this war have melted into thin air, and Halliburton and other Bushco buddies are raking in the reconstruction bucks. As yet, the government has not offered an adequate response.
So, let’s not forget the tragedy of other people in the face of our own tragedies, especially when our government deliberately caused the situation those people now face. We’re all human beings.
Alyc Helms 
But who was really at fault? The federal goverment or the local one? The state and city agencies knew what was coming and didn’t have an exit strategy. There was no leadership on the ground, no officials telling people where to go and what to do. No communications back up, no generators, no default shelters or evacuation points.
When 9/11 occurred, it was NY that dug itself out. NYFD and NYPD that mobilized that day within the hour of the crashes to get people out. Where was the NOPD? The NOFD? This scenario wasn’t a new concept and if the local leadership knew what *could* happen over the last decade or so, they should have been prepared for it – federal assistance or no.
But the local officers didn’t prepare and went running after the fact to the Feds for help and yes, it takes time to mobilize forces, gather resources, get aid and get into the area. Meanwhile, the local authorities did nothing to prevent murder, rape in the Superdome, direct people where to go and abandoned search and rescue to cut down on looting.
Protecting stuff over people. That was the call of the local authorities. There is plenty of blame being passed around, but you have to think the people that live there and know the ‘what ifs’ should have been better prepared to deal with a worst case scenario.
As to the Cindy Sheehan situation, I was flipping channels and happened upon Forest Gump (the movie) and the scene where he’s in DC during the huge anti-war protest and he’s reunited with Jenny. Where is that passion with the anti-war movement today? Does it only exist online with MoveOn.org, Michael Moore and other leftist orgs? Does one mother protesting make a difference? If people want to truly effect policy, they need their fellow protestors to come out and show their support for an anti-war movement – with throngs of these American citizens at the White House, not just a small camp outside a ranch in Crawford. Everything else just looks like partisan politics or armchair quarterbacking.
Just wanted to comment on the last bit. Your argument is that because the war movement looks too small they should give up because they don’t matter. Thats circular reasoning.
Your movement is too small.
You should give up trying to organize.
Because your movement is too small.
Not really, I’m just saying if there are so many anti-war protestors, where are they? why aren’t they mobilizing and making their voices heard in public like Ms. Sheehan? Why aren’t they in DC outside the White House like during Vietnam?
Cindy wasn’t there. She’s on another bus. Which is not to say that it wasn’t an interesting and somwehat moving experience. The press session was particularly interesting.
Ah. Well, you’ll have to tell me how things went. I missed the entire thing because I was in my E.U. Economics class. By the time I got there, it was all over and there were cloggers (so, not a complete loss).
Did learn more interesting information about U.S. Foreign Aid policies in relationship to the Marshall Plan. I’m really starting to suspect that we are deliberately leaving food, supplied and aid on foreign runways so we won’t have to deal with getting what we’ve given. I’ll be interested to see how the aid situation shakes down in the next couple of months.
Ah yes, the Marshall Plan. Where we set the model for foreign aid and how to use it to enforce doctrine abroad that we’ve been using ever since.
After the 10 mintutes the city of Bloomington gave them in People’s Park, they headed off the the Dunn Meadow. I didn’t stay for all of it because they were repeating a lot of the stuff from the press conference at Boxcar Books which I attended.
Please read my post again, Clndestyn, because I think you are reading partisanship into it that isn’t there. I don’t make a distinction between the federal and regional resposibilities, because I think federal, state and local levels of government all have issues that they need to be accountable for. Moreover, I do not make a distinction between party lines. I specifically use the term “government” because I believe the problem lies in the multiplying layers of bureaucracy that do little more than give cushy jobs to people who are not qualified to organize such agencies.
The only time I specifically critique the Bush Administration in my post is when I bring up the juicy contracts given to Halliburton and other companies who have been documented to be closely affiliated with the Bush family in the wake of the systematic devastation of another country. But that circumstance is not (yet) NOLA.
Haliburton actually is already contracted to rebuild several NOLA locations as well as 3 military bases that suffered damage from Kat.
I’ll try and give you a source in the morning.