Friday
Sept 23, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 38
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Monday, Dec 01, 2008
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Letters |
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| BUSH: EMPTY PROMISES
Dear SGN, It was not only the soggy city of New Orleans that was up to its neck in trouble last night. When President Bush delivered his speech in that city on September 15, he was deep in trouble himself. Gas prices are soaring. The Iraq war is failing. His showpiece "no child left behind" initiative is under lawsuit. His lieutenants, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, are being investigated. Government debt is soaring. Then hurricane Katrina comes along and lays bare his bankrupt administration and hurricane Rita is coming right behind her. Bush is indeed up to his neck. Yet even at this late juncture, this desperate president cannot muster the sympathy it would take to turn the corner and win back public support. It just isn't in him. He really doesn't "feel your pain." He remains nothing more than a spoiled rich white frat boy who has never known hardship. Instead of sympathy, he delivered a canned speech empty of feeling and full of empty promises. He promised to pay for families to get reunited. He promised rent assistance to the evacuees. He promised to reimburse school and health costs to the states which have absorbed the victims of the hurricane tragedy. He promised to bring in mobile homes, extra doctors and nurses, and money to pay police and fire fighters overtime. He promised to rebuild the public infrastructure with federal funds. While he was on this gravy roll, Bush went on to give away tax cuts to businesses and incentives to restart the economies of the damaged gulf zone. Like somebody tossing confetti out of a window, Bush promised $5000 per evacuee for job retraining and child care. Then he gave away federal public lands for these people to homestead. None of these promises have any money to back them. The federal government is broke. Bush and his "have more" cronies have looted the public piggy bank to fund their tax cuts, their foreign wars, and their right wing religious agendas. Five times Bush mentioned churches and religious communities in his speech as if they were already an integral part of his government. Given his agenda, they probably are. He only named FEMA twice. President Bush's speech was as hollow as his heart. He doesn't care about the homeless, the unemployed, or the minorities now any more than he did before the storm. Nothing has changed for him. He went right back in his speech to his so-called war on terror, weapons of mass destruction, and September 11 as if the greatest natural disaster ever to hit America were nothing more than a ripple in his ongoing agenda. And just as soon as he returned to Washington DC, he promised his rich friends that he would make their tax cuts permanent. Then he signed over reconstruction contracts with Halliburton. There are apparently some promises that Bush does keep but they are the ones that will break America. It is time to impeach him. Sincerely, Janice Van Cleve Friends, There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show. So, in the next few days, I will write to you about what must be done about Bush and Co. But today I want you to join with me in bypassing the colossally inept and incompetent Bush administration and get help DIRECTLY to the people of the New Orleans area - right now. A lot of you have written me to ask what you can do. Many don't know who to trust. Many want to do more than write a check. You are right to think that writing checks to relief agencies will not get water and aid to people in the next 48 hours. Checks will be needed later and can be written later. I have a way, though, for each and every one of us to do something today that can affect people's lives TODAY. For the past few days I've been working with a group that, I guarantee you, will get direct aid to the people who need it most. Cindy Sheehan, the brave woman who dared to challenge Mr. Bush at his summer home, has now sent her Camp Casey from in front of Bush's ranch to the outskirts of New Orleans. The Veterans for Peace have taken all the equipment and staff of volunteers and set up camp in Covington, Louisiana, on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. They are accepting materials and personally distributing them to those in need. This is where we come in. We need to ship supplies to them immediately. Today they need the following: Paper plates, paper towels, toilet paper, baby diapers, baby wipes, baby formula, Pedialyte, baby items in general, powder, lotion, handy wipes, sterile gloves, electrolytes, LARGE cans of veggies, school supplies, and anything else to lift people's spirits. You can ship these items by following the instructions on VFPRoadTrips.org. Or you can deliver them there in person. The roads to Covington are open. Here's how to get there. You can drop them off or you can stay and participate (if you stay, you'll be camping so bring your own tent and gear and mosquito spray). If you can't ship these items or go there in person, then go to VFPRoadTrips.org and make an immediate donation through PayPal. Camp Casey-Covington will have immediate access to this cash and can buy the items themselves from stores that are open in Louisiana (all donations to Veterans for Peace, are tax deductible). Each day I will post up-to-the minute information as to what is needed and the progress Camp Casey is making. Please visit MichaelMoore.com often and do what you can to help. Many other groups are also doing good work. MoveOn.org has set up a system for people to offer rooms in their homes to the survivors. There is no time to waste. People are suffering and dying. Each of us can do something. There is no other alternative. Thank you in advance for your help. Tomorrow, we will take care of the other work we need to do about the ideologically hamstrung incompetents in charge. Yours, Michael Moore Mike@MichaelMoore.com MichaelMoore.com Dear Seattle PI, [Editor's Note: The following is a letter forwarded to the SGN by its author. The original recipients include: The Seattle Post Intelligencer, George W. Bush, Howard Dean and John Conyers.] It is my understanding that Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was seen buying a very expensive pair of shoes the day after New Orleans was flooded and the surrounding Gulf Coast was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. With thousands of people trapped without food and water, I could not help but picture Rome burning while Nero fiddled. As for the insensitive remarks that George W. Bush's mother, Barbara Bush, made regarding the poor of New Orleans on her visit to the Astro Dome, I thought about Marie Antoinette's remark concerning the poor of France just before the French Revolution, "Let them eat cake." This, to a people who where starving. The one thing I remember more than anything else from history classes is that those who fail to learn from it are doomed to repeat it. Sincerely, George Whitaker Bellevue, WAt |
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