[Vision2020] Immediate Aid to New Orleans

[Joan Opyr]

"War Room" is written by Tim Grieve and published on Salon.com.  I'm 
forwarding this without permission.  Also, at the risk of being shouted 
off 2020, Michael Moore (www.michaelmoore.com) has an email up today 
about how to get supplies to New Orleans immediately.  Forget FEMA.  
Cindy Sheehan -- remember her? -- has moved Camp Casey from Crawford, 
Texas to the edge of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.  From there, she 
and her volunteers are distributing aid directly to the victims of 
Hurricane Katrina.  Moore has an address on his website for sending 
supplies to a local food bank/volunteer aid organization, where Sheehan 
and her crew pick them up for distribution.  You can also donate money 
to Volunteers for Peace via PayPal, and they'll use it to buy supplies 
from whatever regional stores are still standing.

What's needed?  Bottled water.  Pedialyte.  Diapers.  Canned 
vegetables.  School supplies.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com

 From Salon:

The "blame game"? You can play along at home

While insisting that now is no time for playing the "blame game," the 
president's supporters are busy blaming state and local officials for 
the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina. They've claimed that 
Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco didn't declare a state of emergency. She 
did, on Aug. 26, when the president was still on vacation. And they've 
claimed that Blanco was slow to ask for federal help. In fact, Blanco 
wrote a letter to the president on Aug. 28 in which she said that an 
"effective response" to Katrina's destruction would be "beyond the 
capabilities of the state and affected local governments" and requested 
federal help to "save lives" and "protect property."

  The president was on vacation then, too.

  But FEMA Director Michael Brown wasn't, and he got right to work. More 
or less. Internal FEMA documents show that Brown waited five hours 
after Katrina struck land on Aug. 29 before he asked Homeland Security 
Secretary Michael Chertoff to send 1,000 department employees to the 
Gulf Coast. And even then, he suggested that Homeland Security 
employees should have a couple of days to get themselves in place.

  Once in place, the Homeland Security employees would, among other 
things, "convey a positive image" of the government's response to the 
hurricane, Brown told Chertoff.

  -- T.G.

Permalink [09:54 EDT, September 07, 2005]
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