This is a total disgrace. (They were not shopping for food and water...
) This lawlessness was carried out as good, honorable New Orleans policemen and policewomen were
risking their own lives on the streets, trying to save lives.
(As so, many point fingers at President George Bush.)
* I heard that Jesse Jackson calls this video racist.
Why would anyone call this video racist, since the first person caught looting was a white man looking at shirts.
This Is Not About Racism.
However, Jesse Jackson and those like him, are waving flames that are not there.
I was in southern Alabama about two weeks before this storm hit. It is true about
the extremely poor conditions many southerns, both white and black have to live under.
I was down there to visit a Marine Buddy's grave, who I served with in Vietnam.
It took me 35 years to find the courage (and money) to make this trip.
I found my buddy's grave behind his church after a 1,200 mile car trip and many hours
of searching for it in and around Fort Gaines, Georgia. The town is on the border with Alabama. Since his town
had no motels that I could find on the internet, I ended up staying the night in Alabama.
When I saw the above video and a few others like it, racism never entered my mind.
Lawlessness is a disgrace and should not be covered up by people like Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al just so they get criminal
support.
My buddy Robert Pierce was very proud to be a Marine and extremely proud of being called
an America. He knew America wasn't perfect. But I'm sure he would feel extremely upset with this lawlessness and
the likes of Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al and their friends, trying to cover it up with using the racism card.
A real leader does not sit around pointing fingers. It's sad
to see so many American politicians still with the finger-pointing.
The Finger-Pointing Commission will start before the people are safe.
It just goes to show what priorities some politicians have. Rather than help the people in so much need, these
politicians are just jockeying for political position.
These fellow Americans need help now! They do not
need politicians arguing... And blaming each other during a National Emergency.
BE PART OF THE SOLUTION...
Get involved the best you can.
For those others, either lead or get out of the way!
(Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al and those others, please move over and let some
real leaders come forward to add some real help!)
Across America, millions of people are responding
to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina by opening up their hearts and checkbooks to help those in need. Across the Gulf Coast
area, volunteers and rescue workers are responding to the horror by working around the clock, some risking their lives to
pluck victims from rooftops and rivers.
And then there are those in New Orleans itself who, confronted by the devastation,
reacted in a way that reminds us, not of the fearful power of Mother Nature, but the tragic depths of human nature: The stole
everything that was not tied down.
These were scenes that made me shake my head in disbelief: Looters casually filling
plastic bags, shopping carts, even handtrucks with loot, all in clear view of their neighbors, the media, even National
Guardsmen.
What hit me like a punch wasn't the looting itself as much as it was the attitude
of the looters. Reporters challenged them, asking the thieves and thugs if it was their own stuff they were taking, and the
looters just laughed.
One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he
was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."
Moms and their kids lugged cases of beer and soda out of a grocery store, smiling
at the TV cameras they passed. Men with bundles of clothes lumbered nonchalantly out of stores on Canal Street in the French
Quarter, while others busted out windows to grab "emergency essentials" like jewelry and luggage.
Where were the cops, you ask? According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune website,
they were at the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, helping themselves to computers and flat screen televisions.
A crowd in the electronics section said one officer broke the glass DVD case so thieving
teenagers wouldn't cut themselves. "The police got all the best stuff. They're crookeder than us," one man groused to the
press.
One looter, 25-year-old Toni Williams, shrugged when confronted by a reporter as she
loaded up with stolen supplies. "It must be legal," she said. "The police are here taking stuff, too."
The more I watched, the more stunned and angry I became. The more I listened, the
more outraged I felt-as when Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu defended those people looting stores of food and water ("That's
understandable," she told MSNBC). Instead of condemning this opportunistic thievery outright, this Democratic Senator urged
Louisiana's looters to "use good judgment."
What does that mean-only steal from Republicans?
One news story quoted a local named Mike Franklin, who stood nearby and watched the
looters' progress. "To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back
at society," he said.
Again and again as I watched these sickening images of brazen looting from an American
city, I asked myself: Who ARE these people? Who are these pathetic losers who raise little kids to be lookouts while they
steal and teach him the phrase "86" to warn of approaching police? Who are these people who, surrounded by the bravery of
law enforcement and rescue workers in the midst of a crisis, choose to give into their lowest, most base selves? Who is this
Mike Franklin who excuses this shameful theft and thuggery as a legitimate response to "oppression?"
"Get back at society?" You mean the society that gives you, for free, 12 years of
education? Whose cops patrol your streets and whose taxpayers provide billions in welfare payments, health care and other
benefits-not to mention billions in FEMA money? Is that the "oppressive society" you have in mind?
Because, speaking as a member of the oppressing class, I want my stuff back. The jeans
and the computers and the beer and the chips-I want the selfish dirtbags who stole it to bring it all back. I want their ingratitude
acknowledged and their shameful acts undone.
Because the store whose doors they kicked in did not belong to "everybody." Those
stores, and the products for sale on their shelves, represented work. They represented investment and sacrifice and saving
and risk-taking, all to build a successful business that one day would face the unavoidable devastation of a hurricane and
the unforgivable destruction committed by their fellow human beings.
It's offensive to hear anyone, from a US Senator to a street-cruising sneak-thief
defend this looting as legitimate. This thievery was not inevitable and it's not excusable.
My family and I were in Richmond, VA in September 2003 when Hurricane Isabelle hit
and knocked out power and water for more than a week. Like hundreds of thousands of others with rotting food in our fridge
and thirsty kids at home, we had to stand in hours-long lines for water and ice just to get by.and we did.
No riots, not stealing, no jumping the ice truck and trying to hijack it. Just people
standing in line waiting their turn. Why couldn't that be New Orleans?
I believe the looting occurred because of what President Bush calls the "soft bigotry
of low expectations." When a US Senator excuses your crimes and a neighbor can explain it as a sociological reaction, then
why not? Why not steal? Why not (as occurred in New Orleans) shoot a fellow looter for getting better stuff than you? Or why
not (as also happened) shoot a cop in the head for trying to stop the looting?
If you live in a community whose culture celebrates lawbreaking, and your neighbors
and leaders expect no better from you, it must be awfully tempting to give in.
In many parts of America, a rising tide like the one in New Orleans would bring out
the best, the most generous, and the most responsible elements in the human character. For whatever reason, the culture of
New Orleans' inner city instead brought out the very worst.
Insurance companies are talking about $25 billion in damages from Hurricane Katrina.
But the damage to the image of the American character may be far more destructive than that.
As hundreds of City of New Orleans buses lay motionless and flooded in parking lots around the city,
one 18 year took a bus and drove out of his flooded city with about 100 people.
Some people are comparing this 18 year old hero to the looters.
This hero did more for his city than his so-called political leaders, who are calling everything racism. Jabbor
Gibson took charge of a sitution, instead of pointing fingers.
HOUSTON -- NEWSCHANNEL 5 crews were in Houston as some desperate refugees arrived in a stolen bus.
HOUSTON -- Thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina were transported to the Astrodome in Houston this week.
In an extreme act of looting, one group actually stole a bus to escape ravaged areas in Louisiana.
About 100 people packed into the stolen bus. They were the first to enter the Houston Astrodome, but they
weren't exactly welcomed.
The big yellow school bus wasn't expected or approved to pass through the stadium's gates. Randy Nathan, who
was on the bus, said they were desperate to get out of town.
"If it werent for him right there," he said, "we'd still be in New Orleans underwater. He got the bus for
us."
Eighteen-year-old Jabbor Gibson jumped aboard the bus as it sat abandoned on a street in New Orleans and took
control.
"I just took the bus and drove all the way here...seven hours straight,' Gibson admitted. "I hadn't ever drove
a bus."
The teen packed it full of complete strangers and drove to Houston. He beat thousands of evacuees slated to
arrive there.
"I t's better than being in New Orleans," said fellow passenger Albert McClaud, "we want to be somewhere where
we're safe."
During a long and impatient delay, children popped their heads out of bus windows and mothers clutched their
babies.
One 8-day-old infant spent the first days of his life surrounded by chaos. He's one of the many who are homeless
and hungry.
Authorities eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome. But the 18-year-old who ensured their
safety could find himself in a world of trouble for stealing the school bus.
"I dont care if I get blamed for it ," Gibson said, "as long as I saved my people."
Sixty legally chartered buses were expected to arrive in Houston throughout the night. Thousands of people
will be calling the Astrodome "home," at least for now.
************************
Some of my African-American heroes are those members of the Baptist Churches, who got involved
with the solution, immediately after the storm stopped. Last Friday night, it was beautiful (and tearful) seeing
hot food being prepared at the Superdome for the thousands by Baptist volunteers...
************************
I think the below racist statements are a disgrace to all Americans. These men and
women are not leaders. They are a major part of the problem.
“The
real question is not only those that didn't get out. The question is why has it taken the government so long to get in. I
feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out
of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner.”
U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., called on Americans not to harshly judge wrongdoers:
"Who are we to say what law and order should be in this unspeakable environment?"
·NY Times
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said cities had been dismissed by the Bush administration because Mr. Bush
received few urban votes.
"Many black people feel that their race,
their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response," Mr. Jackson said, after meeting with
Louisiana officials yesterday. "I'm not saying that myself, but what's self-evident is that
you have many poor people without a way out."
In New
Orleans, the disaster's impact underscores the intersection of race and class in a city where fully two-thirds of its residents
are black and more than a quarter of the city lives in poverty. In the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, which was inundated
by the floodwaters, more than 98 percent of the residents are black and more than a third live in poverty.
·CBS News
The hurricane's racial conflict took on political overtones Friday, as black leaders blasted the Bush
administration's slow response and asked whether race played a part.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson charged that race was
"at least a factor" in the slow response.
"We have an amazing tolerance for black pain," he told CNN on Friday. He
questioned why the U.S. military couldn't house many of the homeless on unused military airbases, adding that more people
will die of starvation and dehydration than from drowning.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D- Md., stopped short of that, saying
that it was the frail, the weak and the sick who were left in need. But in an interview on CNN, Cummings said, "I'm not sure"
if racism was partly responsible for the problems.
"All I know is that a number of the faces that I saw were African-American,"
he said.
·Nola.com
The Rev. Jesse Jackson and some black elected officials have said racial injustice was at the root of the federal government's
disaster response.
Jackson on Saturday criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency, calling its rescue efforts
a "colossal disaster." He also said the government failed to put together a coordinated effort to address the crisis and should
be held accountable.
"There was no national emergency evacuation plan for Americans in the line of danger," Jackson
said at his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headquarters on Chicago's South Side.
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
·SF Bay Area IndyMedia
Jesse Jackson, Jr , D-Illinois., said
too much focus had been placed on the looting which detracted from the main priority of getting food, water and stability
to the tens of thousands of displaced victims.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) joined the Congressional Black Caucus Friday
in blasting the Bush administration's response to the Gulf Coast hurricane disaster.
·CNS News.com
"We cannot allow it to be said that the
difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty,
age or skin color," Cummings said.
He disagreed with administration assurances that "the president is moving as fast
as he can" to get the relief effort mobilized.
The government needs help, Rep. Cummings said - and he wants it to come
from the private sector.
"We have long heard claims of compassionate conservatism among out nation's leaders. We now
want the compassion. This is a time for those with welfare resources to step up to the plate and demonstrate that compassion.
This is a time to save human lives. People are dying because they have no water - have no water in America!"
Cummings said companies that bottle water
now have the "power to save lives," and companies that make baby formula and food must be on the "front lines" of the relief
effort.
"Private contractors with helicopters and boats and buses at their disposal could put those to use in the region,"
he said.
Cummings recited the Bible passage (Matthew 25: 37-40) in which Jesus tells his followers to feed the hungry,
give drink to the thirsty, and clothe the poor: "Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."
"To
the president of the United States, I simply say that God cannot be pleased with our response," Cummings said.
(Source: God 'Unhappy' With Hurricane
Response, Congressman Says. By Susan Jones,
CNSNews.com Senior Editor. September 02, 2005)
Rev. Calvin O. Butts III(pastor
of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem) and others
·NY Times
"If you know that terror is approaching in terms of hurricanes, and you've already seen the damage they've done
in Florida and elsewhere, what in God's name were you thinking?" said
the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem.
"I think a lot of it has to do with race and class. The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."
In the days since neighborhoods and towns
along the Gulf Coast were wiped out by the winds and water, there has been a growing sense that race and class are the unspoken
markers of who got out and who got stuck. Just as in developing countries where the failures of rural development policies
become glaringly clear at times of natural disasters like floods or drought, many national leaders said, some of the United States' poorest cities have been left vulnerable by federal policies.
"No one would have checked on a lot of
the black people in these parishes while the sun shined," said Mayor Milton D. Tutwiler
of Winstonville, Miss. "So am I surprised that no one has come to help us now? No."
The subject is roiling black-oriented
Web sites and message boards, and many black officials say it is a prime subject of conversation around the country. Some
African-Americans have described the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina as "our tsunami," while noting that there has
yet to be a response equal to that which followed the Asian tragedy.
Roosevelt
F. Dorn, the mayor of Inglewood, Calif., and the president of the National Association of Black Mayors, said relief
and rescue officials needed to act faster.
"I have a list of black mayors in Mississippi and Alabama who are crying out for help," Mr. Dorn said. "Their cities are gone and they are in despair. And no one
has answered their cries."
The Rev. Jesse Jacksonsaid cities had been dismissed by the Bush administration
because Mr. Bush received few urban votes.
"Many
black people feel that their race, their property conditions and their voting patterns have been a factor in the response,"
Mr. Jackson said, after meeting with Louisiana officials yesterday. "I'm not saying that myself, but what's self-evident
is that you have many poor people without a way out."
In New Orleans, the disaster's impact
underscores the intersection of race and class in a city where fully two-thirds of its residents are black and more than a
quarter of the city lives in poverty. In the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, which was inundated by the floodwaters, more than
98 percent of the residents are black and more than a third live in poverty.
Spencer R.
Crew, president and chief executive officer of the national Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati,
said the aftermath of the hurricane would force people to confront inequality.
"Most cities have a hidden or not always
talked about poor population, black and white, and most of the time we look past them," Dr. Crew said. "This is a moment in
time when we can't look past them. Their plight is coming to the forefront now. They were the ones less able to hop in a car
and less able to drive off."
That disparity has been criticized as
a "disgrace" by Charles B. Rangel, the senior Democratic congressman from New
York City, who said it was made all the worse by the failure of government officials to have planned.
"I assume the president's going to say
he got bad intelligence, Mr. Rangel said, adding that the danger to the levees was clear.
"I think that wherever you see poverty,
whether it's in the white rural community or the black urban community, you see that the resources have been sucked up into
the war and tax cuts for the rich," he said.
We are nearing 13,000 total supporters and nearing 11,000
petition signers. End this Political Abuse of Power now...
We, the undersigned
People of the United States, are deeply concerned how the State of New Jersey has denied a decorated, combat veteran of the United States, his due
rights as the plaintiff against a corrupt state government lawyer, Robert Correale, his former law
firm, Maynard & Truland and all state government politicians and state officials who have protected them.
We ask that you give John "Jack" Cunningham his Due Process that the State of New Jersey has denied
him for over a decade.
TYRANNY starts when court officials judge the citizens based on the laws,
yet ignore these same laws for themselves and friends.
Here's a great example of
TYRANNY starting in a State's Supreme Court.
Why did the New Jersey Supreme Court
attorney ethics authority insist Supreme Court Ethics Attorney Robert Correale be judged for violations
by the same ethics committee that he was Vice-Chairman of...
"A man good enough to shed his blood
for his country, is good enough to receive a square deal afterwards . . ." -- Theodore Roosevelt
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall
be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."
Exposure to
traumatic events~such as natural disasters, abuse, crime, accident, rape, war etc.~ millions of people develop PTSD with symptoms raging from nightmares
to headaches, flashbacks, withdrawing from people, profound sadness, anxiety, anger, guilt, fatigue, pessimism, sexual problems
and emotional numbing.
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be
directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." -
George Washington
TODAY'S BRAVE AND HONORABLE MILITARY
IS TOMORROW'S VETERANS
WITH THE HELP OF INTERNET
SUPPORTERS, Former CAP Marine, Veterans Advocate
And Webmaster Jack Cunningham, Takes On New
Jersey's Office Of Attorney Ethics' Corruption...
FOR THE NEW JERSEY SUPERIOR COURT SYSTEM TO LOSE A COURT TRANSCRIPT,
BEFORE IT CAN BE TYPED AND RELEASED AS EVIDENCE IN A FOLLOW-UP ETHICS CASE AGAINST A STATE OFFICIAL IS A DISGRACE AS WELL
AS A CRIME.
Learn the state corruption behind the five (5) year battle of an honorable, disabled
veteran as he still battles the State
of New Jersey for Fair and Equal Justice. See the evidence and
more details at: http://www.americans-working-together.com/id107.html
After reviewing the clear evidence for yourself, please support Jack in his battle against
New Jersey State Corruption by emailing or calling New Jersey State Officials on his behalf.
.
.
