Hurricane victims tell Congress they were threatened with guns by police

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06398992.htm

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Survivors from New Orleans told a congressional panel on Tuesday they felt abandoned by government at all levels after Hurricane Katrina hit the city and had been subjected to racial slurs and menaced by guns when they sought food and water.

"We were abandoned. City officials did nothing to protect us," Patricia Thompson, a New Orleans evacuee now living in Texas, told a House of Representatives panel investigating the response to the storm.

"We saw buses, helicopters and FEMA trucks but no one stopped to help us. We never felt so cut off in all our lives," Thompson said.

She described "demoralizing and inhumane" treatment by police telling the panel: "We were cursed when we asked for help for our elderly. We had guns aimed at us by the police who were suppose to be there to protect us."

[bluestateguy]

1. Has that asshole police chief from Gretna been called to testify?

That's one "local official" who has not been held to task, save for a few obscure websites.

[cantstandbush]

2. I listened to those hearing in my car. I couldn't move. I cried.

I was smitten with anger and horror that this could happen now in my country. If I were a black soldier fighting in Iraq right now and heard that testimony, I would have to become an objecter and I would advise other blacks to never join the military to fight and kill in the name of US. I'm sorry. It was difficult to hear how those victims were treated and victimized over and over again.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Sounds like those plans to turn the Gulf Coast into a 3rd world country

are going off without a hitch.

[FreedomAngel82]

4. This is so horrible

:cry:

[fooj]

5. Yes. I was ashamed. It was horrible...

:cry: :cry: :cry:

[jbnow]

6. General Honoré won my heart when he yelled

at the soldiers in the trucks to quit pointing their guns at the people they were finally bringing food to. It was horrifying to see them treating our citizens like enemies!

I was in my air conditioned house with all the food and water I could want and those were horrible days for me. I could not believe another day kept passing, another night, and NO HELP! I was hoping some other country would invade just to get them food and water. I will never, never understand this.

We gave millions to all the 9/11 families and I felt every abandoned family here deserved at least as much because this was no outside enemy, this was US putting them through this hell.

I have to believe they wanted riots so they could come in and take charge. That there weren't riots says something wonderful about the character of these people.

May their voices be heard. may they echo around the country.

I say that...but I doubt that. I heard that stupid RNC spokesman Ken M? talk about what he saw wasn't our failure but the failure of the welfare state. SHUT UP. What did he see? Black people who had no food, water, clothing. They had nothing because there was a hurricane so the welfare part was that they were black and had not been able to leave town. He's never heard of the working poor or lower middle class? Never heard that people in cities don't always have cars or good cars? Never heard of pay check to pay check?
And what if they were on welfare? That stopped us from bringing food and water?

What I'm saying is it seems like many on the right somehow think they brought this on themselves? I heard many similar comments. They don't see our shame, our failure as a nation.

And we are still failing them.

[Anita Garcia]

7. ignoring us

With flood lights and national news coverage, I watched people working 24 hours, day after day, cleaning up the hole that was 9/11. I was proud that our government stepped up to the plate and compensated the victims of 9/11.

Where are our flood lights?
Why are we not receiving round the clock clean-up efforts?

Since it was the government's ineptitude and possible fraud that caused the levee failures, why does the government not want to protect us from another disaster with appropriate levee construction?

Who needs to be reminded that the tragedies of Katrina and Rita devastated not one neighborhood or government building, but four states?

[Peace Patriot]

8. This is the untold story of Katrina: the dignity, beauty and faith, and

the patience, of the people who were being subjected to murderous neglect. No riots. No snipers at aid helicopters. (In fact, the poor were BEING shot.) Amazingly little disorder, in the face of catastrophe.

"I have to believe they wanted riots so they could come in and take charge. That there weren't riots says something wonderful about the character of these people." --NNN0LHI

So true! Community. Family. A strong, deeply rooted culture--that has now been scattered to the far winds. Ah, me.

And the hell of it is, that the lies that were told were deliberate, and the neglect was deliberate, because we now know that Bush/Rove were strongarming Blanco for total WH control and martial law, and were USING these poor, dying, helpless people in an extortion scheme to pressure her to yield.

We can only guess at the motives--and perhaps at the motives behind the motives (i.e., control of all the loot, and behind that, I suspect, Traitorgate is lurking), but there is no question in my mind, now, that it was deliberate. It's overwhelming when you add it all up. The battleship offshore, with hospitals and supplies, ready to help, that couldn't get an order from Bush. All the amazing help that was refused, or obstructed, or delayed, or ignored. Story after story after story. The "talking points" and lies that were being fed into the newsstream. Cheney--lurking in his rathole somewhere until Halliburton got the first no-bid contract--ordering that power be restored to the Texas to northeast oil pipeline, rather than rural hospitals, one of which was already on generators. (The ground crews worked through the night, thinking they were helping the hospitals.) Blanco's pleas--to deaf ears. The utter callousness and obliviousness at the top of our government.

The one good that may come of it is the exposure of the Bush Cartel's naked greed--in fact, their utter lack of anything even vaguely resembling the teachings of Jesus, for all their utter religious hypocrisy--and their underlying racism (which they try so hard to cover up and lie about).