Hungry Blues

The press release in my last post quotes Palestinian-American Poet Suheir Hammad, who went to New Orleans as a visiting volunteer. Hammad also has written a moving poem about NOLA, called "a prayer band," which Elisa has posted at Two Feet In.

NEWS NEWS NEWS

WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE

WHEN: 2:30PM FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16 2005

WHERE: 927 PALMYRA, JACKSON, MS

People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee and Misssssippi Emergency Relief Committee

Welcome IFCO/Pastors For Peace Caravan With Aid Donation

16 September 2005, Jackson, Mississippi: Eighteen days after the worst storm in U.S. history ravaged the Gulf Coast, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee (PHRF, a coalition of more than 42 community organizations comprised of people displaced by the hurricane,) and the Mississippi Emergency Relief Committee, will receive seven truckloads of supplies from IFCO/Pastors For Peace.

PHRF, initiated by Community Labor United, a seven year old New Orleans based coalition dedicated to bringing together grassroots organizations to engage in dialogue, strategic planning and collective work, intends to build and maintain a network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations to help meet the needs of people most affected by the hurricane, who are demanding that local, grassroots, black and progressive leadership oversee the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

"The poverty, the racism, the environmental hazards before Katrina were devastating. Now the open sores of this disregard, neglect and bias are bursting for the world to see the infection. It is absolutely imperative, urgent, for those most affected by this crisis to be in charge of all aspects of their own rebuilding," according to Curtis Muhammad of Community Labor United and PHF. We have been moved by the enormous response from people throughout the country and the world, which helps us continue. We thank the Pastors for Peace from the depth of our hearts."

The PHRF is setting up mechanisms to track and support evacuees, document their stories, work to reunite families who have been divided and dispersed, offer medical, legal, educational and other support and advocacy for those who have been displaced, oversee the testing of water, soil and air and direct the reconstruction of their homes, communities and lives. The new coalition is also appealing to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate conditions before, during and after Katrina.

"We are the ones who’ve been treated without care, dignity or respect in our own place, our own country. We are the ones who will decide how to claim what we know as home. The officials have engaged in what we consider to be criminal neglect. We feel like war survivors. We are watching our own lives in disbelief and we call on the world community to listen and support us," stated Mr. Muhammad.

IFCO/Pastors For Peace, a project of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), a New York ecumenical organization founded in 1967, has delivered humanitarian aid "friendship caravans" to Africa, Chiapas, Mexico, Central America and Cuba. The organization directs its donations towards victims of U.S. foreign policy and natural disasters. The seven trucks with supplies for Katrina survivors will go to Algiers/New Orleans, Lake Charles and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Houston, Texas; Columbia, Gloster and Jackson Mississippi where the main office of PHF is located.

Visiting volunteer, poet Suheir Hammad observed after going to New Orleans: "The presence of the military vehicles and the private security firms running the streets of New Orleans didn’t translate to a feeling of comfort and security for the evacuees in the shelters we visited. People want to go home. They want to be reunited with their families. Mrs. Brown, in her late 70s, said over and over, I never thought I’d be in a shelter. She has been in The River Center shelter for two weeks."

According to Father Luis Barrios, Board of Directors member of IFCO/Pastors For Peace: "We are called in this moment to demonstrate not just charity but to demonstrate compassion for our sisters and brothers in this region who have been neglected by racist and classist institutions. We’re talking about a radical form of compassion in which we identify the problem and denounce the problem. Most importantly we help transform the problem by working for justice. Our commitment is for the long term."

For more information on The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee contact Curtis Muhammad at 601 346-5995, 504 236-4703 or Malcolm Suber at 504 931-7614.

The last three posts, which were announcements from The People's Hurricane Fund / Community Labor United, came via Becky Belcore, who also said:

Hi Everyone,

 

First, we would like to thank everyone for your amazing work and energy around this project.  Since we put out the first call for action a few weeks ago, we have been inundated with calls, emails, donations and offers of support. We have been overwhelmed by your commitment and generosity.

 

In light of proposals made at the meeting in Baton Rouge, Community Labor United (CLU) has been working to establish a structure with work committees. Based on the concept of a national campaign with local leadership, this committee structure will allow the work to be efficient and transparent. CLU members will finish reviewing the final draft of the committee structure by tomorrow morning and a call for volunteers for committees will be issued tomorrow afternoon.

Please let everyone know that tax-deductible donations should be earmarked for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and checks made out to:

Vanguard Public Foundation

383 Rhode Island St., Ste 301

San Francisco, CA  94103

 

For more information about the People's Hurricane Relief Fund & Reconstruction Project, please email bbelcore[at]hotmail[dot]com.

Website coming soon!

Below is some information about the work we have been doing. Thank you again for all of your help and support!  We look forward to working together!

 

Sincerely,

Community Labor United

15 September, 2005
Jackson, Mississippi

In the wake of the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States, intensified by catastrophic, criminal government neglect and racist repression, Community Labor United -- a New Orleans based coalition dedicated to creating spaces for grassroots organizations to engage in dialogue, strategic planning and build collective work -- has been facilitating the development of a People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Oversight Committee.

More than 42 organizations participated in the convening meeting of the People's Hurricane Fund in Baton Rouge on Saturday September 10, 2005, to develop a People's Oversight Committee with the purpose of overseeing all aspects of recovery and reconstruction for our people. The Committee is dedicated to building and maintaining a coordinated network of community leaders, organizers and community based organizations with the capacity and organizational infrastructure to help meet the needs of people most affected by Katrina, and to facilitate an organizing process that will demand local, grassroots black and progressive leadership in the relief, return and reconstruction process in New Orleans.

The evacuees from Hurricane Katrina call on the world community to support our demands for determining our own future. The population of New Orleans is 67% black, 40% illiterate, with more than 30 % living below the poverty line. The abandonment, neglect and militarization by the government have led community leaders and evacuees to determine that we will take the necessary, comprehensive steps to redevelop our communities, our homes, our lives, attend to our well being. The official entities -- federal and local government agencies -- have criminally failed the black survivors of Katrina, and are engaged in the militarization of our city, constituting a form of ethnic cleansing, what we believe to be a gross violation of civil and international human rights. We believe ourselves to be operating without a government, and like ravaged and attacked communities throughout the world, we call upon conscious and compassionate people throughout this nation and the world to support us in our claim to determine our destinies.

We are committed to creating space to engage all those who want to work in support of our recovery and reconstruction, within the United States and throughout the world community.

We are developing working committees and will call for volunteers to begin to sign up for committees on Tuesday, September 20, 2005.   Some examples of the work that needs volunteers is:

• documentation of all evacuees, their whereabouts and condition
• community organizing
• meeting the health care needs of evacuees
• legal advocacy, exploration of human rights and civil rights abuses, wrongful deaths, and other legal issues
• teachers and educators to work with our displaced children
• assist in support for all those still in shelters, monitoring of the conditions, publicizing the abuses and advocating on behalf of evacuees
• help in collecting the stories of displaced New Orleanians, including our vision of the new New Orleans
• publicize all aspects of our work
• experts to test the air, water and soil in preparation for reconstruction
• engineers, architects and solar experts to advise and participate in reconstruction.

International Call
We will be presenting a petition on behalf of New Orleans and Gulf Coast Region Survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate the conditions that brought about the worst disaster in U.S. history and to help ensure social justice for the Survivors, their rights to return to their communities, economic redress for their losses, and a speedy reconstruction of new communities with affordable housing for all and repaired levees and other protections against preventable tragedies.

We call on international human rights communities to join in the demand to keep the spotlight on the actions of the U.S. government, to hold it accountable for its actions, and to support the self determination of Katrina survivors.

We call on international human rights monitors to come to New Orleans to show the world the disgraceful actions perpetrated against the people in our communities.

Principles: Community Labor United

CLU devoted its first three months to developing the following Principles of Unity:

We are community leaders, labor leaders, and cultural workers committed to ending the exploitation of oppressed peoples everywhere.

We believe that all people have the right and responsibility to determine their destiny.

Our organizations and unions are committed to building a society where the realities of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation are not barriers to human progress.

We are committed to building a society where the bottom line interests of corporations and the rich are not balanced on the backs of workers and the poor.

We are committed to building local, regional, national, and world economies that are democratic, just, ecological, and do not exploit labor, culture, and natural resources.

We are committed to building an organization of organizations and individuals, focused on educating, organizing, and mobilizing the masses within our organizations and communities from the bottom up.
 
We believe in the prospect of multiracial and trans-generational efforts to develop our communities.

The U.S. government, which has failed to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina and provide adequately for many survivors, has recently announced that it will spend more than $50 billion to reconstruct New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. 

On Saturday September 8, a group of New Orleans activists and supporters from around the country met in Baton Rouge, LA, to plan a people's response to the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina.   This meeting was called by Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition of progressive community based organization in New Orleans.  The purpose was to ensure that every displaced person be allowed to return to his or her homes, participate in the reconstruction process and call for transparency of the billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for relief and reconstruction.

U.S. government officials have deliberately and effectively scattered our people throughout the United States.   Thousands of families have been broken up- children from their mothers; husbands from their wives; brothers and sisters from each other.

The attendees came to the general conclusion that the most fundamental demand must be the right of the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to return to their homes and their communities and participate in reconstruction.   This encompasses the following:

• First, the government must provide funds for all families to be reunited. The databases of FEMA and other organizations must be made public.
• Second, the more than $50 billion belongs to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. We demand a Victims Compensation Fund as was done after 9/11 for the people in the World Trade Center in New York City.
• Third, the People's Committee demands representation on all boards that are making decisions on spending public dollars for relief and reconstruction. We also demand that those most affected by Hurricane Katrina be part of the planning process.
• Fourth, we demand public work jobs for the displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We must take a lead in the rebuilding of our communities. The jobs must be at union wages so that our population is no longer characterized by extreme poverty. 
• Lastly, we demand transparency in the entire reconstruction process. Citizens must know where all the monies are being spent and with whom they are being spent.

We must be guaranteed the right to plan our future free from the dictates of the politicians in Washington D.C., Baton Rouge, LA, and at the local level.  We must work to ensure that those most affected and displaced by Hurricane Katrina play an integral role in rebuilding our communities.

MEDIA ALERT
For Immediate Release
Attention: News Assignment

Community Labor United
People's Hurricane Relief Fund & Reconstruction Project

PRESS CONFERENCE:
Monday, September 19, 2 PM
People's Hurricane Relief Fund Collection Point
1733 N. Dorgenois, New Orleans

New Orleans Resident Opens Community Center In Her Home
People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project Expands

September 19, New Orleans -- Mama Dee of 1733 N. Dorgenois has not stopped since the day of the storm, August 29th. She, like so many New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents, is doing  everything in her power and beyond imagination to maintain some semblance of everyday life and to rebuild from the shattering of the storm and neglect.

Today she announces that she will turn her home into a local office and collection point for the People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Reconstruction Project (PHRF), representing more than 45 community based, grassroots organizations in the region determined to oversee all aspects of the relief, recovery and reconstruction of their homes, neighborhoods and lives.

She will be joined at the announcement by committee representatives Curtis Muhammad of  Community Labor United and Malcolm Suber, Executive Director of Urban Heart, an after  school program based in four inner city schools focusing on building community schools.

According to Mr. Muhammad of the PHRF: "The government abandoned the people, the black and poor people. Now we are seeing the most remarkable determination, generosity, creativity  and collectivity on the part of those whose lives have been ravaged, and from people far and wide. It is deeply moving, necessary, and hopeful in the face of the horror and neglect  that can only be construed as the most blatant racism. Mama Dee is acting in the tradition of  the powerful women in our community who have always stepped forward to make life possible."

PHRF stated days after Katrina that "the people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the  night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal  relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District."

PHRF is calling on the government to:

• Provide funds for all displaced families to be reunited;
• Allocate the $50 billion for reconstruction to the victims of the hurricane in the form of a Victims Compensation Fund;
• Accept representation on all boards that are making decisions on spending public collars for relief and reconstruction;
• Place displaced workers and residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in public works jobs, offering union wages;
• Publicly account for and show the entire reconstruction process.

The PHRF, initiated by Community Labor United, is committed to supporting the leadership and oversight by evacuees in all aspects of this process including documentation of all displaced persons, family reunification, legal and health support, education and delivery of urgently needed supplies. The coalition is also appealing to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate the conditions before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.

[Kaspit raised some concerns about my use of the word "genocidal" in my first post about FEMA and the Red Cross. Since others may have felt similarly, I'm going to offer an initial response to my friend's comment out here, as a new post. For ease of reference, I'm going to repost Kaspit's comment in the comments to this post. --BG]

Kaspit,

Thanks for your feedback. I value it a great deal and hope we can have more exchanges on these and other related topics. At the moment it is a little difficult for me know how to modulate my anger in a way that isn't off putting to some (maybe many). Some of that may be warranted by the scale of injustice and some of that may be a reflection of my having much shorter experience than you in doing social justice work, and maybe with experience you learn how to take things better in stride in order to be more effective politically.

That said, this is my personal blog and not the website of an advocacy organization, and I don't know that I necessarily need to do anything differently. I provide the links for my sources, which others can use in other ways, if they wish. I also think there is some value in being open about how angry-making recent events are for me and, I'm sure, for many others (including you, I would guess).

A philosophical and moral question in many areas of the Katrina tragedy is at what point does willful neglect carry the weight of intent? The legal profession uses the categories of gross negligence and wanton misconduct* to describe forms of negligence that border on or are equivalent to intent. Regardless of what could be argued in a court of law, on a moral level I believe that government and Red Cross officials have crossed that line, showing "indifference to whether harm will result."

Willful withholding of food and water that can only result in death, illness, and irreparable harm definitely qualifies in this department, in my opinion—especially when the evidence shows that there is no practical or administrative reason, at this point, that the Red Cross could not have been delivering relief inside of New Orleans for some time. As I said in my post, it is a genocidal policy. That is, the policy has genocidal effects. I do not see how those crafting the policy can be unaware of those effects. Therefore, I hold them responsible.

Maybe it would be helpful if I say a little on how I think about the relationship between institutional and individual expressions of racism (and other forms of oppression). One of my analytical aphorisms is that institutionalized racism promotes individual, local acts of racism. For example, in the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, elections officials created long lines at the polls in heavily African American neighborhoods by purposefully withholding voting machines from those areas. Because there were up to 10 hour waits to vote in some of these places, there were horrendous parking problems. Many had to park illegally in order to be able to vote. At some polling places, poll workers went around threatening to have voters' cars towed, forcing voters to choose between staying in line and paying towing fees. There were also gross acts of cruelty against disabled and elderly voters whom poll workers forced to stand in line with no option to sit or receive other appropriate accommodations.

I feel reasonably confident that those officials, who were administering racist policies at an institutional level, did not instruct poll workers to discriminate against Black voters in local situations. I do, however, hold elections officials culpable for cultivating an atmosphere in which it was okay for individual poll workers to violate the voting rights of, and demean, Black voters. Maybe not legally culpable (lawyers, please opine...)—but definitely morally culpable.

Similarly, long standing institutionalized racism in NOLA made Black people disproportionately vulnerable to profoundly neglectful government policies, individual acts of neglect, and overt, racist aggression on the ground.

I think I understand part of your criticism to be that it is not practical to argue that policies under discussion are genocidal in their effects. In fact, I think you're saying that it's not even that practical to try to convince Americans that the Red Cross is messing up. Maybe from a political strategy / policy making standpoint you are right. However, I feel a moral obligation to speak about the ramifications of behaviors as I see them.

I do hear you when you point out that that the word "genocidal" is potentially inflammatory and that wielding it at the outset, before I've made my argument, may undermine my argument for some readers. On reflection, I think you are probably right and that if I had it to do over, I might have used the word later in my post and defined it in my post. Still, I stand by the usage and think that stating it upfront also has some value, the value of breaking a taboo on speaking directly about the nature of injustices that we have all witnessed.

I know there are fine points in your analysis that I have not addressed as of yet. As time permits, I'll try to get to them back in the comments thread.

Your friend,

Ben

Notes

*Links are to legal definitions in Michigan state law and are being used as reference points only. I make no legal claims about the technical application of "gross negligence" and "wanton misconduct" in Louisiana state or national contexts.

Last night I added katrina and nola categories and retagged all the relevant posts appropriately. Sorry if that wreaked havoc on your rss readers...

There are several comments that I should have responded to already. I hope to catch up soon, probably in the form of some posts since the comments I have in mind are already a little old.

By the way, I recently joined the editorial collective at Dollars And Sense. I think I'd better add D & S to my sidebar...

Got this in my inbox from Bill Mandel (links added):

Over half a century ago, in 1951, I traveled the country publicizing and selling "WE CHARGE GENOCIDE," a book-length petition to the United Nations compiled under the direction of William L. Patterson of the Civil Rights Congress.

I write in my autobiography that he "occupies the chronological space between W.E.B. DuBois," who I also had the honor to know, "and Martin Luther King as leader of the struggle for civil rights. Patterson is forgotten because he was a Communist to the end of his days. He was impressed by the way I conducted myself in the South during the Martinsville Case, and asked me to promote the book to Black leadership, where his name was then an open sesame" because he had organized the successful decades-long battle to save the Scottsboro Nine from death, "and to such whites as could be reached, primarily people in those Left-led labor unions that had not yet been smashed.

"Americans had been brainwashed into believing that genocide means only mass murder. In fact, the UN Genocide Convention reads: 'In the present Convention, genocide means ANY of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole OR IN PART, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) killing MEMBERS of the group, (b) causing serious bodily or MENTAL harm to MEMBERS of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole OR IN PART; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent BIRTHS within the group; (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group", as in Australia. [emphasis added by Bill Mandel].

"Every time a cop kills a Black when he would not kill a white, that is genocide: killing MEMBERS of a group. For that reason, the U.S. Senate, led by Southern die-hards, refused to ratify the Genocide Convention for nearly forty years. The American Bar Association was a major ally, saying frankly that indictments could be brought within the United States if it were ratified. Now ratified, it is part of the law of this country."

In my previous post, I quoted Media Matters saying that while there is

no evidence that Evans or the Red Cross was working with the White House to project a uniform message, Evans's rhetorical shift is consistent with the Bush administration's efforts to to blame and impute the motives of Blanco and other state and local officials.

While there may not be concrete evidence, Media Matters and The Raw Story both give us good reason to ask more questions about Red Cross president and CEO Marsha J. "Marty" Evans' relationship to Bush and the GOP. In The Raw Story account:

Marsha J. Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Red Cross, is a Rear Admiral in the Navy and the Director of Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., a global investment bank serving the financial needs of corporations, institutions, governments and high-net-worth investors worldwide, according to the corporation's web site. Evans also sits on the boards of the May Department Stores Company and Weight Watchers International and was recently elected to the board of the Huntsman Corporation, a large chemical and plastics manufacturer. She is also a presidential appointee to the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Military Academy.

Evans donated $500 to the Republican National Committee in 2004.

These affiliations and the RNC donation are not damming by themselves. However, it is crucial to note that while the Red Cross operates independently of government, Bush appointed six people to its Board. The Raw Story also reports on the Chair of the Board, Bonnie McElveen-Hunter.

McElveen-Hunter was appointed by Bush in June 2004. Her Red Cross bio says she is the "former U.S. Ambassador to Finland (2001-2003) and the CEO and owner of Pace Communications, Inc., the largest private custom publishing company in the United States. The company's clients include such Fortune 500 companies as United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, AT&T, Carlson Hotels, and Toyota."

McElveen-Hunter donated more than $130,000 to the Republican Party since 2000, RAW STORY has found. Her largest donations were $25,000 to the Republican National Committee in April 2004 and $100,000 in July 2000. In May 2000, she gave $1000 to "Bush for President, Inc."

These revelations should not surprise anyone at this point. Much more distressing is the Red Cross' abysmal track record in delivering funds raised to the people they say they are raising it for:

As of Sept. 11, 2005, the American Red Cross estimated that it had received $578 million in gifts and pledges for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

During previous disaster relief efforts, however, the Red Cross has withheld funds intended for victims and placed them into a reserve fund for future use, including for what one Red Cross president described as a “war fund."

The Red Cross has repeatedly been cited for poor handling of donations for disaster victims. Some have even referred accused them of "bait-and-switch fund raising."

An investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel after 9/11 revealed that while pledging that 9/11 donations (minus overhead) would all go to victims, the Red Cross held back more than half of the $543 million it had raised.

The Red Cross says they funneled these monies to prepare for terrorist attacks.

"We had planned for a weapon of mass destruction attack," former Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy said, saying funds were diverted to a "Liberty Fund."

"The Liberty Fund is a war fund," Healy added.

During the oversight panel's hearings, Representative Bill Tauzin (R-LA), declared: "What's at issue here is that a special fund was established for these families. It was specially funded for this event, September 11. And it is being closed now because we are told enough money's been raised in it, but we're also told, by the way, we're going to give two-thirds of it away to other Red Cross needs.". . .

Red Cross holdbacks were also evident after the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, where it was alleged that the Red Cross turned over to victims only $10 million of the $50 million raised, keeping the difference for future disasters and organizational expansion. According to one researcher, critics also protested holdbacks following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, Red River flooding in 1997 and a San Diego fire in 2001.

There are many other organizations whose work for Katrina survivors we can support. Maybe a rush of stop payments on credit card charges and checks to the Red Cross will get it rushing to provide more relief with the money it already has in its coffers.

Last weekend began news reports that the Red Cross still had not entered New Orleans and that this was because Louisiana state officals were barring entry to the relief organization. While it is true that the Red Cross is not delivering aid to people inside New Orleans, Media Matters documents that responsibility for this genocidal policy lies entirely with FEMA and the Red Cross itself. Furthermore, Media Matters has shown that Red Cross officials have been colluding with the Bush administration in misdirecting blame to the state and local officials in Louisiana.

Media Matters reports:

Both the federal Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) December 2004 National Response Plan (NRP) and the Red Cross' charter clearly place the Red Cross under the purview of FEMA. Further, the response plan stipulates that federal agencies should strive for full coordination with state officials but not allow such coordination to "impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources."

According to the federal charter of the American Red Cross, the organization has "the legal status of 'a federal instrumentality' " with "responsibilities delegated to it by the Federal government." Listed among these responsibilities is "to maintain a system of domestic and international disaster relief, including mandated responsibilities under the Federal Response Plan coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."

The NRP represents the most recently approved "federal response plan." It confirms that the Red Cross falls under the purview of the federal government:

This plan is applicable to all Federal departments and agencies that may be requested to provide assistance or conduct operations in the context of actual or potential Incidents of National Significance. This includes the American Red Cross, which functions as an Emergency Support Function (ESF) primary organization in coordinating the use of mass care resources in a Presidentially declared disaster or emergency.

[...]

Departments and agencies at all levels of government and certain NGOs, such as the American Red Cross, may be required to deploy to Incidents of National Significance on short notice to provide timely and effective mutual aid and/or intergovernmental assistance.

On September 2, in the early days of the Katrina aftermath, Red Cross president and CEO Marsha J. "Marty" Evans stated on the Larry King Show that her organization was staying out of New Orleans for the safety of its workers and to avoid giving NOLA residents any incentive to stay.

We're prepared as soon as they can be evacuated, we're prepared to receive them in Texas, in other states, but it was not safe to be in the city, and it's not been safe to go back into the city. They were also concerned that if we located, relocated back into the city, people wouldn't leave, and they've got to leave.

Marian Douglas, who is not in any sympathy with the Bush administration's handling of Katrina and its aftermath, emphasized the safety issue, from her extensive experience with humanitarian action:

The situation is a mess, but, having worked in Kosovo, Haiti, Bosnia and other places, there could be unbelievable complications sending

Red Cross volunteers - most of whom are not really trained or equipped for this type or scale of disaster - into this situation.

They would really be sending such people into harm's way, especially with the flooding/standing water; no electricity anywhere; NO COMMUNICATIONS, the list goes on.

Many of the volunteers easily could end up victims. They would also be taking up valuable space. The US does not have a civilian corps trained for this kind of situation. I could be wrong but that is my take. I think we're used to seeing images of relief workers helping people in the midst of ruins, but AFTER the danger - or most of it - has passed. This crisis is in active mode.

Back in early September, I thought the second half of the Red Cross rationale—helping starving and thirsty hurricane victims would only encourage them to stay—was gratuitous, Republican, victim-blaming b-s. Now, however, it seems that Evans was hedging her bets to make sure there would be "good" reason to stay out of NOLA, even as conditions changed. As time went on, Evans elaborated and amplified concerns about interfering with evacuation, framing them as concerns of LEMA and the state's National Guard. As we have seen, above, not only was the Red Cross not under any jurisdiction of the state authorities, the December 2004 National Response Plan "stipulates that federal agencies should strive for full coordination with state officials but not allow such coordination to 'impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources.'" By September 8, Evans was emphasizing that state authorities were denying the Red Cross entry because

the thinking was that, if we were to come in, that, one, it would impede the evacuation. They were trying to get everybody out. And, secondly, that it could possibly suggest that it was going to be OK to stay.

Media Matters elaborates that while it has

no evidence that Evans or the Red Cross was working with the White House to project a uniform message, Evans's rhetorical shift is consistent with the Bush administration's efforts to to blame and impute the motives of Blanco and other state and local officials. As Fox News general assignment reporter Major Garrett noted, because of the close relationship between FEMA and the Red Cross, the Red Cross has a direct interest in how FEMA looks to the media and the public: "When FEMA is tarred and feathered, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army are tarred and feathered."

On Friday, I posted a first hand account of a woman who volunteered her services as a counselor for survivors of Katrina. As noted by a Samantha Joy in the comments and by J Flenn, who emailed me last night, authorship of this piece was widely misattributed to Anne Gevarsi. The true author is Shari Julian. Like Smantha, J Flenn contacted Anne Gevarsi and received the following statement, which Samantha also received and posted in the comments today:

Since Shari Julian was on Dateline Friday, I feel that I can tell you that she is my friend who donated her time working with refugees. I am NOT a psychologist, and I don’t want her ideas misrepresented as mine; PLEASE pass this on. I know that Shari will be delighted with your response to her. I do not want any of the Princes of Spin to use this mix-up against her or against me. I agreed to pass on her reflections since I have an extensive email list. Somehow, my name became associated as the psychologist. I am an English professor, so please contact Dr. Julian at the addresses in the cc line.

J Flenn also heard directly from Shari Julian, who wrote that she is:

...a Licensed Professional Counselor with a bunch of post-doctorates not a psychologist. Counseling is actually a better preparation than psychology for this work since it works with populations without pre-existing psychopathology but rather situational abreactions. I have a lot of experience with victims of mass trauma and with crime. I am an assistant professor in the department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at UTA. ...

I'm not even talking about transparency in counting the dead. There's little hope for that. But how about hiring a firm that doesn't have a history of desecrating corpses.

FEMA, La. outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping scandals

Miriam Raftery

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned.

Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.

Louisiana governor Katherine Blanco subsequently inked a contract with the firm after talks between FEMA and the firm broke down. Kenyon's original deal was secured by the Department of Homeland Security.

In other words, FEMA and then Blanco outsourced the body count from Hurricane Katrina -- which many believe the worst natural disaster in U.S. history -- to a firm whose parent company is known for its "experience" at hiding and dumping bodies.

The Menorah Gardens cemetery chain, owned by SCI, desecrated vaults, removed hundreds of bodies from two cemeteries in Florida and dumped the gruesome remains in woods frequented by wild hogs, investigators discovered in 2001. In one case, a backhoe was used to crack open a vault, remove corpses and make room for more dead bodies.

SCI paid $100 million to settle a lawsuit filed by outraged family members of the deceased.

A secretary at the lawfirm that sued SCI over the Florida cemetery scandals gasped when informed that FEMA had outsourced handling of Katrina victims' bodies to an SCI subsidiary.

"Oh, good lord!" she said.

It's even worse than you can gather from this excerpt. Read the whole thing.

National Urban League Calls for a 'Katrina Victims Bill of Rights'

9/8/2005 4:41:00 PM

To: National Desk, Business Reporter

Contact: Ricky Clemons of National Urban League, 212-558-5371 or rclemons@nul.org

NEW YORK, Sept. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League called on Congress to immediately pass and fully fund comprehensive disaster assistance legislation that protects the rights of the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"While I applaud Congress for providing much-needed funding for FEMA and other government agencies to continue their relief efforts, this is only a small part of what is needed in the short and long term," said Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans. "Hurricane Katrina is a national tragedy of epic and unprecedented proportions. In responding to this crisis, Congress' number one priority must be to help protect and restore the lives of the hundreds of thousands of citizens whose lives have been disrupted and destroyed."

Morial called on Congress to take the following steps immediately:

Create a Victims Compensation Fund - Congress must immediately pass legislation creating a Victims Compensation Fund for the hundreds of thousands of citizens injured, killed and displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

"Within days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress passed and the president signed legislation authorizing a 9/11 victims compensation fund, which eventually provided more than $7 billion in compensation for the victims of 9/11," Morial said. "As it did then, Congress must take immediate and decisive action to begin compensating American citizens whose lives have been disrupted by this major national tragedy."

Provide Disaster Unemployment Assistance - Congress must provide for federal disaster unemployment assistance to every worker left jobless by this tragedy and provide a meaningful benefit that meets the needs of unemployed workers and their families.

"Half a million hardworking Americans, through no fault of their own, have been thrown out of work and, in many cases, have seen their jobs disappear altogether," Morial noted. "We owe it to these workers to help them get back on their feet."

Protect Voting Rights -- America must ensure that the hundreds of thousands of citizens displaced by Hurricane Katrina continue to have full voting rights in their home states.

"If we can see to it that Iraqi citizens living on our shores are able to vote in a war-torn land halfway across the world, we can certainly guarantee that displaced citizens of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi continue to have full voting rights in their home states and districts," Morial said. "Our displaced citizens want and deserve a voice in the rebuilding of their communities. We must not compound the tragedy visited upon our citizens by disenfranchising them at a time when the most fundamental tool of citizenship -- their right to vote -- is more important than ever.

Morial stated that these are only the first, but critical steps that Congress must take in the coming days and weeks.

"We have a long and difficult road ahead," Morial said. "By taking these actions now, Congress will send an important message that the hurricane victims will not be left behind and lay the groundwork for the arduous collective task before us."

"We are in this together and together, we will regroup and rebuild."