"Merry Christmas" victims of Hurricane Katrina.

[Cyrano]

Sorry to spoil the Christmas spirit. But it's been 16 months now, but there are still thousands of refugees from New Orleans who don't have a permanent home, a job, the means to help themselves, or any hope left.

This morning, I was in a car with a friend and I was listening to a local station. A preacher was talking about the people who survived Katrina and are still spread all over the map. Most have no home, no resources, no money, no job, no hope, profound depression, and no way to pull themselves out of the miserable circumstance in which Katrina has left them.

Local religious organizations do what they can with limited resources. Many survivors have loved ones who still haven't been located and they don't know whether they're alive or dead. And many survivors have lost hope. They have no idea what will happen tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that.

And government help is nowhere in sight.

This is both a disaster and a crime. The disaster was caused by the hurricane. The crime was committed by our government.

Sorry to bring race into the picture, but there's no way to avoid it. What if a wealthy Republican area had been struck with a natural disaster? Who doubts that help would have arrived the following day? But this disaster occurred in a (mostly) black area of New Orleans. And most black people, (if they're not turned away from the polls by some despicable tactic), vote for Dems. And since George W. Bush and Republicans have been in control of our government, they had no reason to help the helpless. And they evidently had no conscience either.

The preacher I was listening to didn't have the answer of how to help so many. His only suggestion was to help those you may know or come in contact with.

So here we are. The wealthiest country in the history of the world telling people to either "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps," or crawl off somewhere and die.

Yeah, poverty and misery have always existed and will continue to haunt humanity into the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, it sure as hell doesn't contribute to "a merry little Christmas."

[partylessinOhio]

1. The mishandling of the Katrina disaster is our national disgrace.

I think of the victims almost every day. I am in no position financially to help even one of them and I'm sorry for that. My government should have helped these victims from day one instead of letting them die on the freeway bridges and the Superdome. We are not the greatest nation - face up to it.

[StClone]

2. Bless them, every one.

Sixteen months is, is so long.
They let them go.
There had no sudden healing.
To think that providence would
take them from this world, as they prayed,
Is appalling.

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
to us who have died to live,
it's unfair.

We turn to each other.
This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved,
and to know that the promise was
when everything fell we'd be held.

This hand is bitterness.
We want to taste it, let the hatred know our sorrows.
The wise hands opens slowly to lilies of the valley and tomorrow.


This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved,
and to know that the promise was
when everything fell we'd be held.


If hope is born of suffering,
If this is only the beginning.
Can we not wait for one hour watching for our Savior?


This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved,
and to know that the promise was
when everything fell we'd be held.


"Held" by Natalie Grant reworded.

[brer cat]

11. Very moving.

Thank you for sharing, StClone.

[NanceGreggs]

3. Incredibly saddening and maddening ...

... but incredibly well said.

K&R, Cyrano ... beautifully written piece.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. The $141 billion that the Iraq occupation will cost this year, surely could have been

been put to better use and here is an example of where a portion of it would have made a difference. FU george! :grr:

[nam78_two]

5. K&R.nt

[IndyOp]

6. Do They Know It's Christmas? Hurricane Katrina is not over.

Common Ground Collective & Americas Second Harvest are doing good work...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x10224

[tnlefty]

7. This and the misery in Iraq is what has had me on a slow boil since

I saw the extravagance of the decorations and parties going on at the White House.

I was hoping to be working in New Orleans over the holidays, but it looks like we may have to wait until the kids are out of school again in the spring. I'll be sending money to The Common Ground Collective, the money we've been accumulating since Randi Rhodes announced her Change for Change program through Habitat for Humanity. I sent a lesser amount to Habitat.

Rant now off.

[Selatius]

8. We can all be happy some folks on Wall Street made big bucks this year. Isn't that nice?

I live down here on the Mississippi coast or what's left of it. I don't have much, but it's probably a bit better than what they'll ever have.

I hope they have a merry fucking Christmas this year. I hope they're happy that Michigan is now in the midst of an economic downturn that compares with the Great Depression, and I hope they're happy for ripping off money for Katrina reconstruction through cronyism and thievery, and I hope they're happy they got all those billions of dollars worth of war contracts from Uncle Sam for the war in Iraq. They blew up a country and blighted two parts of America. Congratulations!

They should celebrate and be merry this Christmas because one day the poor people they stomped on for so long are going to rain on their parade, and there won't be very much to be merry about then.

[Imagevision]

9. Bush waited 3 days before sending in the troops, that was criminal because many

lost their lives, the president seemed to have just waltzed away from this one as he wants to expand the Iraq war blunder by sending in more troops in Iraq that the generals on the ground said only yesterday' "we don't want more troops"

[KamaAina]

10. Many in the region prefer the term "survivors" to "victims".

I'll be keeping an eye peeled for ways to help while I'm in N.O. next month. And unlike Bush**, I actually mean it. :P So maybe they'll at least have a "Happy New Year".