Katrina Relief- What should you do?
Hoist the Federal Governement up on its own petard!
Do not aid and abet the carpetbagger land grab!
Do not aid and abet the displacement and scattering of the Louisiana poor.
The poor are the ones who’ll have to stay and stand up for their rights to their land.
Recovery funds should go to them, not to the reconstruction companies, developers and gaming resorts. I’m sorry but that’s not going to happen if you are helping to ship them out of Louisiana and Mississippi to put them up here.
Immediately after the Katrina disaster, “philanthropists” from Colorado Springs hired buses to go down to the relief shelters. The “philanthropists” plastered the stricken areas with fliers advertizing COME TO SCENIC COLORADO SPRINGS, etc.
The “philanthropists” set up agencies here to allocate the refugees to hotels and then apartments and houses. They helped connect refugees with cars, appliances, furniture and clothing. Those “philanthropists” were also quite visionary, because they foresaw that FEMA would pay for it all!
So what did those “philanthropists” accomplish after all? That FEMA money would flow into Colorado Springs coffers! Apartments and homes that had been empty are now occupied! Colorado Springs goods and services are now getting Federal dollars. And who were those “philanthropists?” Wealthy, well-known, developers! And apartment complex owners! And local business leaders!
Many of the refugees have since returned to the south to be with their families and friends. But it looks like the “philanthropists” foresaw that too, because it didn’t matter, the rents on those now empty apartments are already paid! FEMA paid for a year’s rent on each of them.
That’s taxpayer money, going to those wealthy “philanthropists.” All the less money than can go to help the Katrina victims rebuild their homes and their lives.
What should you do for the Katrina victims? Wish them Godspeed, call your congressman to urge that more support be offered to Katrina’s real victims, then call the U.S. Attorney General and urge him to prosecute the “philanthropists” for profiteering and fraud.
That’s what you can do.
UPDATE
We’ve seen this before in the South. It was called THE RECONSTRUCTION. And the northern opportunists who plagued the Reconstruction? They were called CARPETBAGGERS.