contributions

Now that we know that every line that left the lips of those at the G8 at Gleneagles was a lie and that the words "Mission accomplished, frankly" uttered by Bob Geldof were nothing short of a disgrace - is it not time for Mr Geldof to come down from his cloud and tell us the truth?
Let’s face it, Saint Bob was quick enough to hijack the long term efforts of a wide range of organisations devoted for years and decades to the cause of the poor. He suddenly crawled from the woodwork on planet (…)

By DOUG SIMPSON
The floodwaters that caused so much misery and death in New Orleans were being pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain and authorities braced for what the receding deluge would reveal. "It’s going to wake the nation up again," Mayor Ray Nagin said Tuesday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began pumping water out the flooded city after closing a major gap in a key levee that burst during Hurricane Katrina, flooding 80 percent of the bowl-shaped city.
Nagin said it would take (…)

Transcript of radio interview with New Orleans’ Nagin
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin blasted the slow pace of federal and state relief efforts in an expletive-laced interview with local radio station WWL-AM.
The following is a transcript of WWL correspondent Garland Robinette’s interview with Nagin on Thursday night. Robinette asked the mayor about his conversation with President Bush:
NAGIN: I told him we had an incredible crisis here and that his flying over in Air Force One does not do (…)

Repost * Pass On * Worldwide * SVP *
French Quarter Holdouts Create ’Tribes’
By ALLEN G. BREED Sep 4 2005
(AP) Mat James caries his dog Baby Pearl as he marches in the Southern Decadence parade in the French...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - In the absence of information and outside assistance, groups of rich and poor banded together in the French Quarter, forming "tribes" and dividing up the labor.
As some went down to the river to do the wash, others remained behind to protect property. In a (…)

self-help has a term for what’s happening: ’self-will run riot’. There is a clear absence of community, of spirituality, of fellowship, of humanity in this group.
There is no love. To me, the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. That is what has been shown for all to see through the airwaves and computers this past week.
Please, people, before it is too late, we must use every reasonable tool at our disposal to be rid of this menace to humanity.
This is malignant (…)

The entire city of New Orleans is under evacuation orders. I just spoke to my friend Daniel in the Bywater (9th ward). He reports that unmarked police vehicles (cadillacs) are driving through the neighborhood with SWAT team police armed with ’big black machine guns’ telling people through bullhorns they are under orders to evacuate and must leave the city now.
People in that neighborhood are being told to go to the big pool on the corner of Lesseps and St. Claude (this is one block from my (…)

The irony of the 2004 election is that it was the last-minute release of an alleged Osama bin Laden tape that John Kerry believes lost him the election. Whatever the merits of Kerry’s judgment, the irony is that bin Laden ended up with the candidate he undoubtedly preferred: George W. Bush.
Beginning with 9/11 — and Bush’s failure to protect America against hijackings that he and Condoleezza were warned about in advance, but took no security actions to stop, resulting in the September 11th (…)

by Carolyn Bennett
After week long images of displaced, desperate black Americans dubbed refugees and looters by a race-based U.S. press followed by race-based outrage from the usual headline grabbers, I must say something. But what can I say about death and disorder caused by Americans’ apart-ness, and flawed federal leadership?
Katrina did not have to break levees, flood cities, and destroy lives. What combined to cause horrendous deaths and despair, particularly in the jewel among the (…)

Israeli citizens that made their homes in the illegal (under international law) settlements in Gaza, are to receive between $200,000 - $300,000 each to relocate- paid for by US taxpayer dollars.
"Settlers, who were encouraged by the Israeli government to move to settlements, are entitled to compensation," says Sarit Michaeli, spokesman for B’Tselem, the independent Israeli information centre for human rights in the occupied territories.
Israel has negotiated a $2.2 billion dollar gift (…)

The raison d’etre of the Bush administration is war in the Middle East in order to protect America from terrorism and to insure America’s oil supply. On both counts the Bush administration has failed catastrophically.
Bush’s single-minded focus on the "war against terrorism" has compounded a natural disaster and turned it into the greatest calamity in American history. The US has lost its largest and most strategic port, thousands of lives, and 80% of one of America’s most historic cities (…)