In Rossis Mail Box!!!! From NonnyO (who is pi$$ed). You go Bev
DCPers!!!!
Last night's local in-state TV news brought devastating news (IMHO), so I got on my high horse and wrote to one of the people at the Star Tribune (Mpls-St. Paul) who wrote a nice article that I first found on the MSNBC link, and to KSTP 10 p.m. news department. Besides to you on the list, I'm sending this letter (in full) to my politicians. I edited and slightly revised a PS on the letter which is most of what I posted earlier on the blog, and added a link to the story about shots being fired - and my opinion - at the superdome.
I'm so mad I'm just shaking with rage, but have to satisfy myself with poison pen letters to media and politicians! It's not appropriate for the blog, but I need to vent, and I suspect the only people who will understand are you and a few people on my email list.....
Bev
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr. Franklin:
Re:
http://www.startribune.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9151630/
Minnesotans digging deep to help
By Robert Franklin / Star Tribune
Nice article, and it once again highlights how helpful Americans can be when there is a disaster.
However, last night on KSTP, I heard something more disturbing. The 10 p.m. news (which I taped in the rerun in the middle of the night so I could get the exact quote) said that a crew of five DNR people went to Mississippi, and on standby are three more DNR crews, a C-130 transport plane, and a crew from the Air Guard... "Right now the Minnesota Guard is not being called on so that they can focus on preparations for deployment to Iraq, but in Wisconsin Governor Doyle ordered 500 Guard troops to Louisiana."
If that is true, I want to know why it is more important for the MN National Guard troops to prepare to kill people in Iraq than it is to help the millions of people who are affected by Hurricane Katrina right here in our own country?
The state Guard units are supposed to be under the command of the governors of each state, are they not? It was always my understanding that National Guard units were to serve this country stateside, and to be available to help people with any natural or man-made disasters - such as what they've done right here in MN when the Red River flooded a few years ago. I realize Pawlenty is a fawning neoCon Republican to our Chicken Hawk-in-Chief in Washington (as is Coleman), but hearing that the MN Guard isn't being sent to help the people on the Gulf Coast of the US so they can prepare to go to Iraq was quite a blow. As a Minnesotan, I'd far rather know that the two MN National Guard units scheduled for deployment to Iraq were sent to Louisiana or Mississippi to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, not prepare to go kill people in Iraq (or be killed by Iraqis patriotic to their own country, aka Iraqi insurgents).
I question Pawlenty's patriotism and loyalty to the people of this state, as well as to the people of this nation, if he thinks it's more important for the MN Guard units to train to kill Iraqi citizens than it is to go help people right here in our own country, and I question Pawlenty's priorities if he thinks it's more important to be loyal to the Chicken Hawk-in-Chief than to the people of his state or his country. The Mississippi River ties us directly to many of Katrina's victims and transportation up and down the river for grain and goods shipped to and from our region.
Wouldn't it be to everyone's humanitarian (and economic) advantage for the MN Guard to go help the hurricane victims and help get things back to some semblance of normalcy for the people on the Gulf Coast? As is, it's going to take years for people devastated by Hurricane Katrina to get their lives back to something resembling normal. (Tropical Storm Lee is brewing in the Atlantic which could potentially be a hurricane; we're only halfway through hurricane season, so others could follow - there is the potential of more disaster to come.)
What if we have another hard winter coming up and the Red River floods again next spring? Our National Guard troops will be in Iraq... not here at home helping their neighbors!!! Shame on Pawlenty for leaving MN short-handed and vulnerable, and for not being willing to help our neighbors down south in this horrible disaster!!! (I may question the patriotism of the ND governor, too, since I know my youngest nephew's ND Guard unit has been called to train to go to Afghanistan in a few months - unless orders change and they go to Iraq - and they could as easily be sent to the Gulf Coast.) Guard units from Louisiana are coming home in a few days - and most don't even know if they have a home left, but I'm sure they will immediately be put to work helping their neighbors as soon as they get home. Other Guard units from other states are stepping in to help, but too many National Guard people are in Iraq for Bu$hCo's private war to control the oil fields in Iraq, per the PNAC goals (go read their web site if you haven't already, and note the names of people involved; it's scary)....
People like me (old and disabled) can only write out a check to charities to help, which feels like a very inadequate way to help anyone right now. Young able-bodied people in the National Guard are trained (and better equipped) to physically help the victims of natural and man-made disasters. They should be sent to help people in our own country, not be trained to kill people in foreign countries... nor should they be sent to Iraq as cannon fodder for Bu$h's war while protecting oil wells and guarding Halliburton - Cheney's cohorts - supplies and equipment, since DynCorp and KBR, both Halliburton subsidiaries, have hired mercenaries, aka 'private security' personnel, from the US and other countries for just those tasks at salaries ranging from $400-$700 per day for US mercenaries, and one third that salary for mercenaries from other countries, and I know of Blackwater and other "private security" companies who have also hired mercenaries for Iraq... with which companies they are affiliated, I don't know, but the last estimates I read were that there are about 25,000 mercenaries from the US and other countries in Iraq, and all are being paid for by US taxpayer monies.
I hope you or someone else will call Pawlenty's office and get sensible answers as to where his priorities and his patriotism lie if he thinks its more important to train our MN Guard troops to kill people in Iraq than to be helping victims of a hurricane down south (or potential flood victims here in our own state next spring, or helping fight forest fires, or any other natural or man-made disasters right here in our own state and our own country). I won't accept the traditional pabulum of bandwagon patriot answers from Pawlenty, either; we hear enough of that crap from Bu$h, so if Pawlenty paraphrases the standard Bu$hCo propaganda, that's not an acceptable answer (if you call and ask him about it, and if Pawlenty responds at all, that is). To say our Guard troops will be sent to "help" Iraqis with building things, etc., is a non-answer - and a lie. If that were true, none would be sent home in coffins. As Becky Lourey (whose son was killed in Iraq) so aptly pointed out before she headed for Camp Casey, the troops are not responsible for the bad decisions of politicians.
I realize KSTP (and the ABC network in general) is a more noticeably neoCon Republican media outlet than most (even if they quote a progressive politician, they always end with a neoCon Republican politician's viewpoint, so the neoCons/Republicans always "have the last word" which leaves the impression that the viewer is supposed to adopt the same viewpoint quoted last - they're very good at media manipulation), but I'm sending them a copy of this email, too (if that info doesn't show up in a cc line when you get this). Someone somewhere needs to call Pawlenty on the carpet for this egregious error in judgement, and question his patriotism if he thinks it's more important for MN Guard troops to learn how to kill people (in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever) than to help our neighbors on our Gulf Coast.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
P.S. I participate in a progressive political blog. This was my comment when I posted a link to the story referenced below my comment:
One of the other WaPo headlines says "Bush Mobilizes a Huge Recovery Effort." Bull$h*t!!! He hasn't mobilized anything! He supposedly flew over the site in AF-1 (or so film footage on MSM said) after he cut a measly two days off of his vacation AFTER the hurricane hit - he was strumming a guitar at a naval base where he spouted the same war rhetoric, and shamefully compared his 'war on terror' with past wars that were at least justified - when Hurricane Katrine actually hit. Ordinary people, law enforcement, emergency responders, the National Guard, Coast Guard, the Red Cross, and a VERY long list of other ordinary everyday heroes are the ones who have done all the organizing - and all of the helping!!! There were at least two days, maybe three, to organize BEFORE the hurricane hit that were totally ignored by the pResNitwit... he was 'working hard' biking (and ignoring Cindy Sheehan and others) on his vacation in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.... Some "leadership"... oh, yeah, right; I forgot... he wants to be known as a "war president" (his stated goal in 1999) - not someone who helped out the citizens of this country!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102257.html
Katrina's Lesson in Readiness
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And, if you think they don't need additional people to help out on the Gulf Coast, there's this from this morning's headlines on AP via Yahoo (a longer version of the story is referenced on the KSTP web site
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S10158.html?cat=1 ):
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050901/ap_on_re_us/katrina_superdome_evacuation_hk1
Superdome Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire
Excerpt:
Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome.
He said that military would not fly out of the Superdome either because of the gunfire and that the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control.
"That's not enough," Zeuschlag. "We need a thousand."
[Keep in mind, he's only talking about military police for one location; imagine how many other people could help out and how efficiently these rescue operations could be if they were fully staffed with all the National Guard units available to go the the Gulf Coast to help out...? Shame on Bu$h; shame on Pawlenty and the other governors in charge of Guard units who didn't heed the two or three day warning about Katrina and get the Guard units on the road before Katrina hit so they could be two or three days closer to the site of Katrina's landing to get help to the victims as soon as the weather permitted safe travel to the hardest hit areas!!!!!!!]
Last night's local in-state TV news brought devastating news (IMHO), so I got on my high horse and wrote to one of the people at the Star Tribune (Mpls-St. Paul) who wrote a nice article that I first found on the MSNBC link, and to KSTP 10 p.m. news department. Besides to you on the list, I'm sending this letter (in full) to my politicians. I edited and slightly revised a PS on the letter which is most of what I posted earlier on the blog, and added a link to the story about shots being fired - and my opinion - at the superdome.
I'm so mad I'm just shaking with rage, but have to satisfy myself with poison pen letters to media and politicians! It's not appropriate for the blog, but I need to vent, and I suspect the only people who will understand are you and a few people on my email list.....
Bev
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr. Franklin:
Re:
http://www.startribune.com/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9151630/
Minnesotans digging deep to help
By Robert Franklin / Star Tribune
Nice article, and it once again highlights how helpful Americans can be when there is a disaster.
However, last night on KSTP, I heard something more disturbing. The 10 p.m. news (which I taped in the rerun in the middle of the night so I could get the exact quote) said that a crew of five DNR people went to Mississippi, and on standby are three more DNR crews, a C-130 transport plane, and a crew from the Air Guard... "Right now the Minnesota Guard is not being called on so that they can focus on preparations for deployment to Iraq, but in Wisconsin Governor Doyle ordered 500 Guard troops to Louisiana."
If that is true, I want to know why it is more important for the MN National Guard troops to prepare to kill people in Iraq than it is to help the millions of people who are affected by Hurricane Katrina right here in our own country?
The state Guard units are supposed to be under the command of the governors of each state, are they not? It was always my understanding that National Guard units were to serve this country stateside, and to be available to help people with any natural or man-made disasters - such as what they've done right here in MN when the Red River flooded a few years ago. I realize Pawlenty is a fawning neoCon Republican to our Chicken Hawk-in-Chief in Washington (as is Coleman), but hearing that the MN Guard isn't being sent to help the people on the Gulf Coast of the US so they can prepare to go to Iraq was quite a blow. As a Minnesotan, I'd far rather know that the two MN National Guard units scheduled for deployment to Iraq were sent to Louisiana or Mississippi to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, not prepare to go kill people in Iraq (or be killed by Iraqis patriotic to their own country, aka Iraqi insurgents).
I question Pawlenty's patriotism and loyalty to the people of this state, as well as to the people of this nation, if he thinks it's more important for the MN Guard units to train to kill Iraqi citizens than it is to go help people right here in our own country, and I question Pawlenty's priorities if he thinks it's more important to be loyal to the Chicken Hawk-in-Chief than to the people of his state or his country. The Mississippi River ties us directly to many of Katrina's victims and transportation up and down the river for grain and goods shipped to and from our region.
Wouldn't it be to everyone's humanitarian (and economic) advantage for the MN Guard to go help the hurricane victims and help get things back to some semblance of normalcy for the people on the Gulf Coast? As is, it's going to take years for people devastated by Hurricane Katrina to get their lives back to something resembling normal. (Tropical Storm Lee is brewing in the Atlantic which could potentially be a hurricane; we're only halfway through hurricane season, so others could follow - there is the potential of more disaster to come.)
What if we have another hard winter coming up and the Red River floods again next spring? Our National Guard troops will be in Iraq... not here at home helping their neighbors!!! Shame on Pawlenty for leaving MN short-handed and vulnerable, and for not being willing to help our neighbors down south in this horrible disaster!!! (I may question the patriotism of the ND governor, too, since I know my youngest nephew's ND Guard unit has been called to train to go to Afghanistan in a few months - unless orders change and they go to Iraq - and they could as easily be sent to the Gulf Coast.) Guard units from Louisiana are coming home in a few days - and most don't even know if they have a home left, but I'm sure they will immediately be put to work helping their neighbors as soon as they get home. Other Guard units from other states are stepping in to help, but too many National Guard people are in Iraq for Bu$hCo's private war to control the oil fields in Iraq, per the PNAC goals (go read their web site if you haven't already, and note the names of people involved; it's scary)....
People like me (old and disabled) can only write out a check to charities to help, which feels like a very inadequate way to help anyone right now. Young able-bodied people in the National Guard are trained (and better equipped) to physically help the victims of natural and man-made disasters. They should be sent to help people in our own country, not be trained to kill people in foreign countries... nor should they be sent to Iraq as cannon fodder for Bu$h's war while protecting oil wells and guarding Halliburton - Cheney's cohorts - supplies and equipment, since DynCorp and KBR, both Halliburton subsidiaries, have hired mercenaries, aka 'private security' personnel, from the US and other countries for just those tasks at salaries ranging from $400-$700 per day for US mercenaries, and one third that salary for mercenaries from other countries, and I know of Blackwater and other "private security" companies who have also hired mercenaries for Iraq... with which companies they are affiliated, I don't know, but the last estimates I read were that there are about 25,000 mercenaries from the US and other countries in Iraq, and all are being paid for by US taxpayer monies.
I hope you or someone else will call Pawlenty's office and get sensible answers as to where his priorities and his patriotism lie if he thinks its more important to train our MN Guard troops to kill people in Iraq than to be helping victims of a hurricane down south (or potential flood victims here in our own state next spring, or helping fight forest fires, or any other natural or man-made disasters right here in our own state and our own country). I won't accept the traditional pabulum of bandwagon patriot answers from Pawlenty, either; we hear enough of that crap from Bu$h, so if Pawlenty paraphrases the standard Bu$hCo propaganda, that's not an acceptable answer (if you call and ask him about it, and if Pawlenty responds at all, that is). To say our Guard troops will be sent to "help" Iraqis with building things, etc., is a non-answer - and a lie. If that were true, none would be sent home in coffins. As Becky Lourey (whose son was killed in Iraq) so aptly pointed out before she headed for Camp Casey, the troops are not responsible for the bad decisions of politicians.
I realize KSTP (and the ABC network in general) is a more noticeably neoCon Republican media outlet than most (even if they quote a progressive politician, they always end with a neoCon Republican politician's viewpoint, so the neoCons/Republicans always "have the last word" which leaves the impression that the viewer is supposed to adopt the same viewpoint quoted last - they're very good at media manipulation), but I'm sending them a copy of this email, too (if that info doesn't show up in a cc line when you get this). Someone somewhere needs to call Pawlenty on the carpet for this egregious error in judgement, and question his patriotism if he thinks it's more important for MN Guard troops to learn how to kill people (in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever) than to help our neighbors on our Gulf Coast.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
P.S. I participate in a progressive political blog. This was my comment when I posted a link to the story referenced below my comment:
One of the other WaPo headlines says "Bush Mobilizes a Huge Recovery Effort." Bull$h*t!!! He hasn't mobilized anything! He supposedly flew over the site in AF-1 (or so film footage on MSM said) after he cut a measly two days off of his vacation AFTER the hurricane hit - he was strumming a guitar at a naval base where he spouted the same war rhetoric, and shamefully compared his 'war on terror' with past wars that were at least justified - when Hurricane Katrine actually hit. Ordinary people, law enforcement, emergency responders, the National Guard, Coast Guard, the Red Cross, and a VERY long list of other ordinary everyday heroes are the ones who have done all the organizing - and all of the helping!!! There were at least two days, maybe three, to organize BEFORE the hurricane hit that were totally ignored by the pResNitwit... he was 'working hard' biking (and ignoring Cindy Sheehan and others) on his vacation in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.... Some "leadership"... oh, yeah, right; I forgot... he wants to be known as a "war president" (his stated goal in 1999) - not someone who helped out the citizens of this country!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102257.html
Katrina's Lesson in Readiness
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And, if you think they don't need additional people to help out on the Gulf Coast, there's this from this morning's headlines on AP via Yahoo (a longer version of the story is referenced on the KSTP web site
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S10158.html?cat=1 ):
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050901/ap_on_re_us/katrina_superdome_evacuation_hk1
Superdome Evacuation Halted Amid Gunfire
Excerpt:
Acadian Ambulance, which was handling the evacuation of sick and injured people from the Superdome.
He said that military would not fly out of the Superdome either because of the gunfire and that the National Guard told him that it was sending 100 military police officers to gain control.
"That's not enough," Zeuschlag. "We need a thousand."
[Keep in mind, he's only talking about military police for one location; imagine how many other people could help out and how efficiently these rescue operations could be if they were fully staffed with all the National Guard units available to go the the Gulf Coast to help out...? Shame on Bu$h; shame on Pawlenty and the other governors in charge of Guard units who didn't heed the two or three day warning about Katrina and get the Guard units on the road before Katrina hit so they could be two or three days closer to the site of Katrina's landing to get help to the victims as soon as the weather permitted safe travel to the hardest hit areas!!!!!!!]
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:11 PM
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