First Aid
An Update from Jason:
Today we went to Mississippi, first stop, Gulf Port. Our convoy included 1 school bus and 3 vans all full of goods and food.
We first visited a number of Native Americans who have been totally ignored by the relief effort. We found out about them because of a post they had left on the VFP message board.
We then went to one of the projects in the area and unloaded tons of goods in the parking lot of the community center in that neighborhood. We gave goods and food to about 100 people there. That was great to be able to help that many people in such a short amount of time. Again, like I hear from everyone, we were the FIRST relief aid that any of these people had gotten. No Red Cross, No FEMA, No Nothing.
We then went to Wiggins, LA. We visited a drop-off area there at the Magnolia Fire Dept. I spoke to the fire chief, Pete. He told me how devastated they were there. It's funny, no matter how many times someone tells me that I'm the first relief they've gotten, it still infuriates me. They had some food and water but that had only come from private donations. This was the fire chief of the town telling me this. This was not a random person I met on the street. He is one of the leaders of his community and yet he was not able to even contact the Red Cross or FEMA to get help. You could see it in his face just how frustrated and tired he is of all of this and hopefully someone reading this will get some real government help to Pete instead of some Veterans for Peace dropping off food and water.
More To Come....
A Day in Algiers
From Jason:
I am just heading back now from our convoy into New Orleans today. Cindy Sheehan accompanied us on our trip and helped us deliver goods to Malik Rahim in Algiers. Cindy was wonderful and made everyone who came in contact with here feel special. Algiers is a community that has been devastated... not by Katrina, but by the amount of neglect that the people there have received. Algiers used to be a community of 75,000 people just 2 weeks ago. Now it has only about 3,000 people left.
We unloaded about 9 cars of goods and are now on our way back to camp.
Cindy was writing a bunch of notes for her blog so check it out stay tuned for that.
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Anti-War Protesters Converge in Forsyth Park
Anti-War ProtestAnti-War Protesters Converge in Forsyth Park
People are taking sides, rallying either for or against the war in Iraq. The anti-war group's main voice, Cindy Sheehan, is drawing crowds as she travels cross country on her way to Washington, DC. About a thousand followers showed up in Pittsburgh yesterday, carrying candles and pausing for a moment of silence at Soldiers and Sailors Hall. The owners of the hall turned them away.
Sheehan says our troops and their families have sacrificed enough. "None of these chicken hawks have served this country in the way that our children have served the country," she said.
Sheehan's 24-year-old son Casey reenlisted with the Army in August 2003. He was killed in Sadr City on April 4 of this year. Sheehan is visiting 42 cities on her way to a three-day protest in Washington at the end of this month.
She's not coming here, but her supporters were in Savannah last night and attracted people who back the war in Iraq. Those against the war held a candlelight vigil in Forsyth Park and were met head on by the supporters. There were a few tense moments, but no one went too far, realizing that violence is not the answer.
It started with lighting candles around the fountain in the park, representing American lives lost in Iraq. It's all part of Sheehan's Bring Them Home Now tour.
"We don't see it's a winnable war and life is being lost on both sides," said Tom Palumbo of Veterans for Peace.
Iraq veterans spoke out about the atrocities they've seen. "The horrors of war have been permanently engrained in mysoul, with Iraqi civilians dead at checkpoints," said one veteran.
Along with military family members who lost loved ones in the war. "My son was killed in the war in the first three weeks," said Jean Prewitt. "Didn't even have time to send me a letter."
Prewitt lost her only son three years ago, and like most of the protesters, she supports our troops but not this war. "When I realized we had been given the wrong information and lied to, I just lost all respect for this administration," she said. "And I knew that it was just an unjust war."
But the gathering wasn't without tension. People supporting the war showed up at the vigil. "I'm sick of Cindy Sheehan being the only one heard," said military spouse Courtney Horn. "It's time for our husbands to be heard and Sheehan is not speaking for us."
Organizers hope crosses set up at the vigil to memorialize the soldiers who died in Iraq say the only thing that needs to be said. "It's too late for my son, but I don't want anyone else to have to experience this," said Prewitt.
Many of the protesters are heading to Washington, DC, to join Cindy Sheehan on September 24 for a mass protest against the war.
Reported by: Hena Daniels, hdaniels@wtoc.com
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Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
We've Raised a Half-Million Dollars and Sent over 50 Tons of Food and Water
Friends,
Last week I closed my New York production office and sent my staff down to New Orleans to set up our own relief effort. I asked all of you to help me by sending food, materials and cash to the emergency relief center we helped set up on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain with the Veterans for Peace. We did this when the government was doing nothing and the Red Cross was still trying to get it together. Every day, every minute was critical. People were dying, poor people, black people, left like so much trash in the street. I wanted to find a way to get aid in there immediately.
I hooked up with the Vietnam veterans and Iraqi war vets (Veterans for Peace) who were organizing a guerilla, grass-roots relief effort. They were the samegroup that had set up Cindy Sheehan's camp in Crawford and now they had moved Camp Casey to Louisiana.
I have good news and horrible news to report. First, your response to my appeal letter was overwhelming. Within a few days, a half-million dollars was sent in through my website to fund our relief effort. This money was immediately used to buy generators, food, water, a mobile medical van, tents, satellite phones, etc.
Others of you began shipping supplies to our encampment. People in communities all over the country started organizing truck caravans to us in Louisiana. Twenty-two trucks from southern California alone have already arrived. A semi-truck from Chicago delivered ten tons of food. A group of friends in New Jersey got two 24 foot trucks, got their community to load them up with goods, and arrived in Covington tonight. Fifteen iMacs are inbound from California. One man gave us his pick-up truck and another donated truck is en route from Houston.
Your response to my appeal has been nothing short of miraculous. And it has saved many, many lives.
A number of you decided to just get in your cars and drive to our camp to volunteer to help. We now have had 150 volunteers here doing the work that needs to be done. Last night they unloaded twenty tons of food from a tractor trailer in under two hours. Each day more volunteers arrive. Everyone is sleeping on the ground or in tents. It is a remarkable sight. Thank you, all of you, for responding. I will never forget this outpouring of generosity to those forgotten by our own government.
My staff and the vets spend their 18-hour days delivering food and water throughout the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. What they have seen is appalling. I have asked them to post their daily diaries on my website (www.michaelmoore.com) along with accompanying photos and video so you can learn what is really going on. What the media is showing you is NOT the whole story. It is much, much worse and there is still little being done to bring help to those who need it.
Our group has visited many outlying towns and villages in Mississippi and Louisiana, places the Red Cross and FEMA haven't visited in over a week. Often our volunteers are the first relief any of these people have seen. They have no food, water or electricity. People die every day. There are no TV cameras recording this. They have started to report the spin and PR put out by the White House, the happy news that often isn't true ("Everyone gets 2,000 dollars!").
The truth is that there are dead bodies everywhere and no one is picking them up. My crew reports that in most areas there is no FEMA presence, and very little Red Cross. It's been over two weeks since the hurricane and there is simply not much being done. At this point, would you call this situation incompetence or a purposeful refusal to get real help down there?
That's why we decided not to wait. And we are so grateful to all of you who have joined us. The Veterans for Peace and my staff aren't leaving (and that's why we are hoping those of you who can't get to Covington will make it to the Veterans for Peace co-sponsored anti-war demonstration in DC on September 24: www.unitedforpeace.org.)
If you want to help, here's what we need in Covington right now:
Cleaning Supplies (glass cleaner, bleach, disinfectant, etc.)
Aspirin and other basic over the counter drugs.
Bottled Water
Canned Goods
Hygiene Supplies
Baby Supplies - Baby Food Formula, diapers #4, #5, Wipes, Pedialyte
Sterile Gloves
Batteries - All kinds, from AA to watch and hearing aid batteries.
Volunteers with trucks and cars
Self contained kitchens with generators, utensils, workers
Consider sending supplies in reusable containers. List the contents on the outside of the package so the folks in the warehouse can easily sort the items.
Clothes are not needed. If you go, keep in mind that you MUST be self-sufficient. Bring a tent and a sleeping bag. People are driving to Covington from across the country and often have extra room in their cars for you or for an extra box of supplies. For more information, go to the Veterans for Peace message board.
Send supplies via UPS to:
Veterans for Peace
Omni Storage
74145 Hwy. 25
Covington LA
Thanks again for funding and supporting our relief efforts. It has been a bright spot in this otherwise shameful month.
Yours,
Michael Moore
mike@michaelmoore.com
www.michaelmoore.com
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Matthew Daneman
Staff writer
(September 13, 2005) — A crowd of nearly 300 people crowded the sidewalk in front of Downtown United Presbyterian Church this morning, as a national tour of anti-war activists made a stop in Rochester.
"They are the ones saying support the troops," said Washington state resident Stacy Bannerman, whose husband, a member of the National Guard, returned in March from a tour of duty in Iraq.
"Silence is not support.
"I guess I've got a little bit different definition of support than the current administration. I say we make decisions to send them in harm's way as if their lives actually matter."
The Bring Them Home Now Tour is a spin-off of the three-week anti-war protests that happened this summer outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch.
A parade of speakers took to the podium to decry the war and the Bush administration, and to call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
"I know it would be easier if I could believe it (being in Iraq) is a noble cause," said Texan Tammara Rosenleaf, whose Army husband currently is stationed at Fort Hood and is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq this fall.
"But I don't have that comfort. I know there were no weapons of mass destruction. I know terrorism increases every day we're there.
"In my dreams, I've seen the coffins," she said tearfully. "And I know my husband is in one of them."
The Bush administration has said that it does not plan to withdraw from Iraq until Iraqi security forces are able to take over law and order efforts in that nation. None of this morning's speeches addressed the issue of what immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq might mean for security there.
The bus, one of three on the Bring Them Home Now Tour, heads this afternoon to Syracuse and Wednesday to Albany.
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