MoPress

Author: mopress

  • Listening to New Orleans: Charmaine Neville

    IndyMedia New Orleans

    Charmaine Neville’s story, WAFB, Baton Rouge video

    I was in my house when everything first started. I was in my house, yes, I live in the Bywater Area of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. When the hurricane came, it blew all the left side of my house, the North side of my house. And the water was coming in my house in torrents. I had my neighbor, an elderly man who is my neighbor, and myself, in the house. And with our dogs and cats and we were trying to stay out of the water, but the water was coming in too fast. So we ended up having to leave the house.

    We left the house and we went up on the roof of a school. I took a crowbar and I burst the door open on the roof of the school to help people, to get them up onto the roof of the school. Later on we found a flat boat. And we went around in the neighborhood in a flatboat getting people out of their houses and bringing them to the school. (Crying.) We found all the food that we could and then we fed people.

    But then things started getting really bad. By the second day, the people that were there that we were feeding and everything, we had no more food, no water. We had nothing. And other people were coming into our neighborhood.

    We were watching the helicopters go across the bridge and airlift other people out, and they would hover over us and tell us “hi!” but that would be all. They wouldn’t drop us any food, any water, or nothing. Alligators were eating people. They had all kinds of stuff in the water. They had babies floating in the water. We had to walk over hundreds of bodies of dead people. People that we tried to save from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old folks homes.

    I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized we rescued a lot of police officers in the flat boat from the Fifth District police station. The boat. The guy that was driving the boat, he rescued a lot of them and brought them to different places where they could be saved. We understood that the police couldn’t help us. But we could not understand why the National Guard and them couldn’t help us, because we kept seeing them. But they never would stop and help us.

    Finally it got to be too much. I just took all of the people that I could. I helped two old women in wheelchairs with no legs, that I rolled them from down in that Ninth Ward to the French Quarters, and I went back and I got more people. There were groups of us, you know, there was about 24 of us. And we kept going back and forth and rescuing whoever we could get and bringing them to the French Quarters because we heard that there were phones at the French Quarters. And there wasn’t any water. And they were right there was phones, but we couldn’t get through.

    I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys who had come (audio deleted) [not] from the neighborhood where we were that were helping us to save people, but other men. And they came and they started raping women and (audio delted) they started killing. And I don’t know who these people…I’m not going to tell you that I know who they were, because I don’t.

    But what I want people to understand is that if we had not been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn’t have happened.

    People are trying to say that we stayed an extra day because we wanted to be rioting and we wanted to do this, but we had no resources to get out, and we had no way to leave. When they gave the evacuation order, if we could’ve left, we would have left. There are still thousands and thousands of people trapped in the homes in the downtown area–when we finally did get– in the Ninth Ward, and not just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods of the ninth ward there are a lot of people who are still trapped down there. Old people. Young people. Babies. Pregnant women. I mean nobody’s helping them.

    And I want people to realize that we did not stay in the city so that we could steal and loot and commit crimes.

    A lot of those young men lost their minds because the helicopters would fly over us and they wouldn’t stop. We’d do SOS on the flashlights, we’d do everything. And it came to a point. It really did come to a point where these young men were really so frustrated that they did start shooting. They weren’t trying to hit the helicopters. Maybe they weren’t seeing. Maybe if they heard this gunfire they will stop then. But that didn’t help us. Nothing like that helped us.

    Finally, I got to Canal Street with all of my people that I had saved from back there. There was a whole group of us. I–I don’t want them arresting nobody else–I broke the window in an RTA bus. I never learned how to drive a bus in my life. I got in that bus. I loaded all those people in wheelchairs and then everything else into that bus and (sobbing) and we drove (crying) and we drove.

    And millions of people was trying to get me to help, for them to get on the bus (crying, crying, crying).

    ————

    Note: Thanks to New Orleas IndyMedia for the link to this video. See, Katrina and the State by Kate. Another link from the article takes us to a news report about 18-year-old Jabbor Gibson who also “stole” a bus to get people out. What’s fascinating about the link is that it is from Free Republic, where the usual crowd of Republican apologists are cheering Jabbor for Mayor! Say survivors Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky: “the official relief effort was callous, inept, and racist.” An article and audio interview by Malik Rahim also serves to witness the mess on the ground. All this and more at New Orleans IndyMedia.–gm

  • From a Descendant of Charles Christopher Sheats

    As a Descendant of Charles Christopher Sheats I find it contemptible that you would compare Christopher Sheats with Cindy Sheehan. He was a patriot of the United States and not a traitor to it. He voted not to secede from The United States. He was against secession not for it. He lost a brother fighting for the union and has had several descendants die including my Brother. All of my brothers served in the military and you sir are besmirching our name with your socialistic slop. C.C. Sheats was elected to go to that convention. Cindy Sheehan has not been elected by anyone but the socialistic deadbeats and the News. So brag on your little darling all you want to but leave our ancestors out of it.

    Note: the correspondent refers to a Peacefile article, Dining with the Posse of Peace

  • Camp Casey, TX: The Village is the Answer

    By Susan Van Haitsma

    Every village has its cemetery, its collection of spirit inhabitants who invoke memories of village history and remind the living that death and remembrance of the dead are essential to the natural order of things in human society. But cemeteries usually are found on the edges of town, away from the goings-on of daily life.

    The memorials of carefully arranged and named crosses, stars of David and crescents comprising ‘Arlington South’ in Camps Casey I and II are not relegated to the edges, but instead form the heart of the community that has sprung up near Crawford, Texas this month. Memorial crosses hug the three original tents of Camp Casey I and line the road leading to the camp. The field of crosses at Camp Casey II adjoins the large community tent and is the first thing visitors encounter as they approach from the road. In a reversal of the natural order of things, the dead represented by these memorials are society’s youngest adults. The doctrine of pre-emptive war forces members of a society to do the unthinkable: to sacrifice the lives of their young to protect their own.

    After her address at Camp Casey II on Saturday, Cindy Sheehan stepped into the cheering audience to greet supporters. As she shook my partner’s hand, she studied the image on his T-shirt: a line of people with arms linked and the message, “Guns don’t protect people … people do.” She said, thoughtfully, “I like your shirt.”

    One of the many gifts Cindy Sheehan and her energetic supporters have given the country this August is a living, breathing example of what an alternative to war looks like. It’s an alternative led and shaped by women with a message focused on children. Behind the stage under the big tent of Camp Casey II, the handmade cloth banner spanning exactly the width of the tent states in bold, pink, block letters: MOTHERS SAY NO TO WAR. During the rally on Saturday, a long banner held by about 25 persons in rotating crews in front of the crosses read in bold, blue letters: SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME ALIVE. Many smaller signs displayed around the camp contained similar messages: “Hands off God’s hildren.” “Greed is not a lesson for our children.” “War leaves all children behind.”

    The village that has grown at Camp Casey contains the essential elements of what is life-giving and life-sustaining: food, water, shelter, clothing (mostly T-shirts), health care, education, communications systems, spiritual direction, visual art, music and dance. It’s all there, sprouting from the earth, brought into being by hundreds of people pooling talents developed in their own communities around the country. People have come with children and pets, often staying longer than intended. “It felt so much like family, I couldn’t bear to leave,” said a friend who spent the night in her car with her daughter so they could stay an extra day.

    The remarkable kitchen at Camp Casey II has served thousands of wholesome, delicious meals made by volunteers with donations of food. Marveling at the lunch served one weekday, a Codepink volunteer said, “I eat better here than I do at home!” Bottled water is delivered by the caseload and regular announcements remind older visitors especially to drink at least one bottle an hour during the heat of the day. A medical tent has been staffed with volunteer professionals. Trained counselors also have been available. A special tent has served as a chapel, hung with symbols representing a variety of faith traditions. Tables and chairs were rented to accommodate the crowds under the large tent, and on Saturday, every table contained a vase of fresh flowers.

    This village has embraced all ages and abilities. Chartered busloads arriving at the camp from Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio on Saturday were greeted and cheered. Calls were frequently made from the stage requesting volunteers for various camp tasks, and people jumped up, ready to be of service. At one point, overflow volunteers who answered the call for an ice brigade formed a line behind the ice handlers and applauded.

    Visitors listened to speakers, read materials and engaged in discussion. Nonviolence training was held. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) described experiences in Iraq that led them to speak out against the invasion and occupation. Said one young veteran from the Camp Casey stage as he surveyed Saturday’s crowd, “This is the single largest patriotic gathering I’ve seen in my life.”

    If President Bush really wants freedom, democracy and compassion to spread around the world, he would do well to observe the phenomenon just outside his gate. Noble causes require noble means. The Camp Casey community has been characterized by good organization, flexibility, hospitality and an abiding sense of care.

    At dusk on Saturday, taps were played in the field of crosses at Camp Casey II. Earlier, Joan Baez had sung ‘The Ballad of Joe Hill’, concluding with the line, “I never died, said he.” The large canvas portrait of Casey Sheehan waved in the wind. From a field of crosses grew a village filled with life that has become its own answer to war. Guns don’t protect people … people do.

    —-

    Susan Van Haitsma is active with Nonmilitary Options for Youth in Austin, Texas

  • All of Us: A Poem for Cindy Sheehan

    Geraldine Green 18.8.05

    ALL OF US

    and i she replied in a watery voice as she slung her hips forward over avalanche

    and ice and i she cried on the hillsides crumbling soil and i she replied to herself

    as she stepped like an antelope over the wall of the dead. the dead that lay like sandbags against

    an oncoming river or tidal wave they could not stop they could not be stopped. and i they replied

    as they marched side by side over elongated river beds like crocodile teeth and i we all cried as

    we leant forward against the wind’s long breath that took ours away as we lighted our candles

    each day by slow day.

    and i she called to the ones who won’t return and yes they all cried in voices uncertain yet louder

    and louder and i they replied to their mothers and fathers and their families called back fervent

    and loud and the clouds lifted their voices into the skies

    and the rains came and the rains came and the rains came down.

    and the doctors sighed and the medics tutted and they all did their best and they all

    did their very best because they have been trained like the soldiers who march into war and they

    have been trained to be humans after all and all and all and all of us cry.

    —–
    Submitted by the poet via email to Peacefile ‘to share with Cindy’; forwarded to AfterDowningStreet. The poet replies:

    Greg

    Hello there and thank you for posting my poem on Peacefile and afterdowningstreet.org websites. I’ve been keeping up to date with latest happenings. It’s just great that Cindy Sheehan has provided a focal point for people’s own feelings and thoughts on the matter.

    Thanks again

    Geraldine
    Cumbria
    UK