Kucinich on Katrina

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Sat, 03 Sep 2005 09:18:02 -0700

[Zepps_News] #Kucinich on Katrina

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

SEPTEMBER 2, 2005

12:20 PM CONTACT: Congressman Dennis Kucinich

Doug Gordon (202) 225-5871

 

Floor Statement of Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich:

The Supplemental for Hurricane Katrina

 

WASHINGTON - September 2 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) gave

the following speech today on the House floor during a special session

to provide relief money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina:

 

" This amount of money is only a fraction of what is needed and everyone

here knows it. Let it go forward quickly with heart-felt thanks to

those

who are helping to save lives with necessary food, water, shelter,

medical care and security. Congress must also demand accountability

with

the appropriations. Because until there are basic changes in the

direction of this government, this tragedy will multiply to apocalyptic

proportions.

 

" The Administration yesterday said that no one anticipated the breach

of

the levees. Did the Administration not see or care about the 2001 FEMA

warning about the risk of a devastating hurricane hitting the people of

New Orleans? Did it not know or care that civil and army engineers were

warning for years about the consequences of failure to strengthen the

flood control system? Was it aware or did it care that the very same

Administration which decries the plight of the people today, cut from

the budget tens of millions needed for Gulf-area flood control

projects?

 

" Countless lives have been lost throughout the South with a cost of

hundreds of billions in ruined homes, businesses, and the destruction

of

an entire physical and social infrastructure.

 

" The President said an hour ago that the Gulf Coast looks like it has

been obliterated by a weapon. It has. Indifference is a weapon of mass

destruction.

 

" Our indifferent government is in a crisis of legitimacy. If it

continues to ignore its basic responsibility for the health and welfare

of the American people, will there ever be enough money to clean up

after their indifference?

 

" As our government continues to squander human and monetary resources

of

this country on the war, people are beginning to ask, " Isn't it time we

began to take care of our own people here at home? Isn't it time we

rescued our own citizens? Isn't it time we fed our own people? Isn't it

time we sheltered our own people? Isn't it time we provided physical

and

economic security for our own people? " And isn't it time we stopped the

oil companies from profiting from this tragedy?

 

" We have plenty of work to do here at home. It is time for America to

come home and take care of its own people who are drowning in the

streets, suffocating in attics, dying from exposure to the elements,

oppressed by poverty and illness, wracked with despair and hunger and

thirst.

 

" The time is NOW to bring back to the United States the 78,000 National

Guard troops currently deployed overseas into the Gulf Coast region.

 

" The time is NOW to bring back to the US the equipment which will be

needed for search and rescue, for clean up and reclamation.

 

" The time is NOW for federal resources, including closed Army bases, to

be used for temporary shelter for those who have been displaced by the

hurricane.

 

" The time is NOW to plan massive public works, with jobs going to the

people of the Gulf Coast states, to build new levees, new roads,

bridges, libraries, schools, colleges and universities and to rebuild

all public institutions, including hospitals. Medicare ought to be

extended to everyone, so every person can get the physical and mental

health care they might need as a result of the disaster.

 

" The time is NOW for the federal government to take seriously the

research of scientists who have warned for years about the dangers of

changes in the global climate, and to prepare other regions of the

country for other possible weather disasters until we change our

disastrous energy policies.

 

" The time is NOW for changes in our energy policy, to end the

domination

of oil and fossil fuel and to invest heavily in alternative energy,

including wind and solar, geothermal and biofuels.

 

" As bad as this catastrophe will prove to be, it is in fact only a

warning. Our government must change its direction, it must become

involved in making America a better place to live, a place where all

may

survive and thrive. It must get off the path of war and seek the path

of

peace, peace with the natural environment, peace with other nations,

peace with a just economic system. "