Fw: Kucinich Statement

----- Original Message -----
From: "Herman Gyr" <gyr@enterprisedevelop.com>
To: "carol wolman" <cwolman@mcn.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 03, 2005 9:24 PM
Subject: Kucinich Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SEPTEMBER 2, 2005
12:20 PMCONTACT: 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.”=