Who Will Rescue Katrina’s Survivors?
By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr © Tribune Media Services Americans – and much of the world – were appalled when there was no plan to rescue those stranded by Katrina’s furies. We watched stunned as incompetence and cronyism had deadly consequences. Now, Americans – and much of the world – are no longer watching; but to date, just as there was no plan to rescue the survivors, there is no plan to include them in the reconstruction. There is no plan to bring the survivors scattered to 40 states back to their homes, no plan to give them priority on jobs, and put them to work rebuilding their city. Cronyism, corruption, incompetence and blind ideology threaten to add to the suffering of those who were abandoned in the first place. Last week, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced that he would be forced to layoff 3000 city employees, about half the city’s workforce, “as a result of financial constraints in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” Appeals to FEMA and the Congress had received no resp