From a friend in Madison, Wisconsin — a preeminent historian of women and a refugee from Nazis in Austria decades ago, who will never forget her experiences, and uses them now here:
“A small group of Madison folks met over the weekend to see if we could contribute some proposals for long-range solutions for the people caught in the New Orleans horror. The attached statement is the result of our thinking. We have made appointments to see our Congress people and would like them to receive as many calls for these actions as possible.
“The important thing is to get an expression of popular opinion that offers thinking that goes beyond meeting the most immediate needs.
“Please feel free to copy this statement (below), modify it in any way you like, and send it out to others. Also please write letters to the editor, using your own language.”
(More below; crossposted at DKos)
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The short-term relief offered to the victims of hurricane Katrina will not address the major problems of the more than one million victims of this disaster. The shattered lives must be rebuilt one by one, but displaced citizens must above all have a chance to return to rebuilt communities in New Orleans and the other affected areas, if they so choose. Long-range healing will be enhanced if disaster victims can participate in rebuilding their communities.
Our country has a long history of meeting such challenges: mass unemployment and dislocation of the Great Depression were successfully remedied by WPA, CCC and other federal reconstruction programs. A million GI veterans of World War II were helped by the GI Bill of Rights, which offered them housing relief in quonset huts and trailers, paid education and a chance to rebuild their lives.
We urge you to further the reconstruction of suffering communities and the rehabilitation of displaced citizens by working for the following measures:
1. Enact a federal works program for the reconstruction of the affected communities. Give displaced citizens priority in hiring for this program.
2. Enact laws to provide a check-off box on income tax returns for donations to a rehabilitation fund for hurricane victims.
3. Create a Citizens Committee to oversee the reconstruction and rehabilitation program. Such a committee must include a significant number of displaced citizens.
4. Provide all affected victims who do not have medical insurance, with life-long Medicare insurance, including psychological and psychiatric services, as needed.
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If you follow through on this call, contacting your members of Congress and/or writing letters to editors, please so post here. I will forward the info on your actions to this committed group to so inform members of Congress when they meet with them.