Welcome to the Rockies, now get behind the fence!

[donsu]

http://blueowlsix.blogspot.com/2005/09/welcome-to-rockies-now-get-behind.html


I was afraid of this. As the great diaspora of New Orleans continues with evacuees not being told where they're going until the bus/plane cranks up or until they land/arrive, the police state tactics of some of the 'welcoming' communities are actually just housing people at remote locations, behind fences - like prisons, really. Look at the photo of the two women - Verne Stovall and Jacquelyn Augustine - at the right. According to a report in the Denver Post today, headlined "Evacuees stories moving, but fence isn't," written by Post columnist Diane Carman, really shocked me with her opening paragraphs:
--BEGIN--
If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.
The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.
There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.
It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry.
--END--

I mean if you read the story, the evacuees are very thankful for being safe and in a new place. Still, do we want to treat fellow Americans like this? And why so far away in Colorado? One woman says she's never even been outside of New Orleans and that's a pretty common thing among New Orleans' poorer residents.
I saw a report yesterday where evacuees were put on a plane and not told they were heading for Salt Lake City, Utah until they began taxi-ing down the runway. And then there is that report I have noted in recent days of the 1,000 evacuees flown to Roosevelt Roads naval base on Puerto Rico's eastern tip. What of them? I've still seen no reports, but I confirmed it with a Puerto Rican friend of mine. This is too surreal. As for forcing Americans into a fenced-in camp? I don't like it. Not one bit.
-----------------------------

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Concentration camps don't use plastic fences. n/t

[donco6]

4. And your point is . . . ?

I'm not clear. You're saying it's not so bad?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. I'm saying it's not a concentration camp.

The author is wrong.

[donco6]

2. How can this be legal?

Are they under arrest? I don't remember anyone declaring martial law here in Colorado. ??

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. Nowhere in the article...

...does it state that they're not allowed to leave. The reporter is engaging in some serious hyperbole.

[Touchdown]

6. One person here asked something.

Are those guards and fences there, to keep the visitors in, or to keep reporters out? Good question.

I hope some do decide to stay in Co. Things have been boring ever since that alien from the planet Orc left Mindy in Boulder.

[mainegreen]

7. We need to stop all the concentration camp crap.

We can't be mad when they are disorganized, and then get mad when the organize. These people can leave whenever they want, BUT if you leave you can't come back to the camps. Could you imagine what it would be like if anyone could come and go as they see fit? With donations, goods etc stored at these sites, wouldn't it make sense to guard it a bit? Doesn't it make sense to organize these people, micro-manage them in order to try and provide aid, determine costs, and plan the next step? Placing refugees in camps to organize care is very sensible. I'd be pissed if they didn't organize!

[iverglas]

11. and isn't that just the whole point

We can't be mad when they are disorganized, and then get mad when they organize.

We want the victims treated respectfully, and then get mad when they're given the best facilities and services available, even if it isn't Buckingham Palace and might not be their dream destination, etc. etc.

This is still an emergency situation, a crisis, and the response is still to attend to basic needs with the resources available, and that's what it has to be in the immediate term. And frankly, even if some evacuees did complain about some things, like their destinations and facilities, well, people have been known to swear at the doctors treating them too. They're in pain and they've suffered great loss, and I don't expect them to be grateful and compliant, about anything. But I'm not going to expect the emergency services they're provided to be world-class, either.

[iverglas]

8. how much, how many times ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1761760&mesg_id=1761760

There is no evidence that anyone is being confined against his/her will.

A plastic snowfence is not an effective way of keeping anyone confined anywhere -- but it is an effective way of putting people on the outside on notice that they are not permitted to wander into an area at will.

There is a plastic snowfence across the front of a vacant lot around the corner from me. Wanna know how effective that's been?

There is no evidence that anyone who wants to is being prevented from speaking to the press or to anyone else. Look at the picture of two women residents of the facility doing just that!

I mean if you read the story, the evacuees are very thankful for being safe and in a new place.

And part of being SAFE is having privacy and security in the place that is your home. The media are not permitted to wander willy-nilly into hotel corridors, women's shelters, student residences, apartment buildings, or your living room. Some of the people who have been evacuated undoubtedly do not want a microphone shoved in front of their face by anybody who might want to get them to say something.

The media have an interest in this that is different from, and not necessarily consistent with, the public interest or the interest of the survivors -- their own interest in disseminating information for profit.

I see the media being thwarted in this effort -- but I have *not* seen any evidence that any of the evacuees are being limited in their movements or actions or speech in any way that is not legitimately necessary for the integrity of the rescue process or for their own safety and security and comfort, and that is not a temporary and minimal and appropriate interference.

If I do see such evidence, and if it comes from a source not so obviously self-serving as a reporter after a story, I'll be concerned.

The "fenced-in camp" appears to be a fenced-out residential facility, established to meet the needs of some of the enormous number of people with enormous needs that it is enormously difficult to meet any other way in the immediate term.

If we're all concerned about evacuees being treated respectfully, why would we want the media to have unlimited access to them everywhere they are?

[donco6]

12. Just curious.

"If I do see such evidence, and if it comes from a source not so obviously self-serving as a reporter after a story, I'll be concerned."

What other kind of news stories are there?

[iverglas]

13. is that a real question?

There are news stories in which the reporter is not placing his/her or his/her employer's interest above the public interest or the interests of the subjects of the stories -- and distorting reality for the purpose as this one has pretty plainly done.

There is not always a conflict among those interests.

In this situation, there appears to be a conflict. It appears to be in the media member's interest to have untrammelled access to evacuees being housed in the facility, and it appears not to be in the evacuees' interest to permit that to happen, or in the public interest to allow unrestricted general access to the facility.

Seemed simple enough to me.

And me, I'll put the evacuees' interests above the media's interests, because I think their interests are legitimate and deserving of the greatest concern right now.

Just my opinion, eh?

[tridim]

9. I live about 2 miles from that camp

I'll try to get out there in the next few days to talk with the people and get some video footage.

[donsu]

14. thank you, good luck

nt

[seemslikeadream]

10. This is an interesting story

Thanks

It needs to documented


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1761760