Rainbow help for Katrina-displaced folks

i'm not "lashing out" at these "fine folks", i'm lashing out at your dumb ass for thinking that you know what was going on. i believe i even said "good for the family", or something to that effect. and i don't believe you've told me YET where you live(d) and where you were when it happened. what was your contribution? and no, noone was "full well aware" of the "devastation elsewhere" because they weren't here, and, as we all know, the news can/will only tell you so much. you don't pick up on emotion or human suffering through the news. i know, i know, you would've helped out, but...then you would've had to have left your bong for awhile. and your a/c and your nice, comfortable bed. but its okay because you sent out plenty of positive vibes and then came on a forum and talked down to a survivor. you must know everything

 

What my family did when this disaster happened was donated $2000 dollars to the fund, helping rebuild the communtiy and whatnot. This is a devastating thing and these people do need as much help as they can get, question is would they appreciate a bunch of hippies, though we would go with love in our hearts intent on helping them... would they want a bunch of rainbows there? I read a article in the post 'bout a week ago that mentioned their disliking to how many folks had migrated there after the hurricane...it said quite abit about overpopulation of people (mostly volunteers) in a destroyed area, of aggitated familys who just wanted to start over. I'm just saying... though I most likely rambling and ranting off of track here... do these folks really need any more volunteers? I think what they need is donations and the support from all over america.. we do not have to go there to help, hell to make a donation you wouldn't have to leave the spot your sitting in.... alright 'nough of my ranting, Hope I properly proved the point I was trying to prove without agitating any of you.

 

lets see,you dont know me or my family..

we opened our home to refugees of katrina.
, we sent a few hundred bucks down there(what we could afford)and sent at least 5 volunteers that way(people who otherwise wouldnt have known what was goin on with family down there)..

positive vibe folks we aint.. we did what we could.

where was i? i was here in the north georgia mountains.. weve dealt with hardships here as well maybe not on as grand a scale but hardships all the same. in 93 when the blizzard hit(im sure you have never even heard of the blizzard of 93 being you were 4,an if you have im sure you cant relate to what we went thru.). we were snow bound for a week the devastation was wide spread,the trees and infrastructure of the south could not handle nearly 3 feet of wet snow driven by up to 120 mile a hour winds. damage was estimated at up to 6 billion dollars.we were without power for 2weeks. so wow we were a week short of your 3 weeks without but we dealt with it..

you have no reason to act like such a fuckin bitch and lash out at someone you know nothing about..

you make generalizations and then assume your correct and attack me??

your just a poor misguided child ...

on the flip side, many of the katrina refugees we met were just scumbag pieces of shit with a entitlement mentality demanding that they be special because they were affected.

much like your acting now.

its bullshit in my opinion that people like you want to be put on a pedestal and be treated differently than anyone else..

as far as yalls experience in the storm,you had warning you could have left you chose your hardship..

and now you want to lash out at me because your family was to stupid to heed the warnings?? spare me please child....

perhaps you should lash out at your family for not heeding the warnings and getting you out of harms way..

and dont give me no bullshit about we had nowhere to go or no way to get there blah blah..

yall could have started walking 24 hours in advance(the storm was in the gulf after florida for nearly 3 days.ample time to take action.) and been long gone by the time it hit..people would have helped you get out even if you were disabled or without transportation...

and dont say they wouldnt have,cause if they wouldnt have then they are the real ones to lash out at.. the people in your community who wouldnt even help there neighbors.

your family chose to stay and now your special..

complete and utter bullshit the way your acting..

just wondering,, what did your family do to help the tsunami victims??

i mean since your so caught up in activism when a disaster strikes, i bet yall organized food and fund drives volunteered time to load trucks ,,all sorts of things huh??

an here all i did was donate what little cash i could at the grocery store.. shame on me....

 

what the hell is wrong with you?! yeah, the scumbag pieces of shit were many. they were a problem. they did much to hold up progress. they're the reason everyone was afraid.

you didn't watch the news in laurel, ms. this is where evacuees came. the storm wasn't supposed to be that bad. it was a total shock to everyone. people thought jones county would just have some messy yards and maybe be without power for a day or two. no shortages or roads really impassible or anything.

you don't know anything about my family or the false impressions my community labored under.

your few bucks at the grocery store? hahaha! well aren't you mother theresa!

i don't believe i ever acted entitled to anything. i simply made some criticisms, which is what a free speech forum is supposed to allow me an outlet for.

you didn't do enough to act like the expert you act like. i don't say anything about blizzards because i've never lived through one, and i don't act like a saint just because i sent a few bucks to the tsunami victims. (like you did for the katrina situation) i'd be embarrassed to brag about it as you have. i know that you have nothing to brag about until you've risked your life by moving corpses around an area infested with scumbag pieces of shit. so please take your self-righteous bullshit somewhere else. why not go jump up a tsunami victim's ass?

 

well i assumed the way you were typing that you were on the coast.. im curious as to why dear old granpa had to bust the windows outta his house because of water when you were that far inland,,or are you just living vicariously thru your kin who live elsewhere??if so,, you have no idea what they went threw,because you were not there..

me brag about it?? you asked 3 times before i answered and i stated we did what we could,exscuse the fuck outta me if it wasnt good enough for you...

expert? on what? i never claimed,or insinuated to be a expert.you asked questions i answered to the best of my ability,.. once again,exscuse the fuck outta me if it wasnt what you deemed i should have said....

what is it you wish to hear?


yes you are much better than anyone who didnt go threw katrina..

there is that what you wish to here??

or maybe,you poor thing what can we do to make your life easier???

jesus your very mixed up...

 

Just a couple of things here; first sunnycynic, you seem like you expected Rainbows to come fix all the things that the US government wasn't taking care of. The Rainbow folks who showed up in Waveland & New Orleans gave of their own personal time, energy & sometimes health, to help folks, not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Folks who did not physically go to help folks, helped by sending money and loving support to the relief kitchens & some hosted evacuees. Do you really think that any person in the chain is any less important than another? All the links in a chain must be strong or the chain will break...simple physics kiddo. Instead of bitching at folks who did care, maybe you should be elsewhere bitching at those who did not care...like the people who scammed services by claiming to be evacuees when they weren't...or how about the Red Cross who spends a ton of donations on their paper pushers. Did the Red Cross or FEMA show up to help your family? How long did it take for them to get there? I know that after Rita, the FEMA people were keeping charitable organizations for going in to hurricane ravaged areas. Please do not demonize those who did their best, no one volunteered just to meet your standards on disaster relief.

Second, this whole can't criticize your criticizims unless you can say "yes, i had no water or electricity or communication with the outside world for three weeks." thing...wow we lived for a whole month every summer with no water, no electricity & no communication with the outside world...of course we did so voluntarily but there are a great many people in the world who live like that all the time & not by choice. I live in US & we have a lot more resources here than we tend to appreciate. I know how to get water out of our well if the electric goes out, we have plenty of candles & we always have enough food in the pantry to hold us over for a couple of months if needed. Sometimes it's a matter of being prepared to take care of your own if you have to.

I'll tell ya, I don't count on anyone to help my family if the shit hits the fan is whatever way; fires, hurricanes, blizzards, economic collapse or whatever; but if I can help others in the face of disaster I will. That should be enough for anyone to expect from anyone else.

 

first of all, it was my UNCLE who broke the sliding glass doors. second of all, we had problems with flood here, too. a pine tree tore through the roof so the heavy ass rain flooded the living room. anywhere there's rain, there can be flooding. it's really quite simple. when it got knee-deep, he took my cousin's baseball bat and broke the glass so it would go out of the house.

perhaps my first message, the one that started all the bickering, sounded a little sarcastic or critical. well, please understand the frustration that i still carry with me to this day. what little attention was paid to katrina went to new orleans, then the coast, respectively. everyone was talking about the great response...well..what little help we got came from the national guard. it's sad when the government is your only help. it's just that everyone was raving about the family's response, and i never even heard about them helping anyone.

you shouldn't have been unkind to me to begin with. maybe my post sounded a little rude, but it didn't warrant the response you gave. you know, saying "i know that would require effort." you don't know anything about me, and you knew even less at that point. but you tried to provoke me. my fault for falling for it.

i'm sorry for any toes i may have stepped on. i shouldn't have passed judgement on anyone. you guys were doing more than the average citizen for even knowing what was going on.

please understand though, that it was a SUCK situation and that i still need to get rid of a lot of anger and hurt. sometimes, i'm going to direct it at the wrong people.

please understand also, that living without power, water, etc. by choice is very different than when it's forced upon you. when you make the decision, you're more prepared. you have a well, you've adjusted to everything, etc. you know that if someone falls deathly ill, you'll have a hospital filled with modern conveniences and that it will be safe and sanitary. if you should need power, you can go somewhere that has it. everywhere near us that had these things was blocked by huge trees. please try to understand where i'm coming from.

a million apologies,
SARA

 

sister sara...i'm so sorry for your families hard times....struggling to survive it's not something i would wish on anybody. you have every right to be angry and that is a hard bitter pill to swallow when you see so many folks uninformed about the true depth of this tragedy. i wish i could think of something to say here that would make a difference...but all i have to offer is my love.

i hope the path is getting clearer for you and your family.

 

there really is no need for a apology ..

what i do understand is that its been over 2 years and for you to still hold such feelings suggests that perhaps you may need to seek professional help...

 

I was out there in August. My coisin and travel partner got all cracked out. I could not find any volunteer orgs in the few days we was there. Churches would not let us help out with out a "wait period". I had to high tale it back to indiana before my coisin killed himself from all the crack available. He spent all our cash. I got allot of bad vibes in New Orleans but did not visit any other townes or Parish/city.

 

thank you, honey. i know exactly what you mean and everything you say is true. noone understands unless they went through it (or, as certain people would spell it, "threw").
(hugs)

 

coyotesister, thank you for your kind words. nowarchy, i'm sorry about your cousin. it was pretty crazy down there, i'm told. (by evacuees, not the media or the rainbow family)

 

People were demanding stuff from the government like they should be served meals hours after it happened.
What the hell a flood happens and they bitch and whine about not having dinner at 6:00.

But it was a disaster people need help OK.
Then weeks and months go by and they are still playing the “I’m a Katrina victim”.
Well in America there is thousands of homeless people and people who lose everything everyday so what makes you special? Your disaster got media attention? “You’re a Katrina victim” how awful you need a huge house and monthly money forever.

People saying “where is the Rainbow help”?
Probably already helping their families and local disasters, you want everyone to cut off their local homeless shelters, clinics, help lines and come help “Katrina victims”?

You guys aren’t the only “victims” in life. And whom have you helped in a time of disaster?
Go to the homeless shelter those people are all in disasters without billions of dollars of help.

What ever it is over along time ago, time to play another card. Go smoke some crack.

 

hmmmm...that wasn't very nice

 

you make it sound like you volunteered there and do other volunteer work. care to elaborate a bit so other's might be able to understand where you are coming from?

 

^I volunteer at the local homeless shelter.

A lot of our funds are from donations and they went to an all time low after hurricane Katrina. Even after it was months over and Katrina victims were spending vouchers on DVD players and stereos taking them down the street to the pawnshops people were still sending money to their funds instead of local ones.
People will drive by someone freezing and going hungry, lock the car door sneer at them and tell them to get a job. But then go home and send money to some family in an apartment watching TV because they were a “Katrina victim”.

When we get less funds at the shelter that means in the dead of winter when we can’t house everyone people go without sleeping bags, boot, coats, basic survival gear that literally can mean life or death.

The only point I am trying to make is everyday people lose everything and need help not just people in the media.
So people should not forget about their own community and the people that are living a personal disaster in it.
Katrina “victims” had way more help then the average victim of disaster so it makes me made to hear them complain about not receiving enough.

 

i can understand the frustration other charitable organizations had to deal with due to Katrina and Rita and people donating funds to the cause of helping the surivivors. many Rita survivors recieved no help because of everything being about Katrina. i must inform you that the impression you give in your post indicates it was all fixed and over with a few months after the storm, is far from accurate. we're still down here working on the mess. it'll be another couple of years before it will be close to what it was before. be thankful there are shelters for you to volunteer in. there aren't many shelters here. down here it's all about stepping on the little guy. we have a much larger homeless population now and the powers that be just keep working on getting them to leave, instead of trying to fix the problem. it's people like you and i and thousands of others who try our best to take up the slack. it gets insanely frustrating and overwhelming at times. the best we can do is support each other and hope that in the end we get the job done. i will say that you are right on about people stepping over those in need in their faces to help others far away is just sad.

 

Wind power

 

I'm planning on moving down to New Orleans next month. I know there is, or was a rainbow kitchen down there and i would love to lend a hand, If anybody could pm me with their number and adress I would be very grateful.

 

hey there tok ur....here's the info you requested....this is the group that aaron funk and some of the other granola funkers helped focalize

AMERICAN RAINBOW RAPID RESPONSE po box 1648 Asheville, NC 28802 (828)-582-2826

brightest blessings to you.