Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

October 24, 2007

Scooby the dog, evacuating the San Diego fires

Scooby is among the animals fleeing the San Diego fire with their human friends. Scooby and his friends evacuated and are waiting near the California/Arizona border, waiting to hear if their homes have been burned. Photo Brenda Norrell

San Diego evacuees to Schwarzenegger: Stop bragging & shut up!

Another message from evacuees to politicians: Stop comparing the fires to the aftermath of Katrina

San Diego evacuees fleeing the fires have a message for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, following appalling television news broadcasts centered on his praise: "Stop bragging and shut up!"

San Diego fire evacuees at the California/Arizona border are still waiting to hear if their loved ones are safe and if their homes have burned. The last thing they want is to watch news coverage of the governor bragging about himself and others "kissing up" to him for political reasons.

To Gov. Schwarzenegger, one evacuee said, "If you going to glorify yourselves for something you didn't do right, there's something wrong with that."

The evacuees also said it is unfair to compare the fires' disaster to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"San Diego has beautiful weather and everyone has a car. Even the teenagers have their own vehicles. It is unfair to compare the victims of Katrina to the victims in San Diego. San Diego residents have the advantage of being able to get in their cars, travel to the shelters, then go about as they please in the days.

"They don't have sewage at their feet," the evacuee said remembering the floods after Hurricane Katrina. Evacuees pointed out that some San Diego shelters are even providing yoga, massage and health food for evacuees.

"Where else would that happen except in southern California."

They said there's a great deal of wonderful humanitarian aid and charitable giving going on, like at Viejas. News reports should focus on those, and exactly what is burning now and when people can return to their homes, rather than glorifying politicians, including President Bush, evacuees said.

A careful examination of the facts is likely to show that few state officials were working on Sunday afternoon and little was done at the crucial moments to prevent widespread disaster, between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday. That is the time when a few fires were first fanned by hurricane-force winds in San Diego County, signaling a pending, large scale disaster.

The leaves and grasses were extremely dry from the drought. Here's the latest from Democracy Now! on how the Bush administration censored the reports on global warming:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/24/1525214

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