As your state awaits the impact of Hurricane Rita where our federal government's emergency relief is already stretched thin due to Hurricane Katrina, it is incumbent upon you to take matters into your own hands and call on the governments of Venezuela and Cuba to aid in disaster relief.
Both countries’ aid packages were not accepted by the federal government due to politics.
As we well know the death rate of Katrina has surpassed the 1,000 mark where I feel help coming from both countries may have made saved lives.
As we saw images coming from the Superdome, Cuban doctors' could have aided those people. According to Geraldo Rivera of Fox News conditions in that Superdome were similar to those at Willowbrook which (at one time was a psychiatric hospital) was warehousing patients living in such deplorable conditions.
Geraldo Rivera exposed this hospital’s inhumane treatment of their patients and in an interview in which CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed a doctor, I was angered that not all that could be done was being done to aid these victims. This lone doctor equipped only with a stethoscope was treating thousands of people ... he could have used the aid offered by Venezuela as well as these Cuban doctors' who only waited for the green light to assist and treat these people.
Right now, relations between America and Venezuela are strained ... but we must come together when it comes to the welfare of a people who should not be punished. I do not think the citizens of Texas will care one bit where the aid is coming from ... only that it is coming.
I realize that our country has an entrenched embargo with Cuba because our government refuses to realize that this embargo has outlived its usefulness. To keep it in place for over forty years, just makes us look juvenile and petty.
If we think of Cuba as the enemy where their citizens are denied freedom, let me please remind you that we do business with China which is also a communist country whose citizens do not have many of the freedoms we enjoy. China also holds many of our country's loans and we presently are running a crippling deficit.
You will see what forms of aid both countries were willing to send our American citizens in their darkest hours and it is time we put politics aside and come to their aid.
Venezuela: One million dollars, two mobile medical units capable of attending to 150 people each, ten water purifying plants, eight electricity generators with a capacity of 850 kilowatts each, 20 tonnes of bottled drinking water, 50 tonnes of canned food. This aid package also included much needed oil to offset any disturbances to our nation’s supply. As you are well aware, there was little if no damage to their (CITGO) refineries.
Cuba: Stood ready to send 1,500 well qualified doctors to the United States who are trained in disaster relief and were sent to Sri Lanka to deal with the tsunami disaster last year. They also suffered a category five hurricane last year named Ivan where doctors along with the citizens that live in their community evacuate to emergency shelters where they know what medications are being taken by those within their community. They also stock these shelters with refrigerators so that their evacuees do not go hungry. Included in this evacuation plan is where veterinarians are also evacuated to these centers to care for the pets of their citizens. Due to Cuba's well thought out plans they suffered no loss of life due to Hurricane Ivan.
I think what we saw through Katrina was how ineffective our federal government is in responding to such disaster relief and where Homeland Security did not have plans to help our citizens. FEMA, an organization, was proven ineffective in dealing with this catastrophe.
I listened to an interview in which Don Imus interviewed Tim Russert, where Mr. Russert stated that he lost confidence in our country's ability to keep us safe. Katrina proved his assertions correct. So, I think at this point it is every man for himself and where you as Governor must think that way and call upon countries such as Venezuela and Cuba to come to your citizen's aid.
The time has come for our nation to stop playing politics when it comes to the very welfare of our citizens'. Their needs must always come first. If you do this, you will not have only thanks from grateful Texans, but the thanks from a grateful nation.
In closing, I felt the need to carbon copy both US Senators from Texas whose names are, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. If Katrina taught us anything it was that America must be humble, we must be self reliant, we must show our can do spirit and where we must show these politicians that we have had enough of their game playing.
Constitution of the
