Was Cynthia McKinney Onto Something? "Katrina's Hidden Race War."

[Puregonzo1188]

Awhile back, Cynthia McKinney made some statements about 5,000 black men being murdered during Hurricane Katrina. http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/09/cynthia-mckinney-says-5000-black-men-were-suspiciously-murdered-during-hurricane-katrina/

Now, the story made its way through the internet, including DU, and most people were skeptical to say the very least. However, a piece in the Nation Magazine alleges that a white militia shot at least eleven black men. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090105/thompson?rel=hp_picks

When the local news interviewed residents of Algiers Point, most of them seemed to confirm the story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26e4gbcPliE

While, it isn't exactly what Cynthia McKinney was talking about (eleven is a lot less than 5,000) I have to wonder if this was not the basis of what she was told, and if the entire story has yet to be unearthed. Regardless, this is a horrible tragedy and incredibly disturbing.

[DemzRock]

1. I'm confused...

Were here statements dismissed out of hand or has there been any investigation?

[LostinVA]

3. Someone -- I think a Guardsman -- told her, she announced it, and mocking began

I think it was a real incident which grew in the telling -- but it appears to be founded in truth. But, since it was McKinney...

[Puregonzo1188]

4. According to McKinney a woman called her office, and told her her son had processed

5,000 black bodies that had been shot and thrown into a swamp. Friends of hers in the Red Cross confirmed the story to her, and a Congressional investigation was going to happen, but she lost her seat and no one else in the House was interested. The original story definitely seems to be exaggerated some, but it does appear to be based in truth.

[annabanana]

7. I believe that there is a lot that we never found out..

After the initial shock, the media scarpered out of there as fast as their well oiled machines could take them.

[bobbolink]

30. HOW can any congresscritter bypass investigating something like this????

:wtf:

There is only ONE person who was interested????

:nuke:

no wonder I voted for her!!!

[AtomicKitten]

2. The cover-up of this evil has been pervasive and disgusting.

As a nation, the wounds of Katrina can only start to heal by exposing them to sunlight.

[KamaAina]

5. A rejoinder from one of NOLA's top bloggers

http://theamericanzombie.blogspot.com

(post of Sat., Dec. 20)

Some being what? I mean what kind of statement is that? That's like saying "Now it's clear that during the L.A. riots, some of the most serious crimes were the work of Hispanic males....so we now have a Hispanic crime war!"...

I don't doubt for one second that these incidents are true...but they are a drop in the bucket to the overall level of lawlessness and crime which occurred in the days following the Federal Flood. There are so many "incidents" which occurred in those days of horror, it just really peeves me to see a "national" (pun intended) reporter cherry pick incidents and call it "Katrina's Hidden Race War"...

Had Thompson framed this story as "Katrina's Hidden Vigilante War" I would have no problem with it because I think there were many, many vigilante incidents which went untold or unreported...one of the most egregious being a beheading of a child molester at the Convention Center (the headless body was actually shown underneath a blanket on CNN for a about a 10 hour period then the story mysteriously disappeared). And of course I don't have an issue with him reporting that there were white racists at Algiers point who were targeting African-Americans...that story needs to be told, and those assholes need to be prosecuted. But calling it a "Race War"....that's fucking insane and purposely inflammatory.....it's simply bad journalism.

A reporter could take that single story from the Dome which I just referred to, easily find 10 other incidents where white people were murdered, and imply that there was a race war against white people during the Katrina chaos...as a matter of fact I probably just gave some right wing asshole a great idea...shame on me.

[camera obscura]

6. No. McKinney alleged that relief workers were killing prison inmates, based on the testimony of...

a woman who said her son had done the killing.

[Puregonzo1188]

8. Actually the woman who testified about the killings did not say they were prisoners.

That was McKinney's guess as to who they were. Isn't is possible the woman's report was based on this incident?

My point isn't what McKinney said was 100% accurate, but that it was maybe based on something that actually happened and became distorted by the time it reached McKinney. And instead of finding the truth, we all decided it would be better to just ridicule McKinney.

That's my point.

[TheWraith]

19. If McKinney didn't know the facts, then she shouldn't have shot her mouth off.

That's how urban legends start. Any charge as wild as that one should have been investigated before it was thrown around publicly, not after.

[KoKo]

13. That may be true, also.

When we find the mass grave in the swamps, we will know.

[Jamastiene]

9. If you get the chance, watch Welcome To New Orleans.

It is on You Tube in several parts.

There was a group of racists on there bragging about shooting their black neighbors and called it "peasant" season. They also made the comment that they "earned" their "southern wings" after shooting them.

They can also be seen in the video posted in the Political Videos Forum here on DU about the Algier's Point incidents that happened.

Here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x252150

That video is very telling.

And...

There have been no charges filed against them. Just for the record.

It's atrocious.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Bush administration's War on Black Folks lead by DOJ makes anything possible.

The only voting rights case they have filed is a reverse discrimination case.

Serves them right that overwhelming turn out by the nation's African-Americans (and a pretty good turn out by the Latinos they pissed off with their anti-immigrant bullshit) lead to the fall of the GOP. The SOBs at the top of the Republican food chain are not even racists. They despise all workers--white, black, brown, pink, green--equally, and only pretend that some are better than others in order to Divide and Conquer us. They are more than willing to hob nob with a rich as shit Black or Asian or Latino dictator from some other country. Call that guy their best friend. Party on his yacht. Marry their daughter to his son.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

11. maybe, maybe not...i doubt it...and well...she could...

but all the other stupid bullshit crazy nutcase garbage she spouts means she will forever be relegated to the backwaters of nut-dom. she could fucking land in Washington DC in an alien spacecraft with Bigfoot and Elvis and show the world how to generate unlimited free energy and the aliens could then offer to build it all for us for free while offering anyone in the world 'perfect' lives of comfort and joy ... and only a handful of reporters would pay attention and the rest of the world would ignore her...because she's a loon.

sP

[Puregonzo1188]

17. Could you please give an example of "all the other stupid bullshit crazy nutcase garbage she spouts"

[ProdigalJunkMail]

27. no need to give an example of what is widely known and accepted nt

[roody]

32. Example needed to support your claims.

[Pastiche423]

33. No it isn't

Please provide examples. Otherwise it will be plain that you are still spouting off right qwing talking points.

[KoKo]

12. Of course she was. But, naysayers found her "too extreme" so

much of what she said always gets ignored with her being characterized as a "Kook." Her account was different but it's possible whatever a whistle blower told her was very confusing at the time. Still, we may never know what else went on in NOLA.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

14. she IS a kook...and a loon...

5000 people in prisons or wherever don't just get off-ed and no one mentions it from then forward...these people would have had families and their bodies had to go somewhere...conspiracies this size of which would have been needed to pull this off don't ever succeed.

sP

[KoKo]

15. With the stuff going on out there these days it's hard to know

whether the Kooks & Loons aren't the truth tellers. Even if they don't always have the exact numbers straight...eventually the skullduggery and crookery is being outed.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

16. even if it were 1% of what she stated

it would be out already. don't you think someone might miss one of their loved ones whacked and dropped in the swamp in a gov't conspiracy to kill black people while they had the chance? there are some kooky, loony things out there that just might be true, the problem is that McKinney never seems to hit one...but if she did, she would probably have a 'mysterious' small plane crash in her near future.

sP

[KoKo]

20. It takes time for all these things to be "outed." Just look at Bernie Madoff...

38 years for this guy..Bush Crimes....Century!

[ProdigalJunkMail]

28. some things indeed do...can't disagree there

but this is a little more immediate as it doesn't take decades to unravel. people who turn up missing...in large numbers...will cause a rukus...people would know.

sorry...she's out there again...

sP

[TheWraith]

18. Hmm, racist assholes shooting at random black guys vs govt. organized executions of 5,000 prisoners.

Yeah, that really saves McKinney's credibility. :sarcasm:

Let's not start twisting around reality to try and match it up with conspiracy theories. It only diminishes the credibility of the things that really DID happen, and paints people who are interested in the truth as being kooks and rumormongers like McKinney.

[baldguy]

21. We'll see.

[TheWraith]

23. This isn't a matter of opinion.

You can't just take 5,000 people out into a swamp and execute them without people knowing about it. This is the age of "the grid," 24 hour cable news, cell phone cameras and civilian satellite recon. People would notice.

In the very best case, McKinney was recirculating unfounded rumor as if it was fact, which somebody in her position should have known better than to do.

[baldguy]

24. More often than not, the "unfounded rumor" from those characterized as extreme leftists

and dismissed by the media & the ignorant turns out to be true.

[malaise]

22. I still trust Cynthia over all of the Rethugs on the planet

Truth will out.

[truedelphi]

25. The video has already been removed. However I remember

At the height of the Katrina blunders, Mike Malloy was talking abut how he had been contacted by someone in the state of Florida, and these little black kids, who had been bussed in from N.O. to Florida, were now being picked up by State Marshalls from the school they were attending.

Obviously they were not being picked up to be sent home. New Orleans was stillunder water.

The schoolteachers tried to ask where they were being sent. And the state marshalls seemed uneasy about the situation. There were no answers to any of the questions.

[Belial]

26. Cynthia McKinney = Idiot

Lets look at the murder problem in NOLA. It is now one of the MOST VIOLENT cities in the country. 11 people shot during Katrina? Thats a SLOW week in NOLA..

[Pastiche423]

34. Belial = Idiot

[ProdigalJunkMail]

35. Pastiche423=Ignorant fool

to believe that McKinney is seen as anything other than a loon in the eyes of about 98% of the populace...

sP

[Pastiche423]

37. Ciao!

[mondo joe]

29. McKinney thrives on drama. NT

[pitohui]

31. let's find some bodies so we can prosecute

i'm not familiar w. algiers point as i never go to that area, but to me it sounds like a bunch of racist fuckwits posturing

show me the bodies, show me a man they actually shot, so far it just sounds like to me that it's a lot of people bragging (i've heard similar bragging in st. tammany parish and it's basically bullshit to discourage FUTURE looters in the future storms we all know will come)

dead men have bodies and families, where are they?


it is not illegal to fuck w. the minds of a film crew and to tell them a tall tale, ask margaret mead

[Uncle Joe]

36. Kicked, but too late to recommend.

This needs further investigation.

Thanks for the thread, Puregonzo.