Human rights standards guarantee the right of people to be informed of and to participate in the decisions that may affect their rights. Gulf residents have a right to participate not only in decisions pertaining to the recovery process, but also in assessing the potential impacts of future projects on health, access to clean water and livelihoods. - Amnesty International
Amnesty International and Nicolas Cage are working to prevent the Gulf Coast peoples' voice from drowning in the crime against humanity. They are calling for self-determination through community councils, a democratic way to address the crisis instead of the present non-democratic, top-down military method of controlling the crime against humanity. For them to succeed, they need readers here to contact respective representatives and ask that they give Gulf Coast residents a voice in rebuilding their own future.
Below is today's Amnesty International message from Jason Opeña Disterhoft, A1's Demand Dignity Campaigner calling on the nation to support people of the Gulf.
The Gulf oil spill brought an already vulnerable region to its knees.
After spending the last 5 years picking up the pieces from the worst hurricane to ever hit the United States, survivors are now cleaning up after one of the worst environmental disasters in history.
But residents can't help the Gulf fully recover when they don't even have a seat at the table. Decisions are being made that will have an enormous impact on long-term health, on coastal wetlands and wildlife, and on two major industries in the Gulf Coast: fishing and tourism.
Congress can ensure that these kinds of decisions aren't just being made with the community in mind, but that residents are actively engaged in the decision-making process.
After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, a citizens’ advisory council was created to provide community oversight of the clean-up efforts and prevent future oil spills. This council is considered by many to have played a critical role in leveling the discussions between the company responsible for the damages and the people adversely affected.
A citizens' advisory council in the Gulf Coast would guarantee representation for communities of color and low-income communities – groups disproportionately impacted during crises, as evidenced in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Gulf spill.
This past April, actor Nicolas Cage helped A1 make this special video during A1's All Rights for All People conference in New Orleans to help shine a light on these very groups who risk being shut out once again during the recovery process.
Seeing the communities up close and speaking with residents one-on-one just confirmed what we've known all along –Gulf Coast residents need nationwide support as they continue to fight for their human rights.
We can't allow their voices to be drowned out this time.
Please also contact Orleans Barefoot Doctors for information about sending urgently needed technical support and supplies for Toxic Survival Kits they are distributing. Email delabarre@hotmail.com.
Comments
We all know who our so-called "representatives" represent... and it is not us (the hard working people). AT ALL.
So, vote them out you say. Perhaps you haven't noticed that the entire voting process has been totally bought, perverted, corrupted, taken over and only "candidates" of the right/left, right/left, right/left right/left Corporate Hobnail-Boot Fascio/Communism are even in the running. A fixed horse-race. It is a VERY sick game--a fraud and a hoax--sold by very slick salesmen with loads of false advertising--the lying Masters of Money and Continual War.
So, you can "elect" either "Monkey See" or "Monkey Due" and it doesn't matter one bit--simply because BOTH represent those Powers-That-Be to whom they have already completely sold their souls. $$$.
When their stolen trillions come through the door, their eyes get big like dinner plates and all human compassion flys out the window.
And now, they must eat the lunch they themselves have prepared. They must meet the Law of Gravity at the rocky bottom of their long accelerating spiral to self-destruction i.e. suicide--the fruit of complete mindless ignorance--the ultimate self-deception of power over the bodies, minds and souls of other human beings. Goodbye America. :(
You vote them OUT by everyone NOT VOTING.
STOP waiting for someone to come & do it for you!
They are YOUR government . . . FIRE THEM!!!!!
And then put in your own people & restore your Republic.
hollywood is disgusting, see for yourself:
vigilantcitizen.com
Tell Nick that charity begins at home. If there is anything left over after the IRS got through with his vast holdings, then I think he should just give it all away to the folks who rely on the north east part of the Gulf of Mexico to earn a living. Then he can pledge half of everything he earns on his future movies to those very same people.
What does Nick want me to do? Buy some poisoned shrimp? Take a vacation in coastal Alabama or Mississippi? I've got my own troubles!
Cage was born in Long Beach, California. His father, August Coppola, was a professor of literature, while Cage's mother, Joy Vogelsang, is a dancer and choreographer; Cage's parents divorced in 1976.[1][3] Cage's mother is of German descent and his father is of Italian descent (his paternal great-grandparents were immigrants from Bernalda, Basilicata).[4] His paternal grandparents were Carmine Coppola, a composer, and Italia Pennino, an actress. Through his father, Cage is the nephew of director Francis Ford Coppola and actress Talia Shire, as well as the cousin of directors Roman Coppola and Sofia Coppola, late film producer Gian-Carlo Coppola, and actors Robert Carmine and Jason Schwartzman. Cage's two brothers are Christopher Coppola, a director; and Marc "The Cope" Coppola, a New York radio personality.[5]
I think he is a good person, and wants to do something constructive. Let's give him a chance. We need all the muscle we can get from those higher up. If he is legit and sincere, his action will confirm.
DOESN'T NICK KNOW THAT THE PEOPLE THAT OWN BP WILL TALK TO THE PEOPLE THAT OWN HOLLYWOOD AND CAUSE GREAT DISCOMFORT FOR EVERY ONE INVOLVED? THIS WON'T GO FAR.
same guy who starred in the movie "Knowing", hmmmm....
The fishing communities along the Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida Gulf coast are largely poor and white. The VietNamese "fishermen" were brought here after the VietNam war ended. They were given brand new trawlers courtesy of you, the American taxpayer. They proceeded to net every shrimp in the bays and inlets around here. American shrimpers cut their nets and tried every means to discourage this predatory and unsustainable method of "shrimping" practiced by the very people who fished darn near every fish out of the Yellow Sea. For their troubles, the American shrimpers were prosecuted. Their old equipment bought with their own funds (not given to them by the taxpayers) was lost. The VietNamese shrimpers got to keep their new taxpayer funded trawlers and they got US Marshalls to ride with them to protect their predatory practices. Now simpleminded fools think VietNamese "fishermen" have always operated in Bayou LaBattre and Bon Secour. NOT!!!! I do not want to hear "communities of color" need more help than the hardworking White communities of the Gulf Coast. Save your rebuttals. I know these are facts. My family lived through them. We survived the US taxpayer funded VietNamese invasion. We will live through the oil invasion as well. We are resilient, proud, poor as dirt, often uneducated, but we endure. This is OUR home. We will not be moved.
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