[GCFL-discuss] Refugees

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

I usually agree with Dave, but I don't find much sense in the complaints
that the people displaced by Katrina should not be called refugees. I've
seen it in the papers and even on NBC news. 

A quick look at a pocket dictionary (American Century, by Oxford
University Press) defines "refugee" as "a person taking refuge, esp. in a
foreign country, from war, persecution, or natural disaster."

True, people displaced by Katrina are not in a foreign country, nor
fleeing from war or persecution. They are, however, taking refuge from a
natural disaster.

So, why are we treating "refugee" as a dirty word?

Why do we assume that AMERICANS can't be refugees?

If people are associating the word "refugee" with the pompous nonsense
Robert Tracinsky put out (I'm not blaming Frank for it, he just passed it
along as something to look at), then I understand the sensitivity, but I
still don't believe the word "refugee" is wrong.

Americans are taking refuge from a natural disaster, many in another
state -- and if you ever look in a law book, a corporation from one state
doing business in another state is called a "foreign corporation."

Let's call it what it is, not take REFUGE in myths that this couldn't
happen to OUR country. We're not all that special, certainly not in the
eyes of God. But let's also not put any prejudice on OUR fellow citizens
who ARE refugees.

Siarlys

P.S. Concerning the down-and-out chronically unemployed and unemployable
among the refugees, we came up with a good plan discussing this before
church this morning. Every contractor from outside the disaster area that
comes in to get work on rebuilding should be required to hire one new
apprentice from the local population for every journeyman or master of
any trade they bring in as part of their crew.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://gcfl.net/pipermail/gcfl-discuss/attachments/20050911/cd496761/attachment.htm