Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Yet Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney provided none when she recently claimed that 5,000 prisoners were executed by the US in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and dumped in swamps.
Socialist Unity:
Surely 5000 prisoners would have been missed by their families? Surely at least some of the prison guards might have had moral objections and gone to the press. Shooting 5000 people would be a very major undertaking, and would need a lot of organisation, and transporting the bodies would take several lorries, and dozens if not hundreds of people would need to be involved. In the absence of any corroborating evidence, McKinney’s claim is so improbable that it will seriously damage the Green Party’s credibility.
Agreed. I’d say that somewhere a Democratic operative is laughing his ass off except that the Democrats undoubtedly no longer see the Green Party as a threat.
Check please!
Wowser! I am not sure what to say?
1. because the idea is insane.
2. because I actually had to wonder for a brief second about whether the bush administration would do something like that.
While I haven’t heard this info before, it wouldn’t shock me to find out it’s true. Thousands of prisoners did die in Katrina, mainly because the prison lacked staff, vehicles, and a location to transport inmates to before Katrina hit. Most of them died trapped in their cells when the flood waters rose. This was covered on several main stream news stations after one prisoner actually got out, swam to safety and alerted the media to what was going on.
Considering how many prisons there are in the area, and how many tens of thousands of people died in the event, it’s quite possible nobody missed them. Add to that that many of the people in the prisons were there because they were poor and black, meaning their family and friends were probably also poor blacks. Poor blacks (even outside the prisons) were the highest population percentage wise to not get out in time, and highest in the death tolls. So if your family dies in Katrian, and your friends die in Katrina… who’s left to notice if you’re not around?