The people of the Gulf Coast are refugees, even if Bush, the lesser (love it, media girl!), says otherwise.

Refugees are people who have been abandoned by their government. My parents, who survived Dachau, spoke of "concentration camp refugees" and a gracious American government and Allied Armies that were greeted as liberators.

The old Movietone newsreels recall a "visibly shaken" General Eisenhower touring the death camps. The Allies made the local citizenry tour the camps to see what had been done in their names. Many of the Nazi guards were summarily shot on the spot by the Allies.

But then the blame game started. "I was merely following orders." Or "I was merely giving orders." But a government that turns its back on a segment of the population has made war on its people and those upon whom it has made war are refugees. No wonder it stings Bush, the lesser, so much and that he thunders that these are "Amurikans."

I recall post-war Europe - I was VERY little, but the images are so stark. The Eighth Air Force had done one hell of a job, emphasis on hell. I saw the news cast from Biloxi where the reports tells of the progress - how the streets were cleared. It was like that in bombed-out Germany, too, but the rebuilding took a long time. I can attest from personal experience that the children will carry the images to their dying day.

We have had but a tiny taste of war and the results are not that different from conventional war, let alone nuclear with radiation sickness and fall-out clouds. The ripple effect of one city taxes, literally and figuratively. A Representative to the House can vote against people in another state, only to find the results of that vote sitting on his door step. The extra money we now spend to deal with an influx of population - would it not have been better spent upfront, so that there would be no need for refugee centers and displaced persons camps/centers as we now have?

My parents passed away not long ago and I thank God that they were spared the sight of American herded into all-but concentration camps - held against their wills without adequate food and water amid rotting bodies.

No. To them the Americans were the greatest people on earth and in the sadness of their deaths, at least I am comforted that they did not live to see otherwise.