One of my first tasks when I moved to New Orleans three months ago was to find a place to live. I had heard from friends for years finding housing in the south was always easier and much, much cheaper than on the east coast, where I'd spent most of my life. And, I thought to myself, it must be cheap there, because a third of the people who lived there before Katrina still haven't come back. I was golden, I thought - The Big Easy would be my city, and I'd get some really cheap
rent to boot.
It turns out I was wrong. Rent is just as high, if not higher, than it was in Philadelphia, where I'd been for six years. Riding through neighborhoods where rent was nearly half my monthly paycheck, I could still see the spray paint X's left by rescue workers in September of 2005, which signified what they found in the houses they searched. There were shells of houses everywhere, and on some of them you could still see the water lines - some higher than my head - left by the flood waters.
I finally found a place less than a month ago, in the city's Seventh Ward, an area devastated by Katrina's flood waters but largely unnoticed by national media coverage. As I left for two weeks of vacation last Tuesday, Tropical Storm Gustav starting threatening Puerto Rico and Haiti. Very quickly, I had to confront the issue I had avoided thinking about during my long moving process - what do I do when another major hurricane threatens this city I'd started to love, where the elevation is as low as six and a half feet below sea level?
For many, the question was non-negotiable: Katrina left nearly 2,000 dead and countless thousands displaced and homeless, so why would they risk sticking around for what Mayor C. Ray Nagin called "the mother of all storms"? According to the New York Times, two million people evacuated from southern Louisiana for Gustav in the first mandatory evacuation since Katrina. According to one estimate I saw, only 10,000 people, out of a population 470,000, stayed in the city during the
storm, almost certainly all clustered along the city's high ground next to the Mississippi River.
And what happened? Soon after it made landfall, "the mother of all storms" was downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane. No levees breached in New Orleans (one did breach in one parish south of the city, though no houses suffered any significant damage). About a million people in Louisiana lost power. There were branches in the streets and some downed power lines. The levee bordering the Upper Ninth Ward was overtopped and the streets there flooded, but no homes were damaged. Shortly after the storm brushed the city, it was merely windy. Police
and the National Guard roamed the streets looking out for looters, but there were not many arrests to be made.
The city had escaped the significant damage forecasted by the mayor and even the Army Corps of Engineers, who remain responsible for repairing and maintaining the city's levee system. The city's West Bank, which had been braced for a storm surge twice as high as their ten-foot levees, sustained no flooding at all.
So what does this mean for New Orleans? I'm afraid that many people will believe that the city is repaired, that the levees will hold in the next major storm that will, inevitably, threaten this strange and beautiful place. The Associated Press interviewed
people who did evacuate, and many, like one Texas woman they interviewed, say that "people who evacuated like us aren't going to evacuate," she said.
This terrifies me. The levees are not fixed, and it's likely that they will still be susceptible long after the Army Corps finish their current improvements in 2011 - the Army Corps has no oversight outside the government agencies that supervise them, so we have no way of knowing the quality of their work. The federal government remains incapable or unwilling to help in huge natural disasters, and their department in charge of handling such emergencies, FEMA, remains a punchline to a cruel, twisted joke. Three years and three days from when Katrina irreparably damaged the psyche of New Orleans, we were reminded of the total ineffectiveness of the Bush Administration, on the eve of the convention where John "Another Four Years" McCain was to receive the nomination from the party that has failed us for eight years.
In a startling reminder of how badly President Bush failed the people of New Orleans in 2005, FEMA announced today that they would be providing limited assistance to evacuees, and no financial assistance, instead deferring to NGOs like the Red Cross.
What it comes down to in The Crescent City is that another major flood could be the end of that wondrous and seemingly doomed city. I can't even begin to imagine the strength it took for people to come back after Katrina, but I don't know that anyone is strong enough to do it twice. To see the grim determination in spite of dampened spirits of all those thousands affected three years ago has been one of the most
inspiring things I've ever witnessed - but the threadbare courage in the face of a city government determined to make less affluent leave and state and federal governments indifferent (at best) to their struggles can only last for so long.
So we will keep living and keep hoping that mother nature continues being kind to us. The spirit of New Orleans does not lie in the levees, or the flood lines on houses, or faith in any government, or the countless young people who have come to call the city "home" in the past three years. You can see it in the jazz funerals that still close down busy streets on hot summer afternoons, and you can see it in the new restaurants that open every day, and you can see it in the children playing in empty lots in the Lower Ninth. And that is why we must not forget New Orleans and the way the Bush Administration failed in three years ago and how it continues to fail it today.
Replies: 1
John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, has an Orwellian solution to help the 45.7 million Americans without health insurance. Just declare them insured!
Goodman argues that anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)
Said Goodman: "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American - even illegal aliens - as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.
"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."
You can read the full article here.
And then click here to sign our petition calling for real health care for all Americans.
Although I live in Denver, I did not get to go to Invesco Field to see Barack Obama's acceptance speech. I did, however, watch it in my living room, perched on the edge of my sofa, crying and clapping the whole time (like a crazy person). I couldn't help it- I was caught up in the sensation of watching his man talk and thinking, this man is the next President of the United States.
But then, when it was over, it hit me: he's not the next President of the United States...yet. While Obama did everything he needed to do in Denver, and then some- clearly define his economic policies, mitigate the opposing ideologies around contentious issues like abortion and gay marriage, directly debunk popular conservative myths about raised taxes, aggressively challenge John McCain, tell us his own humble American story, all the while standing strong, confident and earnest in front of 75,000 viewers – this by no means we can just sit back and relax. The increased support for Obama after his speech may be reflected in the polls in the next week, but we can't forget what a tight race this is – and we can't forget about the Republican propaganda machine which knows no ethical boundaries.
So it's time for all of us who gazed upon Obama at that podium and thought, This man had better be the next President, to act fast. Progressive Future is gearing up to roll out an exciting and aggressive new Fall Campaign. In critical states across America, we're working to identify and organize more than 500,000 progressive Americans who want to move this country in a new direction – and making the case for why voting for Barack Obama is the way to do that. We're educating 1,000,000 citizens about where our leaders stand on critical issues, and were mobilizing tens of thousands of volunteers to help turn out the progressive vote on November 4th.
But most of all, we're in this for good – we're committed to holding our leaders accountable for the progressive changes that they promise on the campaign trail, and putting the pressure on them after the election to follow through with that promise. After eight years of Bush, the stakes cannot be higher; America deserves more than empty promises aimed to win votes. Sign up here to help us elect leaders, like Barack Obama, who will: fix the financial disaster in Iraq; make sure that health care in this country is a right, and not a privilege; keep future generations safe from an impending energy crisis; give every child a quality – and equal – education; and restore the promise of the American dream.
Yesterday, I posted a story about the media's motivations for playing up the drama of the Clinton-Obama relationship. I had mainly asserted that the MSM looks for easily translatable frames like the hero-nemesis frame to play up in order to capture immediate attention. But many commenters pointed out that there is a deeper dynamic to the nature of the media coverage of Clinton. On DailyKos, user DrFritz said:
“I think there's a lot of sexism masquerading as recognition of the clout of female voters. Hillary's supporters are being portrayed as emotional rather than pragmatic. Buchanan is only the loudest among many pushing this take on things. Hillary's supporters should be up in arms about that, if you ask me. The media has not corrected the sexism that did leak out during this election, it's compounding it as a part of the bid for phony drama to pump ratings. They really need to think SERIOUSLY about the criticisms that have been voiced throughout the process.”
The sad truth is that, in this day and age, the go-to line of attack for any argument given by a woman is still that of “she's just being emotional.” As a woman, I find this attack flung at me all the time. A prime example of this is a response to a letter to the editor I submitted to the Boulder Daily Camera, regarding White House Spokesman Geoff Morrell's making a joke in response to reports that KBR had forced troops to shower in wastewater:
“Why does he smile? Kate Drazner thinks it's because he (and the rest of this administration) are despicable. Hers is a stubborn emotional viewpoint, so there's no point in arguing the point.”
The problem is, regardless of how far we have progressed as a nation in terms of equal rights, it is just too damn tempting to defer to this archaic viewpoint because it's so easy. You no longer shoulder the responsibility of having a substantive dialog about the issues when you can just say “you're just emotional, so there's no point in reasoning with you.”
But I should point out that it works both ways: men are often subjected to attacks on their masculinity as the easy fall-back argument against them. Take the New York Magazine's headline about Hillary Clinton's inclusion in the DNC: "Obama Agrees to Roll-Call Vote for Clinton. Does That Make Him a Sissy?"
The underlying tone here is that 1.) Obama is somehow weak to allow Clinton to be included in the DNC and 2.) more generally, it is a man's responsibility to keep women in their place. Says Eric Boehlert of MediaMatters:
“Because it was obvious the press didn't care whether the rift about Clinton's speech was real or imagined. The story helped journalists advance their beloved narrative that Clinton is a political-party wrecking ball and that Obama is too weak to control her. So even if the evidence ran counter to that, the press was sticking with its story line.”
Is this the filter through which America should be getting it's information? And how much of these subliminal enforcement of traditional gender roles is influencing the social compass of our country and inhibiting its progress? Progressive Future seeks to deconstruct these obstacles by leading a nation-wide campaign to get people talking about the issues and not just accepting the news at face value.
We're organizing in key states all over the country this fall, and mobilizing progressive citizens to talk to their family, friends and neighbors about the issues that matter in this election, whether it's the right to an unbiased, open press, bringing our troops home responsibly, investing in domestic initiatives, or educating citizens about voting rights. Click here to be a part of the movement.
“If folks were expecting any drama tonight, they’ll just have to make due with the uplifting kind.” Such was the bottom line of David Goldstein's blog for HorsesAss.org, entitled “A Stunning Lack of Disunity.” I ran into David here at the Big Tent (the DNC mecca for new media journalists, bloggers, reporters, and non-profit leaders – erected here in Progressive Future's parking lot), and thus launched into a discussion of the disparity between the media's playing up the contention between the Obama and Clinton camps, and the actual on-the-ground unity within the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, many people don't like to make due with the uplifting kind of drama – heart-warming tales of togetherness and harmony don't make for newsworthy items. The media's coverage of the DNC seems to highlight the nature of mainstream media as a business: go for the sell, but don't bog it down with much substance.
In fact, Goldstein's main gripe about why he's here to “keep the media in line” is because most of the Washington-based newspapers (HorsesAss is a Seattle-based blog representing the Washington contingent in the BigTent) didn't actually send any reporters to the DNC. The speculation from afar compounded with the need to sell papers with sensationalist drama has caused the papers to run stories all but fabricating the dramatic contention between Obama and Clinton supporters, Goldstein told me. Yes, the loyalty to the candidate is there, but the larger necessity to secure a Democratic victory this fall far overshadows any petty squabbling between the two camps.
Digby mused about this phenomenon regarding the DNC media coverage in a blog post responding to a column by Maureen Dowd which played up these tensions. “I would say that it's even money that by the end of the week we'll be hearing certain quarters of the media parrot [Dowd], if only because the "Dems are in disarray" theme is such a compelling nursery rhyme for puerile gasbags.” What, the rally of support to elect the first African American President in U.S. history is not compelling enough?
In fact, if you follow the key words used to describe Clinton's name being put in for nomination at the DNC, you often find language used to convey that Clinton had contentious, even violent, motivations for that move. “The national media made a huge deal about Clinton 'hijacking' the convention, and in fact there was huge criticism of Obama, saying that he was letting her take over a convention that was supposed to be his,” said Naomi Zeveloff, Senior Fellow for the Colorado Independent.
In reality, those who have been on the ground talking to Clinton supporters see a different story. “The larger part of the Clinton camp which includes prominent feminists: they're disillusioned, they're upset that they won't see a female president, but in terms of advancing women's issues, they see the need to go for Obama and throw their support behind him,” said Zeveloff. "They are also excited that Obama picked Biden: he's done a lot of work on women's issues, in particular he's done a lot of work to defend Afghan women.”
Unfortunately, these stories lack the black-and-white aspect that is easily translatable for publications to capture immediate audience attention. Says Digby: “The media see [these people] as exotic birds or amusing chimps playing in the trees and consider them decoration for the real event.” Both Digby and Goldstein have agreed that it is hard for the mainstream media to take the high road and accurately represent the complexity of the relationship Clinton backers have with Obama, when there is an obvious hero-and-villain frame they can capitalize on. “Contention makes news, it's true, but the other part is that it's really hard for people to believe that Clinton would go down quietly, especially regarding the bruising and bloody end to the campaign,” said Zeveloff.
The overwhelming majority of the stories I've heard point to Clintonians who see her inclusion in the nominating process as a symbolic gesture to honor the groundbreaking nature of her campaign, and her strength and skill in becoming a major contender for the nomination. “The parts that got the most applause [during her speech last night], were the mentions of unity with Obama, but also things near and dear to herself. People really applauded when she said, 'my grandmother could not vote in an election, and this year my daughter voted for her mother,'” said Zeveloff. “Its hard for me to say that this convention is about the Clintons when its so much about Obama: people had signs that said 'Clinton,' more people had signs that said 'Obama,' but just as many people had signs that said 'Unity'. I cant imagine symbolic gestures could break that.”
Replies: 1
To set the context for this blog, let me just start by explaining that there is currently an 8,000 square-foot, two story structure in my office building's parking lot, which is known as the Big Tent. The Big Tent is the place to be for new media journalists, bloggers, reporters, and non-profit leaders covering the Democratic National Convention. One of the great things about the Big Tent is the immense lineup of panels on the second floor throughout the four days of the convention. (Another great thing is the free beer garden provided by New Belgium Brewery).
This morning, I attended a panel on Net Neutrality. As a blogger, my interests in this issue are probably quite obvious, but the bigger picture of what I walked away with is how the real stakeholders in this are all people who live in the United States and are appreciative of our country's commitment to democracy. Panelist Adam Stoller, of OpenLeft summed up the importance of this issue:
“This isn't a story about technology – this is a story about democracy.”
The campaign to secure net neutrality (and this has been described as the most successful netroots campaign in the history of the United States) rose up in response to broadband network corporations' tactics to restrict access to sites and applications deemed unfavorable to their business. For example, sites belonging to large corporate interests would be made to load more quickly than sites belonging to small businesses, or applications owned by the broadband corporation would be made to work faster than applications owned by another business.
The reason we can regard the net neutrality debate as a debate about the fundamental principles of democracy is due to two factors: the concept of a free market, and the concept of an open and free press.
The first factor is straightforward: conservatives who claim to defend free market principles are actually embracing the opposite when restrictions are imposed for small businesses and large corporate interests are given a built-in advantage for communications and marketing.
“Because the backbone of US internet is owned by major corporations – the conservative mantra of 'government hands off, let the free market prevail' doesn't actually happen with media,” said Josh Silver, Executive Director of Free Press
Which brings me to the second factor of the issue's significance: one of the fundamental principles of democracy is a free and open press. The internet has literally revolutionized the way we communicate and get our information – Silver described it as a “paradigm shift for all media.” To throttle access to information is thwarting democracy in action – the will of the people cannot be put to progress if the people are getting skewed, incomplete or biased information.
An example of this is how 3 million people wrote to the FCC (the Federal Communications Commission) to express their anger about being lied to regarding the basis of the Iraq War. The corporate control over our media represents one of our country's biggest hurdles in achieving a fair and true democracy – if the information reaching people attempts to control the will of the people, then we cannot accurately say that our country operates on the principle of 'rule of the people.'
In response to the exposure of the Pentagon's plan to groom military pundits and have them appear on mainstream news networks to speak favorably of the war, Progressive Future launched a Petition for an Open Press. Although the exposure of the plan caused the Pentagon to discontinue the program, the concept of a free and open press still hangs in the balance. Sign our Petition for an Open Press and defends one of the primary constitutional principles of our great country.
When I was at a Big Tent panel this morning, entitled, "Left Behind: What Katrina and a Stolen Election Taught Us About Race and American Politics,” a panelist commented on the nature of the media treatment given to disaster victims.
“[These victims] aren't sexy. College students [organizing on behalf of the victims] are sexy.”
He was talking about the need for grassroots organizing. Unfortunately, the mainstream press is a business and sex sells. This often means that the people who are in the most need of having their stories heard are often ignored or buried in the media.
We like to think that the one tool that anyone can have at their disposal to have their voice heard is their vote. Unfortunately, there are barriers to this as well. New voter ID laws, as have been seen in Georgia and Indiana are unnecessary, complicated, and worst of all, they leave the implementation of the laws up to the interpretation of the poll workers.
Voter intimidation at the polls may come from an accidental misinterpretation of the voter ID law, or it can be deliberately intended to suppress votes. I went to a small liberal arts college in Colorado Springs (birthplace of Focus on the Family, for those who aren't familiar with “Csprizzles,” as we called it). On election day 2004, a giant group of students marched over to the polls at 3 p.m. I was among them- and was consequently there until 8 p.m., as the poll workers deliberately slowed down the lines, hoping that our liberal votes would be shut out.
Luckily, the presence of grassroots voters' rights organizations had voter advocates on-site who were there to inform both the poll workers and us students of our rights as voters. Progressive Future recognizes the importance of voter education, and will be teaming up with MoveOn to register hundreds of thousands of minority voters in swing states, informing them of their rights as voters and making sure they turn out to the polls on election day.
One audience member asked the panel why, in an age of such technological progress, we have yet to develop the ability to automatically register any person born in this country. A panelist answered that too often, simple solutions exist to current social problems, but simply aren't implemented. Progressive Future is offering a simple solution: talk to you neighbors, your friends, your family. Tell them to vote. Talk to them about the issues that matter to them, and discuss what the differences are in the treatment of these issues between the two candidates.
It's up to each of us to make sure that no voices go unheard. It sounds daunting, but Progressive Future is here to give us the resources to make a difference this fall. To be a part of this sweeping movement, click here.
Last November, Michael Mukasey stood in the Justice Department's Great Hall as he was sworn in as the new US Attorney General. Having been given the first opportunity to speak publicly to his staff, Mukasey said:
"We do law, but the result is justice. And that is why our ultimate client - the people of this country - can and do rest secure in the knowledge that our unswerving allegiance is to the law and the Constitution, and that the result of faithful performance of our duty is justice."
My, how times reveal the true nature of people; we've now all come to recognize Mukasey as the disappointment who refused to come out against waterboarding, squelching our hopes for a firm protector of the Constitution.
And it seems he's on a roll. Acting under Bush's wing as George rolls out his last-gasp efforts to leave us with history's most Constitutionally-overwritten legacy, Mukasey has signed on to a new Justice Department plan to loosen FBI restrictions to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion.
The New York Times reports on some of the details that have raised red flags for progressive leaders:
The new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.”
The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities.”
The guidelines also provide very limited constraints for how the FBI could share information with other agencies.
And there you have it: Bush is desperately trying to formalize in stone his administration's efforts to wipe out civil liberties in exchange for a false sense of security, and Mukasey's along for the ride. Never mind that the crumbling economy leaves us as vulnerable as ever to all kinds of large-scale disasters; the Bush administration has succeeded in changing the face of conservatism from the people who tell us to fear the government, to the people who are determined to give us something to fear the government about. And they want to make sure that these practices stick around when Bush is back in Crawford.
Luckily, the hope that there are virtuous defenders of the Constitution in our leadership is not lost: a team of four Democratic Senators have issued a letter to Mukasey, warning him that the plan threatens to undermine Constitutionally-mandated civil liberties. Signers Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told Mukasey they were troubled by what they heard in the briefing session on the plan.
The efforts of this Democratic tag team to stand up for civil liberties should be applauded, but we can't forget the past examples of our Democratic leaders backing down too quickly on these issues. Let us take a lesson from the civil liberties disaster of the FISA bill and recognize the importance of putting the pressure on these Senators to follow through on what they started. We need to tell them that the American public not only supports their efforts to protect us against such intrusive and un-American policies, we expect and demand that they don't back down on this. Not this time.
On my way back from vacation yesterday, I couldn't help but notice the strange company I was in as I flew in to Denver- black suits everywhere. Of course, business types of the nation are flocking to Denver to participate in the Democratic National Convention. The Party's location choice of Denver is significant, as it shows how the political world is finally recognizing the importance of the West as a breeding ground for change, an important influence in restructuring the historical blue-and-red blueprint of America's political landscape.
And while change is in the air in Denver, I can tell you with conviction that the stuffy, suit-and-tie business atmosphere is not. Denver's embrace of the DNC has been more than an enterprise on which to capitalize, it has been a celebration of the grassroots movement, so historically rooted in Denver, that will lead the call for a new direction for America. At the head of the movement is a coalition of progressive grassroots organizations dedicated to recognizing the power of youth activism.
Progressive Future, along with Rock the Vote, MoveOn.org Civic Action, Hip Hop Summit Action Network, United States Student Association, Campus Project Action, the Bus Project, Young Voter PAC, Energy Action Coalition, Hip Hop Caucus, and Qvisory, will be hosting a DNC dance party to celebrate youth activism. The party will take place the night of Wednesday, August 27th from 10 pm- 1am, at the hip Beta NightClub. There will be DJs, drinks, a video presentation and awards ceremony, and, most importantly, a crowd of young, motivated activists united in their efforts to move our country in a new direction.
We're expecting a good crowd, but we don't want anyone to be left out of the action, so we're also calling on our supporters to help us hand out tickets before the party. Can you join us? If you volunteer, you could get 5 tickets to give to your friends as well!
So, if you're feeling weary after a long day of speeches filled with political jargon, head over to the Beta Night Club – I guarantee you'll not only have a great time, you'll be inspired by the people that surround you and the movements they are leading. Dont forget to RSVP by August 26th- see you there!
Replies: 4
Many of us felt that we couldn’t possibly lose to Bush—he was just so obviously bad for our country. At that moment, many of us felt like this could be it. This could be the election when we beat the Right, ended the Bush nightmare, and put a (decently) progressive candidate in the White House. We were wrong.
As we’ve seen Obama’s lead in the polls vanish over the past few weeks (the latest Zogby poll shows McCain with a 1 point lead), it’s a fitting reminder: this year’s fight will be at least as hard as ’04. You can follow the latest polls compared with the same week in 2004 by clicking here.
Part of what got us in trouble in 2004 was complacency: progressives saw Bush’s steady stream of blunders, and many of us didn't think that America would make the same mistake twice. Because McCain is so much like Bush on the issues we all care most about, it’d be easy to fall into the same trap, to think the Democrats have this election wrapped up.
This time it’s our turn not to repeat our mistakes. The blessing in disguise? It’s not too late. We just need to get moving.
It’s time for everyone to get into the fight. Giving money is great. But I think grassroots action will be even more important this election. Obama's ads and speeches might remind people that Bush got us into this mess, show people that McCain can't get us out (not when he voted with Bush 95% of the time last year), and persuade people that Obama can provide the clean break that our country desperately needs. But personal persuasion works much, much better.
We need people to start e-mailing and texting our friends, knocking on doors, engaging our neighbors in discussion, getting our younger friends to register and turn out to vote, and delivering the truth -- face-to-face, person-to-person -- about the candidates and who can lead America in a new direction.
Barack Obama seems to get this. Look at where he came from. Look at how he's run his campaign. But as impressive as his grassroots operation has been, assuming that he's got the grassroots covered could be a big mistake. That's why we're running our own grassroots campaign to help elect Obama, with dozens of people going out in 11 battleground states to recruit volunteers and persuade undecided voters.
And, the same grassroots action that can put Obama into Oval Office can give him the support he needs (or stiffen his spine at times) in the face of the inevitable political, corporate and ideological opposition we can expect after next Jan. 20.
We have a base of volunteers spanning the nation, and we're organized to set you up with the volunteer opportunities and resources you need to do your part this political season. Sign up to make a difference this election; it's not in the bag, but it's not too late.
