Goddamn it, Shearer, you’ve got it all wrong.

Obama’s speech ended with a ringing evocation of three words he claimed were emblematic in the life of the nation: “Yes, We Can”; and the crowd joined in chanting those words in response. But, in their turning away from a “man-made engineering disaster” (in the words of UC Berkeley’s Dr. Bob Bea), in their turning away from a city that was betrayed by its country twice—in the faulty construction of a “protective system” and in the refusal to follow the letter of the nation’s own National Response Plan when that system failed, the candidates, Obama included, are paying silent tribute to the three words that more accurately describe America’s contemporary approach to problems: We Moved On.

Don’t you get it, man?

The nation wants change!  Read more 

Naturally. New Orleans is—was—a black, Democratic, city. Three strikes. Reason enough to write them off. (Not that you’re next, no no no no.) WaPo:

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city’s long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn’t President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government’s participation in the rebuilding?

And why are volunteers practically the only ones working to reconstruct homes in communities that may never again have sewage service, garbage collection or electricity?

Eventually, the volunteers’ altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They’ve been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can’t be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I’ve concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine.

Why would this surprise anybody? It’s the usual Bush policy of malign neglect:  Read more 

Un-fuckin-believable. No, cancel that. Standard operating procedure*. Read it and scream:

The Army Corps of Engineers, rushing to meet President Bush’s promise to protect New Orleans by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, installed defective flood-control pumps last year despite warnings from its own expert that the equipment would fail during a storm, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The 2006 hurricane season turned out to be mild, and the new pumps were never pressed into action. But the Corps and [MWI,] the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment are still struggling to get the 34 heavy-duty pumps working properly.

The pumps are now being pulled out and overhauled because of excessive vibration, Corps officials said. Other problems have included overheated engines, broken hoses and blown gaskets, according to the documents obtained by the AP.

And guess what the political connection was?  Read more 

Always remember that the Republicans want to drown government in the bathtub, which is why they can’t govern.

And in New Orleans, we can see what happens when Republicans get their way, and drown a whole city.

Republicans didn’t protect NOLA before Katrina, they let NOLA drown during Katrina, and even now that they’ve turned NOLA red by leaving the Ninth Ward to rot, they’re still screwing it up. AP:

New Orleans infested with wildlife
In the year since Hurricane Katrina drove out many of the people of New Orleans, wild animals have been moving in. Some were blown in by the winds or redistributed by the floodwaters. Others were drawn by the piles of rotting garbage and by the shelter afforded by all the abandoned homes and tall weeds.

Of course, for the the Republicans who, erm, like animals—more than a few—it’s all good.

But not for people who want to live in the city:  Read more