This morning a number of NOLA (and out-of-state, on-holiday) Kossacks attended John Edwards' announcement at a rehab home in New Orleans East. The setting was poignant, and it drove home the Senator's message of why we need to fight a new War on Poverty.
But the press corps still wondered--Why New Orleans?
Here's why:
First, the press conference took place at a home which was being worked on by the folks over at JohnEdwardsIsGood.com, some local Louisiana folks who are grassroots supporters of the Senator's campaign (and have some awesome T-shirts). One of the Kossacks even got to ask a question re: the ICC, which Edwards knocked out of the park.
Following the press conference, two local Kossacks (NOGoddess and SundayHighway) took my wife and I on a tour of the Lower 9th Ward and Holy Cross neighborhoods. What I saw, nearly 16 months after Katrina hit, was astonishing and sad as well:
Desolate. No life. Gutted homes without residents as far as the eye could see. This, in a major American city well more than a year after a disaster. Osama Bin Laden's wet dream.
August 2005, this frame would've shown about 10 homes just 50 yards from the levee. Still today, nothing. I saw more egrets (2) than I saw residents in the entire Lower 9th.
This photo pretty much sums up Dubya's presidency for me. I think it speaks for itself.
"Home. This was Home."
One of hundreds (thousands?) of homes I saw that formerly had residents, but will soon be demolished only to be replaced with what?
So to anwser the MSM's question, this is why.
This is the disgrace that our nation's leadership has left us with.
This is the festering sore of poverty that our nation's elite turn their heads away from due to their supposed "Katrina-fatigue."
This is the result we can expect of the next major disaster that hits a lower/working-class neighborhood while the nation's top 1% of wage earners rake in record amounts.
This is New Orleans. This is America.