Feline Warrior

President Bush Delivers Remarks on Hurricane Katrina Recovery

Favorite quote: “As all of us saw on television, there is also some deep, persistent poverty in this region as well.

That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action.

So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.”

And I have to wonder: Did it really take a disaster of this magnitude for Dubya to notice the poverty in New Orleans? Did it really take media provoked international embarrassment for Dubya to decide that something’s got to be done about this poverty?

Why now? Why not at the beginning of his first term? And will he just take care of New Orleans, because of its historical value, its value as a greatly loved American tourist attraction?

What about the places that don’t pull in the tourists? What about Southeast Washington, DC, or East LA or Watts? What about all the inner cities? What about any place in America that houses the poor, under-served, under-educated, under-funded, and under-represented?

It’s all well and good that Dubya wants to address the poverty that the entire world saw as a result of the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Good, good, take care of it - let’s have more homeowners, let’s have more minority-owned businesses, let’s get some decent schools in there, let’s move beyond substandard housing.

If this disaster had not happened, Dubya would still not give a flying poop about the poverty in New Orleans. If bringing national -and international- attention to the poverty that exists in America, then that will be the good that can come out of this disaster.

Do we need more disasters around the country to bring attention to the rest of the poverty? Or is the fact that there is poverty in Americait enough of a disaster? Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster. Poverty in America is a man-made disaster. Let’s demand that the President address all of the poverty in the United States, not just the poverty that gets hung out for the world to see.