New Orleans: The City That Won't Be Ignored
Naomi Klein : Convention 08
Hurricane Gustav should have been political rat poison for the GOP; instead, it became an argument for drilling.
New Orleans
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Revisiting New Orleans
Michael Tisserand : Convention 08
It took Gustav to make Hurricane Katrina a campaign issue.
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New Orleans Redraws Its Color Line
Lizzy Ratner : Racism & Discrimination
After Katrina, white parishes are zoning minorities right out of the reconstruction.
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Movin' On Down
Patricia J. Williams : Housing Activism
Loan-sharking has resurged with global force, cutting across class, race and regions: we're all in the ghetto now.
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Homeless in New Orleans
Lizzy Ratner : Social & Economic Rights
The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina has turned New Orleans into a tragic Tale of Two Cities.
2007
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Waiting for Godot in a Wasteland
The most devastated neighborhood in America makes an ideal backdrop for a morally ambiguous play about abandonment.
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Malcolm Suber: Good for New Orleans
Adolph Reed Jr. : City & County-Level Campaigns & Elections
A longtime activist, running in a special City Council election, is just what New Orleans needs.
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New Orleans Is Us
If the American people continue to avert their eyes from the slow death of an abandoned city, their communities may soon be next to fail.
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Silent Witness
A batch of new books on Hurricane Katrina investigate who is to blame for the tragedy.
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Locked Up in New Orleans
Robin Templeton : Jails & Prisons
In response to a crime wave, police are imprisoning a record number of nonviolent offenders.
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Shouting Underwater
Walter Mosley : Racism & Discrimination
Two years ago, Katrina shed light on a harsh truth--we are all victims of a failed government.
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The Charter School Flood
Drastic changes in the educational system are leaving New Orleans's public schools behind.
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The Lower Ninth Battles Back
Rebecca Solnit : Urban Development & Renewal
Community members and outside organizations are working together to rebuild the Lower Ninth Ward.
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Trauma in New Orleans
Dr. Marc Siegel : Mental Health
The city lacks the resources to address its residents' urgent mental health needs.
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After the Flood
The toxic neoliberal policies used to rebuild New Orleans have led to a spiraling social crisis.
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Goodbye, St. Thomas
Billy Sothern : Housing Activism
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans's ruling class is demolishing public housing to make way for private businesses and expensive condos.
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Jefferson Should Go
The people of New Orleans suffered another blow with the indictment of Representative William Jefferson. They deserve better.
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On the Porch in the Seventh Ward
As the New Orleans Jazz Fest unfolded, a down-home celebration, bright with beads, sequins and feathers, took place in the city's poorest neighborhoods.
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A Question of Blood
History repeats itself for the white residents of St. Bernard Parish, who tried and failed to restrict rentals in their devastated streets to blood relatives, barring blacks and Hispanics.
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In Lieu of Flowers
Mourning a slain young mother in New Orleans, the only way to dignify her death is to try to create real justice here.
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Katrina, Eighteen Months Later
Look at the devastated Gulf Coast, and it seems like only yesterday that the storm hit. Here's what Washington can do to speed a criminally slow recovery.
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Dying for a Home
Amanda Spake : Health & Disease
The shoddy construction of FEMA's trailers has led to an epidemic of respiratory illness among Katrina refugees.
2006
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Katrina's Last Victims?
Lisa Delpit & Charles Payne : Education Policy & Reform
The New Orleans school system, re-created in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, is beginning to look like something designed by FEMA.
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The Katrina Factor
Michael Tisserand : Democratic Party
There's little evidence so far that Democrats will push for reconstruction in New Orleans.
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Saints and the Superdome
The hype-masters of sports would have us believe that the return of the New Orleans Saints to the Superdome is a sign of a city on the verge of resurrection. It's not.
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George Bush's Pledge to the People of New Orleans on the Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina
The President gives us a lesson in drive-by personal diplomacy.
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Linking to New Orleans
Michael Tisserand : Internet & New Media
As New Orleans rebuilds, so does its Internet community. Here's a list of the Big Easy's liveliest sites.
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Undone by Neoliberalism
Adolph Reed Jr. : Economic Policy
Before the storm, neoliberalism shaped the social and economic inequities of New Orleans; after Hurricane Katrina, it worsened them by making government the tool of corporations and investors.
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New Orleans Forsaken
Gary Younge : Social & Economic Rights
One year later, how will we come to terms with what happened when Hurricane Katrina washed up the disenfranchised most people, including the President, have tried to forget?
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Katrina One Year After
Great tragedies call for visionary leadership. This is the moment for progressives to summon the guts to forge a compelling message not just about what's come apart in America, but how to pull us back together.
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Pay To Be Saved
Unless something changes soon, New Orleans will prove to be a glimpse of a dystopic future, a future of disaster apartheid in which the wealthy are saved and everyone else is left behind.
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Edible NOLA
Randy Fertel : Food & Nutrition
A new charter school is embracing "eco-gastronomy"--a holistic curriculum based around food--hoping "to renew New Orleans one okra plant and one child at a time."
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P-Funk Politics
As hurricane season began in earnest, Ray Nagin, who famously declared New Orleans a "chocolate city," began his second term as mayor. What better time to appreciate the way George Clinton, America's should-be poet laureate, has funked up politics?
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In the Black(water)
Hurricane victims are still homeless in New Orleans, but thanks to the federal government's $30 million contract bonanza, Blackwater USA's profits are soaring.
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Suppressing the N.O. Vote
Fewer than half of New Orleans's black voters will be able to participate in upcoming city elections, thanks to passive opposition from the Bush Administration and listless advocacy from Democrats.
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Who Is Killing New Orleans?
Mayor-appointed commissions and experts, mostly white and Republican, propose to radically shrink and reshape a majority-black and Democratic city.
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Neglect in New Orleans
A perfect storm of malign neglect is battering the victims of Hurricane Katrina. But the people of New Orleans are fighting back: They deserve our support as they press for the rights of the displaced.
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Bush's New Storm
The Bush Administration failed to protect New Orleans and has yet to rescue its displaced citizens. We need an independent investigation to force accountability.
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A Second-Line Revival
Storm-whipped New Orleanians returned to the city to join a joyful second-line parade, a revival of music that made real the triumph of the city's spirit.
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The Big Fix
Dennis Kucinich : State of the Union
Repair America's infrastructure, starting with New Orleans; resettle displaced people in the city, give them construction jobs and pay all a fair wage.
2005
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The Wonder and Horror of 2005
In the gloom of post-election 2004 few people, if any, could have anticipated the wild surprises of 2005. Focusing on three unforeseen developments of the past year, a meditation on how life has changed in unexpected ways.
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New Orleans Blues
If New Orleans is to reclaim its greatness, the scope of the solution must match the scope of the problem. The city could become the nation's classroom by re-engineering levees, responsibly building neighborhoods and schools and repairing the environment, but time is running out.
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Left to Die
Billy Sothern : Jails & Prisons
If a society is measured by the treatment of its prisoners, we are in deeper trouble in New Orleans than we realize. The biggest prison crisis since Attica is now unfolding in the devastated city, with inmates jammed into inadequate facilities, often abused and unrepresented by attorneys or advocates.
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Katrina Lives
Susan Straight : African-Americans
African-Americans were at the center of hurricane destruction and suffered the hardest and the longest--stranded first in their segregated neighborhoods and now stuck in motels or cars, waiting for their FEMA checks.
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In the Shadow of Disaster
Faced with the challenge of rebuilding, New Orleans seems stuck in the mud--not just mired in the muck caking the city but also trapped by centuries of policy mistakes, especially the fantasy that it can be separated from its surroundings.
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Beyond Shelters
Michael Tisserand : Urban Issues
Advocacy groups like ACORN want New Orleanians to play a role in the rebuilding of the community they had to leave. The biggest issue so far: getting refugees of the storm back home.
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25 Questions About the Murder of New Orleans
Mike Davis & Anthony Fontenot : Architecture & Design
New Orleans did not die an accidental death--it was murdered by deliberate design and planned neglect. Here are twenty-five urgent questions from the people who live in a city submerged in anger and frustration.
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Purging the Poor
Naomi Klein : Housing Activism
Why are the poorest victims of Hurricane Katrina being kept out of perfectly livable homes?
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New Orleans Is Us
Eric Alterman : George W. Bush Administration
New Orleans was not an unpredictable disaster--it was a model for the incompetence of the Bush Administration. And when the next disaster comes, we will all be under water.
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Blackwater Down
Jeremy Scahill : Police & Law Enforcement
With military and law enforcement forces combing New Orleans in the wake of the storm, why did the federal government feel compelled to hire private security firms Blackwater USA and BATS to keep the peace?
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Bohemia's Last Frontier
New Orleans, a city full of idiosyncrasies, must be restored for the benefit of the nation as a whole.
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Intelligible Design
Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true.
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Levee Town
Alexander Cockburn : Supreme Court
There are decades of memos from engineers and contractors setting forth budgets to build up the Gulf Coast's levees, but Bush wouldn't let them be.
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Further Words From George W. Bush After He Said to FEMA Chief Michael Brown, 'Brownie, You're Doing a Heckuva Job.'
Calvin Trillin : George W. Bush Administration
Perhaps Bush is beginning to regret picking a horse expert to heard FEMA.
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Bread, Roses and the Flood
The only bright spot in this man-made disaster has been the wave of public outrage at the Administration's failure to provide aid to the most vulnerable.
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Class-ifying the Hurricane
Adolph Reed Jr. : African-Americans
What happened in New Orleans is an extreme and criminally tragic consequence of the belief that cutting public spending makes for a better society.
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A 'New' New Deal
William Greider : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left
The reconstruction of New Orleans could set the stage for a comprehensive legislative initiative akin to the New Deal.
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Our Two Gulf Crises
Our strategy ought not to be to fight every prospective terrorist to the death in Iraq, but to deny them the cause that has swollen their ranks--our continuing presence there.
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Etan Thomas Rises to the Occasion
Washington Wizards power forward Etan Thomas is using his swoosh-adorned status as a sports star to speak out on the gross negligence of the Bush Administration.
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Wal-Mart to the Rescue!
For once, Wal-Mart is acting like a hero, with speedy delivery of water and supplies to Hurricane Katrina victims. If it could only act that way every day.
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America's Imaginary Frontier
Norman Birnbaum : George W. Bush
America's narcissism and willful blindness to its own moral failings have been placed in sharp relief as the nation fitfully responds to the needs of storm victims.
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Bush Is Fooling Nobody Now
Robert Scheer : George W. Bush
Long fooled by the Bush image machine, Americans now understand that this Administration can only deliver spin, not substance; photo ops, not action.
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New Orleans: Raze or Rebuild?
Christian Parenti : Housing & Homelessness
Despite persistent calls from the right to raze the ruined city, gritty storm survivors from New Orleans to Gulfport and Houston begin to put their lives together again.
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New Orleans: Voices in the Storm
The chronicle of an unfolding catastrophe, as told by the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the bureaucrats, the rescuers, the journalists and the politicians.
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Let the People Rebuild New Orleans
Naomi Klein : Racism & Discrimination
Let the evacuees of New Orleans take the lead in determining how the billions of dollars in reconstruction funds are used to rebuild their lives and their city.
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Found in the Flood
Eric Alterman : Media Analysis
The most remarkable aspect of the media's treatment of the hurricane coverage was the return of the poor, in coverage that was neither condescending nor condemnatory.
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The View From Lott's Porch
Patricia J. Williams : Urban Issues
Some storm victims evacuated from New Orleans were "sorted" by age, race or gender. Is breaking up families and prioritizing by race any way to deal with disaster?
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A Guide to Grassroots Charities
Send your relief donations to charities whose values you can trust. Here's a list of resources.
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Grassroots Charities Need Your Help
Progressive, grassroots charities on the Gulf Coast are poised to help hurricane victims. Here's a list of groups that need your donations.
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Pat Robertson's Katrina Cash
Max Blumenthal : Conservatives & The American Right
Pat Robertson's shadowy relief organization, Operation Blessing, is prominently featured on FEMA's list of charities to receive donations for hurricane relief.
Can young voters stand up to suppression and swing Election 2008? Plus: Robert Fisk on the Middle East, and McCain's Russia scandal. (13mb mp3)
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