Our third commitment is this: When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there’s 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. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets. When the houses are rebuilt, more families should own, not rent, those houses. When the regional economy revives, local people should be prepared for the jobs being created.

And thus is born… Bush the Liberal. Rove saw no other choice but to frame the reconstruction effort into those terms. Just as it was necessary to take some blame for the debacle of Hurricane Katrina, it is necessary to acknowledge race… poverty…

In the service of what, exactly?

Federal Environmental Regulation waved to spur entrepreneurship… and, um… make the impoverished sick.

The elimination of something called the Davis-Bacon Act, and thus… our poor and dispossed in New Orleans, supplied with those trailer homes as per the Bush speech (Weeee!), get wages below the prevailing national wage.

There’s more, but those two are really enough to ponder the new traveling of the nation. Did I forget to mention that those upper class tax cuts are not going to be suspended — forcing budget cuts that will surely… affect the poor? (Unless we can get Senator Stevens to cut his highways to nowhere. Let’s wait and see!)

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