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Liberated But Not Free

by poputonian

In a city with few real refuges from sectarian violence – not government offices, not military bases, not even mosques – one place always emerged as a safe haven: hospitals.

So Mounthir Abbas Saud, whose right arm and jaw were ripped off when a car bomb exploded six months ago, must have thought the worst was over when he arrived at Ibn al-Nafis Hospital, a major medical center in Baghdad.

Instead, it had just begun. A few days into his recovery at the facility, armed Shiite Muslim militiamen dragged the 43-year-old Sunni mason down the hallway floor, snapping intravenous needles and a breathing tubes out of his body, and later riddled his body with bullets, said family members.

In his book appropriately titled Liberty and Freedom author and historian extraordinaire David Hackett Fischer says, “In early uses, both words implied a power of choice, an ability to exercise one’s will, and a condition that was distinct from slavery. In all of those ways, liberty and freedom meant the same thing.”

But Fischer goes on to describe other ways in which their original meanings were different.

Our English word liberty comes from the Latin libertas and its adjective liber, which meant unbounded, unrestricted, and released from restraint. A synonymn was solutus, from the verb solvos, to loosen a set of bonds. These words were similar to the Greek eleutheria and eleutheros, which also meant the condition of being independent, separate, and distinct. The Greeks used these terms to describe autonomous cities, independent tribes, and individuals who were not ruled by another’s will. That ancient meaning survives in the modern era, where eleutheros has spawned scientific terms such as eleutheropetalous or eleutherodactylic, for separate petals or fingers or toes. Eleutheria, like the Roman libertas, always impled some degree of separation and independence.

Freedom has another origin. It derives from a large family of ancient languages in northern Europe. The English word for free is related to the Norse frie, the German frei, the Dutch vrij, the Flemish vrig, the Celtic rheidd, and the Welsh rhydd. These words share an unexpected root. They descend from the Indo-European priya of friya or riya, which meant dear or beloved. The English words freedom and free have the same root as friend, as do their German cousins frei and Freund. Free meant someone who was joined to a tribe of free people by ties of kinship and rights of belonging.

A very similar meaning also appeared in the Sumerian ama-ar-gi, the oldest know word for anything like liberty or freedom, which appeared on clay tablets in Lagash before 2300 B.C. Ama-ar-gi came from the verb ama-gi, which meant literally going home to mother. It described the condition of servants no longer in bondage who returned to their free families.

In that respect, the original meanings of freedom and liberty were not merely different but opposed. Liberty meant separation. Freedom implied connection. A person with libertas in Rome or eleutheria in ancient Greece had been granted some degree of autonomy, unlike a slave. A person who had Freiheit in northern Europe or ama-ar-gi in southern Mesopotamia was united in kinship or affection to a tribe or family of free people, unlike a slave.

The question has been asked many times whether people in Iraq were better off under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. Is that possible? I’m not necessarily asking is that so, but more is it possible for someone to enjoy a higher degree of freedom while existing beneath a dictator’s umbrella?

Fischer again:

Roman libertas gave rise to a complex vocabulary of stratification and mobility that still echoes in modern English speech. The Latin adjective liberaliter meant knowing how to behave gracefully and generously, in the manner of a highborn person who is secure in the possession of many liberties. It is the root of our word liberality. The noun libertinus meant an emancipated slave who had been granted liberties that he had not been prepared to use. Our modern word libertine preserves this ancient meaning.

Within this social frame, ancient philosophers developed libertas and eleutheria as ethical ideas of high complexity. The leaders were the Stoics, who wrote at greater length about liberty than others in the ancient world, especially the slave Epictetus (A.D. 55-135) and the emperor Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 121-180). Both argued that to be truly free is to cultivate a spirit of independence from things that are not in one’s control: bondage, tyranny, illness, pain, and death. This Stoic condition of liberty could be achieved even in a despotism. It is striking that the leading stoic philosophers of liberty in ancient Rome were an emperor and a slave.

The article linked to above continues:

Authorities say it was not an isolated incident. In Baghdad these days, not even the hospitals are safe. In growing numbers, sick and wounded Sunnis have been abducted from public hospitals operated by Iraq’s Shiite-run Health Ministry and later killed, according to patients, families of victims, doctors and government officials.

As a result, more and more Iraqis are avoiding hospitals, making it even harder to preserve life in a city where death is seemingly everywhere. Gunshot victims are now being treated by nurses in makeshift emergency rooms set up in homes. Women giving birth are smuggled out of Baghdad and into clinics in safer provinces.

In most cases, family members and hospital workers said, the motive for the abductions appeared to be nothing more than religious affiliation. Because public hospitals here are controlled by Shiites, the killings have raised questions about whether hospital staff have allowed Shiite death squads into their facilities to slaughter Sunni Arabs.

I guess in some cases it really sucks to be free.

Perhaps the great young inde-rocker Conner Oberst (with Emmylou Harris) said it best in his song Landlocked Blues:

We made love on the living room floor
With the noise in the background of a televised war
And in the deafening pleasure I thought I heard someone say
“If we walk away, they’ll walk away”

But greed is a bottomless pit
And our freedom’s a joke
We’re just taking a piss
And the whole world must watch
The sad comic display
If you’re still free start running away
Cause we’re coming for you!

UPDATE: Here is a very nice set of photographs set to this Bright Eyes song (via You Tube) — stay with it long enough to hear the bugle (is it a bugle?) that follows the words above, and of course, to hear the beautiful voice of Emmylou Harris. For those not familiar with Conner Oberst, the Bright Eyes front man, Rolling Stone Magazine tagged him as this generation’s Bob Dylan.

The Big Picture

by digby

What changed in the US with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we had entered a period of consequence — Al Gore

I assume that a great many of you have seen An Inconvenient Truth by now. If you haven’t, make a point to do it as soon as you can. One year ago today, that picture was on all our television screens and it is one scary image.

It’s quite clear to all sentient beings (which excludes the faith based GOP and its corporate masters) that global warming is real, it’s very serious and it’s vastly important that we do something about it as soon as possible.

WHAT IS GLOBAL WARMING?

Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising.

The vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

We’re already seeing changes. Glaciers are melting, plants and animals are being forced from their habitat, and the number of severe storms and droughts is increasing.

The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years.

Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes, 7,000 feet above sea level.

The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade.

At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles.

If the warming continues, we can expect catastrophic consequences.

Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years — to 300,000 people a year.

Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating coastal areas worldwide.

Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.

Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.

The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.

More than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by 2050.

There is no doubt we can solve this problem. In fact, we have a moral obligation to do so. Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping to stop global warming. The time to come together to solve this problem is now – TAKE ACTION

“I Need To Wake Up” By Melissa Etheridge

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Keep Your Nerve

by digby

Matt Yglesias has it exactly right. Regarding Rumsfeld’s wild-eyed crazy act at the American Legion he writes:

This, I think we can assume, is the fall campaign. The idea is to psyche the Democrats out. To make them think they can’t win an argument about foreign policy. To make them act like they can’t win an argument about foreign policy. And to thereby demonstrate to the American people that even the Democrats themselves lack confidence in their own ability to handle these issues.

This is terribly important for everyone to understand. This is not a real critique. It’s a psych-out designed purely to make the Democrats go wobbly and to get the media to portray them that way. It’s about optics, heuristics and image. If the Democratic Party falls for it, it will be a crime. There is no substance to what they are saying and there is no reason for Dems to even flinch from such empty intimidation. Indeed, they should snarl right back in their faces.

Don’t fall for it Dems.

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Kewl Kid Krush

by digby

A bunch of people have commented on this kewl kidz exchange as they tried to explain their crushes on Flyboy McCain. Their halting explanations are all perfect illustrations of typical vapid, courtier sensitibilities. But I’d like to address just one comment from Howard Fineman, who seems to have gotten over his Dubya infatuation at long last and gone back to his first love:

MATTHEWS: — after listening to the four of you. Why does the media like McCain? What’s going on here? Does he seem to be more authentic than other politicians?

O’DONNELL: Well —

FINEMAN: Well, I think part of it on this —

O’DONNELL: Well —

FINEMAN: — part of it on this specific thing, he knows what he’s talking about. He clearly has a lot of experience, militarily, from the inside out on the Armed Services Committee.

MATTHEWS: OK.

FINEMAN: He knows his stuff on that — on this particular question.

Feinman was referring to military issues apparently, but I think it’s fair to extrapolate from that that he thinks McCain would make a good Commander in Chief. This leads me to mention Senator Straight Talk’s recent unbelievable quote once again:

“One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit,'”

There’s a man who knows what he’s talking about, alright.

Now, McCain does know a lot about certain military matters from his perch on the Armed Services Committee — weapons procurement. He finds the odd system to rail against to keep his reputation as a “reformer” but he’s neck deep in the military industrial complex. For instance:

I believe the American people can and must be protected from the possibility of a missile attack on our soil. Recent reports of successful tests of a missile defense system demonstrate that such a system can work. I supported legislation stating that it should be the policy of the United States to build a national missile defense system as soon as technologically possible. As President, I would make the deployment of a national missile defense system, as well as defense systems for our Armed Forces deployed overseas, one of my highest priorities.”
salon.com | Jan. 10, 2000

Six years later:

FORT GREELY, Alaska, Aug. 27 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said here Sunday that while the fledgling United States ballistic missile defense system was becoming more capable, he wanted to see a successful full-scale test before declaring it able to shoot down a ballistic missile.

“I have a lot of confidence in these folks, and I have a lot of confidence in the work that’s been done,” Mr. Rumsfeld said after touring one of the system’s two interceptor sites. But he added that he wanted to see a test “where we actually put all the pieces together; that just hasn’t happened.”

Mr. Rumsfeld’s assessment was more cautious than that of the Missile Defense Agency director, Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III of the Air Force. General Obering said recently that he was confident the system could have shot down a ballistic missile test-fired July 4 by North Korea, if it had been a live attack aimed at the United States.

And the boondoggle expands:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Aug. 15 — The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, concerned about a potential threat from Iran, plans to recommend in the coming months a European site for ground-based interceptor missiles, the head of the agency said Tuesday.

Poland, the Czech Republic and Britain have been named by the agency as possible candidates to help bolster a fledgling U.S. missile defense shield against missiles launched from the Middle East.

Despite all the happy talk by people “who know what they are talking about,” missile defense continues to fail spectacularly. But it sure pays well.

This is what McCain knows so much about. He knows how to feed the MIC beast. He’s still stands solidly for this money pit and will stand solidly behind many more defense department money pits. He’ll point to his lists of “defense pork,” counting on the gullible kewl kids to take him at his word that they amount to anything — or that he will lift one finger to stop any of them. But at the end of the day, the greatest insight he gained as a member of the armed services committee has been to deliver for defense contractors. The main lesson he’s learned about national security generally is to enthusiastically endorse every single war that is proposed — and then modify his position as necessary as the war proceeds. He does this for purely political reasons — voting for war means never having to say you’re sorry. He wisely calculates that he can con the kewl kidz into covering for his bad judgment because they think he “knows what he’s talking about” even though he’s often wrong and constantly criticizes the execution of wars he “supports” when it becomes politically expedient to do so.

It’s possible that the calculation has changed with the obvious failure of Iraq, but I doubt it. Certainly, among the gullible kewl kids all you have to do is strut manfully and they will fall in love every time.

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Faith-based Positing

by The Presbyterian Church

Religious Book Points 9/11 Finger At Bush

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has tumbled into a new dispute over the Sept. 11 attacks of five years ago.

Its Presbyterian Publishing Corp. has issued “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11” (Westminster John Knox), containing perhaps the most incendiary accusations leveled by a writer for a mainline Protestant book house.

Author David Ray Griffin tells of concluding that “the Bush-Cheney administration had orchestrated 9/11 in order to promote this (American) empire under the pretext of the so-called war on terror.”

“No other interpretation is possible,” he asserts

Presbyterian Publishing’s unapologetic responses to the critics insist that Griffin’s “carefully researched” work and “intellectually rigorous arguments” merit “careful consideration by serious-minded Christians and Americans concerned with truth and the meaning of their faith.”

The publisher’s publicity contends that Griffin “applies Jesus’ teachings to the current political administration” and puts forth “an abundance of evidence and disturbing questions that implicate the Bush administration.”

Presbyterian News Service explains that the publishing house, though one of the denomination’s six national agencies, receives no church money and “operates with complete editorial autonomy.” It is governed by a board elected at the Presbyterian assembly.

Griffin’s ultimate goal? He wants Christians to try to supplant America’s “demonic” regime with a system of “global government.”

I’ll be darned.

Ahmadinejad Challenges Bush To TV Debate

by poputonian

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad voiced defiance on Tuesday as a deadline neared for Iran to halt work the West fears is a step toward building nuclear bombs, and challenged US President George W. Bush to televised debate.In a news conference, Ahmadinejad condemned the US and British role in the world since World War II but made no direct mention of the international nuclear confrontation.“I suggest holding a live TV debate with Mr. George W. Bush to talk about world affairs and the ways to solve those issues,” he said.

Maybe Bush could define tribal sovereignty for him.

The Buck Stops Over There

by digby

Poor little Brownie is telling the truth:

Former Director Michael Brown told ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Sunday he stood by comments in a Playboy interview, and President Bush wanted him to take the heat for the bungling.

[…]

The former FEMA chief cited what he called an e-mail “from a very high source in the White House that says the president at a Cabinet meeting said, ‘Thank goodness Brown’s taking all the heat because it’s better that he takes the heat than I do.'”

How do I know he’s telling the truth? Well, I can’t prove it, but I doubt very seriously that poor little Brownie read the Washington Monthly in 2002 and remembered this little tid-bit:

During a trip to West Point on June 1, Bush pulled White aside for a private talk. “As long as they’re hitting you on Enron, they’re not hitting me,” said Bush, according to this Army official. “That’s your job. You’re the lightning rod for this administration.”

That is why he shall ever be known as the Empty Codpiece.

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Man Of Principle

by digby

Here’s the man all the kewl kidz just love:

MCCAIN: I believe that the “Christian Right” has a major role to play in the Republican Party. One reason is because they’re so active and their followers are. And I believe they have a right to be a part of our party. I don’t have to agree with everything they stand for, nor do I have to agree with everything that’s on the liberal side of the Republican Party. If we have to agree on every issue, we’re not a Republican Party. I believe in open and honest debate. Was I unhappy in the year 2000 that I lost the primary and there were some attacks on me that I thought was unfair? Of course. Should I get over it? Should I serve — can I serve the people of Arizona best by looking back in anger or moving forward?

RUSSERT: Do you believe that Jerry Falwell is still an agent of intolerance?

MCCAIN: No, I don’t. I think that Jerry Falwell can explain how his views on this program when you have him on.

Here are some of those views that John McCain now believes have a major role to play in the Republican Party:

FALWELL: I expect the Lord to return in the 21st century to Rapture at his church. Now, I can’t prove that. I cannot prove that the Lord is gonna come in this century. No one knows the day or the hour, but in my heart I believe it because there are no more predicted events that need to happen before our Lord can return.

[…]

I expect a global economy in the 21st century, which first will manifest itself as a cashless society. I believe that plastic will take the place of cash, and that while this will only be fulfilled during the tribulation period at the Rapture, I believe that God is setting the stage for, and laying the infrastructure for, a cashless society right now. Most people, many pay their bills online already. And the day will come, I believe, when there will be no cash, and the only way you can get cash and trade and to do business is to [points to his forehead] have the mark of the beast.

And then I expect the nations of the world in the 21st century to move rapidly towards a one-world government. We already have the U.N. — it’s a useless bunch. But we’ve already got the U.N., and they will not be the one-world government, but they are the infrastructure, the stage on which the Antichrist will build his one-world government.

And they have the brass cojones to call the netroots unhinged.

Update: And he’s ready to go to Bob Jones U, too!

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Pimping the Victims

by digby

Remember this woman?

Bronwynne Bassier was desperate. Roaming the streets of her Biloxi, Miss., neighborhood four days after Katrina, scavenging for food and clothes for her 2-year-old son, Bassier stumbled upon the one man who presumably could help: President George W. Bush. Rushing toward him, the 22-year-old single mother pleaded and sobbed. “My son needs clothes,” she cried. “I’ve lost everything.” Momentarily stunned, Bush appeared on the verge of tears himself as he listened. Bush tried to direct her and her younger sister, Kim, toward a Salvation Army shelter down the road, but ultimately comforted them the only way he knew how: he hugged them. “Hang in there,” he told Bassier, kissing her forehead. “We’re going to take care of you.” Press cameras captured the moment and beamed the image of compassion around the globe.

A year later, Bassier’s life remains like that of countless other Katrina victims: she lives in a FEMA trailer with her son and new husband. Her story offers a window into the workaday reality of life post-Katrina. “Meeting [Bush] didn’t really change anything for me,” Bassier tells NEWSWEEK. “I’ve been just like everybody else, trying to move forward with my life one day at a time.” In a new NEWSWEEK Poll, 51 percent of Americans say they don’t think Bush has followed through on his promises to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

To complicate matters, Bassier—a native of South Africa—has had a hard time getting a work visa. She’d applied for one after graduating from a local college last summer, but in the chaos of Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security lost the paperwork. More than a year later, her application is still pending. In May, Bassier sent a letter to the man who’d been there for her last year. But as of last Thursday, the president still hadn’t responded. A White House spokeswoman confirmed last week that the administration received it, but said it had been forwarded to DHS. “We don’t intervene in individual cases,” says Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino.

But guess what? Just in time for the Katrina anniversary, when Bush is planning his series of saccharine, phony photo-ops, somebody gets a call:

This chapter of Bassier’s story may yet have a happy ending: after NEWSWEEK’s inquiries, Bassier received a call Friday from the White House inviting her to meet with President Bush this Monday when he visits Gulfport to mark the first anniversary of Katrina. (A White House aide tells NEWSWEEK that the invitation had long been in the works, but they hadn’t been able to locate her until Friday.) She plans to make her case in person for a work visa. And she wants to thank President Bush for coming back. She’s not angry, but she’s looking for more than a hug.

I’m sure the invitation was in the works for some time. They have been planning their pageant for months. Perhaps if they’d spent as much time working on actually fixing the problems as how to spin them, the Gulf Coast might look a little bit better today.

Let’s hope they come across with that work visa and more. Too bad Ms Bassier didn’t have an agent. She could have set herself up for life.

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Diaspora Lemonade

by digby

Jonathan Alter writes in this week’s Newsweek:

A year ago, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, NEWSWEEK published a cover story called “Poverty, Race and Katrina: Lessons of a National Shame.” The article suggested that the disaster was prompting a fresh look at “The Other America”—the 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. “It takes a hurricane,” I wrote. “It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye—visible around the world—to help the rest of us begin to see again.” I ended on a hopeful note: “What kind of president does George W. Bush want to be? … If he seizes the moment, he could undertake a midcourse correction that might materially change the lives of millions. Katrina gives Bush an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China opportunity, if he wants it.”

Some readers told me at the time that this was naive—that the president, if not indifferent to the problems of black people, as the singer Kanye West charged, was not going to do anything significant to help them. At first this seemed too cynical. The week after the article appeared, Bush went to Jackson Square in New Orleans and made televised promises not only for Katrina relief but to address some of the underlying struggles of the poor. He proposed “worker recovery accounts” to help evacuees find work by paying for job training, school and child care; an Urban Homesteading Act that would make empty lots and loans available to the poor to start over, and a Gulf Enterprise Zone to spur business investment in poor areas. Small ideas, perhaps, but good ones.

Well, it turned out that the critics were largely right. Not only has the president done much less than he promised on the financing and logistics of Gulf Coast recovery, he has dropped the ball entirely on using the storm and its aftermath as an opportunity to fight poverty. Worker recovery accounts and urban homesteading never got off the ground, and the new enterprise zone is mostly an opportunity for Southern companies owned by GOP campaign contributors to make some money in New Orleans. The mood in Washington continues to be one of not-so-benign neglect of the problems of the poor.

It’s not neglect. It’s design. The Republicans took a hit for their incompetence in handling Katrina, but in the long run they stand to benefit greatly from the African American displacement outside the state. The reconstruction delays and “not so blind” neglect serve the goal of a much lower black population in New Orleans. Louisiana is likely to be a deep red state from now on.

Perhaps that sounds too cynical, just as the idea that Bush would do nothing significant to help the poor victims sounded cynical last year. But after Bush vs Gore and the Texas gerrymandering and the California recall and voter disenfranchisement and on and on, I think it’s incredibly naive to think they wouldn’t make lemonade out of the Katrina lemon. The modern Republican party is deadly serious about electoral politics and nothing is too cynical for them.

The Institute of Southern Studies has sponsored a project called Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch which has just put out an in depth report on the state of the Gulf and New Orleans and it’s fascinating.

The first part deals with the diaspora:

Hurricane Katrina had an enormous impact on Gulf Coast communities from Alabama to Louisiana, with about 1.2 million people under evacuation orders before the storm made landfall. More than 1,500 people died as a result of the hurricane, and at least 135 are still missing. Besides killing hundreds of people, Katrina displaced thousands. According to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau in June, southern Louisiana today is home to 344,781 fewer people today than before the hurricane. Evacuees were scattered to more than 700 communities throughout the United States, with some landing more than 4,000 miles from home. Life in the diaspora has been difficult for many, with survivors facing problems finding steady jobs and secure housing. Many survivors—both those who left their homes and those who remained behind—are also struggling with serious mental health problems such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

A disproportionate number of those whose lives were devastated by Katrina were poor and African-American people, many of whom faced intensified discrimination in the chaos that followed Katrina. Perhaps nowhere was that more apparent than in what happened on the Mississippi River bridge from New Orleans to Gretna, La. Soon after the storm, largely African-American crowds began to cross the bridge after New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin promised that buses were waiting on the other side. But police from Gretna, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s office and the Crescent City Connection (a division of the state Department of Transportation and Development), blocked their way, even firing shots over the heads of desperate storm victims. That tragic incident sparked one of the first civil rights protests following the storm, when on Nov. 8 activists from New Orleans and other U.S. communities marched across the bridge following a rally at the Convention Center, where thousands of residents had suffered through inhuman conditions in the days after the storm.

The race and class divides exposed by last year’s hurricanes continue to manifest in the recovery. While many middle-class people and whites were able to summon the resources to return and rebuild, that task has been more difficult for poor people and people of color. That unfortunate reality is illustrated in statistics that have been released since Katrina showing a decline in the percentage of New Orleans’ African-American population as well as an increase in income among those who have returned.

For historically disadvantaged communities throughout the Gulf, Katrina continues to rage a year later.

Demographics Index

Number of persons Hurricane Katrina displaced from Louisiana: 645,000 to over 1.1 million

Number displaced from Mississippi: 66,000 to several hundred thousand

Total number of applicants for FEMA Individual Assistance for Katrina and Rita: 2,560,230

Estimated number of storm-displaced Gulf residents who were ages 65 and older: 88,000

Estimated number of U.S. communities to which storm victims evacuated: 724

Average distance traveled by evacuees from Chalmette, a largely white community in St. Bernard Parish, La.: 193 miles

Average distance traveled by evacuees from the Lower Ninth Ward, a largely African-American community in New Orleans: 349 miles

Estimated percentage of the New Orleans metro area’s pre-storm population of about 460,000 that had returned as of June 30: 37

Percent of the New Orleans area’s pre-storm population that was African-American: 36

Percent of the New Orleans area’s post-storm population that is African-American: 21

Increase since Katrina in the New Orleans area’s prestorm mean household income of $55,000: $9,000

Percent decline since Katrina in single-mother households with children in the New Orleans area: 43

Housing Index

Percent of Louisiana mortgages past due as of July 2006: 20

Percent of Mississippi mortgages past due: 13

National average for percent of past-due mortgages: 4

Average rent for a one-bedroom New Orleans apartment before Katrina: $578

Average rent for a one-bedroom New Orleans apartment as of July 2006: $803

Occupancy rate of livable apartments in New Orleans: 99 percent

Number of mobile homes ordered for the Gulf Coast: 7,737

Number of smaller travel trailers : 105,927

Number of storm-affected households holding Federal Emergency Management Agency hotel vouchers: 39

Number of storm-affected households approved for housing assistance: 946,597

Minimum percent of New Orleans public housing that is still closed: 80

Number of homes the Army Corps of Engineers has demolished in Louisiana since Katrina: 1,105

Minimum number of New Orleans public housing units scheduled for demolition: 5,000

Months after Katrina that federal money for housing reconstruction was approved: 10

Total federal funds dispersed so far to rebuild homes: $0

Interestingly, the Gulf Coast now has a higher African American population than it did before, although I doubt it has the electoral significance that an intact black community in New Orleans had. Still, it will be interesting to see if the whites on the Mississippi Gulf Coast start getting antsy about this state of affairs and if it will affect Mississippi politics.

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