Obama in NOLA, or, I think I’m joining the cult

From his speech at Tulane:

…we know that this city – a city that has always stood for what can be done in this country – has also become a symbol for what we could not do.

To many Americans, the words “New Orleans” call up images of broken levees; water rushing through the streets; mothers holding babies up to avoid the flood. And worse – the memory of a moment when America’s government failed its citizens. Because when the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast extended their hand for help, help wasn’t there. When people looked up from the rooftops, for too long they saw empty sky. When the winds blew and the floodwaters came, we learned that for all of our wealth and power, something wasn’t right with America.

We can talk about what happened for a few days in 2005. And we should. We can talk about levees that couldn’t hold; about a FEMA that seemed not just incompetent, but paralyzed and powerless; about a President who only saw the people from the window of an airplane. We can talk about a trust that was broken – the promise that our government will be prepared, will protect us, and will respond in a catastrophe.

But we also know the broken promises did not start when a storm hit, and they did not end there.

When President Bush came down to Jackson Square two weeks after the storm, the setting was spectacular and his promises soaring: “We will do what it takes,” he said. “We will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives.” But over two years later, those words have been caught in a tangle of half-measures, half-hearted leadership, and red tape.

Yes, parts of New Orleans are coming back to life. But we also know that over 25,000 families are still living in small trailers; that thousands of homes sit empty and condemned; and that schools and hospitals and firehouses are shuttered. We know that even though the street cars run, there are fewer passengers; that even though the parades sound their joyful noise, there is too much violence in the shadows.

To confront these challenges we have to understand that Katrina may have battered these shores – but it also exposed silent storms that have ravaged parts of this city and our country for far too long. The storms of poverty and joblessness; inequality and injustice.

Well now… THAT is what I needed to hear.