There is dissent in New Orleans; beautiful, raucous, noisy, profane, righteous, brave dissent.

Sherry Wolf says the jig is up. I have to agree with her. Here in Louisiana, democrats and republicans in the state legislature are set to pass legislation today to outlaw abortion.

Daily Kos doesn't want single issue groups to control the party, but I would say, working class people, and their issues, lost control of the party long ago.

Make no mistake of this, the same forces that would militarize our economy, our nation, have set their sights on using Katrina to further weaken the rights of ordinary citizens, namely, middle and working class citizens of New Orleans.  As the Nation points out, the democratic party has been weak to non-existent in defending the right of our city to rebuild, and the right of our citizens to return.

Hillary can't stand up to toast. And we all know the policies of this administration can, and should be, toast.

Molly points out, for those concerned with poll results, polls are showing a need for real reform in Washington D.C.

But Hillary and others seem more concerned with status quo: pleasing certain special interests and their lobbyists.

It seems Hillary is counting on her popularity in New York, her general popularity with women registered as democrats, and perceived general ignorance of issues. As polls are showing though, voters seem pretty wise to the issues.

When do we send a message to Hillary and others that we won't stand for this bullshit any longer?

Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans was clearly pandering, in his speech on Monday that calls for a Divinely ordained chocolate city. He is seeking to ease the tensions he is largely responsible for creating. It was he who created the Bring New Orleans Back Commission (BNOB), composed mostly of white, well-to-do, business/corporate types who have a profound interest in reducing the numbers of African-American working class families in New Orleans.

Trying to google for information on the actual budget cuts that went down with Cheney casting the deciding vote, was to wade through a plethera, everywhere I went, on articles on the spying of America.

I take it as a compliment if this administration decided to spy on me.

[From the diaries by susanhu.]

 I write this diary on the People's Hurrican Relief Fund march yesterday, at blksista's and Janet Strange's request. I write this because the image of a small altar on a white piece of cloth, on  a patch of grass on Congo Square, is too beautiful to keep to myself. Candles, fruit, and people leaving dollar bills, to ask the ancestors permission to return to the city, on a patch of grass where the black, slave ancestors were allowed to celebrate their culture once a week in New Orleans.

I saw a young, beautiful African American woman crying at this scene. I waited a while and introduced myself. Her name was Ebony, and she's from Mississippi. She is working for Public TV on black programming, and is here with a friend filming. I told her we are fighting to reopen public housing here.

There were those small, intimate encounters all day for me. Like the sometimes homeless man, Dr. Bob, wearing a traditional, colorful African hat, who asked me to hold his notebook for him while he ate. He gave me some writings, journal style, on being homeless. I told him that I see our small movement to open public housing, as eventually merging with the homeless movement in this country, and certainly we are traveling parallel ideological lines.

There was Cara, a beautiful African American woman who sang "Indian Red", a  Wild Magnolias Mardi Gras Indian  song at the opening rally, slowly and sadly like a dirge, and a call to arms, so to speak:

I'm going to tell you in a little bit how to volunteer with Commonground in New Orleans. Let me give a little bit of the layout of the land right now, emotionally speaking.

It's not easy, because the primary emotion you will begin to feel is one of grief. Even if you aren't from here. Even if you'd never set foot in the city. You'll feel the grief emanating from the dried, caked mud in the ninth ward, from the faces of people not sure of the future.

You'll also notice and feel a dogged determination, and anger, like the emotions displayed by Leah Hodges and Mama D in Congress day before yesterday. They did my heart proud with their refusal to relinquish their beliefs and point of view in the face of a kind of state sanctioned harrassment.

Stop the evictions of Katrina survivors from hotels and apartment complexes. Period. Just stop it.

I'm working with Bill Qiugley and others to try to force the Housing Authority of New Orleans to re-open public housing in New Orleans. Time is of the essence, because the FEMA policy, and some heartlease landlords, are intent on squeezing out survivors onto the streets in what is looiming to be a homeless holiday for thousands.

You can help.

Unfortunately, I was waiting for this report. I watched in recent days as "officials" in New Orleans disputed the reports of rapes in the Superdome during the disaster. I watched as media types and bloggers accepted these reports as weighted in truth, even though no one was questioning the people who had been in the dome, the eye witnesses, the women themselves.

A report from "Live From" on CNN today, just a few minutes ago, has blown all this to hell.  

From the Boston Globe, we have the usual round-up of stories of people who couldn't afford to get out of the path of the approaching storm. As usual, the poor are left behind to fend for themselves.

If a link to this video has already been posted, I'll delete this.

When I viewed this music video from local musician Chris Chandler, tears of course, and a reminder of what made New Orleans one of the most frustratingly beautiful and absurdly sad places in the entire world to live.

I miss my beautiful city.

View, and enjoy and weep, for the sorrow of an eternity are contained in this one city.

As the Raw Story said on September 13, and there is nothing now to indicate otherwise, that the Red Cross has yet to provide relief into a heavily militarized New Orleans, according to the NBC blog, the city is still desperate for supplies.  

Raw Story, in this article published two days ago, discloses the cooperation between state, local and federal leaders to keep out the Red Cross in the days immediately following the flooding in New Orleans.

Why? Because relief pouring into the city in the form of food and water might encourage people to return to the stricken city, it was decided by the emergency managment team.

Even now, as the city is occupied by a constant military presence, the Red Cross has still not distributed supplies in the city.

This despite the fact that thousands remain in the city.