A desolate America.

See George.

See George mess up.

See George run.

See George hide.

See George get embarrassed.

See George finally take responsibility.

But it was all a little late.

In his big speech after Katrina, Bush finally recognized the importance of federal funding to repair the "public infrastructure"--after letting the levees go.

Bush finally recognized the existence of "deep, persistent poverty" after heedlessly watching it steadily grow every year of his Administration.

But he acted as though this poverty was endemic only to the Gulf Coast, and not to the entire nation.

And so he offered no proposals for tackling poverty on a national scale.

While he waved at racism, citing "the legacy of inequality," he acted as though it were not a present, everyday fact of life.

If he was so concerned about poverty, why then did he lift the requirement that federal construction contractors pay the prevailing wage--all of $9 an hour--in rebuilding the Gulf Coast?

If he was so concerned about racism, why then did he lift the requirement that federal contractors have an affirmative action plan in place?

Because those aren't his real concerns.

Other than his own political survival, his domestic obsession is with helping out the business community (and his foreign obsession is war).

As he put it bluntly in that New Orleans speech, "It is entrepreneurship that helps break the cycle of poverty, and we will take the side of entrepreneurs."

To address the fundamental issues raised by Katrina, we turn this month to two writers we love: Edwidge Danticat and Adolph L. Reed Jr.

Danticat is an amazing chronicler of the Haitian immigrant experience in the United States. The award-winning author's most recent work of fiction is The Dew Breaker, and she wrote the foreword to W Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities After 9/11. In her essay for us, she points out how eerie it is to be from one of those Third World countries people were invidiously comparing the United States to in the days after Katrina. (For more about Danticat, you might want to refer back to David Barsamian's fascinating interview with her in our October 2003 issue, which is available on our website, www.progressive.org.)

Adolph Reed has been a columnist for The Progressive since 1992. Fearless and independent, he cuts through conventionally accepted assumptions with a piercing intellect and a slashing style. In his provocative article this month, he challenges us to view the victims in New Orleans, his hometown, as harbingers of a desolate America--unless we stand together across the lines of race to take our government back from the pillagers.

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