"Hear this, and hear it well"

"To anyone who even suggests that this great city should not be rebuilt, hear this and hear it well: We will rebuild."

Thus spoke a determined Kathleen Blanco, governor of Louisiana, when she addressed the legislature and the people of Louisiana this evening. In a moving speech that sometimes drew prolonged applause, Blanco accepted responsibility for any failures on the state level during the Katrina crisis, and vowed to work until every displaced citizen of Louisiana had a home and a job.

Though ignored by the reporters who covered the speech, one of the most important things Blanco said was that if Congress expected Louisiana to properly re-build the levees, it would have to finally give Louisiana its fair share of energy revenues. The state has been undercut by Congress for decades in this department.

The governor also suggested that New Orleans' shameful public school system would be rebuilt in such a way that children would get the education they deserve, and that health services will be increased (this particular project was actually in effect before the hurricane hit; I lost my personal physician to the governor's expanded rural health services program). She praised George W. Bush as a partner in hurricane recovery, which made a lot of us kind of sick, and I imagine it didn't make her feel too good, either.

Blanco said that the first shelter community--which provides shelter housing, a library, a bank, a post office, and child care--was already set up in Monroe, and that others would soon be in place all over the state. The next step will be temporary housing, and then finally, the re-building of houses that were destroyed by Katrina. She asked displaced Louisianians to please come home, and concluded her remarks with a passage from the Book of Job:
You will be secure, and will not fear.
You will forget your misery;
You will remember it as waters that have passed away...

Read the entire text of Governor Blanco's speech.