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As the New Orleans disaster recedes from the headlines, citizen activistsface a choice. We can focus exclusively on other newer issues. Or we canwork to make the disaster one of those key turning points with the potentialto transform American politics. For this to happen, we need to consciouslycreate new dialogue, reaching well beyond the core converted.

If we think back to the 9/11 attacks, which have shaped American politicsever since, a brief window of critical reflection opened up in theirimmediate wake. Middle East experts critical of U.S. policies had op-eds inour largest newspapers and appeared on network TV. Ordinary citizens mournedthe victims, while asking what would make the attackers so embittered they'dbe willing to murder 3,000 innocent people. The next day, when I spoke aboutpossible root causes, with even more frankness than usual, at a communitycollege in the overwhelmingly Republican suburbs just north of Dallas, theresponse was amazingly receptive.

But by a few weeks later visible public questioning had largely ceased. MostAmericans accepted the Bush administration's definition of a war of absolutegood versus absolute evil. John Ashcroft warned that anyone who disagreedwas an "ally of terrorism." The space for reflection had closed.

New Orleans has revealed far too much about the cost of thisadministration's priorities to similarly strengthen Bush's current standing.Republican cheerleaders are trying their best to spin its lessons as amandate for even greater mistrust of all government, as if our sole hopelies in a survivalist individualism. But no matter what they do, the legacyof this disaster creates a political liability for this administration,highlighting their lack of sound environmental policies, support forcritical infrastructure, and the valuing of experience over politicalcronyism, not to mention their heedlessness of America's growing economicand racial divides. The danger is that the disaster's most far-reachinglessons will be quickly forgotten, as the voices of the city's exiles growquiet and fresh crises and issues dominate the news.

We can change that by helping our fellow citizens wrestle with the legacy ofthe disasterwhile it remains strong in common memory-to give it its due as one of thoseiconic moments with the power to transform political life and individualhearts and souls. For now America is still wrestling with what happened andwhy, with what it will mean for those now exiled, with how the disasteraffects our common future. From my own recent talks in the heart of redstate America, the disaster has led many to begin to rethink coreassumptions about this country's priorities. Through the lens of NewOrleans, I've been able to raise all sorts of challenging issues toaudiences that would have been far more resistant just a few months before.But like the post-9/11 reflection, this newfound concern won't continueautomatically. It needs a context in which to bloom.

Some of this is already being created, as we weave lessons from the disasterinto arguments we're already making on issues from global warming to the warin Iraq, to the dangers of selling America's every institution to thehighest bidder. But the tragedy also calls for specific responses. Supposeprogressive citizen activists worked to convene conversations in everycommunity about Katrina's lessons and legacy. These conversations couldinclude MoveOn and The Sierra Club and local social justice groups, but alsomainline and conservative churches, synagogues and mosques, civic groupslike Rotary and Kiwanis, maybe even Chambers of Commerce-as manyinstitutions of civil society as would be willing to participate. Supposeevery college or high school made New Orleans a focus over the coming year,working, from the perspective of every possible discipline, to explore theinterconnected roots and lessons of the disaster.

After 9/11, author Vicki Robin and some colleagues created what they called"conversation cafes" (www.conversationcafe.org ), which brought togetherpeople of differing beliefs to reflect on how to move forward from thetragedy. Though their outreach was relatively limited, the cafes offered apowerful experience for those who participated, and a model to build on.Imagine if we extended these conversations on a broader scale, mixingbrainstorming, exchange of perspectives and emotional sustenance. In a timewhen it's easy to feel overloaded, paralyzed with "compassion fatigue,"Robin sees a chance to create "containers where people can grieve, process,see deeper truths, have new creative ideas."

Another model comes from community discussions that transformed Nebraska'stax codes forty years ago. In the early 1960s, a group of University ofNebraska economists used the University's statewide network of adulteducation extension offices to organize workshops, county by county, wherepeople could discuss different ways to make a highly regressive state taxsystem more fair. The existing system had long weighed disproportionately onfamily farmers and low-income residents. Now, involving local organizationssuch as the Farmer's Union, Farm Bureau, and the Grange, the economistsinvited people to see for themselves how a range of approaches would affectthem and their neighbors. "If people just really had a chance to look at thenumbers," one of the faculty members recalls, "we felt they could come to anintelligent decision. But they had to have a context to analyze the system,and this seemed a perfect use of educational networks that were already inplace."

The workshop leaders pursued their task without laptops, computerizedspreadsheets, interactive Websites, or any of the other tools that would nowmake a comparable process far easier. But participants examined who wasgetting a free ride, how to make the system more equitable, and the likelyresults of specific policy changes. Local and statewide media amplified thedebates. It took a half-dozen years of follow-up education and debate, butNebraska finally passed a far more progressive graduated income tax, which aRepublican governor signed into law.

The issues embodied in Katrina's destruction of New Orleans are moredifficult than a single state's tax codes, but could be addressed through asimilar process of discussion exploring a series of interconnectedquestions: What are the costs of neglecting America's core infrastructure,like the Bush administration's $71 million cuts in the budgets formaintaining and repairing the levees? How do we challenge a pervasivecronyism, where being the friend of a top Republican fundraiser places theformer head of the International Arabian Horse Association in charge ofAmerica's national disaster responses? What are the hidden costs of choicesof destroying swamps that traditionally acted as buffers to tropical storms?How do we address America's widening economic and racial divides, embodiedby those left behind in the rising floodwaters? How do we rebuild adevastated New Orleans in a way that it won't just get flooded again, whilehonoring the right of return for those outside the sleek tourist zones? Atwhat level of disaster do we take seriously the costs of global warming, andbegin joining other nations in acting on it? Can we do any of this whilegiving $120 billion a year in tax cuts to the wealthy and fighting a $100billion-a-year Iraqi war? And how can we keep our hope for change alive in atime of so much disaster and human pain?

The US has never faced the comparable destruction of one of our majorcities, so we're all in new territory. We need to resist Bush administrationproposals to lift wage and environmental protections, give no-bid contractsto companies like Halliburton, and pay for rebuilding by slashing othersocial programs like Medicare, Medicaid, child welfare programs, and studentfinancial aid. But if we're going to have a chance of succeeding in offeringmore proactive alternatives, we'll need to involve some of those ordinaryand often apolitical Americans who watched in horror as the floodwatersrose.

We could complement the more intimate discussions with visible publicforums. During the height of the nuclear arms race, Physicians for SocialResponsibility scheduled multi-day forums throughout the country to focuspublic attention on the nuclear threat. They involved a variety of highprofile speakers, including Nobel laureates, talking about the impact of thenuclear arms race attack from every perspective they could muster--thelikely immediate death toll in the wake of a nuclear attack, technologicalescalations that were reducing the margin for human error, the arms race'seconomic cost, and alternatives for de-escalation. The events mobilizedlarge numbers of citizens and got major media coverage wherever they wereheld. They played a significant role in challenging the arms race.

We could adopt a similar model around New Orleans. Create a tour withhigh-profile experts on global warming, the politics of infrastructure,America's economic and radical divides. Include voices from the city andthose now exiled. Challenge Americans to think again about why the disasterhappened, and what how we can best proceed in its wake.

We could also use the wake up call of the disaster to take a similarapproach with one of the most difficult challenges it raises-the impact ofglobal warming. Focusing just on that one overarching issue, we could holdhigh-profile local forums about the increase in extreme climate events likehurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts and forest fires; about impacts onpublic health through the migration of disease-carrying insects like themosquitos that carry West Nile virus; about the impact on agriculture ofchanging weather patterns. These could feature scientists, journalists,religious leaders, businesspeople like alternative energy experts orrepresentatives of insurance companies increasingly hit by climate-relatedproperty casualty losses. The goal would be to use the window of concernopened by Katrina to foster serious discussion in communities that aren'tnormally exposed to it.

Finally, we can complement local conversations with coordinated nationaldiscussions. As David Dyssegaard Kallick writes in The Nation, New York Citycitizen groups came together in the wake of 9/11 to create the LaborCommunity Advocacy Network to Rebuild New York (LCAN). Their members metamong themselves to determine their joint priorities, then pushed, with somesuccess, for more equitable directions for post-9/11 reconstruction. (Theirsuggestions for the displaced Gulf Coast communities are available atwww.goodjobsny.org ) Major labor, environmental and social justice groupscould similarly meet and talk out issues like where to generate the fundingfor reconstruction, how to balance protection against future floods withrebuilding the devastated communities, how give displaced residents themaximum possible voice. The more we can clarify our own priorities, the moreeffectively we can articulate them to others.

We tend to think of crises as highly visible calls to action, but realcrises build up in the shadows. They're revealed when clear disaster strikesor when citizens succeed in sufficiently dramatizing their impact on thepublic stage. Legal segregation was a daily crisis if you were AfricanAmerican, but not if you were white-until activists made it visible. Thepoisoning of our environment was unnoticed until ordinary citizens raisedhard questions. Few talked about the destruction of America's infrastructureuntil the water from Lake Pontchartrain spilled over the levees. What we dofrom this point forward will determine whether the underlying crises thatcreated and compounded the New Orleans disaster get addressed.

If we reach out broadly enough, progressive activists wouldn't control thedirection of the resulting conversations, but we'd have a chance to talk toothers of differing views and reflect on our own. From my experience, thedisaster has opened up a space where citizens ordinarily resistant to keyquestions about our nation's direction are suddenly far more receptive.Whether that opening leads to a new wave of citizen engagement or closeswith distraction and time depends on the opportunities for reflection andparticipation we can create.

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