New Orleans, still
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Aug 222006
I just watched the last quarter of Spike Lee’s documentary on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
What I want to see in these upcoming elections is a politician who goes to New Orleans and refuses to campaign, and instead puts their money where their mouth is and gets things fixed. Say, for example, a presidential candidate who instead of hanging out in Iowa tells us the country, “as a matter of principle, I’m staying right here until everyone who needs a FEMA trailer has one, and I’ll be on the phone personally to make sure they get one.”
I’d like to think that the voting public would reward such a person.
8 Responses to “New Orleans, still”
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Above all, what i want is a normal person. One who thinks like a normal person, works like a normal person, and has the ethics and morality of a normal person.
Of course, that’s a pipe dream, because such a person would never make it in politics.
And unfortunately, your ideal candidate who would take a stance, wouldn’t make it either. He’d be better off running a non-profit charity, because he could be effective at it. Trying to take silly things like helping people, and dedicating time to it above all else would see him washed out of politics before he ever got started.
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There aren’t enough trailors to go around. This, I think, is the crux of the issue. There aren’t enough resourses for everything that needs to be done, and who decides who gets what? The federal government is trying to work through a chain of command, the chain of command is fighting amongst eachother for scraps large enough to accomplish something, and remember that N.O. isn’t the only place that has needs. On top of that, the same local politicians who were inneffective in the first place get re-elected to continue their ineffectiveness. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
What needs to be done is a totally different approach. Some one needs to be in charge to decide who gets what. There’s needs to be a federal program system instead of the current chain of command system. But who would want their life destroyed by making such decisions? Politics will destroy anyone brave enough to do it. And that reflects on us all. The politicians, the news media, and the voters. None of us can wash our hands of the responsibility.
People had a chance to help themselves down there and they voted Nagin right back into office. You can’t help an entire poltically corrupt state. People can blame FEMA and whoever they want for the problems down there. Why didn’t Nagin take some of the millions spent on his campaign to help “his” people? Because he is a twat that is demanding even more taxpayer money to clean up a mess that is at least 75% his fault.
The fact remains that the only people that will get that area back on its feet are the people that are still there. The money has been given and the local governments let it basically get stolen.
Thinking that one person (even the president) could just waltz into town and clean up that mess is a misunderstanding of why there was a problem to begin with. Look at states like Florida that have been repeatedly hit by hurricanes. They survive because they have always taken these situations seriously and they have no problems ensuring people that need to get out… get the hell outta town when needed.
Do we even need to mention what good ole’ Nagin did to his city? Something about holding buses to evacuate those in need. Failing to get the word out about how vulnerable NO is to flooding. Plenty of people knew it was a problem, but nobody seemed to take it seriously otherwise maybe some of them would have left?
I’m not here to defend FEMA because there were plenty of issues there also. I’m here to say that FEMA shouldn’t be an insurance policy for a state and city run by some of the crookedest (is that even a word) politicians in the country. The federal government should never be the fall back plan for a group of people that are unwilling to help themselves.
I’m gonna dig up this article and I hope you read it. It tells volumes about what was and is still wrong in that part of the country.
http://tiadaily.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1026
FYI, during the debacle, there were some shots of Al Gore working alongside some teams he either brought in or merely came with; there was no press. Granted, he’s not there now, since he’s off doing his own thing again.
During Michael Crichton’s talk (linked to my journal only because it has both appropriate links), during the Q&A session, he said, “Politics in general is less important than we’ve all been inclined to see it…. it seems to be one of the lessons of New Orleans that if you expect a large bureaucracy of any sort to save you, you are a fool and you will not be saved.” To me, that’s an argument for self-reliance.
This country has plenty of resources. The issue is where they are being directed, as you note. That’s why cutting through the BS would be a good thing, and it would have to be someone with clout.
I’m not exonerating Nagin at all, though I think 75% his fault is a misattribution; surely a huge part of the blame needs to go to decades of leadership at the city, state, and federal level that allowed the levees to not only fall behind the times but even fall into disrepair.
However, I think writing off the state because of the actions of a few is unjust. Most ordinary people are not part of politically corrupt machine politics.
I found this statement from the article you linked frankly revolting:
It has more than a whiff of eugenics and racism to it, to me. “People selected over decades”? Please. The belief that people on welfare are “sheep” incapable of helping themselves betrays a real lack of awareness of what life is like for those folks.
When we were in grad school, we lived on around $7000 a year one year. We scrounged for change in the couch to be able to eat, and we went on food stamps. Had a severe illness hit, we would have been in truly major trouble, and it could easily have taken years to climb out of it. We were working, and we were lucky. Not everyone is lucky.
It’s not that welfare can’t that effect on people — it does; it’s that tarring an entire city or state with that brush is intellectually dishonest, particularly when so many of the vignettes that are used in the article (“streets piled high with trash”) are results of weather. Many of the articles on that site suffer, in my opinion, from ideological bias; the one on Columbus is another example, or the way the one on “Environmentalism’s Big Lie” lumps together very different groups with different concerns as “greens” in order to allege an agenda that is literally against electrical power, which is pretty ludicrous (it’s not that they don’t exist, but it’s still going to be damn hard to find a green who will cheerfully vote away his TV).
Oh, and as a contrast to that article, I offer up this pretty balanced one, which points fingers in all directions and illuminates a small part of the complicated tangle of politics that leads to disasters like these.
I cant comment on the current status of NO, a few of my friends have gone
down there to rebuild, volunteer, etc.
I was down there a few times in the early 90’s though, a good friend of mine (I’ll get to him in a sec) lives there.
I saw a lot of intractable poverty that was obviously multigenerational. Large swaths of city, decayed, or projects. It was shameful. All built on the lowest ground.
I also saw places that we’re being gentrified, renovated, nice areas along St Charles, and the suburbs were obviously ok as well. These were mostly in areas on higher ground.
I saw and heard racism, my friend a California native is a musician there, I noted to him that most of this was comming from older people, (at that time to me 40+ was “older”) he explained that was because they were broken and didnt realize thier city was changing. He didnt have much faith in these people, from what I saw neither did I, the mayor got busted for Coke and the feds took over the police dept r/t corruptin shortly thereafter.
I was in a bar, I noted a NO cop in uniform, drinking shots, armed. Shocked I asked my friend, he explained that the cops had to take part time security jobs to make ends meet, because they were paid roughly 12k a year.
Underpaid, drinking, cops, corruption, intractable poverty, racisim, its a shame that these terms apply to any city in my country, that theyve applied to NO for decades is not suprising. That Katrina made them worse and highlighted the issues isnt suprising.
That Nagin is incompetent isnt suprising, there is only one skill needed to rise in NO politics, and its not competency.
According to my friend, who’se rehabilitated house was fortunately spared, what happening now is not suprising.
They are not rebuilding those tenements and projects, old decayed houses are being knocked down, those displaced to Huston and elsewhere wont be returning, there’s nothing to return to. They are armed with survival mode tools in cities where those terms above do not apply. There are significant issues related to this. Hustons infrastructure was already questionable related to its population, income levels and poverty.
Whats more, it’ my understanding is large hotel chains and gambling industry concerns are buying large swaths of this land at rock bottom prices from displaced owners who see no immidiate value.
Those levee’s will be rebuilt, reinforced to withstand a hurricane, all so we can go visit the New Orleans Theme Park…..aka Vegas South
Theres much to be sad about, much to be ashamed of about this now and years from now