Bob Herbert: America’s Open Wound

[seafan]

America’s Open Wound

By BOB HERBERT
New Orleans

December 21, 2006

It's eerie. The air is still. There is no noise. Night is falling. The five
stone steps in front of me once led to a porch, or maybe directly to the
front door of a house. There is no way to be sure. The house is completely
gone. All that's left are the five steps, one of which is painted with the
address, 1630 Reynes St. The steps sit alone, like a piece of minimalist
art, at the front of a small vacant lot full of weeds and rubble. Next door
is a house that is completely capsized, fallen over on its side like a
sunken ship.

Welcome to the Lower Ninth Ward. You won't find much holiday spirit here. In
every direction, as far as it is possible to see, is devastation.
On another lot, piled high with the rubble of a ruined house, I saw a
middle-aged man standing in the front yard weeping. He wore a dirty white
baseball cap and he was sobbing like a child. I walked toward him to ask a
question but he waved me away.
Whatever you've heard about New Orleans, the reality is much worse. Think of
it as a vast open wound, this once-great American city that is still largely
in ruins, with many of its people still writhing in agony more than a year
after the catastrophic flood that followed Hurricane Katrina.

snip

In mid-September 2005, with parts of the city still submerged and soldiers
from the 82nd Airborne Division on patrol, President Bush made a dramatic,
flood-lit appearance in historic Jackson Square. In a nationally televised
speech he promised not only to do all that he could to rebuild the Gulf
Coast, but also to confront the terrible problem of deep and persistent
poverty.

"That poverty," said the president, "has roots in a history of racial
discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.
We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."
Now, more than a year later, the population of New Orleans is less than half
what it was before the storm. The federal government has allocated billions
for the city's recovery but much of that money has been wasted or remains
hopelessly tied up in the bureaucracy.

snip

Many of the poor residents in the city feel that they've been abandoned by
the government and the rest of America, and that the president broke his
promise to help. "We're in terrible trouble down here," said a woman named
Delores Goode, who stood outside the Superdome asking passers-by if they
knew where she might find work as a baby sitter. "We were all over the
television last year. Now we're back to being nobody."

Originally published in http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.html?URI=http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/opinion/21herbert.html&OQ=_rQ3D1&OP=42b96f53Q2Fh3gQ2BhQ7DvAIIQ7DhQ5E__BhQ7EQ5EhQ5EQ7EhIzsXsIXhQ5EQ7EQ3BgAQ2BgAQ7D)Q3BQ7DwZ">NYT Select

George W. took me aside and said, "Jim, I don't understand poor people. I don't live, never lived around poor people. I don't know poor people think. Frankly, I'm a white Republican guy who just doesn't get it. But I'd like to. How do I get it? How do I understand?"

I said, "You need to listen to poor people, and people who work and live with poor people." ----Jim Wallis, PBS The Jesus Factor, April 29, 2004

[MadMaddie]

1. Just reading the Subject line I knew It was New Orleans and

the Gulf Coast.....Hey * here is your legacy...you killed the Gulf Coast with your Gread and neglect!!

[Wisconsin Larry]

2. NO was yet another Iraq War casualty as my LTE in the Madison Capital Times

on Sept. 2005 said,

"To the Editor:

Maybe now that the Iraq War has cost us the city of New Orleans, more people will wake up. The recent flooding of the city following hurricane Katrina was caused by failures at the levees holding back Lake Ponchartrain. Improving the flood control system, including shoring up the levees which were sinking, was authorized by Congress after the floods in 1995 with the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA. However in early 2004, the US Army Corp of Engineers reported that the funding for this project had been diverted to the Iraq war.

Paying for the Iraq war with SELA moneys left about $250 million of projects unfunded. And these projects included shoring up the levees that failed the city this week. EditorandPublisher.com has a nice report on this that it pulled from the pages of the New Orleans Times-Picayune at http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313
(alternate link http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0831-04.htm )

I ask Americans to look at the devastation of New Orleans and ask themselves if Iraq was worth it. Please tell your Congressional representatives the answer and remember New Orleans when you vote next fall."

And maybe some did. But the pain in NO goes on and should not be forgotten.

[seafan]

4. What a great letter! Obviously, a lot of folks read it before the election.

New Orleans hangs at the ragged edge, and * struts merrily on his way to yet another war.

[Wisconsin Larry]

8. Thank you belatedly as I've been traveling. I will be back in

New Orleans in March. I'm not looking forward to it even though it is/was my favorite city to visit. So many people gone and it was those people who made it a special place.

But the first little kid that comes up and says "Mister I bet I can tell you where you got them shoes!", will get a big tip. Oh, the tag line is, "you got them shoes planted right here on Royal Street in the city of New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, in the state of Louisiana!"

I just hope that I see that little kid...

[ninkasi]

3. The victims of the storms

I don't care if they are black, or white. I don't care how they lived their lives. I only care that they are other American citizens, other human beings, other souls, who have suffered more than most of us will ever comprehend, or know, due to the hurricanes of Katrina, and Rita.

Not too long ago, I read about the bloated, obscene bonuses that are being lavished on big executives, especially those on Wall St. Well, whoop-de-fucking-do. How many millions did you get? How many millions do you already have. We know that your little Lord Pissypants, Bush, has lavished huge tax cuts upon you, so that whoever pays the pittance that will be spent on the Gulf Coast, it will not affect you in the slightest.

I'm going to tell you something, and it's the truth. Somewhere, sometime, there will be a person who, until their life was blown away in the storm, lived their entire life playing by the rich man's rules. He or she struggled, started a family, attended church, and did what they could to maintain their dignity, and keep their family together. Until Katrina.

Now, all, or only some of their family might still be alive. Their home may be gone, or destroyed. They may, or may not, be depending on the charity of family, or friends, but those things bring their own problems. Maybe they are cooped up, with their children, in a neglected, forgotten, FEMA trailer hell, crowded in with too many others, no car, no job, no hope.

What does this country do? The president wages war, and wants a larger military in order to do so. The wealthy care about maintaining their tax cuts, and getting more. The rest of most of us pray that our jobs won't get shipped to India, or China, and that we won't lose our homes to foreclosure. Meanwhile, storm victims can slowly die due to despair, or get desperate, and decide to take risks that may not be legal, but are worth the risk to them, if it means their children get to eat.

The president tells us all to go shopping. He might have thought to mention thinking about our needy members of society, but that wouldn't help corporations, so he exhorts us to shop. He will request sums I can't even imagine in order to kill others, but forgot the promises he made to Katrina victims before the last word faded from his speech.

At this time, we have been thinking of impeachment for the president due to the lies about the reasons for the war, for the torture, for illegal spying, and other related things. Any president who abandons an entire region, and leaves that region's most vulnerable citizens to live, or die, depending on their own resources, deserves not only impeachment, but prison.

New Orleans still stands less than half full, the others have been scattered to even more winds, and we are left with a madman in the position of highest power in our country. I cry for all of us, but even more for the lost of the Gulf Coast. You are still America, and I pray for you, brothers and sisters.

[seafan]

5. It is all just so heartbreaking, to see our country and her people so callously rejected

by an arrogant, stunningly ignorant little man who has been playing President for the last six years, because his daddy, Uncle Jim, and Uncle Jim's friends at the Supreme Court said it was OK.

[acmavm]

6. This was/is intentional. Got rid of the poor, the blacks, anyone

who might not be considered 'respectable'. Going to give that land to the developers. Make NO into a place of which republican assholes can approve.

[seafan]

7. Another kick for the families of our Gulf Coast. n/t