New Orleans Betrayed

[markus]

From Wet Bank Guide

Monday, January 30, 2006

New Orleans Betrayed

The editorial behind the title of this entry from the Washington Post sums up what the current administration is doing to New Orleans.

The editorial follows on the heels of several articles published this weekend, including Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled and New Orleans Feels Cast Adrift.

Cast Adrift. Betrayed. Promises Unfulfilled.

I have never felt less of an American. And I don't really care.

I don't really care because, by this time tomorrow, I will be irretrievably committed on the road to coming once again a New Orleanian.

My wife has found us a house, and I'll wire her the earnest money. I will tell my current employer that we're moving. It's done. No turning back.

Whatever it takes, we are committed to New Orleans. We are willing to gamble because we think you are an aberration, that the American experiment is not a failure, that the campaign of division and fear your party has waged for a generation has not yet destroyed the capability of Americans to respond in defense of their fellow citizens.

We are risking it because we know if you or your successor does not step up to the task, the next hurricane may well take out the port for good, and collapse the Midwest's farm economy, or permanently cut off 25% of the nation's oil supply. Without levees and coastal restoration, it's just a matter of time before the nation is brought economically to its knees. It won't matter then where we live. We might as well be home.

We are going because I've never lost the deepest allegiance I've ever held: to my city. We have always known we were a people different and unique, as divided as we may seem. That sense of identify as a New Orleanian is the powerful bond that draws me on. It is the deep love of country that drives me--of my country, New Orleans and southern Louisiana. It is the irrational emotional attachment to my piece of America that leads men and women to go willingly up Bunker Hill, to follow General Pickett, to volunteer for Iraq.

If you were a real Texan and not a pretender, you might understand. You might know the words to Gary P. Nunn's "London Homesick Blues”, the part that goes “'Cause when a Texan fancies,/he'll take his chances, / chances will be taken.” Or perhaps you’d know Guy Clark’s song "L.A. Freeway", especially the chorus: “If I can just get off of this LA freeway / Without getting killed or caught / I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke / For some land that I ain't bought bought bought.”

But you're no Texan. And you and your chicken-hawk friends have never had to face those sort of decisions, so I don't expect you to understand. A life of assured privilege has protected you from having to take these sort of risks, to find the strength to get up and go into the maw of uncertainty, to risk and gamble your own and not other peoples lives or money. You can pledge allegiance or sing the anthem or give a stirring speech as well as any, but you know you have no allegiance except self-interest.

If nothing moves you except your own self-interest, then consider this.

There are hundreds of thousands of us, scattered throughout most of the United States. We are everywhere you and your party will go to campaign: Arkansas and Atlanta and Austin, Dallas and Detroit and Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Baltimore and Boston, Chicago and Charlotte. Many will remain there indefinitely, unable to go home, precisely because you have lied to them and betrayed them.

We will not let you escape from the net of lies you have woven. Wherever you turn, you will find us, ready to call you out. Vicksburg MS fell to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on July 4, 1863. The city did not observe the Fourth of July as a holiday again until 1945. We will not soon forget what you are doing. We will not let you or the American people or the world forget either.

[frustrated_lefty]

1. A certain knowledge was left in the wake of Katrina.

Dissecting the emothional tangles which surround that event is often an impossible challenge.

The sense of abandonment and betrayal was palpable in the Levi Strauss shelter in San Antonio, probably the same in most or even all shelters throughout the country. More often than not, the survivors took care of each other...watching over one anothers children, lending an ear when some pain or loss just had to be voiced, getting the attention of volunteers or healthcare workers when some souls needs weren't being addressed.

We were sometimes stunned by the compassion shown by the volunteers for our plight. I personally helped wipe away the tears of more than a few in that place. Ironically, that occurred mostly with the volunteers rather than the survivors....a volunteer nurse just shattered by what was happening, a mother of three who just had to help, a great hulk of a man helping install the showers in the shelter, all overwhelmed shedding honest tears. I think it was the shock of it for them, being dumped with no preparation (and, really how do you prepare for something like that?) into a situation within which we had been gradually immersed. Most of the survivors realized that our fellow citizens were with us in some way, they felt our pain, their hearts were with us, and they desperately wanted to help.

"Our" government, such as it is, left us to live or die on our own. There is no doubt in that. Rescue helicopters flew over select portions of the city for a matter of days and then simply stopped. Those who remained were left to make our way through the toxic waters and vandals as best we could to evacuation sites.

On reaching the safety of a shelter, we were privileged to see the president speak on national t.v., stating that the first priority would be to place evacuees in temporary housing so that we would be in our own homes. The very next morning, FEMA began pushing evacuees to leave shelters, leave the centralized safe-haven with its medical assistance, food, shelter, onsite social services, mental health, etc. This was not for the benefit of the survivors. It was politics, a measuring stick for the administration to say "look, we're doing something." How many evacuees now go without food, shelter, medical attention? Of course, we're now spread out, dispersed, our tiny voices diluted.

We were betrayed, we have certain knowledge of that. It's not something likely to soon fade from memory.

fl

[No Exit]

7. It's beyond horrible what was done to New Orleans... but read this.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/travel/13714939.htm

It's the very first upbeat article I've seen. It gives me hope.

[Moderator]

2. Moderator Message

Please be aware that DU copyright rules require that excerpts of copyrighted material be limited to four paragraphs and must include a link to the original source.

Many Thanks,
DU Moderator

[markus]

3. I apologize

I was in a bit of a hurry.

And I'm the copyright holder.

I usually do a cutout graph or town when I cross post here, and a link.

[KamaAina]

4. Our very own Will Pitt has picked up on this

in his "State of the Union" column.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013106Y.shtml

The tragedy was compounded by the utterly incompetent management of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its head, Michael Brown, whose experience with disaster management came while he was serving as an attorney for owners of Arabian horses. In the weeks to follow, lavish promises were made by Mr. Bush. "We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," he said on September 15th.

Those promises have been broken. We have gone from oaths to revive this cherished city to this: "I want to remind people in that part of the world, $85 billion is a lot," said Bush on January 26th. Hundreds of thousands of Americans remain displaced, many holding on by the skin of their teeth in cramped trailers. Thirty million cubic yards of debris remain uncollected - the Washington Post estimated over the weekend that this was "enough to build a five-sided column more than 50 stories tall over the Pentagon." There is not even a plan in place to begin to attack the problem. The Bush administration has left New Orleans to rot, and the next hurricane season is four months away.

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist once famously stated that he wanted to shrink the federal government to the size where it could be drowned in a bathtub. As evidenced by the budget cuts and tax giveaways described above, many within this government feel as Norquist does. Thanks to their actions, to the cuts in the Army Corps of Engineers budget, to the nomination of useless cronies like Brown to vital positions of civil defense, to a war in Iraq that has bled the budget further and left Louisiana without sufficient National Guard troops to help the population, it is New Orleans that has been drowned in Norquist's bathtub. A major American city has been shattered, and nothing is done about it....

The situation in New Orleans is a problem that will not go away. Men like (markus) will make absolutely sure of that.

Well done, good sir! :bounce:

I would quibble over one (other) minor point:

I don't really care because, by this time tomorrow, I will be irretrievably committed on the road to coming once again a New Orleanian.

By my lights, you never stopped being one -- and neither, come to find out, did I.

[No Exit]

5. WOW!! That was GREAT!! n/t

[No Exit]

6. Oh--and thanks for the links. I followed them and found out the Saturn

Bar is being restored! This was a very unique bar on St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans.

I am SO GLAD to hear this. The Saturn Bar was in the 9th Ward.

[KamaAina]

8. New Orleans: The City That Bush** Forgot

This is your Meme O' The Day, courtesy of your friends here at Island MemeWorks. For those of you just joining us, New Orleans is sometimes known (or was up through last August, anyway :( ) as "The City That Care Forgot". It will make a fine sig line if and when we ever get out of Level Whatever hell.

I'm actually surprised we merited two whole paragraphs in SOTU, even if they were four paragraphs from the end, and even if the second one was an excuse for another partisan rant. Hey, at least he put us in front of HIV/AIDS! :sarcasm:

And to think I was regretting not having posted "The Easiest SOTU Drinking Game": any time King Dumbass** says "New Orleans", you have to drink. I would have thought that practicing Muslims, AA members, etc. would have been able to play along with no concerns.