NOLA: Disgrace, Outrage, or Political Tarpit?
john posted in politics & culture on May 17th, 2006
A response to Peter King:
A Sports Illustrated writer, Peter King, takes time out from the rigors of the football draft to write about the sorry state of New Orleans.
Destruction in the ninth ward of New Orleans.
Here are his words:
What I saw was a national disgrace. An inexcusable, irresponsible, borderline criminal national disgrace. I am ashamed of this country for the inaction I saw everywhere.
I mentioned my outrage to the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, on Thursday. He shook his head and said, “Tell me about it.” Disgust dripped from his voice.
What are we doing in this country?[…]
How can we let an area like the Lower Ninth Ward sit there, on the eve of another hurricane season, with nothing being done to either bulldoze the place and start over, or rebuild? How can Congress sit on billions of looming aid and not release it for this area?
I can’t help but think that if this were Los Angeles or New York, that 500 percent more money — and concern — would have flooded into this place. And I can’t help but think that if the idiots who let the levees down here go to seed had simply been doing their jobs, we’d never have been in this mess in the first place — in New Orleans, at least. Other than former FEMA director Michael Brown, are you telling me that no others are paying for this with their jobs? Whatever happened to responsibility?
Am I ticked off? Damn right I’m ticked off. If you’re breathing, you should be morally outraged. Katrina fatigue? Hah! More Katrina news! Give me more! Give it to me every day on the front page! Every day until Washington realizes there’s a disaster here every bit as urgent as anything happening in this world today — fighting terrorism, combating the nuclear threat in Iran. I’m not in any way a political animal, but all you have to be is an occasionally thinking American to be sickened by the conditions I saw.
It’s good to see a writer from the national media talking about the issue, but the question is, what do we do now? Peter King, you are right to sneer at so-called Katrina-fatigue among the media, but what about the populace? There are so many crises that leave us little people feeling helpless: the endemic corruption in Congress, the war, the budget, the torture, the crony capitalism, the increasing squeeze on the middle class, the hijacking of media by a handful of conglomerates, the growing spread between rich and poor, health insurance, energy, nuclear proliferation, religious fundamentalism, and on and on. It’s no wonder Americans don’t vote and don’t speak out. Even if they did, it seems like it wouldn’t make a difference.
All I can do is vote and write a little. So what about you? You’ve spoken out in a forum usually reserved for sports, that took some nerve. Maybe you can get some of your colleagues to speak out once in a while. Look, this Katrina thing is not one bad game, it’s a franchise rotten to the core.
You don’t have to become political, just become a citizen. Ask yourself and your friends a few simple questions:
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What kind of country do you want this to be?
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Do you want the wealth to be held by people who don’t work, don’t build a business, and don’t need to live here?
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Do you want a government sucked dry by people who simply want to be around the door when the contracts are passed out?
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Do you want our young people growing up with an ideal of hard work, only to find that sleaze is more effective?
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Do you want a country where the campaign contributions of your employer are more important than your vote?
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Do you want a country where one flavor of one religion can claim the right to dictate to the rest of us?
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Do you think your country should engage in torture? Maybe I’m naive, but I thought torture was for the Nazis and we were the good guys.
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Do you want a country cynically whipped into a frenzy of fear over terrorism, while critical issues go untouched?
New Orleans was a policy disaster, a management disaster, and a disaster of the heart. The policy of building levees and protecting sinking neighborhoods was bound to fail, even if well-implemented. The management of the levees and the flooding danger and the evacuation was badly neglected, and once the disaster happened, nobody at the Federal level even cared enough to get the facts straight before giving a press conference and starting the spin. There’s plenty of blame to be leveled at the state and local leaders too, for terminal incompetence and a great failure of leadership.
from speedfreaks.tv
Ninth ward damage - 2005
Peter King you ask reasonable questions, infused with a sense of injustice, but it doesn’t follow that we should throw good money after the bad. see Jawfish: Castles Built on Sand and New Orleans: Restoration and Restitution.
You ask: How can we do nothing in the ninth ward, how can Congress not provide money?
OK there is a baffling passivity among the state and local leaders, but beyond that it’s because the people who own those destroyed houses don’t want a fleet of bulldozers wiping out the remains. The city has to condemn them before they can raze them. For the Mayor, wholesale condemnation and bulldozing would make bad press on the TV news. Of course it should be cleaned up, but there is a city election in progress, and Nagin apparently doesn’t want to be the one who lets the heavy machinery loose. Also, it’s a serious practical problem deciding what to do with the cars and houses. This is a great mountain of trash, full of recyclables, hazardous waste, and biologic hazards. Who would take it? Yet you are right. You can’t just let it sit there.
from speedfreaks.tv
Ninth ward - October 2005
You ask: If this were LA or New York…?
If it had happened to LA, NYC, or any other healthy big city in America, there would have been a better local disaster system, those flooded school buses would have been commandeered to evacuate residents, and the National Guard would have shown up right away. The residents wouldn’t have been so poor and so helpless, and probably most important, there would have been a can-do attitude about the clean up. Just look at Manhattan after 9/11, or LA after the Northridge quake.
You ask,”… are you telling me that no others are paying for this with their jobs? ”
Earth to Peter, come in Peter. Have you been following the news for the last five years? Bush, The Decider, is the guy who said he’d never done anything wrong. When did America become a place where we approve of a guy with that sentiment? My Grandmother would have said, “Pride goeth before a fall.”
Peter King, I appreciate you speaking out, and your anger is welcome. But cynical indifference has been the hallmark of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress. The opposition Democrats aren’t providing a plan either. I don’t see any national uprising over a laundry list of previously unthinkable failures and fraud. In the end, the people who were flooded out will be left to their own devices..
My guess is, the Mayor will work to recover the tax base, but will do nothing about the poor neighborhoods. Even if the flood-prone neighborhoods were rebuilt, and I don’t think they should be, poor people wouldn’t be able to live in them, because the rents would be too high. It looks like laissez-faire will be allowed to control matters. The Corps of Engineers declares that various locations are in the flood plain, and ineligible for flood insurance. Banks will not write mortgages for property with no insurance, and most houses in the deep flood zone will not be rebuilt. Neighborhoods without services will be even harder to restore. In the end, the Corps, with its clumsy bureaucracy, outdated methods, and dependence on money from Congress, is the only party actually taking a stand.
What about the people who believed they were safe behind the levees and who have now lost their equity and possessions? I think we ought to bail them out once, because we, in the person of the feds, the Corps, and the local government led them to think it was safe.
But I don’t think we ought to try to re-create the same New Orleans. It just doesn’t make sense.
a good list of resources for residents.
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