Crescent City Blues briefly explained why I was not submitting a regular column for this weekend (or the next, for that matter), but I deliberately shied away from going any further into the subject with my personal thoughts since 45RPM isn’t the place for them. This blog, however, is.
I try very hard not to let myself rant on politics, but it gets harder to avoid outrage lately, either due to the slow onset of fogeydom or perhaps the current cast of jokers inhabiting the White House. I am not a professional pundit and no one’s idea of an expert in this field, and so I try to avoid inflicting pure, annoyed venting on people. Making it even more frustrating to vent on this subject is that while I may not like The Way Things Are, I also have no constructive answers to these problems. Thus, I tend to look upon these rants as empty, self-indulgent wanks that do nothing but add to the already-deafening background noise of the internet.
Then along came the events of the last week, and … well, it’s pretty hard to find the words, isn’t it? I’m going to give it a try, regardless.
I haven't been this worked-up over the state of the U.S. gub'mint since that dreary, awful, soul-killing morning after Election Day last year. That was a pretty fucking terrible day, but even that had no comparison to the epic, needless suffering experienced by the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I'm not just talking about the shame of New Orleans, either ... plenty of equally enraging stories of neglect and half-assed bureaucratic effort have come from Mississippi and Alabama as well, and I am pretty goddamned angry right now thinking about it (I think "downright furious" covers it better, actually). I am also embarrassed, ashamed, stunned, and (best of all for the intents of this post) increasingly vitriolic at the absolute clusterfuck that marked the official world premiere demonstration of the power of our wonderfully-integrated Department Of Homeland Security and FEMA. I gotta save some shout-outs for the Senate, and the White House too, since they worked with DHS and FEMA to create a "perfect storm" of haplessness in the face of a natural disaster that was the most gobsmacking display of organizational pratfalls, shameless, childlike deflection-of-blame and sheer clueless bungling that I have seen from this government in my lifetime.
What happened in New Orleans last week was "the anti-9/11," as coined by New York Times columnist David Brooks, in every possible fashion:
On Sept. 11, Rudy Giuliani took control. The government response was quick and decisive. The rich and poor suffered alike. Americans had been hit, but felt united and strong. Public confidence in institutions surged.Jesus, what if this had happened instead to Manhattan? Norfolk? Washington D.C.? Kennebunkport? I can't be the only person who feels that if any of these places been hit instead of New Orleans, the level and speed of response would have been a very different story indeed. We already know what would have been the case had the damage been as terrible in Florida: FEMA (and even Our Fearless Leader) were on the scene the instant the storm(s) had finished passing through, walking the streets, cutting checks, helping Americans out, showing how much their government cared about their well-being. Of course, that was during an election year, in a state run by Our Leader's brother, and a territory that he absolutely, positively had to win in order to get re-elected, but I digress ...
Last week in New Orleans, by contrast, nobody took control. Authority was diffuse and action was ineffective. The rich escaped while the poor were abandoned. Leaders spun while looters rampaged. Partisans squabbled while the nation was ashamed.
The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.
I have long since grown calloused and immune to hearing out man's inhumanity to his fellow man, but when this extends to the government of the United States, I can't help but be staggered by it all. As if there was any doubt whatsoever with whom the priorities of this administration lay (re-election at all costs followed by the fortunes of the upper class, all other priorities rescinded), last week cleared them up beyond all doubt.
Much as it pains me to admit, you cannot lay the all of the blame for last week at the feet of the President. There, I said it. No, this was a failure on nearly every level of government from the Oval Office all the way down to the city of New Orleans itself. For a disaster that had been talked about for years (and over which Michael Brown, the absolutely-useless head of FEMA tells us that they had just practiced for last year), the various bureaucracies were behaving like freshly-guillotined chickens. Exactly what is the point of declaring an statewide emergency in multiple states a day and change before the hurricane makes landfall if nothing happens for days afterwards?
Listening to the likes of Trent Lott and Mary Landrieu prattle on during interviews like they had just won a fucking Oscar was absolutely fucking unreal (and thank God for anchors like Anderson Cooper who have cut these sanctimonious fucks off at the knees with a cold splash of reality when the occasion arose). Exactly where in the hell does this Government fly to when the city of Washington D.C. shuts down every August? New Zealand? Tahiti? Ganymede? Nowhere in this reality, apparently. For chrissakes, when even the likes of Shephard Smith at Fox News is left nearly speechless on-air wondering what in the samhell is going on (not to mention deliciously handing a slice of de-politicized reality to such putrid, insulated minor Antichrists as O'Reilly and Hannity), you know that things have gone terribly, terribly wrong.
To her credit, Landrieu recently issued a press release indicating that Bush's arrival at a levee repair site in New Orleans was a sham. A fucking photo-op. Nothing more. What a surprise. Also, how very convenient that his arrival was on the very same day that the REAL help finally began to arrive in New Orleans at last. Coincidence, I'm sure.
So, the city of New Orleans and a giant swath of the Gulf Coast is effectively no more as I type this, and one wonders if this region will ever be what it once was. The question also remains of what will happen to the displaced and nearly-entirely destitute population which seemingly now inhabits every domed facility in the Deep South at this hour. Is there another patented Magic Bush Tax Cut in the offing to somehow make all of the reconstruction and the strain on the social services of states hosting the refugees come together?
If there is to be any silver lining in this whatsoever, it's that the opportunity exists at amazing cost to correct the mistakes of the past in rebuilding New Orleans, but an unbelievably, incalculaby huge cleanup will come first. The scale of this is just beyond me: The Big O, The Crescent City, The Big Easy, whatever you may call it is nothing more than a dessicated, filth-ridden, waterlogged city of the dead.
From the inactions and miscues we have seen all last week, it has become glaringly apparent that we have achieved absolutely nothing since September 11 in the areas of security and disaster relief. We can have aircraft carriers off of Banda Aceh in a day or so after a tsunami erases half of the city, but we can't shoehorn any National Guard troops in a major urban area in this country for 4-5 days after a hurricane that everyone saw coming two days before it hit. And how about this for a cherry on the sundae: we are more vulnerable to societal/administrative decay (and resultant anarchy) than we ever knew.
Happy Labor Day.
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