Shortly after Hurricane Katrina turned New Orleans into a soggy version of Baghdad, Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © stood in Jackson Square for a nationally-televised speech. He told America that his government would do what it takes to put New Orleans back together. No sooner had the klieg lights been shut off than did Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © forget virtually every promise he’d just made.
While it wouldn’t be fair to say that the feds have completely abandoned New Orleans, the reality on the ground is what it is, and the lofty promises made in Jackson Square have long since gone by the wayside. After all, let’s face reality, shall we? New Orleans is a largely poor, African-American city whose residents don’t vote Republican. That may seem harsh, but what other conclusion are we left to draw?
No reasonable person expected New Orleans to have been put back together overnight. Nonetheless, we’re talking about a major American city here, one with a culture and history unlike any other. If we can expend hundreds of billions of dollars in an increasingly vain attempt to put Iraq back together, shouldn’t we be able to expect the same sort of commitment to an American city?
Yes, we’re at war. I get that. But if you’re going to stand in the middle of Jackson Square and pledge to the nation that you will do what it takes to put New Orleans back together, is it out of line to expect that promise to be kept? Here we are, 17 months after Katrina, and a good part of New Orleans is still uninhabitable. A good part of what should have been handled by the federal government has been handled by volunteers, who lack the financial resources to do the heavy lifting. So while we’re shipping billions of dollars to Iraq, only to watch it disappear unaccounted for, likely into the hands of insurgents, New Orleans remains largely ignored.
If we can flush billions into Iraq to pursue a war with no point and seemingly no end, is it too much to hope that even a portion of that could be diverted to New Orleans? While we’re busy trying to conquer a part of the world that doesn’t particularly want to be conquered, New Orleans…an AMERICAN city…continues to languish.
Lest you think I’m being too harsh, perhaps you should tell me what Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © had to say about New Orleans in his State of the Union speech. Take your time…I’m not going anywhere.
And neither is New Orleans.
