[IP] On New Orleans
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ted Dolotta <Ted@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: September 6, 2005 2:54:39 PM EDT
To: IP List <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: FW: On New Orleans
Reply-To: Ted@xxxxxxxxxxx
A friend just sent me this. It's worth reading.
Ted Dolotta
==============================================================
Why New Orleans Is in Deep Water
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
Thursday 01 September 2005
Austin, Texas - Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find
myself
taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner,
glimpsing
a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved
friends
and the city, and how they are now.
To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame
game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however,
to make
a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that
government policies have real consequences in people's lives.
This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage.
This
is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do
about
their responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for
those
policies.
This is a column for everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina who
ever said, "I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in politics," or,
"There's
nothing I can do about it," or, "Eh, they're all crooks anyway."
Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my life, nothing I
can do
about any of it. Look around you this morning. I suppose the National
Rifle
Association would argue, "Government policies don't kill people,
hurricanes
kill people." Actually, hurricanes plus government policies kill people.
One of the main reasons New Orleans is so vulnerable to
hurricanes is
the gradual disappearance of the wetlands on the Gulf Coast that once
stood
as a natural buffer between the city and storms coming in from the
water.
The disappearance of those wetlands does not have the name of a
political
party or a particular administration attached to it. No one wants to
play,
"The Democrats did it," or, "It's all Reagan's fault." Many
environmentalists will tell you more than a century's interference
with the
natural flow of the Mississippi is the root cause of the problem,
cutting
off the movement of alluvial soil to the river's delta.
But in addition to long-range consequences of long-term
policies like
letting the Corps of Engineers try to build a better river than God,
there
are real short-term consequences, as well. It is a fact that the Clinton
administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact
that
the Bush administration repealed those policies - ordering federal
agencies
to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.
Last year, four environmental groups cooperated on a joint report
showing the Bush administration's policies had allowed developers to
drain
thousands of acres of wetlands.
Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that
New
Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a
Category 3
or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under. At this point, it is a
matter of making a bad situation worse, of failing to observe the First
Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging).
Had a storm the size of Katrina just had the grace to hold off
for a
while, it's quite likely no one would even remember what the Bush
administration did two months ago. The national press corps has the
attention span of a gnat, and trying to get anyone in Washington to
remember longer than a year ago is like asking them what happened in
Iznik,
Turkey, in A.D. 325.
Just plain political bad luck that, in June, Bush took his
little ax
and chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of
Engineers, a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans
CityBusiness at the time, that meant "major hurricane and flood projects
will not be awarded to local engineering firms. Also, a study to
determine
ways to protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been
shelved for
now."
The commander of the corps' New Orleans district also immediately
instituted a hiring freeze and canceled the annual corps picnic.
Our friends at the Center for American Progress note the Office of
Technology Assessment used to produce forward-thinking plans such as
"Floods: A National Policy Concern" and "A Framework for Flood Hazards
Management." Unfortunately, the office was targeted by Newt Gingrich and
the Republican right, and gutted years ago.
In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing
policy on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of
choices
based on ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on
flood management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans - it
seems
to consist of gutting the programs that do anything.
Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the
devastation
left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is
now serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen.
Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are
afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more
short-handed.
The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-
water
vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent
abroad. (I
hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)
This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go
into
Iraq without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that
mistake and to rectify it by instituting a draft.
The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and
flooding
the city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri,
emergency
management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears
that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle
homeland
security and the war in Iraq."
This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government
policies,
not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about
our lives.
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