Calm Before the Storm, Neglect After

YRHT, PGR, and World Class New Orleans all pointed to this NY Times editorial, so I'm passing it along for the benefit of those few who haven't yet added them to your reading list:

We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit like a museum.

The opinion piece takes a few swipes at "state and local officials," but places blame squarely where it belongs: on the FEDERAL government. The levee system failed because of inadequate design and outright criminal non-execution of the design--and that, folks, was ultimately a federal program. Today, the recovery and rebuilding effort is floundering because, at the federal level, there's ZERO effort at restoring the most basic infrastructure, i.e., the levees and floodwalls. Without adequate protection from floods and storms, there's simply no way for people to move back.

Last week I pointed to Billmon's archives because he managed to succinctly and creatively point out the contrast between natural disaster in a swing state during an election year (eliciting a lightning-fast federal response) versus a natural disaster in a mainly "red" state during an off year (where the only real effort from Washington has been a non-stop barrage of victim blaming). In combing through the archives, I also came across this prescient passage from Whiskey Bar (and, for the record, count me as one who hopes Billmon will resume writing before too long):

There's no point in parsing every point in Shrub's big speech [in Jackson Square] last night -- not when we've learned, through bitter experience, that there's rarely a connection between the real world and the text on his teleprompter...

The final thing I noticed was what I didn't notice -- any mention of the destructive environmental policies that are causing South Lousiana to slide into the Gulf of Mexico (or the Gulf of Mexico to slide over South Lousiana).

Amid Shrub's "bold" talk about rebuilding the levees (note that he said the rebuilt system would be "stronger than it's ever been," not "strong enough to survive a direct hit by another Category 4 hurricane") I heard no explanation of how these improvements will protect New Orleans if the city ends up as a polder island in the middle of a shallow lagoon. I'm not sure even the Dutch would be able to stormproof it then.

(Of course, Bush also didn't mention the risk that all that heroic work and all those federal dollars will eventually be washed away by a rapid rise in sea levels caused by global climate change. But then I was expecting a speech, not a miracle.)

Will the speech help the disaster recovery? (Bush's, I mean.) Perhaps -- depending on whether or not the Rovians have correctly read the public mood as supporting a massive federal spending binge to get New Orleans, and the Republican Party, back on their feet.

But even if they're right on that score, they should mind the old Chinese adage about being careful what you wish for. If they convince people that Bush finally has Katrina under control, they may divert their attention to more permanent disasters--like Iraq.

Well, I don't know if they've convinced people that Bush has things under control re: Katrina...I think it's more like they ran out the clock on the collective attention span of the American public. As other things get the media treatment--like all this nonsense about "Christmas" versus "holidays," it seems as if the citizenry has pretty much forgotten about the massive mess along the Gulf Coast and the distinct lack of initiative at the federal level to do a goddamned thing--except, perhaps, cut rich people's taxes even further...which the Times opinion piece mention of--along with the $300 billion dollars being burned in Central Asia.

Category 5 levee protection for New Orleans would cost $32 billion dollars. No, that's not cheap. But you'd actually get a return on this investment--a return that benefits the entire nation.

Why doesn't the media look into THAT?