Mythbusting, NOLA


Last night Harry Shearer, part-time New Orleans resident ("I split my time between here and Los Angeles") did what IMHO was a pretty good job of summarizing the situation in New Orleans in the limited amount of airtime available on Countdown. You can view/listen to him here, the other link has the full transcript:

SHEARER: You pointed to the absence of any mention of New Orleans in the president‘s State of the Union. I would mention that there is an absence in Nancy Pelosi‘s speech after the Democrats won control. No mention of it there either. It has been a non-priority for both parties at the national level despite the bipartisan efforts of the Louisiana Congressional delegation to move this along...

[note: to his credit, even Diaper Dave has made an honest effort]

OLBERMANN: What do we not know about New Orleans that only a resident can tell us and how should know, Harry??

SHEARER: I think the main thing at this point is, beside the fact that New Orleans did not get destroyed by hurricane, it got destroyed by the design and construction flaws of levees that all of us paid taxes to build over the last 40 years.

The other thing I think is people somehow get the idea that people in New Orleans are whiney beggars. When you walk around the city and all of the progress that has been made, up to now, is being made by individuals who, whatever their resources, whether their own, their family, the wonderful volunteers who make us believe that there still such a place called the U.S., church groups, or every once in a while insurance companies paying off their claims, these people are doing it one store at a time, one house at a time, one bowling alley at a time. This is a city of bootstraps.

Shearer's last point continues to stick in my craw, despite my sincere belief that the vast majority of our fellow Americans are decent people who don't believe such particularly vile and toxic wingnut spew. That said, toxic wingnuttery seems to suck up attention disproportionate to its actual numbers, muddying the waters, polluting the airwaves, and creating a rhetorical dead zone. The fact that such attitudes exist is alone enough to sicken the body politic.

Oh--and before I forget: Shearer made another point, albeit in a more cynical manner--you can refer to the transcript above or catch it at his Huffington Post site: adding insult to injury for New Orleans is the fact that a massive bailout of the subprime mortgage industry is being considered (in addition to Shrub's haughty demand for another $50 billion for the Mesopotamian meat grinder), while the United States Gulf Coast--an area of vital cultural, economic, and strategic importance--is relegated to the back burner.

To call that misplaced priorities is like calling Mount Everest a good sized hill.