Replies

cajungirl wrote:

"The dems did not bring Katrina ashore.

I dont know who screwed up on the canals and with the breaches. That is yet to be determined.

But you can see this as political. The deaths may have been but I lived in NO and I know how cavalier
people are about storms, they don't leave. you cannot blame the dems for not forcing them to leave.

I know socialism fails. I know NO was corrupt, this whole state has a strata of corruption. But corruption
did not cause the storm."

I do know why the levees failed, Cajungirl, each one of them in turn. In the not too distant future, I intend to post the reasons here. Corruption did not cause Katrina, but it did cause the levees to fail. When you see the evidence compiled, I think that you will agree.

Which brings us to the problem at hand. There is a cork in the reconstruction bottle. Myabe 5% of the people in America adhere to the "not one penny to rebuild a city below sea level", but those few will not determine the course of the future.

A much larger contingent (myself included) believes that money spent on rebuilding New Orleans will not be used to rebuild the city. Instead, we believe that it will be used to fund "ghost cops", that it will be earmarked for "levee projects" that do not improve the stability of the levees or the safety of those inside them. We believe that it will be used to build private airports, and fountains, and casinos, and we simply refuse to see our money spent that way.

I can and have donated to Mississippi relief efforts, and will continue to do so. I haven't yet sent any to Louisiana, because I believe that doing so will accomplish exactly the opposite effect of my objective. I believe that my money will be used to benefit those currently in power, and that none of it will ever benefit those truly damaged by the storm. I believe that sending money to Louisiana now, will directly hurt the people I want to help.

I have already seen evidence of this, since the levee breaches were fixed. I have seen Mary Landrieu ask for $40 billion dollars for the CoE, when the CoE says they can build Cat-5 levees for $16 billion. I notice she also, in the same bill, demanded that this money be awarded without the usual checks and oversight of Corps expenditures. I have a one word answer for Ms. Landrieu.

No.

I have seen where Mayor Nagin wants to build casinos, while the levees lie in ruins. New Orleans is not "at higher storm risk now". New Orleans stands wide open, the levees are devastated, in many places they no longer exist. The same problems that led to the 17th and London Canal breaches probably exist over a much wider area. I have evidence that supports this premise, evidence that is not available or visible to the casual observer. It's not being pulled out of thin air.

If I lost my house to a twister, a distinct possibility, and asked you personally to help me rebuild it, and told you openly that I was going to build a home theater first, before repairing the roof, before repairing the foundation, how much would you give me?

I see Governor Blanco still putting politics, blame avoidance and old grudges way above important jobs that need to be done first. I see her putting her hatred of Nagin above the need for rebuilding efforts in the post storm news from New Orleans. I see her artificially limiting the scope of post storm governmental investigations and top level meetings.

I see other meetings among the rich and powerful discussing how New Orleans can maximize the money that the rest of the country pays to fix the city, while at the same time discussing how they can restructure the city so as to keep the poor out. I see them maneuvering towards taking the poor people's property for next to nothing, for now, "because those areas are unsafe", and I know that that same property will be turned around and sold for millions for shiny new businesses and high end residents later on.

I will not fund this effort.

In short, I see a continuation of all the exact problems that led to the city of New Orleans being destroyed in a storm that was much less destructive than the city was supposedly capable of withstanding. I see that the money was sent to ensure that the city could withstand such a storm, I see that the money was obviously misspent, because the city did not withstand a lesser storm, and most importantly, I see a business as usual attitude on the part of most involved.

"Business as usual" killed New Orleans. "Business as usual" will prevent New Orleans from ever being rebuilt, at least in any meaningful way.

If you truly wish to to see the city rise again, you have to deal with the foundational issue first. The city and state aren't your enemy per se, the cork in the bottle is actually the PERCEPTION of them, in the minds of those must fund any reconstruction effort, the mainstream American public.

If it were my city, and I decided it needed to be rebuilt, I would currently be working to get rid of the idiots who both allowed it to happen, and who continued to allow the same practices that allowed it to happen.

But New Orleans isn't my city. Maybe you can come up with some out of the box thinking and find another way to see the city rebuilt. Federalizing the district for say a 5 or 10 year period is one option. The recall process is another. There may be still others.

But until the perception I speak of has been erased, and I mean truly erased, not by some half-assed media spitshine project, we see through those now, but the corruption and graft and political tolerance of and participation in the same, has been largely erased, the funding you need to do the job will not come.

The political foundation of Louisiana is fatally flawed. This has been alledged for decades. This has been demonstrated now in concrete fact by the storm. This has to be addressed and corrected before any further construction can take place. You cannot build on a fatally flawed foundation, because everything rests on the foundation, and no matter how well you build the superstructure, the base is still flawed.

Assuming that you accept this post in the way it was intended, an honest assessment intended to identify the bottleneck that determines your future, and begin efforts to address this problem, you still have a very tough road ahead of you. Today, only 3000 people got laid off. Tomorrow, there will be another funding issue, and another and another and another. They may not stop for three or four decades. That's how long it took Key West to recover from the 1926 hurricane.

Entire neighborhoods of historically precious houses, houses that survived Katrina unflooded and undamaged, may have to be demolished to make room for the kind of levees you really need to do the job properly. That's going to hurt, and you will have to make very hard decisions, not just one but a series of them, years worth of them.

It took 200 years to built the city to begin with, Katrina smashed it flat in about 48 hours, and it's going to either take 200 more years to build it back, or else the acceleration process will come at the price of more intense requirements in effort and pain. There is no alternative, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Newtons Law's of force and motion are the final arbiters of all energy versus benefit equations.

I don't know that you or any native from Louisiana has the heart or stomach for what will be required, but I do know this. You have a chance to do it right this time. Not many ever get that kind of chance. If you choose to begin with the flawed foundation, and deal with it as reality requires, then every day will bring real improvement.

Choose otherwise, choose any course which does not first address the flawed foundation, and all you will get for your pain and heartache will be illusions. Illusions which the next Category 3 storm will destroy just as fast as Katrina did this time.

I'm not being mean, or greedy, I'm telling you like it is, so that you can realistically choose what you wish to do from here on.

The laws of nature and the laws of mathematics cannot be overwritten by either man or church. Attempts to circumvent them may appear to succeed in the short term, but in reality, all these attempts gain is to introduce potential energy into the system, like stretching a spring. It takes much more effort to stretch a srping and then slowly and carefully unstretch it than it does to leave it alone in the first place. The alternative then is to either not stretch it at all, or else stretch it and then lose control of it.

Katrina snapped the spring that was stretched by decades of corruption, but if it hadn't been Katrina, something else would have come along to release the stored negative energy.

Now the spring stands at rest, in equilibrium, with no potential energy. If you choose a return to the old ways, you will do so largely alone. I won't help, and many others who think like me will not either. We refuse to spend our effort and pain to help create another snapback that will do again to so many people what Katrina just did.

We will not rebuild the machine that killed them.

If, however, you choose to recognize reality from this day forward, and live in accordance with it, then roughly 280 million Americans stand with you. We await your decision.