- Yes, the New Orleans disaster revealed the ongoing disparity
between rich and poor. Yes, it graphically suggested the nagging reality
of how our citizens are still evaluated by skin color. And yes, it certainly
spoke volumes of why it is sheer folly for human beings to attempt to share
the same real estate with a mighty ocean.
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- But it is more than that. Much more.
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- Katrina, with her kiss of death, defined for
us, in a few devastating hours, just what unspeakable harm a bloated, bumbling
bureaucracy can do----by doing nothing at all.
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- Furthermore, Katrina, the uninvited teacher,
calculated for us, once and for all, the ineptitude and irresponsibility
of the current administration and our three-monkey Congress.
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- The lesson Katrina taught us should not only
embarrass and humble us, but infuriate us as well. She taught us that when
you roll the dice with Nature, be satisfied to walk away with a few chips.
Because if you hang around and keep throwing the dice, sooner or later,
and when you least expect it, you're going to roll craps. And it's usually
when you happen to have the biggest bet on the table.
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- That is precisely what happened in New Orleans
on Aug 31, 2005.
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- For years, Times Writers Serrano and Gaouette tell us,
both the White House and Congress have been playing hurricane roulette
with the levees and dikes, and pumps that must be kept operating night
and day to keep Big Easy from floating away.
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- But that costs money, so the politicians have
been rolling the dice, expecting the best, and not preparing for the worst.
And that throw of the dice caught up with them, and with New Orleans.
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- Although the disaster is a product of political
hubris and bureaucratic mismanagement there's plenty of blame to go around.
Construction proposals were either never finished or under-funded. The
Washington high rollers could never decide how much money to bet that a
killer hurricane hitting New Orleans was a long shot.
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- The government knew---how could they not know,
since they had been warned dozens of times---that the New Orleans levees
would fold with anything over a Category 3 hurricane. But they kept rolling
the dice anyway.
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- Expert after expert, on the federal, state,
and local levels kept asking for money for more and better protection projects.
They wanted the dice-rolling to stop. But Washington must like the sound
of "bones on the table" because they kept scaling down those
requests, as if to tell the folks in the Big Easy: "Never fear, baby,
we're riding with you, even if our money isn't."
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- Think not? Since 2001, local flood prevention
officials have asked Washington for $500 million---considering the danger,
it was desperately needed money. Bush approved only a fraction-- $166
million. This year, local officials asked Washington for $78 million,
also desperately needed. Bush magnanimously covered the bet, but only with
half as much--- $30 million.
- Serrano and Gaouette summed it up nicely: "These
budget decisions reflect the reality in Washington: To act with an eye
toward short-term political rewards instead of making long-term investments
to deal with problems."
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- Or, as even better expressed by Vincent Gawronski,
assistant professor at Alabama's Birmingham Southern College: "Elected
politicians are in office for a limited amount of time, with a limited
amount of money, and they really don't have a long-tem vision for spending
it. So you spend your pot of money where you feel you're going to get
the most political support so you can get reelected. If you invest in these
levees, is that going to show an immediate return, or does it take away
from anything else?"
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- Frankly, I can't see a better "immediate
return" on your money than investing in levees that would have kissed
off Katrina, protected peoples' lives, and saved a city.
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- During her visit to the tragic area, Condoleezza
Rice missed that point completely when she uttered this non-sequitur: "Nobody,
especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis
of race. There are some things the president can do, and there are some
things the government can do."
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- And democratic state representative Yvonne
Kennedy's aim also was off-target when she opined: "It's so unfortunate
that the time it takes to rescue them is too long. Had the rescue been
more timely, I think we could have saved lives."
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- That's disingenuously putting the proverbial
cart before the horse, big time. If the administration "had been
more timely" in allocating enough money to beef up the levees we might
have saved not just some, but ALL the lives.
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- It's an ugly, hard-hearted thought, but the
irony of it all is that New Orleans had been one of the South's favorite
legendary, fun-living venues: a free-wheeling, game-playing mecca by the
sea.
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- But not anymore--- thanks to a government that
prefers rolling dice to rescuing the destitute.
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