What Is Up With This World?

On this date in 1803 (December 20TH), France turned over the City of New Orleans to the U.S. in a now famous ceremony that was held at The Cabildo. This was an integral part of what is now known as “The Louisiana Purchase”. This day in history was truly historic, in so many different ways. At that time, New Orleans was on the brink of becoming one of the most important ports and trade cities in the world, for centuries to come. All I can say is, “Wow, what could have been.”

What I mean by that, is “Wow, how amazing was the potential for such a beautiful, unique, culturally diverse area and how disappointing it is to see what it has turned into, and there is no wonder why it happened.” New Orleans was sold and bought some 205 years ago. 205 years later, it is still being bought and sold. Corruption has become so commonplace that it is expected, tolerated and seemingly an infectious disease that spreads like the plague. What have we allowed to happen to such a promising city? Why do we allow this to continue? What’s the true cause behind it? I say “we”, but I really mean “they”. Hmmm, what could have been, compared to what is – sad, to say the least.

Hurricane Katrina brought to the forefront the corruption, crime and crooked politics that we, here in Louisiana, have known firsthand for far too long. As I see it, corruption, crime and crooked politics go hand in hand. One facilitates the other or at the very least, aggravates the circumstances of one or more of the others. In my humble opinion, corruption and crooked politics was at the forefront of what caused the manmade disaster that we remember all too well. People were trapped on their roofs for days, from New Orleans East to the Lower Ninth Ward and just about every point in between. I will never forget flipping on MSNBC early that morning to find a live feed of one of its reporters stating “a” levee had been compromised – that he looked out his hotel room window and saw what looked like shards of glass shining in the street below, during those early morning hours and that he was informed a short time later of “the” breach. All I could do was gasp and pick up my phone to place a call to one of my friends who evacuated to Lafayette (Louisiana) so that I could ask him if he had heard – he of course, was in a state of utter shock, as he owned a beautiful home just off of Bullard in New Orleans East. As it turns out, his property was located in one of the hardest hit areas. I remember the images of people all over rooftops, in 3 feet of water on Canal Street and days later, lining bridges and overpasses. I recall the images of young and old in front of the Convention Center. I personally knew or met many who were forced to evacuate and most have still not returned for anything more than a “day” visit. I remember listening to a client cry because her family had lost everything and they literally had no where to go – for months. I volunteered at the Cajundome here in Lafayette and met many people – many desperate, distraught, lost people - and with good reason. The most memorable was a lady I met who lived on Alvar Street in the Ninth Ward. She did not know where any of her family was or if any of them had survived. As it turns out, several did not. The bright part of her story was that she was reunited several weeks later with her husband and son at the Alamodome in San Antonio. I am a fairly good judge of character and I knew when I met her, she was as sincere and broken as one can get. I felt so terrible for her, that I wanted to just bring her home with me so that she would have a safe place to stay. She had evacuated to the Superdome, thinking that was a wise decision, only to find out that was a fateful decision. She told many a heartbreaking story of the horrors she personally witnessed during her days between the Superdome and the Convention Center. It was obvious that at least some of those terrible rumors we all heard, were true. And to think, she was one of the “lucky” ones. We can place blame on the Army Corps of Engineers, or on local agencies, but the truth is, the blame should be placed on hundreds of years of oppression, classism, racism, dirty politics, corrupt law enforcement, bribes, criminal underworlds, and the well-known “You gotta pay to play” attitude of most of New Orleans’ politicians – and even the State of Louisiana as a whole. The truth is, it is not all “fun and games” – one truly does have to pay to play in the Crescent City.

In the weeks to come, I plan to focus on the problems New Orleans has experienced, and I intend to do this in “bite-sized” pieces. Once I have finished my laundry list of items, I would like to focus on possible solutions to those problems.

Is the City of New Orleans too far gone to “fix”? Is it even worth saving, given not only the budget shortfalls and failure in properly rebuilding levees and whole neighborhoods, but its newfound proximity to the Gulf of Mexico? What do we do about it? For all of the problems that it has, is it worth saving? It is one of the most unique and interesting cities on the face of this earth. If you do not take my word for it, just ask one of its displaced residents why they continue to wage a battle to move back to a city on which Hurricane Katrina left such a terrible mark of destruction. I can answer that for you – it’s because of the culture, if nothing else. I can tell you something else, too – the corruption is no longer a joking matter and it is certainly nothing for which we should be proud. This has gone on for far too long. What do we do to stop it? Should we even bother?

I would appreciate any comments or input readers might have. Please feel free to e-mail me or add your comments below in of course, the “Comments” section.


http://www.lewisandclarktrail.com/legacy/sold.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase
http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/
http://www.lpb.org/education/tah/lapurchase/quotes.cfm
http://www.nola.com/coastal/
http://www.nola.com/speced/lastchance/multimedia/
http://blog.nola.com/graphics/2008/01/new_orleans_deluge.html