Wet Bank Guide

The editorial behind the title of this entry from the Washington Post sums up what the current administration is doing to New Orleans.

The editorial follows on the heels of several articles published this weekend, including Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled and New Orleans Feels Cast Adrift.

Cast Adrift. Betrayed. Promises Unfulfilled.

I have never felt less of an American. And, Mr. President, you guys in Congress, I don't really care.

I don't really care because, by this time tomorrow, I will be irretrievably committed on the road to coming once again a New Orleanian.

My wife has found us a house, and I'll wire her the earnest money. I will tell my current employer that we're moving. It's done. No turning back.

Whatever it takes, we are committed to New Orleans. We are willing to gamble because we think the whole Bush thing is an aberration, that the American experiment is not a failure, that the campaign of division and fear his party has waged for a generation has not yet destroyed the capability of Americans to respond in defense of their fellow citizens.

We are risking it because we know if you or your successor does not step up to the task, the next hurricane may well take out the port for good, and collapse the Midwest's farm economy, or permanently cut off 25% of the nation's oil supply. Without levees and coastal restoration, it's just a matter of time before the nation is brought economically to its knees. It won't matter then where we live. We might as well be home.

We are going because I've never lost the deepest allegiance I've ever held: to my city. We have always known we were a people different and unique, as divided as we may seem. That sense of identify as a New Orleanian is the powerful bond that draws me on. It is the deep love of country that drives me--of my country, New Orleans and southern Louisiana. It is the irrational emotional attachment to my piece of America that leads men and women to go willingly up Bunker Hill, to follow General Pickett, to volunteer for Iraq.

If you were a real Texan and not a pretender, you might understand. You might know the words to Gary P. Nunn's "London Homesick Blues”, the part that goes “'Cause when a Texan fancies,/he'll take his chances, / chances will be taken.” Or perhaps you’d know Guy Clark’s song "L.A. Freeway", especially the chorus: “If I can just get off of this LA freeway Without getting killed or caught I'd be down that road in a cloud of smoke For some land that I ain't bought bought bought.”

But you're no Texan. And you and your chicken-hawk friends have never had to face those sort of decisions, so I don't expect you to understand. A life of assured privilege has protected you from having to take these sort of risks, to find the strength to get up and go into the maw of uncertainty, to risk and gamble your own and not other peoples lives or money. You can pledge allegiance or sing the anthem or give a stirring speech as well as any, but you know you have no allegiance except self-interest.

If nothing moves you except your own self-interest, then consider this.

There are hundreds of thousands of us, scattered throughout most of the United States. We are everywhere you and your party will go to campaign: Arkansas and Atlanta and Austin, Dallas and Detroit and Denver, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, Baltimore and Boston, Chicago and Charlotte. Many will remain there indefinitely, unable to go home, precisely because you have lied to them and betrayed them.

We will not let you escape from the net of lies you have woven. Wherever you turn, you will find us, ready to call you out. Vicksburg MS fell to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on July 4, 1863. The city did not observe the Fourth of July as a holiday again until 1945. We will not soon forget what you are doing. We will not let you or the American people or the world forget either.

Tagged: Katrina NOLA New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Think New Orleans Louisiana FEMA levee flooding Corps of Engineers Texas Bush