Death of an American City

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FOCUS: The New York Times | Death of an American City

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121105Z.shtml

 

Death of an American City

The New York Times | Editorial

Sunday 11 December 2005 We are about to lose New Orleans. Whether it

is a conscious plan to let the city rot until no one is willing to move back or

honest paralysis over difficult questions, the moment is upon us when a major

American city will die, leaving nothing but a few shells for tourists to visit

like a museum.

 

We said this wouldn't happen. President Bush said it wouldn't happen. He

stood in Jackson Square and said, " There is no way to imagine America without

New Orleans. " But it has been over three months since Hurricane Katrina struck

and the city is in complete shambles.

 

There are many unanswered questions that will take years to work out, but

one is make-or-break and needs to be dealt with immediately. It all boils down

to the levee system. People will clear garbage, live in tents, work their

fingers to the bone to reclaim homes and lives, but not if they don't believe

they will be protected by more than patches to the same old system that failed

during the deadly storm. Homeowners, businesses and insurance companies all need

a commitment before they will stake their futures on the city.

 

At this moment the reconstruction is a rudderless ship. There is no

effective leadership that we can identify. How many people could even name the

president's liaison for the reconstruction effort, Donald Powell? Lawmakers need

to understand that for New Orleans the words " pending in Congress " are a death

warrant requiring no signature.

 

The rumbling from Washington that the proposed cost of better levees is too

much has grown louder. Pretending we are going to do the necessary work

eventually, while stalling until the next hurricane season is upon us, is

dishonest and cowardly. Unless some clear, quick commitments are made, the

displaced will have no choice but to sink roots in the alien communities where

they landed.

 

The price tag for protection against a Category 5 hurricane, which would

involve not just stronger and higher levees but also new drainage canals and

environmental restoration, would very likely run to well over $32 billion. That

is a lot of money. But that starting point represents just 1.2 percent of this

year's estimated $2.6 trillion in federal spending, which actually overstates

the case, since the cost would be spread over many years. And it is barely

one-third the cost of the $95 billion in tax cuts passed just last week by the

House of Representatives.

 

Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror

have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of

protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible

case we fought to prevent?

 

Losing a Major American City

" We'll not just rebuild, we'll build higher and better, " President Bush

said that night in September. Our feeling, strongly, is that he was right and

should keep to his word. We in New York remember well what it was like for the

country to rally around our city in a desperate hour. New York survived and has

flourished. New Orleans can too.

 

Of course, New Orleans's local and state officials must do their part as

well, and demonstrate the political and practical will to rebuild the city

efficiently and responsibly. They must, as quickly as possible, produce a

comprehensive plan for putting New Orleans back together. Which schools will be

rebuilt and which will be absorbed? Which neighborhoods will be shored up? Where

will the roads go? What about electricity and water lines? So far, local and

state officials have been derelict at producing anything that comes close to a

coherent plan. That is unacceptable.

 

The city must rise to the occasion. But it will not have that opportunity

without the levees, and only the office of the president is strong enough to

goad Congress to take swift action. Only his voice is loud enough to call people

home and convince them that commitments will be met.

 

Maybe America does not want to rebuild New Orleans. Maybe we have decided that

the deficits are too large and the money too scarce, and that it is better just

to look the other way until the city withers and disappears. If that is truly

the case, then it is incumbent on President Bush and Congress to admit it, and

organize a real plan to help the dislocated residents resettle into new homes.

The communities that opened their hearts to the Katrina refugees need to know

that their short-term act of charity has turned into a permanent commitment.

 

If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people

of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them

we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away

in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is

too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities.

 

Our nation would then look like a feeble giant indeed. But whether we admit

it or not, this is our choice to make. We decide whether New Orleans lives or

dies.

 

 

 

" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix