Now that the 'Mod Squad' has opened this up for discussion, and now that most of the willing are out of the hell on earth that is now the scity of saints, I suppose its high time for me to dangle my toes in this pool of political discourse.

Instead of yelling back-and-forth in a piecemeal fashion, I think I'll just post a series of essays. Discourse here has Nelsonized like never before, so maybe this will both help bypass that.... which for me is just intolerable.... And maybe also this will help raise the level of discussion here from supid Blog-quotes and spin and thinly veiled name calling.

The Political Swamp, Part I

Like NOLA, we sit in a stew of toxic sludge- not just here in the zone, but nationally. We are innundated by rancor and awash in partisanship. Some have drawn the long knife of blame and wish to sink it deep into the heart of 'the other side'- be that side the Democratic politicians of NO, or the Republican administration. Some are desperately trying to declare the emperor well clothed, and some are decrying what they see as naked incompetence.

But underneath this swamp of poisoned discourse lies a rational, clear binary statement: Either there has been a failure in out nations response to Hurricaine Katrina, or there has not been a failure.

I suggest that any rational person would agree that the above statement has to be evaluated in the afirmative case. We have a Drowned city of evidence, we have a hundred thousand data points crammed into temporary shelters around the south. We have one of our great historical and cultural meccas thouroughly destroyed. One of our largest cities wiped off the earth. This is a failure. And, I would argue: This is a failure on a national scale.

If this is a failure, then we have a rational choice that must be made: Are we to find out the details of the failure and hold those responsible accountable, or are we to ignore what went wrong and leave the failures in place.

Any rational person would answer that the former must be done, and that the second option is the choice for fools. This is afterall, a Democracy. And in a democracy, we get exactly what we deserve. If we deserve better, than we must do better.

Many here would argue that in assigning blame to any side, one side or another, that we are using the context for political gain- for one side or another. I would say: <i<of course! We must use this situation for political gain! If we do not gain by exposing the error and the error prone, we will not gain as a country, and we will be left to suffer simmilar tragedy at the whim of nature- or worse our geopolitical enemies.

The Benedict Arnold position, in my opinion, is to hide and shy away from blame. The irrational, prapagandist thing to do is to refuse the assignation of blame where blame is due. That is to fail our country.

So lets evaluate the claim that the administration is blameless in this, lets evaluate the claims made by Bush and Cheney (and McLelland, and Chertoff, Brown, Hastert and Lott) that FEMA is 'doing a great job'. And lets evaluate the claim that, where there is blame, the blame belongs elswhere (Bush blames the local authority, Brown blames the victims, Chertof blames the media... etc).

Lets start with 'ground zero' and move outward. Lets start with the Levee system, the system that has long been known to be inadequate, yet has never been upgraded or improved beyond where it sat in early sept 2005. If this system had not failed, this disaster would not have happened. Simple reasoning seems to indicate that these levees would reasonably be the responsibility if NOLA- they are afterall part of NOLA- right in the middle of it so to speak.

But its not that easy.

A decade ago, the US congress approved the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA)- a half billion dollar project that was to shore up and improve the levee system in NOLA, improve flood controll in the area, and improve the pumping stations. In this project, the Army Core of Engineers was the agency selected for responsibility.

This was done at the federal level because, frankly put, NO is one of the poorest citries and LA is one of the poorest states. The argument goes that the NOLA ports and Canal System play a major role in our economy (as witnessed by 3.00 gas and the disrtuption to the transportation system!)- thus flooding and disruption in NOLA is an america issue, not a logcoal issue. Beyond which, NOLA could never come up with ~1 Billion US necessary to fix what is wrong.

but 2-3 years ago, things started to go wrong. Likelyy because the cost of the Iraq war, finding dried up. By 2005, there was some 200 million dollars of projects not done due to lack of funding.

Now, it is very unlikely that if these projects had been finished, that the NOLA disaster would have been averted. The point is that laying the blame at the feet of NO or LA is not useful or truthful. The Levee system in that area predates the american government, but in modern times, its always been the preview of the federal government via the Army Core Of Engineers to maintain, expand and repair that system- more often than not with federal funding. The point is that the Levee system has historically been a federal infrastructure, not a local infrastructure. (interestingly, this Nat. Geographic piece predicts what came to pass very accurately, and also shows how the federal government, mainly bush, wasted an opportunity to prepare for it it)

Now, we have all heard about the corruption of NO officials, and there seems to be a growing consensus among some that this 'legendary' corruption must be to blame for what happened to NOLA. Its odd, nobody has a clear fact or finding to point to, but we all sagely shake our heads and say: 'its ashame, really, that they lined their pockets at the expense of their duty to their constituents'. But I am reminded eerily of the supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq- EVERYONE knew they were there, and EVERYONE knew Saddam was lying about them... Yet they were not there. There was, so to speak, no beef there.

So where is the Beef with the corruption in NO? Can anyone show me a clear case where NO officials lined their pockets with federal flood control monies?

My point is: Corruption in NO may or may not have contributed to the problem. If it had, I'd like to see some evidence. But until it can be displayed for all that this happened... I think its incorrect and irrational to assume it happened and to assume that NO is to blame for what happened to them.

So what, exactly, did NO officials do wrong?

Now, LA officials may share some blame. It has been sporradically reported by Mayor Nagin via the media and by other sources that LA Governor Mary Landreau may have, in part, prevented the formation of a unified chain of command. If this happened, she should resign. LA Senators may have organized some Pork Barrel projects for the River-way and and for NO that may not have addressed the real problem of the Levee system. If so, that was irresponsible. But its hardly paramount to stealing funds from the flood controll projects. IE, if they brought about a few pork-barrel projects, thats not ecxactly the same thing as spending flood-controll funds. And may the first senator or state blameless of pork barrel projects cast the first stone...

NO, it may turn out, could have better organized an evacuation (although, perhaps ironically FEMA insisted otherwise early in the disaster). There were city and school busses that could have helped the poor get out. But it is difficult to see where they would have gone. They would have had to leave the City, and NO has no authority there- its for FEMA (definitionally!) and perhpas LA to organize shelters outside the city, but there were a dearth of shelters even days after the storm!

So there may be some blame for NO and LA collectively, but if there is- its not very much. When NO itself is destroyed, I am hard pressed to see how NO is supposed to help themselves.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

"because, you know, the mayor did everything he could to get them out of there."

""Unfortunately, that's going to be attributable a lot to people who did not heed the advance warnings," Brown told CNN.

"I don't make judgments about why people chose not to leave but, you know, there was a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans," he said."

"Between 1978 and 1998, Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Tammany Parishes experienced numerous rainfall flooding events. Flooding originates from excessive rainfall and outdated urban drainage facilities. The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid claims totaling over $814 million for this period. Devastating record flooding due to torrential rainfalls in southeast Louisiana occurred May 8 through May 10, 1995. In May 1995, 6-hour rainfall amounts, averaging 12 inches, caused extensive flooding throughout the area. Seven lives were lost and over 35,000 homes were flooded along with thousands of businesses and public facilities. There was significant street and highway damage. Estimated flood damages, reported for the May event, total about $1 billion for the three parishes.

As a result of the extensive flooding in May 1995, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana (SELA) Project with enactment of Section 108 of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1996 and Section 533 of the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 1996, as amended, to provide for flood control and improvements to rainfall drainage systems in Jefferson, Orleans, and St. Tammany Parishes, Louisiana in accordance with the following reconnaissance reports of the New Orleans District Engineer: Jefferson and Orleans Parishes, Louisiana, Urban Flood Control and Water Quality Management, July 1992; Tangipahoa, Techefuncte, and Tickfaw Rivers, Louisiana, June 1991; St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, July 1996; and Schneider Canal, Slidell, Louisiana, Hurricane Protection, May 1990.

Technical reports were prepared in April 1996 and May 1996 to identify the initial work to be implemented under the SELA project authority. These technical reports, which were approved in October 1996, were the basis of the Project Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) for Jefferson and Orleans Parishes that were executed on January 16, 1997 and January 23, 1997.
"

"A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent."

"Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. "

"Such high stakes compelled a host of unlikely bedfellows—scientists, environmental groups, business leaders, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—to forge a radical plan to protect what's left. Drafted by the Corps a year ago, the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) project was initially estimated to cost up to 14 billion dollars over 30 years, almost twice as much as current efforts to save the Everglades. But the Bush Administration balked at the price tag, supporting instead a plan to spend up to two billion dollars over the next ten years to fund the most promising projects."