A Victory Lap for Broken Promises
by matt at 12:00 am on August 28th, 2006 in Katrina“Niggaz starvin and they dyin of thirst
I bet he had to go and check on them refineries first
Makin a killin off the price of gas
He woulda been up in Connecticut twice as fast
After all that we been through, nothing’s changed
You can call Red Cross but the fact remains that:George Bush ain’t a gold digger
But he ain’t f*ckin with no broke niggaz”
- K-Otix “George Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People” / (Chopped & Screwed remix)
One year ago as Katrina menaced the Gulf Coast, I’m ashamed to admit that selfish thoughts ruled my mind. As I kept up with the news and weather reports, I wondered if I would ever again be able to visit the scene of so many semi-collegiate drunken nights, random hook-ups, getting booed off the karaoke stage at Cat’s Meow for a particularly awful version of “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” and of course my epic 1991 8-ball shellacking of 3rd Bass MC Prime Minister Pete Nice at Pat O’Brien’s . My usual near-constant media monitoring unfortunately had to be placed on hold while I traveled back to Pittsburgh to help my father begin his ultimately fatal adventure with the greatest medical system in the world. I saw that Katrina hit, watched as everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the worst was averted, and cringed as the President stayed on vacation and even did his best Nero impression.
It wasn’t until I returned to California that I snapped out of my personal fog and realized the scale of the disaster and the unfolding horrors. I was physically sickened by the pictures coming out of the Superdome and Convention Center. That this was happening in the richest country the world has ever seen was not only embarrassing, it was unimaginable. But just as it was—and is—hard to comprehend the devastation of 9/11, even five years later, fully grasping the situation on the Gulf Coast was impossible for anyone not living through it.
Rather more tangible was the reaction of certain pundits and elected officials. What should have been a no-brainer reminder that the US is woefully unprepared for catastrophe (natural or manmade), and that class and especially race issues have been ignored for far too long instead turned into a disgusting exercise in political cover, ideological pet projects, and racist comments (both thinly-veiled and buck naked). Unfortunately for Katrina survivors, the talking heads distracting and poisoning the discourse were of the same party as those who control the federal government, and in some cases, they were in the government themselves.
This sad state of affairs produced some very negative outcomes. Right out of the gate, the President, by executive order, suspended the Davis-Bacon Act and its guarantee of local prevailing wages for companies receiving government funds for reconstruction. It was a sweet deal while it lasted for the firms (mostly Republican campaign donors) who won no-bid, cost-plus contracts. In one of the more morbid examples, Congressional Republicans, already feverishly trying to limit federal aid to the Gulf Coast, set out to find families of Katrina’s dead who were adversely affected by the Estate Tax while bodies were still floating in the flood waters. That they failed to find even one such case didn’t stop them from using Katrina in their ongoing effort to repeal the tax that only touches the super-rich.
When it became clear that there was no politically viable way around a federally-funded reconstruction program, many in Congress changed their tune from “We shouldn’t waste money rebuilding a city that will just flood again” to “We’ll send some money down there, but it’s damn sure coming out of the pot marked for poor people elsewhere.” Grudgingly, money was appropriated, but two-thirds of it remains in limbo.
As for the one-third that has been transfered, it’s hard to see what good it has done on the ground. A year ago, I was torn between my family obligations and a strong desire to document the effects of Katrina. I had no idea that, as the anniversary of the storm’s landfall arrived, vast areas of New Orleans would remain in effectively the same condition they were in the day the water finally drained. With Hurricane Ernesto chasing me out of the area, I heard the administration’s rebuilding coordinator say:
There’s been an extraordinary amount of effort by the Corps of Engineers on restoring and repairing the levees, and I believe that the levees are ready for the hurricane season.
Yet the Army Corps of Engineers themselves are much less certain:
Despite aggressive efforts to repair the New Orleans levee system following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, it isn’t clear yet whether it could withstand a hurricane with heavy storm surge this year, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers conceded Saturday.
As I walked around New Orleans’ many diverse neighborhoods, I talked with anyone who would stop for a few minutes. From well-off homeowners to artists to busboys to the homeless, unsure of where or when they would get their next meal. I learned a lot about the attitudes of the people who have chosen to return. They are deeply skeptical of the reconstruction effort. They see the speedy re-opening of I-10, but fear the readiness of the flood control system. They see businesses getting big contracts and bigger tax breaks, while they lose out on jobs rebuilding the city to undocumented workers who will work for less. They search for apartments in an area that has seen a significant portion of its housing destroyed, and wonder how they will pay inflated rents and put the pieces back together when good jobs are scarce. They note that more than half of pre-Katrina residents are still scattered throughout the country, most who are renters not entitled to much (if any) of the aid needed to start again in their home town. It was difficult to hear their stories, colored with their love for their Nawlins, its future still very much up in the air.
But Americans love them some anniversaries, whether positive or catastrophic, so the clown show is firing on all cylinders. The media, surprisingly good in the immediate aftermath of Katrina, has again fallen down on the job. Maybe Anderson Cooper, who owes his extended prime time slot on CNN to his ability to cry and get angry on camera a year ago, has stayed on the case, but few others have done much since then. I’m cynical almost to a fault (and when the media is the subject, past a fault), but based on the stories I have seen, I thought that my window of opportunity to see the results of Katrina’s wrath had closed. This based on reports like: “Hey look, Wal-Mart reopened,” or “The XYZ hotel, closed since August of 2005, is now welcoming guests once again” on cable news and elsewhere. While technically true, this coverage could not be more misleading. When Education Secretary Margaret Spellings breezed through last week, she brought with her $60 million in aid from foreign countries. While the local papers and some sharp bloggers have been covering the devastating story of kids forced to blend in at schools far from home and the behavioral and academic problems that follow, major media outlets haven’t even considered the long term effect on the country in general, and the Gulf Coast in particular, as these kids grow up. Just as cross-sections of old trees can tell the tale of the environment the tree was exposed to, we will see Katrina’s mark on the kids transplanted. But it’s so much easier to send a reporter and a camera to a press conference held by an inept bureaucrat a year too late. Spellings’ counterpart at Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, was also here to push investment in the area with a visit to a reopened Home Depot. As if the government has provided even a neutral economic environment. Gutierrez and Spellings used the media to spread a false premise: that everything is on track and everything that can be done is being done. The administration-media partnership responsible for the war in Iraq is following the same script: highlight the blips (school openings / cell phone service) and downplay the human cost.
The broader reality is that areas not subject to serious flooding, like the French Quarter and the Garden District, remain shells of their former selves. Even on Bourbon Street, bars, restaurants, and strip clubs remain closed. Art galleries and boutiques on adjacent streets have signs in their windows directing the few passers-by to call if they want to buy something. The number of “for sale” signs is truly shocking, for if those most invested in New Orleans’ present don’t see a future here, who will? There is construction on Canal Street, but many buildings, even modern high rises, sport broken windows on upper floors and plywood on the lower ones. There is a critical hospital shortage, forcing those who are the sickest to leave town for proper care. Trash and debris are piled next to major streets, just blocks from downtown.
But all of that is just the least bad part. What remains of Lakeview and the Lower 9th Ward is a national embarrassment. One year after Katrina, and some houses rest off their foundations and in the streets. Cars sit upside down or crushed, some even under buildings washed away by flood waters. Water-damaged and mud-caked objects are distributed inside houses and in yards. Block after block, the damage appears infinite. The fact that $44 billion has been released for recovery, yet the ruins of the 9th ward are allowed to stand almost frozen in time, is nothing short of disgusting. With so many of our ruling Republican majority subscribing to the “Broken Window” theory, it’s amazing that the ultimate broken window is the flood damage allowed to remain across New Orleans.
If you are a regular 1115 reader, you of course know that I am never at a loss for words, and if you aren’t a regular reader, the length of this post should be enough of a hint. Though I spent roughly three hours walking around the 9th ward with my camera, I can think of few things to say that aren’t more faithfully conveyed by the images. My internal voice was stuck in a loop as I carefully stepped around piles of debris: This is the third world, this is what’s left of so many broken lives, and what will become of those who called the Lower 9th home? The work suffered from my inability to concentrate, but this isn’t about art, or even journalism. It is a window for people everywhere to view what passes for reconstruction in a neighborhood few care about.
I make no apologies for the criticism Jason, Sarabeth, and I have leveled at the Bush administration. We have documented a full year’s worth of their inept, destructive, unfair and clueless reaction to the damage Katrina wrought. Often these posts have sparked arguments about who’s to blame, with readers on the other side of the aisle (or more accurately, universe) shielding the President from the brunt of the responsibility by holding up New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco as the real villains. Look, I carry no brief for the former Republican Nagin, who comes off as an incompetent clown, unable to make up his mind or keep his feet out of his mouth. That he was just reelected in the wake of Katrina makes less sense to me than Bush’s reelection in the middle of the Iraq war. Blanco has managed to acquit herself marginally better, but is not exactly the next Democratic superstar.
But it was President Bush who stood under dramatic stage lighting in an otherwise blacked-out city on September 15, 2005 and assured the nation that:
When communities are rebuilt, they must be even better and stronger than before the storm. Within the Gulf region are some of the most beautiful and historic places in America. As all of us saw on television, there’s also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets. When the houses are rebuilt, more families should own, not rent, those houses. When the regional economy revives, local people should be prepared for the jobs being created.
Bush’s “bold action” with respect to the Gulf Coast was the above-mentioned suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act prevailing wage protections and the naming of his chief political advisor Karl Rove to lead the reconstruction effort. To this day, nothing has been done to address the rampant poverty made worse by Katrina, and racism rages as before. Bush is right that more families should own homes, but those who rented before and lost everything are not finding it any easier to own this time around. Homeowners are being compensated for their losses, but not renters. And the path is made harder by the lack of living-wage jobs and skyrocketing rents. There was a time not long ago when Presidents were punished severely for breaking their promises.
But not only is Bush not paying a political price, he’s reaping the benefits that his policies produce. Rich or poor, black or white, everyone in New Orleans (except that idiot Rocky Vaccarella) blames the government. For a Republican party that for years has tried to sour views on Washington, that is money in the bank. And with the slow pace of reconstruction (especially the residential variety) in the areas most likely to vote Democratic, the state of Louisiana moves into the solid red electoral column. Sure he’s down a bit in the polls (though he probably would be anyway due to Iraq), but that’s a small price for a lame duck to pay for a potential realigning shift in regional politics.
No one, at least no one credible, expected that 12 months would be enough to repair and rebuild from Katrina, nor is anyone blaming the administration for not having produced a miracle. But the sad truth is that this is simply not a priority for this administration. People are coming back to New Orleans, and they clearly want to reclaim their city. But it takes more money than has been released, and it takes leadership this President simply does not possess nor recognize in others. He sits idly by as the power company that serves New Orleans proper siphons profits to its holding company while threatening to declare bankruptcy and leave their hardest hit customers in the dark. Yet he’ll be in Mississippi today and here on Tuesday carrying the message that “after a slow start, we’re keeping our promise.”
One only needs to look at the state of the 9th Ward to see that, like everything else, this administration is simply not serious about governing. Gulf residents are paying an immediate price, but the rest of us, whether we know it or not, have a generational mortgage on the aftermath of the incompetence.
*Notes:
The full set of my photos from the 9th Ward are here on Flickr. During my stay in New Orleans I had the opportunity to speak with and photograph some residents who have fallen on especially hard times: Jacob / Michael / Billy / Teddy.
Whether or not you agree with my thoughts on the government’s response, the photos are as real as it gets. Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t care less how many people read this site or view my photos. Writing and photography are activities I would do anyway, so it just doesn’t matter. But this is different. I gave my word to the people who took the time to speak with me that I would do whatever I could to tell their stories and expose what is really happening in New Orleans. If in reading this post and looking at my photos, you feel that they are valuable, please pass the links along to others who might be interested.
The Tattered Coat » Still Broken on 28 Aug 2006 at 9:29 am
[...] It’s called A Victory Lap for Broken Promises: But all of that is just the least bad part. What remains of Lakeview and the Lower 9th Ward is a national embarrassment. One year after Katrina, and some houses rest off their foundations and in the streets. Cars sit upside down or crushed, some even under buildings washed away by flood waters. Water-damaged and mud-caked objects are distributed inside houses and in yards. Block after block, the damage appears infinite. The fact that $44 billion has been released for recovery, yet the ruins of the 9th ward are allowed to stand almost frozen in time, is nothing short of disgusting. With so many of our ruling Republican majority subscribing to the “Broken Window†theory, it’s amazing that the ultimate broken window is the flood damage allowed to remain across New Orleans. [...]
Lower 9th. Ward, One Year Later » Gallinvanting on 28 Aug 2006 at 9:51 am
[...] 9th. Ward, New Orleans Photo set @ Flickr Notes from the Photographer [...]
The Heretik » Blog Archive » Lost on 28 Aug 2006 at 9:59 am
[...] More pre-programming today? Bush heads down to Katrinaland a day early. From the Times-Picayune: “Bush’s itinerary looks a lot like previous trips, many of which have been criticized as featuring too much staged contact with supportive locals and overly dominated by meetings with officials. . . . . On Tuesday, the anniversary itself, the president is skipping the city’s many planned activities.” Send in the cavalry clowns: “Americans love them some anniversaries, whether positive or catastrophic, so the clown show is firing on all cylinders.” Plus mime or meme? Is it those who can, do or those who can will not? “The inaction is the action.” Why New Orleans is still broken . Consider the broken promises. [...]
sw’as » The Heart Breaks on 28 Aug 2006 at 8:01 pm
[...] The bloke who took the photos gives his thoughts about them on his blog. [...]
BFW Local 734 » Katrina One Year Later on 28 Aug 2006 at 9:26 pm
[...] In the meantime, chew on this. I regularly sing the praises of Matt Cohen over at 1115, and will continue to do so until he’s on the Daily Show as one of the internet’s best bloggers. This entry has never made me prouder to count him as one of my friends. A truly engaging photo essay/article on Katrina through his own words and lens. [...]
philly » Blog Archive » Katrina One Year Later on 28 Aug 2006 at 10:15 pm
[...] Once again via the Tattered Coat, I'm reminded to go read this post over at 1115.org. Blogger/photographer Matt Cohen [a Pittsburgh native] went down to New Orleans ahead of Dubya to see what he could see. It's not pretty, but it has to be seen. And by everybody. What happened in New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast one year ago cannot be forgotten nor whitewashed by Dubya's platitutes of all the "progress" made down there. Make sure to take a click through Matt's flickr set of gorgeous black and white images of what the 9th Ward of New Orleans looks like today. [...]
Suburban Guerrilla » ‘Home This Was Home’ on 29 Aug 2006 at 9:23 am
[...] [More here.] [...]
Macsmind - Conservative Commentary and Common Sense » Blog Archive » The Katrina Campaign on 29 Aug 2006 at 2:15 pm
[...] Just more random thoughts. Now that we know that Katrina had NOTHING to do with the flood, it’s still fun to watch the left – especially this kind of left – still hammer Bush over the recovery effort, and haven’t a clue about what really happened. But I bet you didn’t know that one year after Katrina, Ray Nagin still has no tangeable plan for recovery of HIS city. Yet he gets a pass. [...]
Macsmind - Conservative Commentary and Common Sense » Blog Archive » Kyra’s Confessions on 29 Aug 2006 at 7:28 pm
[...] Just more random thoughts. Now that we know that Katrina had NOTHING to do with the flood, it’s still fun to watch the left – especially this kind of left – still hammer Bush over the recovery effort, and haven’t a clue about what really happened. But I bet you didn’t know that one year after Katrina, Ray Nagin still has no tangeable plan for recovery of HIS city. Yet he gets a pass. [...]
Thou Shall Not Suck » Blog Archive » Image of Incompetence on 29 Aug 2006 at 9:15 pm
[...] Just check out Matt’s Flickr set — he’s down in NOLA showing us all just how much is left to do. He’s also got an AMAZING post over at 1115. I know I recommend a lot of links, but that one is a must read. [...]
Jackson G. Tickle Enterprises Presents…Panama’s Propositions :: It’s Like 1954 All Over Again… on 21 Dec 2007 at 10:39 am
[...] A Victory Lap For Broken Promises [...]