Michael Adee, National Field Organizer for More Light Presbyterians, who grew up in south Louisiana and taught at Louisiana State University, writes after a visit to New Orleans and Baton Rouge   [12-12-05]

Michael J. Adee, M.Div., Ph.D., National Field Organizer
More Light Presbyterians, 369 Montezuma Avenue # 447, Santa Fe, NM  87501
(505) 820-7082, michaeladee@aol.com, www.mlp.org

by Gene TeSelle, Witherspoon Society issues analyst
[12-6-05]

With all the public concern about hurricane damage on the Gulf Coast, especially in the area of New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile, it became necessary for the Bush administration to respond, although it did take a few days (White House staffers even had to use video images to prove to the President that there was a crisis).

Then there were promises of federal aid to rebuild. In typical style, all these promises were "framed" by the same set of assumptions. Some people may be so grateful for the help that is offered that they scarcely pay attention to the conditions and assumptions on which it is offered.

As early as September 13 the House Republican Study Committee, with more than a hundred conservative legislators, met at the Heritage Foundation and drew up a list of 32 "pro-free-market" ideas for responding to the crisis. They ranged from school vouchers to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and relaxing environmental regulations.

The first three items on the conservative shopping list were especially revealing. They were (a) to suspend Davis-Bacon requirements that federally-funded projects pay the prevailing wage, (b) to declare the area a tax-free "enterprise zone," and (c) to declare it a "competitiveness zone" with tax incentives and waiving of regulations. (These became part of President Bush's executive orders and his proposals for rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Because of public outrage, including more than 350,000 messages to Congress and the White House, the President reversed course on construction wages a month later.)

At an even more basic policy level, it was made clear that the Gulf Coast crisis would not make any difference to the administration's plan for a permanent repeal of estate taxes on the rich. To avoid increasing the national debt, post-hurricane aid would have to be funded by cutting $50 billion from other federal programs, most of which had already received drastic cuts in order to pay for the Iraq war.

On October 6, the Coalition on Human Needs, with more than 350 organizations, sent a letter to all Senators and Representatives. It noted that Congress had postponed tax cuts for wealthy Americans, along with intended cuts in basic services such as Medicaid and food stamps. But it called on Congress not merely to postpone these measures but to abandon them.

The Coalition enunciated these basic principles:

When people could not imagine how the administration's policies could get more outrageous, both houses of Congress decreed on October 7 that the $750 million in federal loans for rebuilding must be repaid in full by states and municipal governments. (This vote went largely along party lines in both houses; Tennessee's representatives divided consistently by parties in voting Yes or No.) In the past, the federal government has often forgiven such loans under the provisions of the 1974 Stafford Act. Governor Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana called the policy "discriminatory," singling out hurricane victims for unfair treatment.

But Governor Blanco has also done her part to advance an ideological program. She issued an executive order lifting all restrictions on the number of charter schools in New Orleans; President Bush then offered $2000 more per student for charter schools than for regular public schools. New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast area in general, are becoming victims of a massive enterprise of ideologically-driven "social engineering."

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by Gene TeSelle
[12-6-05]

After the wind, rain, and flooding brought by Hurricane Katrina, it took only a few days for people to begin making suggestions about the future of New Orleans. Here's an attempt to sort out the differing perspectives from which the answers come. All these perspectives are important, and they will be influential, no matter how good or bad you may think they are. The crucial question is how they will be combined.

1. Who's To Blame? Whenever a disaster occurs, we wonder why, and there are several different kinds of answers: divine punishment (because of sins like Mardi Gras, Decadence--the annual gay event--and, in general, being the "Big Easy"); human negligence or malice (the Bush administration's refusal of the funds that have been requested for years to reinforce the levees); and natural consequences of previous human actions (global warming, storm surges made worse by replacement of mangrove swamps with suburban development).

2. Who Decides? It didn't take long for President Bush to seize the initiative and take some drastically new measures, hoping to tilt events in accord with his ideology of free enterprise, private property rights, minimal labor costs, and so on. But Mayor C. Ray Nagin of New Orleans weighed in, too, appointing a 17-member commission that is supposed to represent both the power and the population of the city. And of course the State of Louisiana has a major role in all of this, too, as the chief locus of "sovereignty." We can expect relationships between various levels of government to be as contested as they were during the first week after the storm, when there was an exchange of messages between Governor Kathleen Blanco, calling for federal assistance, and the administration, which wanted to federalize the National Guard, declare martial law, and put the entire operation under federal control.

3. Who Counts? The issue of race quickly came to the fore. The public discovered that some people didn't have the money, the cars, or the contacts to leave the city, and many of these were African Americans. They felt left out and hard done by, especially after hearing comments like the one from Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA): "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Many decision-makers just don't want them around, except as a source of cheap labor in the tourist industry in the French Quarter. The Secretary of HUD, Alphonso Jackson, told a reporter on September 30, "I think it would be a mistake to rebuild the Ninth Ward. . . . New Orleans is not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again."

4. Who Gets Work and Who Gets Paid? People who lived on the Gulf coast expected to get relief, cleanup, and construction jobs, as one way the federal government would help them get back on their feet. Instead they found that Hispanic workers from Mexico were filling many of the jobs, and at lower wages, since many of them are desperate, or perhaps undocumented and afraid of being reported if they object to their treatment. Now it turns out that many of these immigrants have not been paid at all, and the contractors have disappeared.

5. Who Wins and Who Loses? It didn't take long for insurance companies to announce that, even if your home was insured against wind or tree damage, it wouldn't be covered against flooding. State attorneys general quickly filed suit against them. But it will take months or years to figure out who gets compensated for what. If your house was your chief asset, you have very little freedom of movement; you're likely to be offered quick money so that a speculator can take it off your hands and redevelop it. By contrast the hotel chains and casino operators have plenty of freedom of movement. It is a buyer's market for those who can offer quick cash.

6. What Kind of City? This is one of the biggest reconstruction ventures in history, and it could be done either badly or well. Urban planners, both "new urbanist" and traditional, have a chance to use their expertise in imaginative, constructive ways.

Major thoroughfares could be rerouted to meet current and future needs; better rail connections could be created, stimulating TOD, "transportation-oriented development"; people could gain more opportunities to work, shop, and play closer to where they live; a sun-drenched city could make effective use of solar energy; and there could be conscious policies to encourage economic diversity, with accompanying opportunities for upward mobility.

The planners won't exactly start with a clean slate. Many areas of the city are intact; even those that were flooded have clear property boundaries. After the Supreme Court decision that cities could take land for private development, there was such a howl that we are not likely to see widespread condemnation and "consolidation of parcels" for massive urban renewal projects.

In addition, many people would like to see the devastated areas rebuilt more or less as they were--just better, whatever that means. Many planners have developed experience with community meetings where people have the chance to make suggestions and discuss priorities. The investor mentality, of course, is to call for the most capital-intensive development possible. That's one of the many reasons you don't want development to be controlled by investors, especially those from outside the city--or outside the country.

Here are some of the most important and interesting suggestions thus far:

In addition, the storm surge that caused Lake Pontchartrain to overflow was made worse by the elimination of hundreds of square miles of mangrove swamps nearer the coast. Natural barriers like these need to be restored. Dutch engineers could also help design a new generation of sophisticated flood barriers.

The level of low-lying areas will probably be raised. After Galveston was destroyed by a hurricane and storm surge in 1900, taking at least 6,000 lives, the city was raised by 17 feet (actually 15 because of settling). Civil engineers and environmentalists could tell us where to get the fill--anywhere from dredging in the New Orleans area to the spoil from strip-mining in Appalachia and on the Great Plains.