The Road Home: Punishing the Self-Reliant
New Orleanians get no shortage of hortatory messages about self-reliance from other parts of the nation they thought they belonged to. So Sunday's Times-Picayune sends the message right back. Here's a story full of as many touchstones of self-reliance as one can bear -- a Charity Hospital nurse, a widow who raised nine children, children who came to her aid when the floods struck, children who rebuilt their own home and rental properties with no government assistance. Read the journey, if that's what you can call it, this 69-year-old woman took through the torturously Kafkaesque world that the state's "Road Home" program has become, and recall it the next time a lecture on self-reliance begins forming itself in your mind. This is what happens to people who, in the old Clintonian formula, go to work every day and play by the rules.
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BTW, Harry S., if this is the same Big Charity Nurse Cathy I knew yrs ago, she is worth her weight in gold, and the epitome of a "good American citizen". It saddens me to think a person like that may have been treated so shoddily by the public sector, and after decades of dedicated and excellent professional public service.
We should all be just as ashamed as we can be of the post-Katrina New Orleans actions of the George W. Bush administration. We should all be vocal about it. Speak up, fellow good Americans, if not for the Nurse Cathy's, then for yourselves.
It may well be your turn next time.
I'm from San Francisco, not New Orleans, and I'm very aware that sooner or later we're going to have another major earthquake that will devastate this area. I don't want our people left to their own devices and then scattered to the four winds like those of New Orleans.
So of course I'm interested in the story of the great quake and fire of 1906. One thing I noted was that the army started to arrive the next day with tents, food and supplies. There was no question of whose job it was to help, just a lot of suddenly homeless people. So even in the Gilded Age the government could respond promptly and appropriately.
And folks, running a republic is always a damned hard business. Where there's money there will be corruption, and we have to keep a constant watch on things, and watch over the people who are supposed to be keeping watch on things. Being originally from Chicago, I have an eye-rolling tolerance for a certain level of corruption, as long as the streets get repaired and the snow gets plowed, the lights stay on and the city keeps moving. People back there are ready to toss the bums out if it doesn't -- just ask one-term mayor Jane Byrne.
But the bastards in the current Federal government don't think they owe us any level of competence, that getting elected was a license to steal and pass out largess to their buddies. Maybe it's more obvious on a local level when things aren't working than when it's a national problem, but it seems like way past time to vote these neocon phonies into oblivion. If we get the chance, that is -- but that's a rant for another day.
I wonder how self reliant that the Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, is in reparing of his mansion .Ooops, that's right Bush promised Haley government subsidized self reliance, I just forgot.
This is the age of corporate subsidies. The oil industry, agribusiness, military-industrial complex, automobile industry, banks and others all receive billions in government hand-outs.
Is it ironic that the people who lecture us on our need to be self-reliant in many case are the same people who champion rampant corporate welfare and benefit from it?
Or am I off the mark?
Sorry, my bad, lol. I see now that you are blaming the rethugs and I heartily agree. Clinton left fema in excellent order, and I read way back in 2000, after bush had taken over, that he gutted most of the agencies left in good condition, to fill them with cronies, nere'dowells, and other people with no skills for running such agencies; re; two press conferences with no press attending/planted reporters. As for poor Ms. Clark, once again, basically, bush doesn't want her to have that money, so the agency is playing a game with her, possibly hoping that she will give up her quest, never getting the money she deserves.
OKKKKKKKKKKKK, so what have the Clintons got to do with anything in this mess? I couldn't find anything in that article to indicate that they had reached out and somehow done something to Ms. Clark, did you? If so, why didn't you point it out? I thought that Bill Clinton had left FEMA in tip top shape, and the it was Michael Brownie Brown who did the damage, now carried on by Skeletor Chertof,he of the high girly voice. So, if you would be so kind, would you come back and add an addendum concerning this remark? Otherwise I am extremely sorry to hear about Ms. Clark's misfortunes with butthole bush's fema. Truly sorry. About the only hope I can offer at this time is that perhaps things will get better when Clinton, Hillary that is, comes into office and runs out your current buddies who have lost there butthead minds. It's her only hope.
HARRY NOTES: Just for the record, as the story clearly indicates, Ms. Clark's problems were not with FEMA.
Remember: the Rethugs WANT government to fail. They don't BELIEVE there should be much of a government. The rethugs want to bankrupt our government so they can gleefully "drowned it in a bathtub". The rethugs want to SHOW you how bad government can be.
Remember Rayguns words you never want to hear:
I'm from the GOP and I'm here to help!
A perfect example of why the Federal Govt cannot be expected to "save us" from disasters. After reading the story I would find it surprising that there are folks that want the Feds to assume the responsibility of preventing and responding to disasters. It should remind us as well that life in general is not without risk and that Govt can't eliminate it.
Harry, I wonder if you have considered that this is part of a much larger concern regarding the expanding responsibilities that we allow the Govt to assume for us, e.g., educating our children, caring for our elderly, providing daycare, providing for our financial security in old age, our health, etc, etc.
People need to wake-up. Insisting that the Govt care and protect us us only guarantees inefficiencies, half-measures, bloated beauracracy, and limited effectiveness. In the end we get lousy care and protection.
If FEMA shows up in my neighborhood I'm heading for the hills. My bug-out bag is packed. I'd rather die on the street than go anywhere near those bastards.
Make friends with your neighbors, because you're going to need them.
I will get up every day and help New Orleans, the place where I grew up. Mrs. Clark, unlike the people who are supposed to be helping NOLA and the citizens of this country are, for want of a more sophisticated word, bad people. May they all get a good look at the steps leading down to purgatory and the inferno.
"Ignatius, we better go," Mrs. Reilly said and belched.
"What?" Ignatius bellowed. "We must stay to watch the corruption. It's already beginning to set in." -Of course, that's from The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
Beginning January 1, 2008, read The New Orleans Chronicles, first installment - "The Last Time I Saw Ignatius J. Reilly" at www.beatit
Lyn LeJeune
The Beatitudes Network-Rebuilding the Public Libraries of New Orleans supported by royalties from the sale of The Beatitudes, Book I in The New Orleans Trilogy.
(ps: thanks,Harry, for your posts on New Orleans- if you ever want a copy of my book let me know)
merci mille fois
You're a good man Mr. Shearer, you really are. I admire your tenaciousness in defense of NO and her road back to some semblance of what she was before Katrina swept through and the levees failed.
From their web site - 'The Road Home program was created by Governor Blanco, the Louisiana Recovery Authority, and the Office of Community Development. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developmen
The NOLA TP story is about individuals - who are being failed by outside agencies. The story indicates the failure of those outside the NO community to adequately assist individuals within that community. If that community does not band together in their own interests in order to try and become more self-reliant - i.e. to become less dependent - what will change? How will the failures of the past be corrected so as to not occur again?
No one, no outside organization, no outside governmental agency, no charity or any other entity outside the NO community will rectify any grievance, make that community safe or chart a course to recovery better than the NO community itself.
HARRY RESPONDS: What their website doesn't say: the federal money disbursed by the Road Home is compensation--not handouts, but compensation--for the damages wreaked on homeowners by the failure of the federal levees. The state tried to create a "cheatproof" system, in response to widely expressed (in DC) doubts that Louisiana could be "trusted" with the money. For their own reasons, the state then gave administration of the program to an inexperienced (in this field) private contractor, ICF International. Road Home, thus, is the worst of private and public sectors working together to punish the self-reliant.
I am not sure what you are complaining about this is the exact reason not to rely on the government. This lady is getting a lasting example. I have been through imminent domain and it was a joke. I think most of the people who were posting were only pointing out that the last think you wants to hear in an emergency is we are from the government and we are here to help. That should also be the last thing you want. The reliance on this government to be able to rescue you or take care of you is a fantasy. The bubble is about to burst on the social security. We will get hit again with terrorist attacks and if they are smart it will be more then one coast. If you think Katrina was bad think about 2 or 3 terrorist attacks at once on a city wide scale. People must be prepared to help their neighbors and towns. No one is trying to put anyone down but you have a responsibility to be prepared.
HARRY RESPONDS: New Orleanians have been and are prepared for hurricanes, that's why they've survived so many of them. What they could not be prepared for, because no one warned them, was the catastrophic failure of a "protection" system built by the federal government. That's the only reason people expect anything from the feds, because the feds--Army Corps, to be specific--broke the place.
Endless stories of the need for self-reliance are the kind of tough love that NOLA residents need to hear on a regular basis. They should not fall back to the old dysfunctional patterns.
Few if any of those residents have admitted to their lack of personal responsibility for building up a city that should have never been expanded in the first place.
The best thing for NOLA is to give up the ghost of being the corrupt, vice soaked, tourist hustling, crude kitsch abounding, and land of the big easy laid-back escape from reality party town.
NOLA has also been a refuge of the soft underbelly of society that abuses the generosity and freedoms that has been shown to them. They need to learn the terms “sweat equity” and “earned respectability” first hand via honest labor. It matter little if they do not want to work. They need to stop living of the fat of the land by depending upon the overly abundant governmental welfare programs, entitlements, and earmarks.
At a point of healing, every one needs to be an asset to society, not a burden to it. That is the essence of self-reliance. The cream of the crop becomes producers of constructive action while the sludge demands benefits from others to pay their bills. The undeserving has not earned any benefits. The deserving get the rewards they have reaped via self-responsibility and karmic repository.
It's a wonderful thing for her and she deserves nothing but the best however, I totally disagree with your last statement, "This is what happens to people who, in the old Clintonian formula, go to work every day and play by the rules," by this you imply that the Republicans try to keep people from working. The Republicans have always been the party that feels that everyone should work and contribute while on the other hand it has always been the Democrats who try to keep people from working, get them onto welfare and keep them on welfare so that they become dependant upon the government for everything. It was the ideology of the Democrats that got New Orleans into this mess in the first place. In response to doctorj2u, why don't you place blame where blame is due right on the Democrats, Nagin, Blanco and the others who's names I cannot remember at this moment, the Democrats were in charge of Louisiana and New Orleans when Katrina hit AND you need to look again at the Constitution, nowhere in it does it state that it is the responsibility of the federal government to solve your problems when you will not take personal responsibility for yourself.
HARRY RESPONDS; You miss the point of the story at your own peril. However, the National Response Plan, signed by Republican President George W. Bush in December of 2004, declared it was the policy of the federal government that, in case of an "event of National Significance" (as Katrina was duly declared), it was to be assumed that state and local resources were overwhelmed, and federal agencies were to take a "proactive" stance.
This is a woman who had some means to begin with and who has the support of family. Imagine what the system is doing to those less fortunate? Truly horrible. I hope that publicizing this gets Mrs. Clark a happy ending to her story... and maybe helps some others whose despair is even deeper. What a mess.
Thank you for sharing this story.
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