* On the other hand, we’ll never know, because the local contractors didn’t even bother following those directions.

* I most specifically don’t blame the city’s flooding problems on the existance of the MRGO, which is currently the subject of several lawsuits. (We weren’t talking about that, but since the lawsuit has been in the news lately, I thought I’
d mention it).

* New Orleans _used to be_ a much more functional city in the past than it was in the recent era when Katrina hit it. It used to have real industries, back before the local politicians thought all it really needed was tourism and casinos.

* Look up the history of the Higgins Boats, or the Wood Screw Pump. Could you imagine the former being built in the New Orleans of the past decade, or the latter being invented there?

If I was renting, I wouldn’t expect someone to give me a house. Sure, habitat for humanity is basically a good idea – encouraging home ownership leads to all the virtues this thread has put up. But that is because home ownership comes with responsibilities.

What Kirk said. New Orleans and Louisiana are not typical. Katrina struck a rotted-out part of our society, and it crumbled. Katrina actually went ashore in Mississippi, if I recall correctly. Mississippi is not exactly the greatest exemplar of social capital in the USA, yet it held up well.

Ghetto-type communities exist and will deal poorly with emergencies both because they are decrepit physically, poor, under-insured and most importantly lack the social capital that provides resilience. So, a system-wide disaster would hurt those areas worse, and in turn those areas would, by responding with violence and looting instead of cooperation and mutual aid and self-help, be a drag on the rest of the community. This is not that much different from what is happening anyway, though less acutely in non-disaster times.

New Orleans and Louisiana should not be run out of the union. The USA without the French Quarter, without Jazz and Zydeco, without beignets, without the Ramos Gin Fizz? Forget it.

(Since the Ramos Gin Fizz has egg white in it, it is appropriate to drink it with brunch or even breakfast. Make it in a blender by the batch, AFTER the food is prepared, and be plastered by noon.)

Somehow you got the impression that I think LA (or at least NO) should be run out of the union; I certainly don’t think that. I started by just objecting a bit to your citing what is clearly an outlier in terms of distaster response, as if it were normative, or said something particularly meaningful of the country as a whole.

You would tar all Louisianians with the “New Orleans incompetents” brush, without stopping to think that New Orleans isn’t just in Louisiana, it’s in the US too.

I have not attempted to defend Nagin or this state’s corrupt political establishment. I dislike them severely, and would appreciate it if you wouldn’t argue as if I didn’t.

I could go into particulars about the construction of the levee systems, or Michigan’s dependence on offshore oil from the Gulf of Mexico (in fact I just deleted a couple paragraphs on those subjects from this post), but it would distract from the point I was trying to make then and will try to reiterate now.

You seemed to grossly misunderstand what I was trying to say.

Noone else brought up Katrina; I brought up Katrina. I did not mention problems elsewhere in the country to insult Michigan or engage in any sort of Tu Quoque argment; I listed those examples to warn the rest of you that:

“We Americans have some very serious problems.”

Going on about “Well, that’s a problem with those blankety-blanks down in New Orleans, it doesn’t really affect people up here” is simply being delusional. There is no level of corruption that will magically hurt you less than it hurts us because we had more French settlers back in the 18th century.

Now I’m from Metro-Detroit, which is why I feel comfortable throwing stones at the Big Easy’s glass house. Because all of MY States glass house’s windows have already been shattered, and we haven’t had a Katerina to blame for our troubles. Michigan ranks only behind LA. and MS, both of which suffered from Katrina, in terms of a ruined economy. We have an “appointed” mayor in Detroit, rather than the actual electoral victor, and we have a “Canadian” Governor who refuses to condemn Ottawa or Ontario for violating every environmental standard known to man in dumping toxic waste in Michigan… We’ve lost our manufacturing base. and etc. Yet for some mystereous reason, unlike the Big Sleezy, Detroiters and Michiganders aren’t whining about the big bad President or blaming the Corps of Engineers for the killer winter we’re having (two dozen dead of cold in the last couple of days)… We aren’t pretty, we aren’t that smart, we elect rotten politicians for the most part, and actually kill MORE of our fellows than even TEXANS do… which is quite remarkable for any American State and only overlooked because in Michigan we are more honest than Texans, so we have a lot of “justifiable Homicides” rather than “murders”. Y

Yet still, we manage to govern ourselves without needing Washington D.C. In fact, we could probably use LESS from D.C., as the beltway GOP almost certainly lost the Michigan GOP an election due to violation Republican Party Rules and meddling in our State Election. The State collects (some) of the Feds taxes, and overlooks collecting taxes from Militia types who’ve decided to stop paying Federal Taxes, as there’d be a blood-bath if the Feds tried to arrest a Tax-objector as they just did in New Hampshire… In addition, if the beltway was merely allow the citizens of Michigan to protect our OWN State from Canadian dumping, it’s doubtful the entire Canadian Armed Forces would amount to more armed volunteers than Michigan alone would muster to Force Ontario to honor it’s Treaty with the US. If Washington D.C. were to go up in smoke, Michigan would lose a lot of very good Republican leaders in Congress, but otherwise would be MUCH better off. The State could protect itself with it’s OWN citizens and it’s OWN arms, and this is why the Clintons and FBI/ATF were so keen to target Michigan (Timmy McVeigh didn’t justify labelling 1/3 of the adult men in the State “potential” Terrorists!).

As far as “nukes” go…. who in their right mind would nuke Detroit? Metro-Detroit has the highest proportion of muslim citizens in the entire United States, so it’s very unlikely that so-called Islamo-fascists would nuke us. Canada already dumps enough toxic waste illegally to qualify as a “dirty bomb”, and the rest of America doesn’t give a hoot. So why should we Detroiters care if L.A. or Chicago or Washington D.C. experiences the same thing we’ve been experiencing for years? Should we cry for New Orleans when they suffer due to their OWN governments sloth and hypocrisy? No way! We’re very sorry people were hurt by the Storm, but if Kwami Kilpatrick did what New Orleans mayor did, he wouldn’t outlive the crises he’d get shot so quickly. Should Detroit fear N. Korea or China nukes? No. Because Metro-Detroit also has such a large Chinese population that Mandarin is one of the three languages flights are announced in at our airport (the other languages are American and Japanese). (I’m biased because the CFO & senior partner at my firm is Chinese, and an Associate partner is a Bangladeshi muslim, and another associate partner is Ethiopian… and we don’t have many partners).

This was a topic of conversation in my office when someone brought up the television show “24″ (which few of us saw). The general consensus was the same attitude several other posters have written, we’d feel sorry for the victims and avenge them, but otherwise didn’t thing our lives would suffer. And in fact, several including myself noted that if a nuke in L.A. closed the port and Southern border, Michigan, which has empty factories galore, would enjoy a decade boom while California rebuilt itself (as China trade and Mexican factories are too cheap to allow us to compete and survive on the same pay). We already have the Battle Creek Depot, which is where the US military divides up it’s second generation surplus hardware… meaning there’s plenty of servicable tanks and Bradleys and WartHog A-10′s AND ammunition sitting idle. We also have a huge number of biological labs (as Phizor hasn’t closed it’s plant YET), so the “threat” of biological attack isn’t very scary… we’re one of the locations where the medicine and vaccines are MADE. We also have a rail system that’s actually PROFITABLE (aside from passenger service), so much so that a NEW RAILROAD was formed to service the freight between SE Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania.

So although Michigan isn’t in very good shape as a State, we’re not so low as Louisiana that we can’t govern ourselves without the aid of outsiders. In fact, we could use FEWER American outsiders because other Americans are what’s standing in the way of us protecting ourselves from Ontario scumbags.

In terms of the “Anglo-Sphere”, let’s compare Michigan with England… England’s population is around nine times that of Michigan. Without Scotland and N. Ireland as dependent Countries, England would be finished. It wouldn’t have the offshore oil. It wouldn’t be able to muster enough volunteers to defend itself against Denmark, let alone any serious threat. England, like Michigan, is surrounded for the most part by water, yet Michigan controls the sea freight line to Chicago, and Britain today can’t even stop the Irish smugglers it has so few destroyers or patrol yachts. England would be completely dependent on Brussels and France and the US to protect it’s merchant fleets. And England alone would lose the justification for the “Special Relationship” with the United States that allows it’s banking system such a HUGE advantage over the rest of Europe that Britain has managed to keep it’s own currency afloat without ANY Specie or reserve to support it! The BoE has been very open about “Sterling”… it couldn’t maintain the currency without the good graces of the US Treasury. Moreover, without the “Special Relationship” London’s markets wouldn’t be able to maintain the communications links with Hong Kong, Dubai, Malaysia, & etc. which is how the UK manages to exploit other Europeans over EU trade (Note to Europeans: The boat that just floundered off the English coast WAS NOT DOUBLE HULLED, which every OTHER Nation in Europe spent billions of Euro’s doing in accordance with EU law…. why haven’t Europeans mentioned the likely case that OTHER British shipping is ALSO NOT in compliance with EU environmental codes?)

Frankly, without the Scots or Irish, it’s doubtful England could even muster the military to fight the Michigan militia, let alone be a “world power”. And as soon as the Indians and Bangladeshi’s realize that they don’t need to send their judges to London for approval prior to sitting in judgement IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES, then the London bar will have a lot to answer for from all those angry former colonials who’ll want to know why their judicial systems are so corrupt. Whereas Michigan is an unattractive target for nuclear or biological attack, LONDON is a wonderful target. Could the UK survive ONE SINGLE nuke going off in London? No. The UK would dissolve and collapse.

So before any English or Brits get too happy about the prospect of some US city getting nuked (which ChicagoBoyz posters, the London Establishment wishes upon the Republic in it’s nightly prayers to Prince Charles), Englishmen should consider that a dirty bomb in London that contained the SAME amount of toxic material dumped around Detroit in the last five years would not be very difficult for a terrorist to achieve. London has enough river access tonnage for a terrorist to barge the dirty bomb right up the Thames. Moreover if Iran or N. Korea or etc. nuked a US city, there’s no doubt that the US would destroy them in return. Yet if Iran or N. Korea nuked London… we’ll, the US would be obliged to honor the NATO Treaty and “declare war”, but not very seriously…. Not many Americans would volunteer to go to war with Iran over England, and the Bush Administration doesn’t control the US House or Senate: If the Democrats don’t want the US to help the Iraqi’s REBUILD because of the insurgency, what chance is there that the Democrats would want to go to war with Iran just because Iran nuked London?

Furthermore, if Osama Bin Laden is as clever as everyone believes, he MUST see the wisdom of nuking London prior to nuking any US city. If an American city were nuked, it’s even LESS likely that the US military would abandon Iraq or Afghanistan. BUT LONDON… if London were nuked not only the UK, but the rest of Europe would disengage. Britain doesn’t even have the nerve to kill Robert Mugabe, and certainly wouldn’t be willing to LEAD a war against Iran or etc. to avenge London. Without London, the US would lose it’s European support WITHOUT being given any more of a reason to dig in around Bin Ladeen’s homeland… And it CAN’T be lost on Bin Ladeen that Aden USED to be controlled by the Godless English colonials (pretty sweet). Without London, there’d be no BBC anti-muslim propaganda broadcast in every Middle Eastern country… I’m sorry, I meant anti-terrorist propaganda. If Bin Laden is as clever as everyone says, he’d realize that the world DIAMOND cartel would collapse if London were nuked. He’d realize that the current leader of Ethiopia, an old school pal of Tony Blairs, would discover that Ethiopia might not want to risk rebuilding Somalia without British support. He’d realize that WAY more muslims in S. Asia who aren’t Arab would believe London deserved to be nuked than Los Angeles, and Bin Laden would show the world that the US could neither protect it’s “special” allies, nor avenge them… which would cause many world leaders to back off the US whilst not really caring about London (aside from their slush funds). Dublin and Paris and Europe would merely tsk tsk tsk over London getting nuked and tell each other that the British Poodles should have known better… whilst taking every advantage over British markets and firms and collapse possible, as they’d know that Americans weren’t remotely prepared to do all that the Brits do around the world (that make them a lot of money). So let’s hope Osama Bin Laden isn’t as clever as the BBC claims.

Kirk, we need to be more, as a society, than just “The United States, Except For New Orleans, and Chicago, and D.C., oh, and parts of…” because the ink spots will get larger.

In its recent history Los Angeles has handled earthquakes better than riots because to date there haven’t been ways of blaming earthquakes on anybody.

Then again, there are people working out there to change that.

Between the global warming explanation for hurricanes and the whole FEMA blame game re: Katrina, they’re halfway there.

The more extreme conspiracy theories, even if only a minority believe them, also have a function of “defining deviancy downward” and rearranging the terms of the debate.

Just as an example, consider what would happen if the 1938 “Long Island Express” happened, say, this August. Exact same strength (Category 3), exact same path (across Long Island). How many people would it kill this time and how much property damage would it do?

And how would that be reported, especially with the current state of the global warming debate?

Louisiana has the weakest civil society in the US by most metrics. It’s nearer to, well, France’s rankings. In weak civil societies, decentralism merely increases the opportunities for local corruption. So local control of the levee boards resulted in more corrupt and incompetent management thereof, leading to their failure when the crunch came.

You can blame both the federal government and the local government for the failure of the levee system, IMHO; the design the Corps of Engineers came up with was probably insufficient, but the local oversight saw to it that even that wasn’t implemented properly.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/7_2_a2.html

Phil,
I too thought the Napoleanic Code reference was a bit overstated, but as for the rest–is there anywhere else outside Chicago or DC with as many issues, corruption-wise, as New Orleans?

Based on anecdotal reports from residents, and general news reports… Philadelphia, Baltimore, East St. Louis, and Milwaukee.

I was also going to include as a possible problem spot Los Angeles, at least based on the riots there in the 90′s, and the drop out rate, but doing a quick google search all I could find was people arguing about what the dropout rate really was.

(Which doesn’t say a whole lot about their transparency, IMHO.)

I’m not pointing this out in any attempt at a “Tu Quoque” (or however it’s spelled) argument; the situation in Old Louisiana and any of the “New Louisiana” ink spots out there both bother me considerably.

Ironically, Louisiana’s mixed Franco-American system seems to have delivered the worst of both worlds — the highly centralized French state is pretty good at big civil engineering projects. It was, after all, evolved to produce massive fortification works; levees aren’t much different from a Vauban-style fort. Of course you can’t compare French Louisiana to France, it was a colonial, not a metropolitan system. More like Haiti. I guess compared to Haiti, Louisiana is pretty competently run.

I too thought the Napoleanic Code reference was a bit overstated, but as for the rest–is there anywhere else outside Chicago or DC with as many issues, corruption-wise, as New Orleans? And here’s the sort of thing I was hinting at with my post:

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070203/APN/702033094

Note in particular the second paragraph:

Crist took office Jan. 2, replacing Gov. Jeb Bush, who was universally praised in Florida for the way he guided the state through eight hurricanes in two years.

I’m only a 2 1/2 hour drive from there, I suppose to some people that’s a suburb.

I’m in Lafayette. I grew up (a little) in New Orleans; my brother lives in Mississippi, and was in the path of the storm on the coast.

I’m unsure of what would happen in the event of further or larger scale magnitude, natural or unnatural events like 9/11 or Katrina, especially with the “work” being done on the US population by the “media.”

I have doubts that the problems in New Orleans were caused by the Napoleonic Code. The area affected by Rita didn’t see the sorts of problems that New Orleans did, even though Lake Charles and the vicinity also suffer under the Napoleonic Code.

We’ve created political/cultural enclaves in lots of our major cities/transportation nexii where we don’t educate people and we tell them a lot of their problems are because The Man is out to get them. (Or that the levees failed not because they were built wrong, but because they were blown up at the height of the storm).

I lost a lot of the energy I had left to devote to blogging after the storms, when I became depressed from the fact that the people pushing conspiracy theories (like outlined here) were always going to have more resources/financial backing than anyone pushing the truth.

(And also because I was wrong about how strong the storm would turn out to be. Every single hurricane over the last twenty years has been the Global Warming-engendered End Of The World…)

And I think I’m drifting off topic. (And I forgot to write a final comment in the other thread, that had drifted to talking about mercenaries).

Anyway, good night guys, and sleep well.

You’re right that the reponse to Katrina was problematic, but perhaps as an exercise for the reader, you might work on some reasons why that response was poorer than recently-previous responses in other Gulf states.