This diary is a rant. I may or may not partake in the use of vulgarity that my mother would prefer I not use in mixed company. Verily I may smite fools with exuberant and righteous verbosity. Or, I might tell some stupid fuckers where they can stick it. Now allow me to vent, if you will.
First, a little background. As some of you may know, I grew up in South Mississippi. I was born in Biloxi, raised in Gulfport, and listed the same permanent address for the last 22 years of my life. My mom still lives there, as does my dad. My extended family is almost exclusively from New Orleans and the surrounding area. In short, two years ago, in one way or another, my whole family got hit by a big, bad bitch named Katrina.
I was at school out here in California at the time of the storm and like so many others, I feared for the lives of my family and friends. My home, my childhood, all of the physical reminders of growing up were in danger of being completely wiped from the face of the earth. I was scared.
I tried to convince myself that this storm was just like all of the other hurricanes that had come and gone through my lifetime. I tried to act like I wasn't shaken by the looming destruction. Both of my parents, my grandparents, numerous family members, and countless friends were all staying to ride out the storm just like the had in the past. It was too expensive and too much of a hassle to pack up and sit in days worth of traffic to get away only to return and find a few broken branches and some shingles missing. Besides, neither my mom's nor my dad's houses had ever experienced even an anything remotely resembling flood water and both houses were solidly built to withstand the tremendous wind speed of a major hurricane. They both sat on high ground with good drainage.
They both got over 6 feet of water.
Katrina was like nothing we had ever seen. Our beautiful coast had been rocked by Camille in '69, but this was much worse. There was a new Queen of Mean to serve as, excuse the expression, our high-water mark.
Now, on to the rant. This morning, as I was driving in to work (I normally ride my bike but my damn chain snapped the other day) I was listening to NPR. There was a story about the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans and the progress, or lack thereof, of the reconstruction effort. The story did a decent job of telling the stories of a handful of residents who are still struggling to piece together some semblance of a life, two years after the storm. One couple had received almost no money to help rebuild their home and were forced to start trying to rebuild on their own because their FEMA trailer park is about to close. The story is all too familiar.
The part of the story that bothered me were the quotes from and official position of Bush's "point man for Gulf Coast recovery", as the story called him. The man's name is Donald Powell. This assbag likes to point out that, as the title of my diary states, that "One man's red tape is another man's accountability." To that I say, use some of that red tape to shut your fucking mouth.
Mr. Powell believes that because "[t]he port is 100 percent back. All of the energy, the oil and gas, is 100 percent back. Eighty-five percent of all the hotels are open. Eighty percent of all the restaurants are open," New Orleans' recovery is doing just fine. With all the due respect I can comfortably give a Bushie, Mr. Powell, hotels, utilities, restaurants, and ports do not a city make. Sure, they are signs of hope, and they are very important to the overall recovery, but much like a house is just a structure until someone dwells there and makes it a home, New Orleans without its rich and vibrant culture, its diverse blend of folks from all walks of life, is just and old swampy bowl.
This is so often the problem with this administration. Fuck compassionate conservatism. People's lives and well beings don't fucking matter to these pieces of shit. They measure success not by lives changed or people helped but by how much money has been allocated or how much economic prospects have improved. They don't understand that this region, hell, this entire country, is not a fucking business or some kind of machine. The Gulf Coast was great because of the people and the contributions they made to the place they called home. Casinos can't operate without people. Restaurants with no customers die slow deaths. What good is a job when you can't make enough to both support your family and rebuild your entire fucking life from scratch? Fuck your port you slimy sack of pig shit. These are people's lives that were destroyed. So many of these men and women can't afford to start over and you, Mr. Powell, you and your talking-point-spewing, blame-shifting, buck-passing ilk aren't doing near enough to help.
Powell points out that $114 billion was earmarked for the Gulf Coast recovery effort. Pardon my cynicism, but whoopdee-fuckin'-doo. Does this butt biscuit think that's something to be proud of? We're talking about rebuilding an entire region of the UNITED CHRIST-ALIVE-GET-THIS-THROUGH-YOUR-IRONCLAD-FUCKING-SKULL STATES OF AMERICA, and we're supposed to applaud $114 billion? Bush plans to ask Congress for close to $200 billion to help continue funding the "War on Terra" (said most appropriately with a thick Cajun timbre) and this guy wants to act like the money already sent to the Gulf Coast is plenty good enough. It's been two years and there are still over 60,000 US citizens living in tiny, cramped trailers, some of which have been deemed toxic.
My family was lucky to have all the necessary insurance and to have been there to act quickly and get the ball rolling. My dad had the second story of the house to move into, and my mom got her FEMA trailer pretty quickly. We are fairly well off and I know that if we came from a lower tax bracket or if my uncle weren't a contractor or my parents hadn't been paranoid enough to get flood insurance despite not living in a flood zone, they would be stuck in the same struggles as so many other Katrina victims. Some members of my extended family are still trying to sort their lives out in New Orleans. Some moved out all together and now only visit the place they used to call home.
I have no doubt that New Orleans, and the rest of the Gulf Coast will be pulsing with life again. I don't doubt that the food, the music, the soul of the Gulf Coast will one day draw the same number of tourists as it once did, perhaps more. What I do doubt is that at this rate, the way this fiasco has been (mis)managed from start until now, it will be any time soon. That is what makes me angry. That is what causes my skin to crawl when scumbags like Don Powell talk about "progress".
One man's red tape may be another man's accountability, but in this case, it's also another man's entire life. Besides, when has this administration ever given a diseased rat's ass about accountability?