‘Operation Blighted Officials’ represents Louisiana at its best. That’s about all I know to say in this situation.
Yesterday 2 mayors and a police chief were indicted under the RICO Act. Media reports indicate that other indictments are likely imminent. And for what? A shakedown of their own constituents – their relatives, friends and fellow townspeople. Innocent until proven guilty for sure, but I certainly hope they got a lot out of this – this is another black eye on an already ailing state. No matter what, that is the last thing we needed here.
I will start off by proclaiming that we have the greatest state in all of the country – but not if our politicians have anything to do with it. We have the most unique culture, delectable cuisine unrivaled in taste anywhere else in this world, and the most resilient people.
Our politicians? Well, that is a whole other story – at least for the most part.
History tells us that that corruption, greed and crooked officials were the vertebra of our state when it was born into existence hundreds of years ago. They have taken what could have been truly the greatest state in the union and turned it into a literal third world area.
Take New Orleans for example. It is a literal paradigm of how to ruin a great place. It is unique, loved and unlike any place one could ever visit. Despite that, the parts often unseen by tourists are vast wastelands of what corruption, greed, oppression, and systematic classism and racism can cause a city to become.
New Orleans’ crime is off the charts. Is this because the people are just plain bad? In most cases, that is an equivocable "no". We allowed our politicians and crooked businessmen to do this to our city – and to our state. We allowed segregation and court ordered desegregation to get the best of us, rather than working together with our fellow men and women for a common goal. It should not take a federal court system to mandate that people of all colors live in harmony and work together. It just shouldn’t, for so many reasons – that should be something that we naturally do – no matter the past. We have to acknowledge that mistakes were made and once that happens, we must work together to fix what is broken.
The really sad part is that it did not have to end up like this. Think of where Louisiana would be, had we not had an "agenda" to advance ourselves and leave our fellow citizens behind.
When we will get enough, Louisiana? When?
We have a governor now who has hijacked state government for his own political gain. He will leave us in financial ruin never before seen in this state, all in the name of his thinly veiled privatization effort – an effort that is nothing more than a chance to win contributions for the coffers of his next political step – whatever that may be. Thanks to BP and others acting in concert with BP, we are dealing with a disaster of untold proportions. Hurricane Katrina will look like a summer shower when we finally get the mess cleaned up. We are certain they did not give much thought to what would happen if there was an oil spill. The only thing we are not sure about is why. The answer may lie in the fact that most just do not care about Louisiana. I am not going to go all "Kanye West" here, but the fact remains that Louisiana is - and has never been - top priority, even though the state is so important to the country as a whole. A lot of that may be due to the fact that our own politicians do not care about their people, so the rest of the country figures why should they?
For years, we have allowed the "pay to play" attitude to seep out of New Orleans into all parts of our state. It has become so commonplace in Louisiana that no one – not even young people – see a problem with the shakedowns that go on around here on a daily basis. I for one do see a problem with it. It must stop.
And we wonder why the rest of the country couldn’t care less what happens to us ... it’s like the old saying goes, "You have to care for yourself, before anyone else will care for you."
Louisiana, we must do better. We must show the rest of the country that we count – because we do.