Americans are shaking their heads in disbelief at the images of tens of thousands of their fellow citizens trapped in the Dante’s Inferno that has engulfed New Orleans. As I traveled the country this past week, I kept hearing variations on the same theme: “I can’t believe this is happening in America. I can’t believe that no one can help these people. It’s as though we are living in a Third World country.”
One businesswoman who just returned from Europe said that Europeans are shocked in disbelief at the complete ineptitude on the part of America, the wealthiest nation in the world. In the words of one of her European colleagues, “What has become of your government? Are they on vacation?”
Well, in a word. Yes. While most major players cancelled their vacations this past week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saw fit to party, taking in a Broadway play, viewing the U.S. Open and dropping a reported $1,000 bucks on a new pair of shoes.
I listened to a lecture several months ago by an expert in organizational leadership. Chip Espinoza, an executive with management consulting firm Leadershiptraq, illuminated the distinction between a “problem” and a “predicament.” He noted problems are things that happen to us that are beyond our control. In this sense, Hurricane Katrina was beyond our control.
In contrast, predicaments grow out of conflicts between things we value. Espinoza gave the example of consumer debt. The vast majority of those who escape consumer debt often find themselves back in debt because they have not changed their fundamental values, which might be, “I deserve it, I don’t need to save.” In this context, the incomprehensible human suffering in the wake of Katrina is more of a predicament than a problem. The priorities were ordered so as to work against both New Orleans and the most vulnerable members of our society.
New Orleans has become a bathtub of waste because critical levies broke after the Category 4 Hurricane Katrina ripped through some of the least-maintained infrastructure in America. Inexplicably, our government had other priorities despite the fact that the Army Corps of Engineers, along with a chorus of experts, had been shouting from a disturbing mountaintop of engineering data that warned of pending disaster. Instead, the Bush administration cut the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project.
As The Times-Picayune newspaper wrote last week, in an op-ed piece titled, “Did New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?”
The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana’s coast, only to be opposed by the White House … In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana’s chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need.
The administration had other spending priorities, such as making a tax cut permanent while fighting a war that bleeds over a billion dollars a week.
We have been in predicaments before, yet we have not changed our values. Katrina brings back painful memories of another September – September 2001. It took almost three years for the 9-11 commission to issue its findings. Last summer, the American people received an education about their government’s priorities in the days, months and years leading up to 9-11. Here’s an illuminating clip from Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9-11 commission:
RICE: I remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don’t remember the al-Qaida cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.
BEN-VENISTE: Isn’t it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the Aug. 6 PDB [Presidential Daily Briefing] warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
RICE: I believe the title was, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.”
I guess you could say that the memo wasn’t specific enough for the president to act while spending August 2001 on his Crawford, Texas, ranch.
They say that history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. The aftermath of Katrina reminds me of post-war Iraq. I went to Iraq three months after the U.S.-led invasion. It was 126 degrees. There was no safe water to drink. Raw sewage ran in the streets. There were only four hours of electricity a day. Every Iraqi I met could not understand how the most powerful nation in the world could travel over 6,000 miles to bomb their country and overthrow their government, but could not restore water, electricity, law and order. Last April, I returned to Baghdad only to discover that Iraqis still have only about six hours of electricity a day. The water is still unsafe to drink.
As for the security situation, 950 Iraqis died on a bridge in panicked stampede last week because someone yelled, “Suicide bomber.” The suffering and instability in Iraq is the direct result of a lack of attention to post-war planning and misordered priorities.
Some of my talk-show colleagues like to suggest that, “God helps those who help themselves.” The people of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast area were told to evacuate and they didn’t. Besides being morally repugnant, this thinking fails to recognize that only one in seven of those trapped had automobiles and one-third lived below the poverty line. They had no way to leave and no place to go. As Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, said on “Larry King Live” last week, “I begged people to get out.” But did he or anyone else provide them a means of transportation or a place to go?
The efforts of Katrina’s first responders represent the best of our nation, not unlike the many military service members I had the privilege to meet in Iraq. But the government who put them on the front line of these disasters is not worthy of their service. The laws and policies passed by our nation’s “leadership” have led to the demise of America’s infrastructure and middle class. As reported in Thursday’s New York Times, “This week’s census report showed that income inequality was near all-time highs in 2004, with 50.1 percent of income going to the top 20 percent of households.”
The aftermath of storms always bring clearer air and improved visibility. Katrina has made visible the unfortunate truth that America is little more than a Third World country, complete with an insulated wealthy ruling elite. The discussion of predicaments vs. problems – the question of national priorities and leadership – is not another variation on “the blame game.” If we do not have a conversation about our nation’s values, Katrina’s horror will be repeated.
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Josh Hammer