The 9/11 victims were given a lot of cash, lottery size amounts in some cases.
But my point is not awards to specific folks. My point was to make a contrast between a $250 million grant to Con Ed, which, like NYC was in good physical and financial shape, and the WH's refusal to make the same grant to Entergy-NO, whose infrastructure was devastated and is now in bankruptcy.
Since the Entergy parent has no legal obligation to rescue Entergy-NO, the devastated folks of NO are getting hit with huge and I do mean huge utility bills at a time when many of them can least afford them. I doubt that many NYC residents faced the same kind of problem we face here. Our Prez is hitting us directly in the pocketbook, and we're going to remember and never forget [That's what we do down heah, never forget.]
I think 9/11 set a precedent, but the WH doesn't think so. That NYC was headed by a GOP mayor and NY State headed by a GOP Governor while the opposite is true here could not have possibly made a difference, right?
I wrote a letter to the local rag about this, but didn't mention the GOP angle, which is as obvious as the nose on our collective faces:
Dear sir,
While Entergy made a great case for the proposition that it ought to be treated like Con Ed was after 9/11, the rejection by the White House of its request for a $250 million grant has an important political reality and a larger point behind it.
Thanks to endemic corruption and a dysfunctional public school system, our national image before Katrina was horrible. She only made it worse. Unlike New York's heroic policemen and fire fighters, our law enforcement was filmed looting. Unlike the superbly competent Rudy Giuliani, we offer up our inept Governor and Mayor as leaders. We cannot get our Legislature to approve a unified levee authority. Some of our citizens who inhabit the outer edges of sanity are shown on national television expressing the silly notion that the Lower Ninth Ward was intentionally flooded. The examples of our failures and foibles are too well known to list comprehensively here, but the point is obvious to anyone who bothers to reflect a bit.
It should come as no surprise to anyone, therefore, that the nation, rightly or wrongly, hesitates to fund what we need. In a word, our chickens have come home to roost.
If we want the nation to do what we think are the right things, we cannot simply complain. They key is to convince America that the old way of doing things has ended once and for all. Instead of taking this obvious step, we have thus far persisted in remaining our own worst enemies.
I hope it gets printed and I'm not mugged as a result.
It's all about political image, I'm afraid, and ours is not a particularly good one, even if the image reflects only a part of the reality. |
