Under the Microscope: Fix The Damn Streets…
May 28th, 2006 |
by Glynn Wilson
Dodging the cavernous potholes in the streets of New Orleans on the way home from Mayor Ray Nagin’s victory party at the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street last weekend, I began to think about all the problems of governance that seem to plague us in what historians may refer to as “the Bush years.”
The words of one New Orleans resident - a native of Walker County, Alabama, who got out - echo in my head: “Fix the streets, dammit. I would vote for anyone who would just fix the streets.”
On and off for the past half a century, the United States has teetered back and forth between electing politicians who bash big government and those who strive to make government work.
What will the country’s political landscape look like at the end of the election cycle in 2006?
Before Hurricane Katrina’s deluge overwhelmed New Orleans, Nagin had three years to fix the streets. His administration did find about $100,000 hidden by the previous administration and paved a few. But the response in the wake of Katrina showed that government was not prepared at the local, state or national levels, even though experts had warned for years about the inevitability of “the big one.”
This makes New Orleans resident and historian Douglas Brinkley mad.
Brinkley appeared on C-SPAN’S “Washington Journal” this week. Even nine months after Katrina, he still appeared to be mad not only at President George W. Bush and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco. He is still mad at Nagin for hiding out on the 27th floor of the Hyatt Hotel for a week and then disappearing to a house in Dallas, Texas, for five days at the height of the disaster’s aftermath.
In a rare timely narrative from a historian, Brinkley wrote a book about that week, The Great Deluge, which became a campaign issue when it came out before the 2006 hurricane season opened on June 1.
Nagin bashed the book during the final days of the campaign and made national news out of it, according to the Washington Post.
“Nagin denounced the book without reading it,” Brinkley said. “If he had ignored it, I don’t think it would have become an issue. People love the food fight - it was suddenly the Tulane professor from Uptown versus the mayor. It got framed as a square off.”
You can read excerpts from the book in Vanity Fair magazine.
The blurb?
As Hurricane Katrina bore down and weather experts sounded the alarm, every hour counted. Yet Mayor Ray Nagin waited to order a mandatory evacuation, FEMA director Michael Brown held off on readying adequate relief, and Governor Kathleen Blanco and President Bush exchanged form letters instead of urgent phone calls.
The kicker?
In the span of one week last summer, the United States was changed, and not just along the battered coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. The nation, eventually, could always bounce back from a natural disaster. Instead, the Great Deluge of New Orleans had turned out to be a disaster of another sort - one that, through breached levees and massive governmental incompetence, the country had actually brought upon itself.
During the C-SPAN interview, Brinkley was hammered by a few callers for pointing out that Nagin was a Republican, not a Democrat, as he was identified by virtually every national pundit on cable TV.
In a story for the Dallas Morning News that appeared on December 6, 2003, I tried to point out that Nagin’s honeymoon was about over. In the gubernatorial runoff campaign between Lt. Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Bobby Jindal, Mr. Nagin endorsed Mr. Jindal, the Republican, which was part of the problem that led to a lack of cooperation between the city and the state after Katrina.
But voters in New Orleans felt Nagin endured the Katrina crisis with them. So enough of them voted to give him a second term and a second chance to lead - to fix the streets and bring New Orleans back.
Now with new elections looming this summer and fall, a key question is: Will Americans turn out at the polls to vote for candidates who seem to have the ability to get the job done, to fix the streets?
Or will the reactionary, anti-government forces continue to tip the balance in elections to the likes of the conservative Republicans who now hold the power in both houses of Congress?
A lot of liberals I know are totally disengaged from politics. They tell me this all the time when they read my Web site and see that we tend to focus on politics more than science or something else. I tell them we do this because it is important now, perhaps more important than ever.
What this country looks like in the future will be up to the brighter voters, who should stop being cynical and get back involved in the political process. They have the power to turn the tide, if only they will get themselves informed and work to make a difference.
One final story to bring this back home to Alabama. Another friend who follows this site sometimes said something astounding the other day.
This is someone who is having a hard time making enough money these days, who did quite well during the days when Bill Clinton was in the White House and the Democrats still held power in at least one house of Congress.
He reads the Birmingham News at work and listens to talk radio all the time. But he did not even know there was such a thing as public radio and public television low down on the radio and TV dial. And he scoffed when I urged him to watch For the Record on Alabama Public Television.
“Why do I need these idiots to tell me what’s going on,” he said.
Well, he depends on the Birmingham News and listens to the uninformed idiots on talk radio. And he will most likely vote for Don Siegelman in the Democratic Party primary June 6, even though Siegelman is still on trial in Montgomery and looking more and more guilty with each government witness.
That is not the way to change things. We hope people wake up and decide to vote for candidates who will show up for work every day - and fix the damn streets.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Professor, just to let you know, (He reads the Birmingham News at work and listens to talk radio all the time. But he did not even know there was such a thing as public radio and public television low down on the radio and TV dial. And he scoffed when I urged him to watch For the Record on Alabama Public Television.) I am quite aware of public radio and public television. However, I give these people no more creedence than I give the “talk radio” people. The reason I listen to commercial talk radio is that this is where you hear what “THE PEOPLE,” bless their flabby little black hearts, have to say. You must understand your enemy and know what they are thinking.
As far as voting for Don Siegleman goes, I might vote for him and then again I might not. I have talked with him personally which gives him a “leg up” on the other candidates from my perspective. As far as the charges against him, it seems to me that he is charged for appointing someone to a committee as a reward for campaign contributions. Is this even a CRIME?? I was under the impression that that is the way one gets these appointments. Isn’t that how our foreign ambassadors are chosen by the administration? You work for me, give me some cash and become the “AMBASSADOR to France.”
As far as depending on the Birmingham News, I read the Sports Section and the Funny Papers every morning. Later in the day I might read the letters to the editor section and maybe a national columnist just to see what propaganda is being spewed forth from Washington. I have come to the conclusion lately that we should all vote against “THE INCUMBENTS” and throw them out of office. Let’s give someone else a chance to steal us blind and take away our liberties.
Professor Wilson, YOU should listen to some of the political talk shows in this town sometime. I hardly ever agree with anything said there, but at least I’m hearing the “common man” not some elitist journalists who think they have all the answers. You and I agree on many things and disagree on many others. Ain’t it great to live in a country where we can do that?
May 29th, 2006 at 11:54 am
There is a huge difference between the so-called “common man” spouting uninformed opinions on talk radio and journalists on public radio and television doing real stories and interviews with people and getting some facts out.
Everything that happens is not “a matter of opinion.” Philosophy 101: There are matters of fact, then matters of opinion. On talk radio around here, everything is a matter of opinion.
On public television, they are actually interviewing every candidate running for office June 6 in Alabama and asking a wide range of real questions, not just whether the candidates are sufficiently conservative and Christian.
If you want to know what is actually going on in your state, you might check it out from time to time. You might actually learn something, rather having your own biased opinions reinforced day in and day out.
As for living in a free country, you might check out my blog post from Memorial Day. King George gives lip service to freedom, then takes away the public’s right to protest at military funerals. The right to peaceably assemble is right there in the First Amendment to the Constitution. But the Constitution is “just a goddamn piece of paper” to our dicktater-in-chief.
May 29th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Prof, you made no comment on my suggestion of “throwing the rascals out”. “We, The People” can really do some good here with our own brand of “Term Limits”.
May 29th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
A tired cliche. I’m more interested in specifics. Which “bums,” exactly, do you want to throw out? You have to know enough about the candidates in a specific race to know.
For example, I assume you would like to throw out the bum in the White House. But that will have to wait until 2008.
How about our two Senators in Alabama, Dick Shelby and Jeff Sessions? Neither are up for reelection in 2006.
In the Democratic Primary race for governor, both candidates are challengers, although Lucy Baxley is an incumbent Lt. Gov.
Would you vote to throw her out? Do you think she is a bum who has done a bad job? What information do you have to back that up?
How about Gov. Riley? He’s an incumbent. Every news organization in this state is endorsing him because of the false impression that Alabama has a “record unemployment rate” based on numbers from the Department of Labor Statistics, numbers that do not take into account the tens of thousands of would be workers in this state who are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits. Is Riley a bum? In what sense? Would you throw him out and elect Judge Roy Moore governor?
How about our Supreme Court in Alabama? Do you even know the name of one candidate running for that office or what they stand for?
If you had watched For the Record, you would have seen them all interviewed and you could make an informed choice about who to vote for.
But don”t worry about the facts. Just pull the Democratic Party lever and vote to throw all the Republican bums out. That would be a start.
May 29th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
I know that ALL of the Supreme court judges right now are Republicans and only 4 seats are open in this election. I also know that if Alabama cities and counties are not granted some sort of “home rule” Montgomery special interests groups will continue to run roughshod over local politics.
I am looking for a candidate that will sponsor a Constitutional convention and rewrite the huge and outdated Alabama constitution. I know that’s not Bob Riley or Roy Moore. Judge Moore has only one good idea in his platform and that is rolling back to 4 year propety appraisals. He does say that he will not be a slave to the “special Interests groups,” but he is too bound up in religeous interests that I don’t believe he can do a good job.
Lucy Baxley? I don’t know if she can do the job at all, maybe… I do know that Don Siegleman did a good job as governor. He only failed at getting the lottery passed. I do think that he is being persecuted by the “powers that be” in Montgomery to try to keep him out of office. That makes him look even better to me.
By the way, it seems that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice candidate Tom Parker (I don’t think he was Elvis’s Col Parker) wants to disregard the US Supreme Court’s decisions, that is if he thinks they’re wrong. Strange.. I thought the US Supreme court was the highest court in the land. Hell, they can appoint presidents over the will of the PEOPLE. How could they ever be wrong???
May 29th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
Well, you’ve got that right. But if you had watched For the Record tonight, you would have seen Lucy Baxley interviewed at length on a number of issues facing the state on how she would respond if elected. You won’t see that on ANY commercial television news station in this state, or hear it on ANY commercial radio station.