In case you missed it — there was a really big hurricane this week, a lot of people got hurt, and a lot more people are angry every which way but loose about it.
At this very moment, the American people are conducting a conversation that surpasses 9/11 in lasting importance: Should we rebuild New Orleans, or not?
A word to the devastation and aftermath so far:
What happened was inevitable.
How we have responded — enough of us to tar us all with the same brush — is unconscionable, for reasons that I will explain in detail.
This conversation over the fate of New Orleans would be laughable, if it weren’t so dangerous, for I believe very deeply that what we are in fact discussing the fate of the Republic itself.
If I cannot trust you, then who are you?
In time of disaster, I must be able to trust you. You must be able to trust me. In time of dire need, I can’t waste time knocking on the wrong door; I need to know your door will open to me. You need to know that if you do so, I will not demand of you more than you can give, and take what I please if it is not given freely.
This must be implicit; in time of calamity, there is no time to work this out. The thing is either done well for both, or not at all.
We have lived and shared names like neighbor and colleague and friend and countryman. If I forsake you, or you forsake me, then none of that is true; all of it false.
Well, that sure is pretty.
Oh, yes. Yes, it is. On account it’s developed from Scripture. It should both please and chastise.
Festering Recriminations
What is not so fair to look upon is what has transpired — not everywhere, not even mostly, but often enough to poison the cistern, and make the drink of patriotism bitter to share amongst ourselves.
I mean, really. Take a step back and look at the wider conversation.
Something has gone terribly wrong when the accusation that a sitting government is witholding aid from stricken citizens can stick. This is not what our republic was founded on — to promote domestic dissension and support the general destitution. No…the Preamble reads somewhat differently.
Yet, something equally horrid has gone wrong when that charge is answered with another — that if such aid is being held back, then it must be with good cause. The words do not begin We, not you people, in order to form a more perfect exclusion. No, the Constitution begins with far nobler words than these.
It has become easy to accuse, easy to take offense, even easier to annoy and offend.
We are no longer a ‘we’. We, who aren’t, are no longer a country.
An Epidemic of Unconcern
I think the leaders of the government, both in the current majority and opposition, are aware of the danger – that in a few short years, we have reached the point where a signficant portion of the country simply will not exert itself on behalf of the other…that there’s no upside to helping people that it has become not only easy to think of as enemies, but politically and economically profitable to treat as such.
Given the immense cost that rebuilding “Nola” is likely to incur, Katrina may have brought such feelings to a head.
To repair the city of New Orleans, now that it is necessary, will take far more than the paltry few tens of billions being quoted of late. Just in terms of the dispossessed throughout the region, the total cannot possibly be less than $120 billion. It may be much more.
My guess is that a bill of over $300 billion is not out of the question. That is, if any repairs are made at all.
That is not so far-fetched. After all, there are a lot of other pressing concerns, including two separate wars being fought concurrently. It is not beyond the pale that New Orleans will be kicked to the curb, or exist only in a much-reduced state, clinging to those portions of the local landscape that were above sea level when the Spanish first arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi.
Back When it was New York’s Turn to Suffer
We mentioned trust earlier; the citizens of the Big Easy, most of whom fled to safety, most of those who could not or did not huddled in fear of the predators in their midst, are Americans. They are our friends and peers and neighbors and countrymen. They have lives and families and jobs and businesses and homes that they can manage themselves, but right now they’re a bit down on their luck and they could use a little help, thanks.
They’re trusting us to do the right thing by them, as they would do for us, as Americans have done for one another throughout history.
In this dark hour, the New Orleaners expect we will honor that common allegiance, that we will answer the call for aid.
They are not asking something that another city asked, not so very long ago.
In 2001, the people of New York had a heartbreaking reminder that they were Americans, that they were friends and neighbors and peers.
Now perhaps there were a few holdouts even then, that took issue with lending aid and comfort to such an infamous bastion of liberalism, no matter what the provocation. I seem to recall some unfortunate comments from one clergyman who was in the news just last week for unfortunate comments…but that was hardly representative of the stunning outpouring of support we witnessed after 9/11.
Rebuilding New Orleans: A Referendum on the Republic
It is appalling that in four short years, that lesson in the power of trust has been forgotten by a sufficient number of people to endanger the very fabric of our civilization, in a way that no terrorist attack ever could.
If we do not trust each other for aid during the flood, how can we possibly do so during the fire?
In the end, the discussion of whether or not to rebuild New Orleans, flooded and emptied of everything decent and good and deliciously decadent that has made it one of the cornerstones of American culture, is a referendum on whether or not to rebuild the Union, which has been struck down in a storm of forsaken trust.
It is a conversation about whether or not the sort of risk that America took in getting behind New York after 9/11 will ever happen again, or if that was in fact the swan song of the Republic.