I'm a pretty patriotic guy. I really like this country a whole lot. That is why when I talk about something being a "disgrace," you should take me very seriously. The war in Iraq is not a disgrace. President Bush is not a disgrace. Even Nancy Pelosi doesn't deserve that moniker.
But Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath? That is a disgrace. I'm not even talking about the original levee failure and Superdome disaster; the aftermath of a Category 5 hurricane will be messy, no matter who is in charge. I am talking about the utter lack of progress this great country - one of the richest countries on Earth - has made after the storm.
I went to New Orleans in 2006, one year after Katrina had hit. Don't give me too much credit - I didn't go for humanitarian reasons. I didn't clean up wreckage or save half-drowned dogs or even throw a few dollars to a homeless man. I went for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. While we were in New Orleans, my aunt, a native of the city, took us on a self-directed hurricane tour. It was disgusting. Houses still sat broken and mildew-ridden. Cars sat atop roofs, boats atop cars, telephone polls atop it all. Neighborhood after neighborhood, mile after mile, we drove through deserted and destroyed homes. It was, in a word, horrific.
This past Thanksgiving, we made it back down to New Orleans, hoping to find something different - something that resembled life in these once vibrant neighborhoods. Two years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the 31st largest city in the United States before the storm, the Americans have managed to clear away some of the houses. Yes, that is the extent of our great country's accomplishments. Two years later and all we have done is cleared away the rotted wood, metal and fabric left over from the storm. Even with this improvement, the vast majority of houses remained even more broken down then the year before. New Orleans is, as it was the year before, full of ghost towns.
I'm not here to play the "blame game" that became so popular after the storm hit. I don't blame Mike Brown (or "Brownie" as Bush called him), and I don't blame President Bush or the Congress. I don't blame then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco (the one who cried on TV) or Mayor Ray Nagin (well, maybe a little).
The fact is that the governments that comprise the United States, from the Ninth Ward citizens' council to the president, all failed miserably in 2005. We have acknowledged their failures, but now it is time for Americans, black and white, Louisianans and New Yorkers, upper-class and lower-class, to demand that something be done. It is time for Americans to demand that we pay the price, whatever it may be, to fix the levees, rebuild the neighborhoods and remove this blemish from our record.
Put a 1 percent sales tax on all goods in the United States, sell bonds, divert some of the tax revenue we already generate down to New Orleans. Recently the people of Louisiana finally managed to elect an upstanding, seemingly incorruptible governor named Bobby Jindle. Let's work with him, let's even work with Nagin if we have to. If you don't want to cooperate, that's fine, do it yourself, but do something. Bulldoze the whole damned place, as long as you build something where it stood. This is my plea to the students and teachers of AU and to the governments of the United States. Please, for the love of God, the constitution or whatever it is you hold dear, do something.
Charlie Szold is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a conservative columnist for The Eagle.
