Trail of Tears - Part Deux?

The catastrophe in New Orleans was so riveting that my brain nearly shut down. Eventually, however, I had to contemplate the future - not from the government or regional level, but from the individual's perspective:

• Where will residents go?
  
• Can they go home?
  
• If so, when?
  
• Will their home be habitable?
  
• Can it be repaired?
  
• If not, who will pay to demolish and remove it?
  
• Once it is gone, can they rebuild?
  
• Will they owe property or other taxes in the meantime?
  
• Can they retain title to the land till they rebuild
  
• The SCOTUS sanctioned eminent domain. Will they be victims? Louisiana has legislation pending. Will it be passed?
  
• Will essential public records be saved?
  
• etc ... etc ...

They're tough questions, but it gets worse. Consider that individuals and families may be scattered across 20 states or more. More on the flip.

Evacuees will face nearly insurmountable challenges to protect their interests:

• How can they assess damage from a distance? - from Ohio? from Texas? from North Carolina?
  
• Can they recover/replace/provide their personal documents?
  
• Can they find/afford a lawyer?
  
• etc ... etc ...

Anyone with a brain knows that the development sharks and barracudas (aka rich wingnut carpetbaggers) will be circling:

• 'here's $15K cash for your land - you really need the cash, right?'
  
• 'sorry, you missed a tax payment - you forfeit'
  
• 'you missed a building progress payment - sorry, you forfeit'
  
• 'the building code is tougher now - it costs $125/sq. ft. to build - can't afford that?, sorry - but i'll be happy to buy your land for $7500 cash'
  
• etc ... etc ...

Next thing you know, New Orleans will look like a Vegas parody of the amazing 'gumbo' that America has enjoyed for two centuries.

These are salt-of-the-earth people. Check out the marvelous neighborhood descriptions at this site. 10% of New Orleans Parish over 25 are veterans. Can they individually face down these snakes? I doubt it. They'll need help.

If the progressive community wants to do something important (I'm sorry, but casual 'fucks', a free bed for a week and general fulminations won't cut it), it will mobilize to help these folks preserve their rights:

• Find the evacuees (not refugees!) in your community and offer help.
  
• See if one of these lawyers will help. If not, find some others who will.
  
• Form a network of volunteers to help evacuees reconstruct their paper trail and assert their rights
  
• Use the Internet - IM to willing lawyers, IM volunteers on the ground, download municipal forms and help evacuees fill them out ... etc.
  
• Publicize the inevitable travesty. If evacuees are going to be raped, at least record and document the crime.

If the Democratic party wants to be relevant, it will lead the fight. It will give authenticity and credibility to the helpers. It will be competent, confident, ruthless and relentless. It will publicize the fight. 'If it can happen to these people, it can happen to anyone - in Miami,
Tampa, Jacksonville, Galveston, Houston, LA, SF, San Diego, ...' (ads and editorials in Spanish?)

Let me finish by stating that I am categorically NOT accusing the wingnuts of orchestrating this situation. The sad fact is that they won't have to lift a finger. It is the fundamental entropy of a calamity like this. Ethnic cleansing will occur naturally and all they have to do is lurk and scavenge the benefits.

It will take a herculean effort to prevent them from succeeding.

•  Excellent diary. I have been

  Thinking about the "eminent domain" ruling all day and its potential effect on the displaced people of New Orleans.

  by lecsmith on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 07:32:38 PM PDT

•  It's being discussed in the news as fait accompli

  That, and grateful survivors (sic?) are happy to restart their lives, in their new, beautiful welcoming homelands --- er, I mean cities -- far, far away.

  Not so sure about that jobs and keeping families together and getting registered to vote thing.

  The media version is Barbara Bush's version -- we're doing them a big favor.

  by cskendrick on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 07:38:15 PM PDT

  •  Cultures don't travel well

    According to Babs, I guess we're doing them a favor by transplanting them from one of the unique cultures on earth to where? a suburb somewhere?

    Conservatives don't value any culture but the one they own.

    by grapes on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 07:59:35 PM PDT

    •  Oh, homelands, reservations, gulags

      They would shrug it off as the inevitable victory of the superior civilization (wealth, power, force of arms) over the inferior.

      My concern is that if New Orleans is rebuilt as some sort of giant gated community, that it will be the target of an ETA-like terrorist campaign.

      Not all the ex-residents will let go. Dispossessed populations have a way of striking back, futile, defeated, resigned, and determined to exact a compensation never given them freely by those who dispossess them.

      In that scenario, I guess DHS will have a national security job to do after Katrina, after all.

      It'd be simpler if people just paid fair market price for what they want, even to people they can bully around.

      But it's a rare market society that actually does that.

      We're not that free and just yet.

      by cskendrick on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 08:05:46 PM PDT

      •  Free markets

        Actually, I fundamentally admire and believe in free markets.

        But to be effective, markets must be fair. Everyone must have nearly equal access to the defining information.

        I don't know many urban real estate markets where that is the case. Post-Katrina New Orleans will likely be less fair than most.

        by grapes on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 08:17:47 PM PDT

      •  gentrification

        Many of us have this concern.  The battle must be fought on at least two fronts--first, the decisions made about the 9th Ward and other drowned areas, the condemnation process for restoring wetlands, and whether upperclass condominiums can line the attractive areas adjacent to the lovely marine bird refuges.  Of course, lots of room must be taken for the refineries and the chemical countries to get the economy back on track, and why not make plenty of parking and hotel space at the Quarter or in the garden district.  Bayona and Emeril's can open in an upscale mall . . . .

        Second:  In defense against an anticipated real loss among the elderly, less and less likely to pass on their stories to the younger generations, now dispatched and displaced all over the country, a massive oral history project should be instigated or accelerated immediately.  Those with broken hearts may not linger long, I think.

        by gazingoffsouthward on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 09:22:57 PM PDT

•  most excellent diary

  and Trail of Tears metaphor is so apt.

  If the rethugs are salivating over making this crisis move their way, progressives should find 100's of items important to their values to invest here. A fair society that gives all of it's children an equal start, a society that respects stewardship of our planet, that says the "haves" can only have so much. and ultimately a society that can sustain a rich culture. (ever notice that cities that develop cultural gifts that resonate beyond their territory are port cities--because they trade things with peoples different than themselves)

  (ps, I loved the Phoenicians!)

  by Miss Devore on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 07:39:48 PM PDT

•  The fact that FEMA's Brown was an estate

  laywer speaks volumes. I'm sure he knows how to sieze property from the dead and develop it into valueable real estate.

  Drink shade grown coffee!

  by mad ramblings of a sane woman on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 07:42:18 PM PDT

•  I thought about some of the same questions...

  ...and posted about them in a comment here.

  It's part and parcel of disaster management - you know, that thing that FEMA used to do? - that includes planning for short term and long term issues as a result of any given scenario.

  Anyone who has ever performed a "disaster recovery" plan for an IT department, an organization, or a city would have to identify resources available, alternatives if resources become unavailable, and processes to implement in order to acquire / disseminate / repair / resolve issues with resources in order to accomplish the primary objective.  The objectives are not always the same.  Some are to avoid catastrophe and to regain functionality of core systems only should one befall the planners.  Some plans are to save data or people or supplies, not caring about anything else.  Others are to restore services, regardless of anything else.  A city, county, district, region, state, or federal plan must incorporate facets of all of them.

  And those plans, at least the core components of them, should be publicly available.  

  There should be, after four years, a plan available from Homeland Security (even in rough form) for what steps should be taken to deal with refugees from a city that is struck by terrorism (or any other tragedy).  

  I have yet to see one.  And yet, I've seen many incidents quoted where "FEMA" turned away aid.  Indeed, even our national leaders turned away international aid (at first).

  That's why I posted the comment linked to, above.  Those core essential elements do not appear to exist at the federal level for any type of loss.  Basic plans used to exist.  What happened to them?  Why wasn't anything referenced and implemented?  

  ...after all that, I felt the need for a little inspiration and wrote a diary entry meant to inspire and motivate folks to stand up and demand answers.

  I hope this entry of yours helps do the same.  Those folks need help, and people who want to help should know the questions - even if they don't have the answers - so they can be thinking about the right answers as they pitch in.

  Thanks for writing.  And reading this verbose response.  ;)

  Never, never brave me, nor my fury tempt:
    Downy wings, but wroth they beat;
  Tempest even in reason's seat.

  by GreyHawk on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 08:01:26 PM PDT

  •  All politics is local

    I have been reading the righteous anger of posters concerning the wimpish nature of the Democratic leadership. I agree, but the problem is where to focus? Which issue? No one seems to agree on the magic bullet issue.

    How about re-establishing the Democratic tradition of fighting for the 'little guy'. Fight hard. Fight smart. Fight as a team. Never give up.

    And publicize the fight!

    by grapes on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 08:11:39 PM PDT

    •  Never give up, never surrender...

      Just had to pop in that "Galaxy Quest" quote.

      :)

      "Where to focus" depends on the situation.  I'd focus, right now, on the following:

      1. Evacuate those who are easily identifiable

      2. Start a systematic, all-hands search using various technologies (including infrared cameras in helicopters, planes, satellites) for possible signs of survivors who are not easily identifiable; as possibilities are identified, dispatch a contact chopper to assess rescue and medical evac needs.

      3.  Begin a slow, systematic sweep for bodies - block by block, building by building.  Bodies should be photographed as they are detected, and locations where they are found noted and (if possible) marked.

      There should be enough resources available to initiate all three phases, and focus on #1.

      The next step - allocation of rescued refugees - would be another team to decide.  The first team must work those three core goals.

      Any obstructions to the process or lack of "permissions" should be noted, logged, disseminated.  Water samples (as suggested in an earlier diary) should be taken immediately, then as different blocks are covered.  They should be immediately labelled as to where they are found, and processed then reported.  As the body sweep continues, there should be spot assessments done on structures and trees, to determine status - that will help with planning for draining the city and relative overall damage assessment.

      That's all I can thunk up for now.

      Never, never brave me, nor my fury tempt:
        Downy wings, but wroth they beat;
      Tempest even in reason's seat.

      by GreyHawk on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 08:55:55 PM PDT

      •  That awful idea of a mass grave

        makes me wonder after reading this diary..if in fact they want to bury these folks as quick a possible to begin to shift the assets of these folks into the hands of the folks waiting in the wings...

        by boycottgop on Mon Sep 05, 2005 at 09:39:31 PM PDT

•  Got a followup to this...

  ...in a diary I posted this morning.  Essentially, what should be the goal of rebuilding and recovery?  Wherever it's done, or to whatever extent, what should we keep in mind?

  Perhaps most importantly, how to ensure maintaining/restoring the character of NOLA without further dispossessing the dispossessed, yet avoiding the possibility of dumping them back without anything to help them pick back up the pieces of their lives?

  Never, never brave me, nor my fury tempt:
    Downy wings, but wroth they beat;
  Tempest even in reason's seat.

  by GreyHawk on Tue Sep 06, 2005 at 09:56:02 AM PDT