Week Eight. Day 56. No end in sight.
Yesterday, James Carville wrote an opinion in the Times Picayune. And there has been much discussion of so many of the English pensioners whose retirements are now tanking because of BP and how callous we here in the Gulf are to those Brits. And there’s all sorts of discussions about the six month moratorium to deep well drilling. I am also in the middle of reading Nine Lives: Mystery, Magic, Death and Life in New Orleans.
And today, five years post-Katrina, after a lifetime of having the worst schools, streets, government, [insert anything of governmental value here], I feel something I have never felt before. I am disappointed in my fellow Louisianians. Yes, things are that bad.
So let’s go item by item.
1. Carville goes through a lot of effort to explain how Louisianians are NOT whiners; we are hard workers. But that is hard to reconcile when every soundbite we get out of every citizen and local politician is bitching and moaning. Pointing fingers. I GET the frustration that is felt because BP is lying and the federal government is tied up in red tape. But how is this NEW? Did we in Louisiana learn NOTHING from Katrina but how sticky that federal red tape is? Do we really, REALLY, expect snap decisions, flowing money and quick action from our federal government? Are we still that naive and hopeful?
What I want to see from my local politicians, instead of pissing about how inept the feds are, IS ACTION. You want berms? Go dredge them. The feds own the land and won’t allow it? Let them stop you. You want the finances assured from BP? Send them a bill. Because if BP won’t commit to paying it and in the end does not pay it, who in Louisiana would not pay a $1 tax to pay for the berms? STOP ASKING PERMISSION AND TAKE ACTION. And our citizens? Join forces to support our local government to take that action. Not seeing enough cleanup by BP? GO CLEANUP YOURSELF. Get teams of our citizens out there doing it BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. But, NOOOO. Our folks say, “BP wants to clean it up and do it wrong? Eff em. Let them do it.” WHAT? We’d rather sit back and say I-told-you-so than take action to keep that oil off our wetlands and marshes. We’d rather be run around by the feds, playing by their rules, than bring it to a halt with action.
Victims? Maybe not. But majorly laid back. To a fault. Coincidentally, this was a theme of last night’s Treme (one character even mentions our “defective work ethic.”).
2. British Pensioners. Everyone I talk to says EFF THOSE BRITS. Live by BP, die with BP. Nice empathy, folks. These seniors are in plans; they selected a fund. That fund selects particular stocks, and in many cases selected BP. The individuals did not themselves select BP as an investment vehicle. For all I know, MY 401(k) has BP stock and I too may be having a reduced portfolio value as a result of the spill. I am not saying these folks deserve to be ranked higher on the victim list than, say, the pelicans or our fishermen. But have we gotten so detached from things, gotten so selfish, that we cannot see these pensioners, these elderly folks, as yet another innocent victim of BP? Can we not see that they will suffer, ARE SUFFERING, by the loss of value in their retirement accounts? When seniors take hits in their retirement accounts, they are SCREWED far worse than the likes of me now. If I have BP in my 401(k), I have at least another decade to let that stock rebound. Or for other stocks to make up the loss. But with seniors, many are already receiving distributions out of those plans now. They cannot sit on it for ten years til things rebound. They are dealing with a real loss. And it is shameful that Americans are being harsh to them.
3. The moratorium. I’ve already written about my thoughts on this topic, but arguments to lift it are gaining momentum. What Louisianians are saying, what I have heard local politicians explain to the media, is that Louisiana’s economy has for so very long been tied to seafood and oil (some fishermen are even offshore oil workers) that without those 33 wells being released to drill NOW, our economy will tank. And although we realize the moratorium is to address safety, we are so desperate that in order to feed our families, we need to drill those potentially unsafe wells. Because, the argument continues, if we stop, Big Oil will move its rigs out of Louisiana and <GASP> we will then certainly be doomed.
First of all, why is BP NOT responsible for this moratorium? Can’t the oilmen file a claim with BP for lost wages? BP takes the position that the moratorium is NOT their doing, that such claims are “indirect” and they will not honor them. Yeah, well, that isn’t good enough, BP. You broke it, you bought it. We’ll see you in court. What, you can’t wait years to see justice done so as to feed your family today? Then, for five months, maybe you need to consider filing for unemployment benefits. This argument for drilling is insane. America is addicted to oil. We ADMIT that. We MUST shift to other power sources. We KNOW that. Louisiana oilmen, you are NOT entitled to a job, even if it’s the only one you know. We simply CANNOT stay on Big Oil’s teat so that you can stay unchanged in your career. Maybe you could take this as a wake-up call to brush up your resume. Just as we had to adjust to the death of other industries in the course of economic evolution. This is akin to us having the ability to shut down crack cocaine but keeping it in circulation because the drug dealers (Big Oil) and rehab centers would suffer economic loss if we did so. It’s time we face the music. Step One: Admit you have a problem.
Second, we are, AGAIN, talking about THIRTY-THREE WELLS. Yes, I get that this will impact support service companies too. It’s a lot of jobs. I. GET. IT. But it’s SIX MONTHS, of which ONE has already passed. And finally, someone please explain to me how Big Oil taking its rigs to other countries for those remaining five months will be the death knoll of oil drilling in Louisiana. Won’t that untapped Louisiana oil these companies left be, yanno, SITTING THERE WAITING to be tapped anew in five months?
My problem is the perception we are giving the rest of the country. Here we are, a community of hard workers (per Carville) sitting idle for six months with no idea how to get food on our tables. We are sitting around waiting for BP to clean-up and waiting for the feds to knock BP’s skulls to get the spill capped and the waters cleaned. We want BP to pay us to make us whole. While at the same time we judge those British pensioners as cocky for having the audacity to complain about their financial loss being tied to BP.
And the cherry on this shit sundae is the tone of Nine Lives. I haven’t finished this novel yet. And I have been told by so many people that I simply HAD to read it. I am not sure WHY yet. About one-third into it and I wonder why the hell I live here. It depicts the blacks as all living in the Ninth Ward and the whites as uber-rich and untouchable. It seems to suggest we revel in being lazy, of having no ambition, of valuing our Carnival-related genealogy and private clubs more than our own self-preservation. This is NOT my New Orleans; it never was.
And now I feel we’ve allowed ourselves to become victims of our own creation. Prepare little for the future. After all, didn’t Katrina teach us we could lose everything in the course of a storm? We have such LOW expectations now. Even of ourselves. We may not be whiners, but we sure are coming off as NEEDING NEEDING NEEDING.
It’s time we brushed ourselves off, stopped listening to every NO we’ve been getting from BP and the feds. It’s time we wrestled control of our lives out of the hands of folks that don’t care about us and put it back into our own hands.
WE can do it. Louisiana WILL survive. We ARE hard workers. And maybe a bit too trusting. But it never fails that when ALL ELSE FAILS for Louisianians, we pull through for ourselves. And it’s time we start thinking as survivors. And stop coming off as victims.