Everyone wants to point fingers at who dropped the ball when it comes to the relief of New Orleans.  Brown, Bush, Blanco and Nagin all have reaped a healthy dose of culpability.  But as another blogger already pointed out, the only real screaming seems to be coming from Louisiana, while Florida, Alabama and Mississippi seem to be just going about he business of the clean up and burying the dead.

But the problem in Louisiana was made a lot worse by the Levees break (Led Zeppelin rif running through my head at this point).  They were not designed to take a category 4 storm, and for a change, something built by the government performed exactly as designed.

So we will leave the disaster relief blame game for a moment and concentrate on why the Levees were not designed or bolstered for a more powerful storm.

First, lack of money was and is not really an issue.  Billions have been poured into Louisiana over the past 10 years for work on the Levees, but through mismanagement, fraud, and out right theft, never got to the levees.  Louisiana refused to provide matching funds, so many federal dollars went unspent.  And other projects got the cake, while the levees got the shaft (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html).  This is not a mysterious little known fact, but a very overt one.  And while Blanco was not governor that whole time, she was governor for part of it.

And what family has run Louisiana for the last half century (since the Days of Huey P. Long)?  The Landrieus!  First moon, and now son and daughter have their death grip (pun intended) on that state, and it is one of the worst states when it comes to keeping politicians out of jail.  So there is a lot of finger pointing, but the 3 finger rule is more than appropriate here.  The ones to blame are the ones that have been sucking that state dry for so long.

But who else INTENTIONALLY thwarted the bolstering of the Levees?  This should not be brain teaser for anyone.  Just think of Luddites.  Yes, those greens of compassion, who even now are crowing about their ability to thwart any levee project (http://louisiana.sierraclub.org/atchafalaya.asp)  on the Atchafalaya river basin (the Mississippi's twin).  They would rather save a few terns than a thousand people.

It is not like these Levees are so that a bunch of rich snobs can have resort homes on the waterfront.  As has been pointed out, New Orleans is a working city that is the gateway to the mighty Mississippi and 2/3rds of the grain shipments of the US (along with a huge Petro-Chemical point).  These Levees are to hold back those waters, so that the grain and oil can flow.  But since that endangers a bunch of brown breasted sump beetles, all of that is for naught in the Luddites campaign.  They care not for people, for it is people that destroy nature and are not a part of nature (wrong Luddites! People are a part of nature).

So let the finger pointing begin and end where it Belongs.  The disaster of New Orleans would not have happened if the politicians of Louisiana had done their work and bolstered the levees and the Luddites would have gone to California to hug a Thistlecone Pine.

And people wonder why I call them Luddites?