Andrea Batista Schlesinger

Drowning New Orleans

Last week, New Orleans Mayor Nagin announced plans to give the pink slip to 3,000 city workers. Interesting choice, to fire people instead of engaging them in rebuilding.

Not to worry, we're sure the President's suspension of prevailing wage requirements for contractors in the area will eventually trickle-down onto the kitchen tables of those Americans.

new-orleans3.jpg


And so now we've promoted 3,000 new people to the ranks of those who resent government for not being there for them in their moments of greatest vulnerability, 3,000 new people who will want government to be small enough to drown in a bathtub, 3,000 new people who will confuse bad government with what a truly public sector can be. .

Franklin, can't you have a word with the president's favorite philosopher?

Posted by Andrea Batista Schlesinger at October 9, 2005 02:45 PM

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Are poverty's 15 minutes over? Remember the days immediately after Katrina ripped a bleeding, jagged wound into the southern coast, when we all discovered that there were - gasp! - poor people living in squalid conditions in one of America's... [Read More]

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Are poverty's 15 minutes over? Remember the days immediately after Katrina ripped a bleeding, jagged wound into the southern coast, when we all discovered that there were - gasp! - poor people living in squalid conditions in one of America's... [Read More]

Tracked on October 12, 2005 03:18 PM

Comments

my friend in the longshoreman's union (he's one of the new guys they hired to get rid of the Mob) heard that the port was the first thing to get fixed and opperational again.
I think that's a confluence between farm states desperate to get grain out, market forces and the fact that the dockworker are one of the only unionized groups in New Orleans.

Its a right to work for less state dontcha know.

Posted by: our gal in brooklyn | October 9, 2005 11:09 PM

I see the overall point here, but I disagree that the primary reaction of laid-off New Orleans employees will be to join the ranks of small-government conservatives. While the right is undoubtedly using the incompetent government response to the hurricane to call for the further undermining of our public institutions, I don't see how the experience of being laid off would make former New Orleans workers particularly vulnerable to this line of reasoning. These are people who relied on the public sector for their livelihood (some of whom, depending on their jobs, made a choice to commit themselves to public service). While a few might turn against the public sector, I think most would either not be thinking ideologically about their situation at all, or would want to see stronger public institutions.

Posted by: feet on the ground | October 10, 2005 11:50 AM