Louisiana . . . they're trying to wash us away

What has happened down here is the winds have changed
Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain
Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tyrin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

POOR STATES, like poor people, just can't catch a break. If you're not doing yourself in -- usually through some of the same pathologies that helped impoverish you -- the fatcats are using you for target practice, either for sport or in the name of "bettering" society.

Louisiana is a poor state, and a relatively uneducated one, too. New Orleans is a basket case, and the state is hemorrhaging educated and skilled people . . . not to mention political clout.

Louisiana 2007 is a lot like Louisiana 1927. And the little fat men with notepads in their hands would just as soon have the Gulf of Mexico wash it away. So would their boss, President George W. Bush.

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a notepad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor cracker's land."

After the federally misconstructed levees broke during a glancing blow by Hurricane Katrina two years ago, almost wiping out New Orleans, President Bush made some big promises after his FEMA minions left thousands of people stranded and starving for days after the storm.

"Tonight so many victims of the hurricane and the flood are far from home and friends and familiar things," Bush said on national television, standing before a spotlighted St. Louis Cathedral (thanks to the floodlights and generators the White House shipped in for the live shot). "You need to know that our whole nation cares about you, and in the journey ahead you're not alone. To all who carry a burden of loss, I extend the deepest sympathy of our country. To every person who has served and sacrificed in this emergency, I offer the gratitude of our country."

BY THIS TIME, the words "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" had been bitterly burned onto all our brains, and we were reaching for the hip waders. And the Lysol. But then . . . le deluge.

"And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," Bush said. "And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again."

The president and his administration have spent the last 23 months proving to Louisianians, expatriates and sympathetic fellow Americans what a load of bull excrement that pledge was.

Every proposal that could have addressed big needs comprehensively somehow managed to get shot down or denuded because it was "too expensive." This at a time when we're in the process of flushing $1 trillion -- with a "T" -- down a toilet called Iraq.

AND NOW, it seems the president and his Beltway goons are trying to make sure what's left of a hard-case, hardscrabble state literally washes away. From The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune:

In a sharp and unexpected blow to Louisiana, President Bush threatened Wednesday to veto long-awaited legislation that would enhance hurricane protection along a Gulf Coast still struggling to recover from the devastating storms of two years ago.

House and Senate negotiators struck a bargain late last week on a $21 billion reauthorization of the Water Resources Development Act, with about 20 percent going to projects in Louisiana. The measure has broad support and is expected to get final passage this week before lawmakers leave for the monthlong August recess, and is expected to pass by veto-proof margins.

In a strong bipartisan vote, the House passed the bill 381-40.

But in a letter to key lawmakers, Bush's Office of Management and Budget said the price tag is too high. The administration also said the bipartisan deal shifted too much of the cost of new projects onto federal taxpayers and that it improperly green-lighted projects outside the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers.

"This is not how most Americans would expect their representatives in Washington to reach agreement, especially when it is their tax dollars that are being spent," OMB Director Rob Portman and John Paul Woodley, the assistant Army secretary over the Corps of Engineers, said in the letter.

Among other things, the bill would authorize a 72-mile system of levees and floodwalls to shield Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes from storms sweeping in from the Gulf of Mexico and up to $1.9 billion in Louisiana coastal restoration work. It would fortify New Orleans-area levees to withstand a 100-year storm and authorize $100 million for hurricane protection in Jean Lafitte and lower Jefferson Parish.

While the bill does not pay for the projects, it gives lawmakers the authorization to appropriate the money, something Louisiana has been waiting for since the last renewal of the Water Resources Development Act seven years ago. The clamor for action grew exponentially after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita damaged 90,000 square miles along the Gulf Coast and sent more than 2 million people fleeing from their homes in 2005.

"WE WILL DO WHAT IT TAKES." Right. Don't pee down our legs and tell us the levee broke . . . again.

It seems the present American preoccupation with deciding what lives are unworthy of life -- from the unborn to the unwell to the unfortunate -- has been extended to entire unwell and unfortunate states by this "pro-life" administration.

Looks like George Bush and those Washington hands of a like mind already have Louisiana's coffin picked out for it. All they need to do now is to create a corpse with a witch's brew of pretty words and malign neglect.

Well, maybe we can't stop what is starting to look inevitable -- though we can try like hell so long as life remains. But while we're doing that, we also can throw a nice jazz funeral for Louisiana.

That's what we're doing with this week's episode of the Revolution 21 podcast.

We can celebrate its life and treasure its culture. We can hold tight its memory in our hearts, and if it's going to go down -- maybe another good chunk washed away with the next Katrina or Rita -- at least it can go down with a song on its lips.

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away