New Orleans is running out of time. Her evacuees' right of return needs to be honored, her recovery needs to be treated as a major campaign issue, and the mainstream media needs to cover New Orleans and her evacuees regularly, frequently, and honestly. It's time for some new ideas that can draw to New Orleans the attention, and more importantly, the aid, that she needs.
Lately the mainstream media has been almost silent on New Orleans, as if she has been forgotten. They, like the Bush Administration, have abandoned her people, many of whom are still struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives and are in a world of physical and mental hurt. And on those rare occasions that New Orleans' evacuees who still haven't returned have been covered, it has been through the following inaccurate template: New Orleans' evacuees haven't returned because they don't want to. To put it politely, the MSM has been full of baloney on this issue.
Allied with the MSM's infrequent, dishonest New Orleans coverage is the fact that her recovery is not being treated as a valid national campaign issue. The Democratic candidates only bring it up when stumping for votes in New Orleans. This is only because they cannot avoid the topic while there. But I'm not going to blast any or all of the candidates on this matter because the MSM has been calling the tune regarding the campaign and the candidates have been dancing to it instead of making their own music. It's just easier for the candidates to do this instead of deciding for themselves what the major national issues are and taking definite stands on them.
And this is unfortunate. The corporate-run mainstream media, with their vested interest in keeping the business-friendly Republican Party in power, want to shape the agenda and America's future. The MSM, adhering to the Bush Administration's sinister agenda regarding New Orleans and Louisiana, don't see a healthy Louisiana that's whole, with a rebuilt, repopulated New Orleans, as a part of this future. Also, to support the GOP, the MSM are doing anything possible to make the Democrats look bad. The MSM don't want issues such as New Orleans, which were she a major talking point would make the Democrats look better than the GOP, to be on the agenda.
This is why New Orleans, in spite of the Bush Administration's abysmal response to her flooding and its current criminal neglect, is almost never discussed in debates, on talk shows, or in interviews with the candidates as well as rarely being covered in newscasts. And the candidates get the false impression from New Orleans' not being in the news or otherwise not being discussed by newspeople that there is a lack of interest in New Orleans on the part of the American voting public and that New Orleans' fate is moot because evacuees who haven't returned to New Orleans don't want to return. This is very sad.
And in light of this media blackout, can you blame the candidates for not nationally speaking out on or otherwise doing more to support New Orleans' recovery?
The mainstream media needs to start telling the truth: New Orleans' evacuees have the right to return. The reason many haven't is because of the lack of affordable housing. And the candidates not only need to pay attention to this issue, but many need to come up with concrete plans. Hillary Clinton has a 10-point Gulf Coast Recovery Plan, and John Edwards also has some sort of plan, but as far as I know, the rest of the Democratic candidates don't. (Unless they do, but the MSM hasn't covered them.) But unfortunately, because of the MSM's interest in keeping a Republican administration in power, the MSM will never do this unless attention is drawn to New Orleans and her people's right to return in an extraordinary manner.
Here are several ideas for drawing media attention to New Orleans and spurring the media and the candidates to focus on New Orleans' recovery and repopulation:
1.) Get your message out to the blogosphere. If you're tech-savvy, quote and post links on other blogs to any and all Nolaphile pieces you can find, anything that argues that her recovery is a vital campaign issue that should not be ignored. So that they get the widest exposure possible, instruct readers to pass them on to other blogs. If you aren't tech-savvy, post your own pro-New Orleans recovery messages wherever possible.
2.) E-mail to the mainstream media demands that they provide the following:
A.) Frequent, regular New Orleans coverage, which fully and accurately reports on the evacuees' right to return and all other issues affecting that city and Louisiana.
B.) Questions about New Orleans in EVERY debate, whether Democratic or Republican. And I don't mean a single "lightning-round" questions to just one candidate. They ALL need to talk about New Orleans in detail the way they'd talk about Iraq, health care, or any other pressing national issue that has been discussed in depth in debates. If Tim Russert has time to ask John Edwards about his haircuts and hedge funds, he has time to ask him about New Orleans.
C.) Questions about New Orleans when the candidates are on talk shows or being interviewed.
D.) A nationally-televised debate held in New Orleans, that's all about New Orleans. (In the interest of full disclosure, another Kossack suggested such a debate--but it's such a good idea I'm including it here.)
3.) Jena-type rallies in support of New Orleans and her poor's right to return. The large amount of participation in and interest in the inspiring rallies in Jena showed that something like this is doable if civil rights groups and other organizations which support the right of return of the poor to New Orleans, as well as bloggers, can be mobilized.
The rallies should not be held only in New Orleans, but all over the country to show that bringing New Orleans back is truly a NATIONAL issue, not local, state or regional. And that it has national implications. And, so that unlike Jena, this does not turn out to be a "here today, gone tomorrow" news story, the demonstrations should be held in different cities around the country in different weeks. The participants should demand affordable housing, Category 5 levees, Louisiana coastal restoration, additional federal funding for New Orleans, and New Orleans' treatment as a major campaign issue.
Here are several good places for such rallies outside of New Orleans: Houston and Atlanta, both of which have large concentrations of evacuees who wish to return to New Orleans but can't afford to. Washington DC, carefully timed for when Bush is in the White House and Congress is in session. New York City, because that's where much of the mainstream media are. Other large cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles.
And there should also be demonstrations in cities and towns in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada--and anyplace else where Democratic candidates will be appearing, carefully timed for when they'll be present in order to capture their attention. Perhaps such rallies will cut through the barrier of MSM inattention to New Orleans to persuade at least one of the candidates to distinguish him or herself on this issue.
Do you think any of the above ideas would be helpful? Do you have any other suggestions? At any rate, New Orleans is running out of time--and anything that would focus national attention to her and causes her to become a major campaign issue would be a good idea.