Make Louisiana a U.S. Protectorate

I couldn't help but notice that you are highly critical of the Louisiana governor for his response to the BP oil spill, trying to rationalizing the destruction of a state's rights in favor of full Federal control, despite the fact there is no real technology available to cope with the full scale of this disaster. Huh... I wonder why you didn't recommend full government seizure during the Bush years and hurricane Katrina? Or was it solely because there was a Democrat governor at the time, and Corruptocrats, er, Democrats can do no wrong... You go enjoy your psychotic, elitist, leftist agenda while the country slips completely out of the control of Sheik Hussein (Obama) as American's come to terms with the fact that we've got a) the worst president in history and b) the biggest anti-American president in history.

What is wrong with this commentary? Not that it hits the truth. But something is missing. It is the acknowledgement that in Louisiana there is a middle class. Here we have the elitist upper crust prating and posing. Here is acknowledgement of the "happy pickers in the cotton patch". But not a sniffle or a sneeze about the fact that there is a middle class out here.
We are the ones who have been drawn and quartered the hardest by recent disasters, natrual or abetted by human agencies.We are not beholden to Section 8. We include the fishermen, oystermen, shrimp men, oil patch workers, suburbanites, and the lower ranks of the state and local government. We own mom-and-pop shops. Among our ranks you will find teachers, artists, musicians, entertainers, and just simple, down-home folks. We may not attend church/synagogue/temple in the numbers we used to decades ago, or talk about it much, but our faith and spiritual strength are strong.
This "overlooking of the Louisiana middle class" is pointed out clearly in the book MEDIA-MADE DIXIE: The South in the American Imagination, by Jack Temple Kirby (LSU Press, 1978).
NOTE: What adds injury to insult is to have this BP oil spill described as an "incident". It is a disaster. The word "incident" minimizes the scope of what has happened, and frankly, the word itself reeks of patronization.

We are corrupt in Louisiana because we accept bribes from Texans.
Yours truly in a swamp,
Leonard Earl Johnson
www.LEJ.org

Wow,
This is the worst piece of drivel, I have read in a long time.
Blaming LA for a spill in federal waters?
Calling for a federal take over of our state to protect us from whom?
Why not a federal take over of California, a state headed to bankruptcy? Why didn't the feds take over NYC when they were on the verge of bankruptcy back in the 80's?
Where is the headquarters of the Mafia? NYC. Whose governor is about to go to prison for trying to sell OBAMA's senate seat? Illinois. Both states are bastions of enlightenment?
Which states get the most federal subsidies in the form of federal programs, military bases that are no longer needed? Those with the most electoral votes: California, Florida,Texas, etc.
How did you get this gig?
Recent history has proven, every scam and disaster is either aided or made worse by the Federal government. From ENRON, to the financial crisis, to Katrina, our government, both Republicans and Democrats, aided and abetted the fraud and displayed frightening incompetence when leadership was required. How can anyone want more and bigger government after this?

--The word protect is definitely important in the relationship between Louisiana and the U S government; however, the proper use of the root word is protection from the U S government rather than becoming a protectorate of that government. Most of the major problems of Louisiana are as a result of the protection of the U S government---levees of the Mississippi, endless years of delay in projects that have worked in other countries while waiting for study after study of the predicted environmental impact while our environment disappears, destruction of a utile and educational medical system for the needy of our state, inferior engineering and building design of New Orleans levees that was the real cause of the Katrina Tragedy--not the storm itself--just to name a few of the more recent snafus. A large percentaqge of the people of Louisiana trace their heritage back 300-400 years in North America. These people may be "different" from other groups in the current U S; however, they are not stupid. A group of people does not come to a raw continent and exist and prosper if they are lazy or unintelligent. There are times for large governments to step aside and let the native folk get the job done.

As a resident of Louisiana and retired Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality employee, I must regretfully inform you that your Federal take over of Louisiana is a terrible - God awful - idea from someone who needs her FACTS set straight and her writings/creations grounded in sound judgement rather than New York liberal sensationalism writing. Points to be made are as follows:

-- "such as Hurricane Katrina, could be deemed acts of nature." -- What was it? An act of man? A right wing stunt? When it hits another State is/could it be, unnatural?

-- "every calamity that befalls Louisiana is made worse by its corrupt civic culture." -- What is this based upon? Hollywood movies or TV shows filmed here that you saw or heard about. Public officials that we put in jail? Yes, we put a lot of bad ones in prison down here for a long time. What do you do with them in New York?

-- "But there comes a time when the U.S. Taxpayers can no longer write blank checks to cover its dysfunction." -- The Federal Government did not pay for all the things it mandated and forced businesses, State and Local governments to do. Pay for a Louisiana dysfunction? In your creative dreams; Federal officials, Inspectors, GAO, auditors, reviewers and on and on and on would pull money from Louisiana in a heart beat if anything is ever questioned or suspected of being wrong. You do not know how tight the reins are on State government. Louisiana can not get the Feds to pay for Katrina and Rita costs still being disputed.

-- "But Louisiana doesn't seem able to move beyond its dependence on oil." -- This statement looks simple but it is far from the real truth - which is dependence on "the petro-chemical industry." It is the oil, natural gas, natural gas products, sulphur mined, salt mined, endless supply of fresh water, wood chips from forests and countless other materials that are readily available in Louisiana and can be move cheaply by barges and deep water ships. This combination and location exists only in Louisiana and the East Texas Gulf Coast. It exists no where else in the United States. You want plastics, farm chemicals, gasoline, medicines, paper products, you name ... it come from here.

-- "Texas" -- Louisiana's entire state population is approximately equal to the City of Houston. Compare Rhode Island to New York and you get an idea of how we feel when it comes to size and economic power. Texas dwarfs us but we get along very well and would likely join them if they carry out their talk of leaving the Union since you mentioned them.

-- "Jindal wants over 100 miles of sand berms to supposedly protect his coastline." -- It is Louisiana's coast line and it is several thousand (1,000++) miles of coast with the bays and islands that need protection. Governor Bobby Jindal has with LSU scientist and local officials identified certain areas that can be help with just 100 miles of sand berms, I am sure that the Wall Street Journal in their office in New York has all the data as to why this will not work like; winds, tides, rain fall, storms, sand drift, wash outs, fish migration, salinity, evaporation rates, ...

-- "Jindal, meanwhile, is asking Obama to end the moratorium on the kind of new deepwater drilling that caused all this pain." -- Governor Jindal is correct. This is not the first well to blow out and won't be the last no matter what the democrats do or don't do. This is not the first or last time safety precautions are going to be violated. Stopping drilling will accomplish nothing. The newest offshore equipment, the best offshore equipment will simply set sail and move to the waters of another country. The equipment has to move because of its costs and short working life. A deep water drilling platform rents for $500,000.00 ++ A DAY. The support for a platform crews, pipe, mud, ships, helicopters, materials, lease, company cost and other support are two to ten times the platform daily rentals. Internal economic estimates from some of the other big oil companies rumored are that Obama's stupid decision to stop drilling will eventually knock 4% out of the US economy; a few big oil companies and oil service companies are planning budgeting for an 8% to 10% drop in the US economy or Gross Nation Product. I do not care what the Wall Street Journal thinks or writes about this blow out, a environmental disaster does not need to be followed an economic by one caused by a liberal agenda of no drilling.

-- "Much of southern Louisiana is under sea level and periodically floods." -- Bull. Get out the flood maps and learn how to read them; see the elevations for yourself before you spout this media garbage. There are no dikes or reclaimed sea beds in Louisiana like there is in the Netherlands. The only inhabited area of Louisiana that is below sea level is a portion of the New Orleans area that is surrounded by levees for protection from hurricanes and the Mississippi River. The problem is that the levees on the north side of the New Orleans (Lake Ponchatrain) were not high/strong/good enough for Hurricane Katrina as it pushed too much water in (the lake) and flooded New Orleans. Where there is no hurricane protection, at least Category 3, Louisiana people have moved out and don't live full time there for the most part. You would be very, very hard pressed to find really 15,000 people living within five miles of the true coast. Everyone who was here for Katrina and RIta knows that a Category 4 hurricane can push a wall of water 25 feet above high tide 30 mile inland. Tampa or New York City could easily loose 500,000 people in Category 4 hurricane - sea level be damned.

Ms. Harrop you need to take a trip to Louisiana and see things for yourself. Do your homework. Gather your own data. Reach your own conclusions after you have done your work. We have to live in this place; we were angry with Bush too. Maybe we do have something in common but more Federal Government is not something we share.

First of all, who in the hell are you? And just a helpful hint, if you want to stay in the business you are in you should try doing a little more homework before you write such an ignorant article. You obviously have extremely limited knowledge about the great state of Louisiana. Maybe you should stick to all of the shortcomings of your own state and try to solve the many problems there before you try to become an expert on things you know very little about.

Many of Ms. Harrop's points are spot on in this piece.

Louisiana is the American example that socialism doesn't work. We are a welfare state. In almost every measure of the effectiveness of the state government in full filling it's responsibility we are at the bottom---roads, schools, health care ect--yet we have one of the largest state governments per capita in the USA. Our state and municipal employees have pensions literally worth millions in present value dollars and we have more retired state workers than actual state employees.

We refuse to make hard decisions that will make our state a better place. She is right about federal flood insurance allowing us to build our homes in ridiculous locations and when disaster strikes we scream for help to make the same mistakes. We embrace a tax structure that discourages business development and investment while keeping the tax burden on the populace low.

I too have reservations about Jindal's sand berm plans. I have not read any independent research indicating they will work but I do know the politically active Shaw Industries will get hundreds of millions performing the work.

Now I doubt the federal take over of Louisiana would result in anything but a larger welfare state but it would be nice if somehow a dictator committed to free enterprise and small government could somehow be arranged for Louisiana.

Many of Ms. Harrop's points are spot on in this piece.

Louisiana is the American example that socialism doesn't work. We are a welfare state. In almost every measure of the effectiveness of the state government in full filling it's responsibility we are at the bottom---roads, schools, health care ect--yet we have one of the largest state governments per capita in the USA. Our state and municipal employees have pensions literally worth millions in present value dollars and we have more retired state workers than actual state employees.

We refuse to make hard decisions that will make our state a better place. She is right about federal flood insurance allowing us to build our homes in ridiculous locations and when disaster strikes we scream for help to make the same mistakes. We embrace a tax structure that discourages business development and investment while keeping the tax burden on the populace low.

I too have reservations about Jindal's sand berm plans. I have not read any independent research indicating they will work but I do know the politically active Shaw Industries will get hundreds of millions performing the work.

Now I doubt the federal take over of Louisiana would result in anything but a larger welfare state but it would be nice if somehow a dictator committed to free enterprise and small government could somehow be arranged for Louisiana.

Many of Ms. Harrop's points are spot on in this piece.

Louisiana is the American example that socialism doesn't work. We are a welfare state. In almost every measure of the effectiveness of the state government in full filling it's responsibility we are at the bottom---roads, schools, health care ect--yet we have one of the largest state governments per capita in the USA. Our state and municipal employees have pensions literally worth millions in present value dollars and we have more retired state workers than actual state employees.

We refuse to make hard decisions that will make our state a better place. She is right about federal flood insurance allowing us to build our homes in ridiculous locations and when disaster strikes we scream for help to make the same mistakes. We embrace a tax structure that discourages business development and investment while keeping the tax burden on the populace low.

I too have reservations about Jindal's sand berm plans. I have not read any independent research indicating they will work but I do know the politically active Shaw Industries will get hundreds of millions performing the work.

Now I doubt the federal take over of Louisiana would result in anything but a larger welfare state but it would be nice if somehow a dictator committed to free enterprise and small government could somehow be arranged for Louisiana.

It seems like at every turn the Federal administration is inhibiting the state and local administration... and you want to dispose of the only people who actually care and are trying to do what they can to stem the tide of oil.

Obama has been there from "Day One"..
reviewing plans.. and promising approval "sometime late tomorrow.. or maybe early next week... we'll come to a decision soon we promise." How long did the Fed held up the sand barrier idea?... or do you really think that it is better for oil to hit the vital and fragile ecosystem of the marsh? EVERYTHING in the area is going to get hit with oil.. and you are worried about fishkill from stirring up SAND? (BP is going to pay for clean up.. why is it that all our solutions get help up for WEEKS by the Fed even after they are approved by BP?)
Refusing to temporarily repeal a law to allow foreign ships to aid. ("It's not necessary")
Making the chain of command a complicated mess that involves regularly recalling work crews and vessels for "inspections", and then not knowing who was needed to do the inspection. Jindal, having pretty much given up on getting any real help from the Fed, ordered vacuum barges out.. they were recalled for over a day without notice because someone in the Coast Guard was worried about life jackets and fire extinguishers.
And I'm not even going to get into the moratorium... I thought one of the major goals of this administration was to increase jobs... oh wait Obama got BP to set up a welfare fund. It'll be alright. All those hard working riggers and fishermen will love him now- they get to get free money at the cost of their pride! A few years of that and LA will vote blue for sure!

Or maybe LA would be better if Obama would just get himself and the Fed Govt out of the way.

(As a a note unrelated to the current disaster, LA actually was one of the last states to go into recession, and it had one of the lightest. This even without all the royalties that Texas gets from oil... that Texas invested in the industries it has today. We'll be sharing the recession pain with the rest of the country now.)

The drilling plan was approved by the federal government to begin with. How exactly would that have been different under a federal protectorate?

So what is the brand of glue Harrop is sniffing? I'm surprised that this idiot didn't blame Bush for the spill. I guess that will be the next gem she writes.
I have a question for all. What purpose do liberals serve in this country? We all know that serving in the military and defending our nation is beneath them. All they do is bitch and complain about everything and are spine-less cowards.(The real reason they don't serve).
I have also heard that the dimocrats are the "smart" ones in our nation. Who said that? A damnocrat? They are all idiots starting with the "Obamanation" and ending at my idiot neighbor that voted for him whom also at first thought Russia was invading the state of Georgia two years ago.
Any theories let me know!
Semper Fi

It never ceases to amaze me when national columnists who are unfamiliar with present day Louisiana make the kind of uninformed comments that appeared in this column. Your implication that we are somehow incapable of "minding the store" of our state is not supported by the facts. Our state has a Congressional delegation of seven. Of those seven, three are medical doctors. One of the other four is the only Vietnamese/American serving in the US Congress. One of our Senators is a Rhodes Scholar. Our governor is the only Indian American to ever serve as a Governor of a US state and is also a Rhodes Scholar.
One of our senators is a woman and a woman is the Chief Justice of our State Supreme Court. The mayors of our three largest cities, New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport are minorities in their cities. The mayors of Baton Rouge and Shreveport are African American in white majority cities. The mayor of New Orleans is white in a majority African American city. Diversity is alive and well in Louisiana.
In this latest economic malaise our state unemployment rate has consistently been way below the national average. Our residential real estate and banking industries were not affected anywhere near as badly as most other states by defaults. I believe that alone indicates a degree of responsibility on the part of our people and businesses that far exceeds the national average.
The fact that we have been the bullseye of two of the worst disasters in our nations history does not qualify us for "protectorate" status. In a recent survey of satisfaction rates of citizens of the various states Louisiana was rated by our own people as the happiest state in which to live. Our legislature is currently meeting to resolve budget issues as are a majority of the other states. Our deficit is no where near that of other states. With respect to corruption Congressman William Jefferson is an anomaly. It has been years since our Governor or any other high ranking state officials have been involved in any illegal activity that resulted in legal action.
All in all, I believe we are quite capable of governing ourselves without the help of the Federal government and we certainly don't need or deserve the kind of condescension expressed in your obviously biased column.
Ken Best
Small Businessman,
Baton Rouge, La.

Random thoughts:

Feeling smug? Sell your car, ride a bicycle, remove your house from the power grid, stop buying products with plastic components, then we can talk about who is dependent on oil and who isn't.

From what I can see, Louisiana's economy is already less dependent on oil than it was before the last big bust. Many, many oil jobs (especially management and higher paying skilled jobs) left New Orleans and Lafayette for Houston and never came back. Our civic problems are much more complicated than over dependence on an extractive economy - and I doubt the feds will ever come close to understanding the truth about anything down here.

Meantime, if you value the independence of the United States, let us dummies drill domestically while you smart people figure out how to transition away from oil in a way that will actually work and be affordable. It will take you a while, so I would appreciate it if y'all wouldn't completely destroy our economy in the interim with an ill-advised drilling ban.

Finally: If we are a lost cause, forget the protectorate idea. Just give Israel's land back to the Palestinians and move the nation of Israel to Louisiana. It would be a win-win, I reckon.

Garbage - utter garbage.

Let the US Gov't. take over the trash bin of the northeast - New York State.

In the meantime, why don't you simply reitre - you are certainly not an informed columnist.

Saint Francis

Missy Harrop.......who are you? Where do you live? Where is it that you vote for your Liberal associates? Where did you go to school? But above all, who appointed you god and master with the ability to put down your fellow Americans in such a manner? No.......our schools don't cost $50K a year to attend. But....apparently you feel that your ownership of a comuter with a Word program gives you license to ridicule others in such a manner. Your statements are breathtakingly idiotic! I'd have to wager that you've never been any further south than Tennessee of Kentucky. You don't know what we're like at all! I'd also have to guess too that your knowledge of the politics, economy, and infrastructure of Louisiana comes from the movies you might just have seen and not cared for...thinking "those poor misguided people. Why do they live in such an awful place with such awful conditions?".
Miss Harrop....I'd just as soon you leave your Liberal trashy friends up there with you. Stay away from our great state unless you're willing (and able) to meet the finest and happiest people in the country. We love it here and will get along just fine without the "Change" which your friends in D.C. are attempting to pull over our collective heads.

If you'd ever wish to write an article that's more informed opinion than it is ignorant bias, the first step is to learn how to do research on reputable sites on the internet. And if you're ever going to write about Louisiana, I invite you to do some of your research via internet sites that feature news, opinion and features by people who are real journalists (nola.com comes to mind since the journalists there are actually getting out of their offices to get verifiable facts and information before they write their stories and editorials).

I suspect this claptrap is nothing more than a sorry reflection on your own belief that you're morally and intellectually superior to us "small people" in the states affected by the oil disaster. Wait a second -- you work for BP, don't you? I'd recognize that smug, misinformed attitude anywhere!

I just have a few words for you. We will keep our oil but you better get plenty of blankets this winter. Your comments show the small brain you have. And you know what? If you get hit by a major storm or other such thing guess who will be the first to help? Remember 911"

The late, great, Jerry Clower once said "Lady, it's obvious you've been educated beyond your intellegence."

Ms. Harrop, thank you for publishing this article. My son will be entering journalism school in the fall. Your article is a perfect example of how assinine a journalist looks when ge/she publishes a piece without doing any research. Entering this piece of garbage in the how-NOT-to-operate file.


PS Perhaps Louisiana would be a rich state if we received our rightful share of oil revenue from the federal govt. Maybe you should at least research this fact!

Mrs. Harrop.

This is probably the most ignorant article that I've ever read in my entire life. I could have killed the same number of brain cells that I have reading this idiocy by downing a six pack of Abita and it would have been time better spent. The federal government has failed the people of Louisiana and you're proposing that they take over my home state? Only because your messiah is in charge? Then again, I shouldn't expect less from a New York elitist who probably never ventured outside Manhattan. Sorry hon, your city is overrated.

Wasn't Obama in office when this well was approved? Wasn't his administration's MMS that awarded this rig with a safety award a year ago? Didn't BP employees donate more money to the Obama campagin than any other candidate ever? Doesn't BP have a huge state in this cap-and-tax nonsense?

You fail to mention that our state is poor due to the years of populist policies, starting with Huey Long (a socialist Democrat), that was a part of state politics for generations. The man coined the phrase "A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage". Socialism has been tried in this state and it lead to the corrupt politics that Louisiana was famous for and the welfare system that never incentivized people to better themselves.

Even today we have more state government employees per capita than any state in the union. Many of which are overpaid, lazy, and bring no value to state government. I know, I worked as a contractor and saw how much time state employees here waste. If they worked in the private sector, they'd be fired in days. The good thing is that we're finally waking up to this and things are starting to change.

Perhaps the government should take over Chicago with kids being murdered in cold blood or the cesspool formerly known as Detroit. Both of which are products of socialist Democrat policies for generations. Both cities have people leaving in droves for better pastures.

You guys miss the point of the column. Ms. Harrop is not a jurnalist in the traditional sense. She is an opinion columist. Her columns are designed to provoke, to poke, to prod, to sell, to improve her circulation. Carefully reserched facts are something you would see in a jornalistic news story. Her columns appear on the editorial page where the only opinion that matters is hers. Her columns more closely resemble something you would see in The National Enquirer than something you would see in The Washington Post. Serious jornalism is something she leaves for others.

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing". Ms. Harrop is a perfect example of this. She needs to do her homework. Why doesn't the federal govt. take over Chicago, Detriot or California? The Country gets our oil and gas without compensating us for this. Other states get 50% royalties, Louisiana gets less than 10%. Her comment about no sane person building in S. Louisiana. What about earthquakes and fires in California, tornados in Midwest, building off of East coast, etc...

You are an idiot. You think government can solve problems - Osama can't figure out what to do about the spill. Fossil fuels are used for a variety of products, not just cars. Petroleum is in almost everything, whether as a component or as a factor in production. Have you thought of the environmental impact of battery disposal for electric cars? Where is the current regime's comprehensive energy plan? A 6-month moratorium on offshore drilling further compromises our national security, increasing our dependence on foreign oil. Louisiana contributes significantly to the US economy, not just oil. What does your state give us? Big houses on a beach. It is an incompetent federal legislature and an idiot in the White House that help keep Louisiana down. You don't like it here? Fine, stay your tree-hugging, unrealistic ass out. And take that magic wand with you. Federal programs don't work. And the illegal reorganization of GM - violating US bankruptcy laws-shows what unchecked power will do for us.