When our president visited New Orleans last week, he stated that the government had written the check for the recovery of our city. The money has been sent to Louisiana, but has gotten stuck somewhere in Baton Rouge. There is undoubtedly some truth to this, although he gave the sense that after sending that money, the whole problem is now out of his hands. Not my problem anymore, he seemed to suggest. The idea of sending manpower to help us rebuild apparently has not occurred to him. If New Orleans were as important as Iraq, our city would be back on its feet by now.

Meanwhile our governor acts as though writing checks is against her best interests. We have an election coming up in October, and I am willing to bet that the money will start flowing more easily as that election approaches. Watch that money start coming our way in August and September. Meanwhile, somebody is sitting on our billions.

Howard Zinn was on C-SPAN a couple of weeks ago, and he made the point that the interests of the government are not the same as the interests of the people. This thought helped me to understand what is happening (or not happening) to our city. The interests of our government are certainly not the same as the interests of the people who once lived in the housing projects or in the Lower Ninth Ward. The interests of the government are certainly not the same as the interests of working people and homeowners. I can only come to the horrifying conclusion that to the government a major American city might be expendable if they think that it is not in their interest to protect it.

I do not simply mean that the government is short-sighted or corrupt. What I mean is that the people are of secondary importance to the government, secondary at best.

It is difficult for an American to except this idea. We are raised and trained on the idea that the government is of the people, by the people, and so on. But the idea that the government — even the state government — only acts in its own interest makes the situation of this city much more understandable. It may also help one to understand why this government can tolerate the death and wounding of so many Americans to protect oil interests and the monarchy of Saudi Arabia.