Please accept this letter from a very frustrated citizen who is tired of bearing silent witness to the degrading situation in the city of New Orleans. I am not a resident of the city, nor the state of Louisiana, however as a taxpayer and voting American I feel it is both my privilege and responsibility to make my anger known over continued violence and lack of economic development in the city. I understand that billions of dollars have been pledged to New Orleans by Congress, but as many citizens have attested in interviews and blog entries, and as the major news outlets have covered, there are still massive problems with city services, neighborhood security and the school system. To put it bluntly, the city is broken and just as the federal, state and local governments were incapable of saving its citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levees, we all seem incapable of moving fast enough now to prevent the city’s final collapse. On one level this inaction is disheartening but as exhibited by the march on City Hall yesterday, on other levels it is downright infuriating.

I understand that our national security is threatened on multiple levels from multiple directions in the 21st century and I would not suggest a simplistic solution of abandoning Iraq and Afghanistan to save New Orleans. However, I am sure it is abundantly obvious to all of you that it is hypocritical to pour so many resources into distant cities that might pose future threats to our safety when the murder rate in an American city mirrors that of one halfway across the world. U.S. soldiers are dying in Iraq and the President has pledged billions of dollars to save that country’s fledgling democracy; citizens are dying in New Orleans and it barely makes the news and the money….the money seems locked in endless committees, requiring an infinitesimal amount of red tape to be cut to free it, and a thousand promises of commitment given before it will be released.

The U.S. military might very well save Iraq in the year 2007, but it will not matter for the Americans who live in New Orleans; they will perish or abandon their dying city and the elusive unexplained victory so many politicians seem to crave in the Middle East will be a hollow one because of that. It will simply be proof that we care about our citizens only if they are threatened by outside forces and not at all if they are bleeding from the hands of Americans – not at all if they are dying in America.

Something has got to change.

Dollars need to be freed up for honest, solid, planned rebuilding efforts. Dollars need to be freed up for increased focus on education that works. Dollars need to be freed up to fix one of the most inept and pathetic criminal justice systems in the country. Dollars need to be freed up to make city streets safe. Frankly, dollars need to be freed up to get the power on and sewers cleared. It’s that basic and that simple and I don’t see it happening and neither does anyone else.