Friends of New Atlantis

"Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again… and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, kick' ‘em in the ass and take your rightful share!"
--Huey Long, 1927

SHOULD WE DECLARE?

by Jack Moss
He handles the spread and political analysis for www.NOLAFugees.com . His series on secession continues next issue.

The questions still abound: Why devote the tax dollars of hard-working Americans to rebuild a city that lies below sea-level, a city which will inevitably be demolished again by the next storm? Why should America help a citizenry that won'’t help itself, a citizenry who, for the most part, prefers to spend its days on stoops or porches doing nothing, or in barrooms imbibing spirits, rather than being industrious and contributing to the American GDP?
Why should Congress appropriate funds to a place that has almost nothing in common with the rest of the country, instead of, say, Iraq, where officials are elected by the people, fair and square, out in the open, not by a handful of men in some fancy suite in the Fairmont Hotel or some smoky back room at Ruth’s Chris?

As New Orleanians, we scarcely have good answers to such questions. Sure, our city is mostly below sea-level and will likely be destroyed again in similar circumstances. And of course many of us would rather not work, and so don'’t. GDP? Unless that’'s an acronym for Garden District Pussy, we don'’t give a drowned puppy'’s ass about it.) And, indubitably, New Orleans is not like anyother place in America.

New Orleans is America’s kinky-haired stepchild. More aptly, New Orleans is America’'s refrigerator, a fridge left without electricity for weeks, one now teeming with hundreds of thousands of squealing, squirming maggots— one which its owner would sooner haul to the curb and forget about before soiling itshands to clean and restore it.

Face it, New Orleans: America no longer wants you.

Finally, the sentiment is mutual. New Orleans must now do what it has been meaning to do for centuries —secede.

Imagine it: the smiling face of Louis Armstrong on our one dollar bill, or rather, our one Orléans (“Or-lay-awnh”) bill and Jean Lafitte on our one Orléans coin; a Michalopoulos-designed flag flying high above our capitol building, the Cabildo; foreign dignitaries, at state dinners, eating food
prepared by Paul Prudhomme and being entertained by Ingrid Lucia; our first monarch, Edwin Edwards, who'’s always had the support of a majority of New Orleanians, with crown and scepter by Mignon Faget, parading down Canal Street on a gilded float built by Blaine Kern, proceeded by St. Aug’'s Marching 100, en route to the Superdome to preside over weekly gladiatorial contests between rival ward gangs; Kermit Ruffins performing our national anthem, which he wrote in conjunction with the Cash Money Millionaires.

But how will the Principality of New Orleans fare in the burgeoning global economy? Quite well, in fact. New Orleans would be a mix of all the best aspects of itself, Singapore, Monaco, and Amsterdam. For starters, every cargo of goods that passes in or out of the mouth of the Mississippi River would be taxed. We would also keep the hundreds of billions in revenue from oil production and refining that we used to send to Washington. In addition, unlike the United States, we would garner trade agreements with Cuba and Venezuela.
Like Panama and Switzerland, we would also encourage international banks to open branch institutions here. And, getting back to our roots, we would legalize and regulate all forms of gambling and narcotics, as well as prostitution; these activities would not only provide more tax revenue to the newly-formed nation, but would also secure its place as the most popular
international tourist destination, yuh heard.

Certainly, the easy part for most New Orleanians will be seceding from the Union; the harder part will be seceding from Louisiana —well, South Louisiana, anyway, as we scarcely relate to those Louisianans who call anywhere north ofOpelousas home. Many of our family, friends, and kindred spirits live there.

So what do we do? The answer, of course, is to offer the rest of South Louisiana, should it also secede, the opportunity to become a vassal state. The relationship would be symbiotic: to the vassal would go a portion of the large financial product churned out by the great economic machine New Orleans will become; in return, New Orleans would receive any surplus of the vassal’s agricultural production, as well as its surplus of labor. The upside for South Louisiana would be huge, the downside negligible. The alternative—remaining economically challenged and still a part of a country that doesn'’t want it either —would be grim at best.

We shouldn'’t forget, though, that the nation which cannot protect itself from foreign invasion is no nation at all. Again, adhering to the Swiss example, our mission would be to defend ourselves and only ourselves: there’'d be no training to fight in deserts or the Arctic, no heavy equipment devoted to razing jungles and boring into caves. Along with our small but agile navy of airboats, piloted by shoot-anything-that-moves bayou boys, we would install a couple of surface-to-air missiles under the Crescent City Connection and a few on top of One Shell Square and call it a day. Or better yet, if the shit hits the fan, we'’ll follow the example of our wise countrymen in Audubon Place and contract Israeli mercenaries.

All that’'d be left would be normalizing relations with the United States. Sure, it'’ll be nasty at first, but eventually we'’d find that special someone, that perfect ambassador who both speaks the American military-industrial-banking complex’s language but still unambiguously represents New Orleans. If we give much of New Orleans East to banker and real estate mogul Joe Cannizaro to do with as he pleases, odds are, he’ll take the job.

So then, shall we declare?

# posted by Cholo @ 2:12 PM