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Archive for February 25th, 2008

Feb 25

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Hillary Clinton in New Orleans


The state of the union is not strong until the State of the Black Union is strong. – Hillary Clinton, New Orleans, 23 FEB 2008

hillary state of the black union 2008

Hillary Clinton once again universalized the particular during the speech she delivered at the State of the Black Union 2008 symposium at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans on 23 FEB. The plight of African-Americans is the plight of all Americans, she declared, enacting a dialectical movement similar to the one she performed at the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995, when she famously recast womens' rights as human rights before a global audience. This rhetorical sublation is, in my opinion, utterly apposite for Saturday's occasion. For not only did Hillary promise to help implement the policies outlined in Travis Smiley's 2006 text entitled Covenant with Black America; she likened Smiley's program to a "roadmap" that will guide the citizens of this country to a place where all of us will cast our differences aside and "start acting as if we are Americans once again."

 

Hillary's Democratic utopia is one wherein the various gaps separating Black America from America will finally witness their overdue obsolescence. The first gaps Hillary discussed in New Orleans are the achievement gap and the education gap, social problems she will redress with her Youth Opportunity Agenda, a program she hopes will reduce high school drop out rates by 50% during her term in office. Other solutions to the education and achievement gaps Hillary mentioned are her plan to render college more affordable and her intention to double government support of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

 

Another gap Hillary addressed the environmental justice gap. The first example she cited is the high concentration of formaldehyde in FEMA’s notorious toxic trailers, an egregious manifestation of Bush’s incompetence with which all of us are all too familiar. Hillary also mentioned lead poisoning, and she noted how Latino and African-American children have twice the rate of lead poisoning than their Caucasian semblables. According to Hillary, these environmental injustices cannot be viewed as so many mere coincidences, for to her they are the products of “a toxic combination of discrimination and neglect we must fix.” And fix it she will. For not only did Hillary convene a groundbreaking Senate hearing on the subject of environmental justice on 25 JULY 2007; she also promised to treat environmental violations that disproportionately impact minority populations as Civil Rights violations during her Presidency.

 

Hillary also outlined an economic agenda that will eliminate the income gap, one of the many unfinished projects of Martin Luther King, Jr. Although incomes of African-American households rose $7,000 during the Presidency of Bill Clinton, they have decreased $2,600 since the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001. Solutions Hillary proposes in order to close the growing income disparities between America and Black America include the creation of 5,000,000 jobs in a renewable energy sector with training facilities in economically depressed areas of our crumbling inner cities. Hillary also mentioned how her commitment to the reconstruction our country’s deteriorating infrastructure will yield job opportunities to those who are struggling under the Bush economy. But her economic agenda includes more than just the creation of jobs; it also includes the implementation of reforms within the banking industry that will both stimulate growth and assure economic stability within the African-American community. She promises to stem the tide of home foreclosures, and she will impose criminal penalties on predatory lenders who administer unaffordable subprime mortgage loans. Moreover, Hillary will provide various inducements for the funneling of capital to small business and for the establishment of financial institutions in historically underserved areas.

 

The first social problem broached in Tavis Smiley’s Covenant is the health care crisis presently besieging the African-American community. Hillary explained how she is the only Presidential candidate whose health care proposal fulfills the pledge of the Covenant to redress health care disparities, for she is the only candidate whose proposal contains a system of mandates that ensures universal coverage. Moreover, Hillary’s health care plan does not create an undue burden on families: the $110 billion required to fund her program will be offset by the termination of the various tax cuts Bush provided to those in the upper income brackets and to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and tax incentives and other inducements will be provided to small businesses who grant employees access to Hillary’s American Health Choices Plan. Because Hillary views universal health care as a core Democratic value, she is proud to make one the most pressing concern of the Covenant central to her campaign’s platform.

 

Leadership, according to Hillary Clinton, entails the establishment of a bond of trust, a covenant, and she visited New Orleans in order to inform Black America and Louisiana that her covenant with us is a covenant she has with America. Black America is America, and the “rebuilding of New Orleans is not a Louisiana obligation but an American obligation that every one of us is called to do.” Particulars, in other words, must be made universal, for only together will we finally shatter barriers and change the course of this “wounded nation” that remains woefully divided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 25

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Historic Alexandria: Bailey’s Dam

Pictured: Joseph Bailey (from the National Archives).

From the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism and by Stephen D. Smith and George Castille III:

Major General Nathaniel P Banks, Union commander of the Red River military expedition, found himself in a particularly tight situation in April of 1864. He had been defeated at the Battle of Mansfield while attempting to capture Shreveport, Louisiana, and now he was retreating down the Red River, harassed by Confederate troops at every turn. Throughout the campaign, the river’s low water level had been a constant problem to his naval support of gunboats under the command of Rear Admiral David D. Porter. Now, Banks and Porter discovered that the river was so low that the gunboats were trapped above the rapids at Alexandria.

To save the flotilla, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey suggested that the river could be dammed to raise the water level and f1oat the gunboats over the shallow rapids. Despite the doubts and jeers of many, Banks authorized Bailey to begin construction. Through the next two weeks, troops struggled to build the dam which eventually made it possible for the fleet to escape.

In 1976 the archaeological remains of Bailey’s Dam were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and through 1986, they could be seen at times of low water. However, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is constructing a modern lock and dam downstream of this historic site, and the Red River will permanently cover Bailey’s Dam. Recognizing the historical and archaeological importance of’ the dam, the Corps sponsored archaeological excavations there in 1984.

This is the introduction to a booklet published by Smith and Castille about Bailey’s Dam. The entire booklet can be read here.

Archaeologists investigated these structures during a low water period by carefully digging two small excavation units around partially exposed crib remains. These units were 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. As the archaeologists removed the surrounding mud and dirt and exposed the cribs, they painstakingly recorded the position of each timber and beam. Afterward they studied their photographs and notes, comparing their findings with the historical records.

Historical accounts indicate that lumber from Alexandria mills, homes, and barns was quickly stripped for use in building the cribs. Bricks, stone, and even machinery were used to fill and anchor the cribs. Additionally, historical illustrations show that iron bars were placed vertically in the four corners of each crib, to provide a supporting framework.

The evidence from modern archaeological excavations generally supports the historical accounts with some interesting variations. Both lines of evidence testify to the ingenuity of Lieutenant Colonel Bailey. The excavations revealed that the crib framework was constructed of hand hewn 4-by-lO-inch timbers, which is strong evidence that the lumber was from nearby buildings. The ends of these timbers were notched so that they fit tightly together at the corners of the cribs. The corners were supported by smaller vertical wood posts. However, in the cribs excavated by the archaeologists, there was no evidence of the iron support bars. Furthermore, there was no evidence of machinery parts in the cribs. Instead, they found that the cribs were filled mostly with sand and mud and only capped with a layer of loose brick and stone. A metal fragment of a large sugar kettle was also found among this brick and stone. A sugar kettle was just the kind of loose hut heavy object that could be quickly transported to the cribs for anchoring material.

On the east (Pineville) bank, there were no town buildings to strip for lumber but there was, quite conveniently, a forest. With abundant trees available, Bailey constructed a ‘self-loading” tree dam. According to historical diagrams, trees were stacked lengthwise with the flow of the stream. The upstream treetops were anchored to the river bottom with stones. The downstream trunks were raised higher than the upstream tops by alternating layers of other logs running perpendicular to, or across, the stream. This technique presented a dam face of logs angled upward with the stream flow. As the river was held back by the log face, the water pressure actually made the dam stronger or “self-loading.”

Alexandria, Louisiana 1864