http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-neworleans11sep11,0,3049544.story
New Orleans' raison d'ętre
By George Friedman
George Friedman is founder of Austin, Texas-based Strategic
Forecasting, a private intelligence company, and author of "America's
Secret War."
September 11, 2005
NEW ORLEANS is battered and submerged today. But it will rise again
because it is — and always has been — the single most important cog in
the nation's economy.
The American regime was founded in 1789 in Philadelphia, when the
Constitution was written. But the American economy was founded years
afterward, just outside New Orleans. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson
arranged for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory — the rich
farmland between the Alleghenies and Rocky Mountains — from France.
What made this territory special was not just its soil but the rivers.
The entire region was drained by an extraordinary system of rivers
that were navigable and flowed to the ocean.
The Missouri, the Ohio and innumerable other rivers could carry
shallow-draft vessels that could be loaded with the produce of
American farms. All of those rivers flowed into one: the Mississippi.
And the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. That fact, in
itself, created a social revolution. For the first time in history, a
class of farmers and small landholders was created, on a mass basis,
that could sell what they produced globally. That meant they had
money. And that money went into small-town banks across the region and
became the seed capital of U.S. industrialism. It was the founding
capital of the railroads and steel industry, enticing European
investment. It also became one of the pillars of American democracy.
For the river-based economy to work, it needed a port near the mouth
of the Mississippi so barges and rafts that could navigate the river
could offload onto oceangoing vessels. Locate the port too far upriver
and the oceangoing vessels couldn't reach it. Put it too far south, in
the swamps, and people couldn't live near it. And people had to live
nearby. Workers not only had to operate the port, they had to be able
to buy food and clothing, live in houses with their families, build
schools and so on. Where there is a port, there must be a city.
The city at the mouth of the Mississippi had existed for that purpose
from the time that the earliest trappers and traders penetrated the
hinterland of the United States. That city was New Orleans, and the
entire North American agricultural and trading system depended upon
it.
The British knew that. In 1815, not realizing that the War of 1812 had
ended, British troops lunged for the American jugular: They went for
New Orleans. They knew that taking it would strangle the American
westward expansion. Louisiana Territory settlers would have to pay
tolls. Had they been successful, the British would have wrested
economic control of the Louisiana Purchase away from the United
States.
At the Battle of New Orleans, Andrew Jackson won — and saved the
country. He remained obsessed with New Orleans all his life: When he
encouraged Sam Houston to stir up trouble in Texas, it was because the
presence of a Mexican force a few hundred miles west of New Orleans
scared the daylights out of him. During the Civil War, when the South
closed off the Mississippi, the North counterattacked and fought to
hold the river open. During World War II, the Germans fought an
intense U-boat campaign in an attempt to close the river.
Today, the Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United
States by tonnage, and the fifth-largest port in the world. A large
percentage of the bulk farm commodities of the upper Midwest are still
loaded on barges and shipped down the Mississippi to be offloaded onto
cargo ships near New Orleans. Massive cargo shipments come to the
United States through the port as well. Steel, cement, rubber — the
nuts and bolts of American industrialism — all flow upriver.
The ports at New Orleans aren't much for bringing in GameBoys or
stereos, but for the basic agricultural and industrial commodities
that drive the American and global economy. Not all of the nation's
important commerce travels through these ports, but enough of the
basic materials do to make the loss of these facilities economically
disastrous to the world.
The alternative shipping routes for these goods aren't a good
substitute. There aren't enough trucks or railroad cars to haul these
materials long distance, and other U.S. ports don't have the capacity
to make up for New Orleans, even if they had the rivers. Only river
transport is cheap enough to be economically viable, and only river
transport can handle the tonnage involved.
Hurricane Katrina left the port pretty much intact, and the river
seems navigable. But you can't have a port without people, and the
commercial facilities will be needed in two weeks, when Midwest
farmers begin harvesting. Their harvest will be handled this year and,
if civilian workers cannot be found, the Army units cleaning up the
storm damage could be expected to stay and work the ports.
But in the long run, the economic health of the nation depends on
developing a port city about where New Orleans sits — a port
surrounded by workers and better protected from nature. That city will
be called New Orleans. It will be rebuilt for the same reason it was
built in a malarial swamp in the first place: because it is where a
city must be built.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
--
Contempt of Congress meter reading-offscale.
Hello, theocracy with a fundamentalist US Supreme
Court who will ensure church and state are joined
at the hip like clergy and altar boys.
America 1776-Jan 2001 RIP
"As democracy is perfected, the office of president
represents, more and more closely, the inner soul
of the people. On some great and glorious day the
plain folks of the land will reach their heart's
desire at last and the White House will be adorned
by a downright moron." --- H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Religion is the original war crime.
-Michelle Malkin (Feb 26, 2005)
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