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I’m from Lafayette Louisiana and I have no idea why New Orleans is so incredibly corrupt. The NOPD was so corrupt that prior to Hurricane Katrina the US Justice Department was seriously considering taking over full control and rebuilding the NOPD to break the culture of corruption that led to a woman officer convicted of robbery and murder of her former partner and the family owners of the store he was guarding, some officers working as hitmen, some officers working for or with local gangs, and the politicians weren’t any better like with bribery money in the freezer politician who used rescue resources to recover his frozen money after Katrina hit. This level of corruption led to jokes about the above ground cemetery making it easier for the dead to vote on Election Day. The Huey P Long Bridge was a bit of corrupt genius. He had the bridge built low so that the large ships at the time couldn’t pass under and so the large shipping had to be done at port of New Orleans. The city has had a long French and Spanish history with aristocrats of both countries abusing their power and authority to personally enrich themselves as well as pirates who gave out just enough of their loot to appear Robin Hoodesque to curry favor from the lower class citizens. Some old money families still reside in the New Orleans area and continue work within politics. Cokie Roberts came from a wealthy family of Louisiana based politicians. Mary and Mitch Landreau also came from a political family as their father was both mayor and judge in New Orleans and continued to rule the city for many years both up front and behind the scenes. The amount of money that flows through New Orleans means the city should have smoothly paved roads, great drainage system, the most modern port technology, and a low unemployment. Instead much of that money is changing hands regularly to the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Want approval for this project, want to pass inspection, want more patrols, it’ll all cost you extra. This corruption and poor maintenance of infrastructure has led to limited amount of businesses and industries willing to enter the New Orleans area to do business. The politicians buy votes with promises of money to give to those who can’t or don’t want to work. They also buy votes the illegal way. Some politicians send chartered tour buses with extremely dark window tints into the projects to pick up “voters” and allegedly are paid cash on the bus to vote how they’re told and then brought back to the projects. At one time the police would lock up all the usual suspects with plenty of booze the night before Election Day and bus them to the voting booths. The officer would tell the pollster the voter could not read nor write and so the cop had to go in the booth to “help him” vote. Once in the booth the cop pulled the lever and the drunk was sent on his way. In some ways New Orleans could be a suburb of Chicago.
NO has been a generally lawless place since the beginning......nothing new there. It was too far away from any real seat of power to be governed and controlled.....when I went there in the 90's it felt third world to me.
Read a bunch of history and you will get the idea. It's was all about money and gaiety and semi-freedom (early in the game) for diverse populations. French influence is "anything goes"......party on. The River trade was all about skimming and making money.
It's not an ancient civilization....more just a rowdy port city where much of the world would entertain themselves while in port.
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