"River Rose All Day. River Rose All Night." Spike Lee's HBO Flood Conspiracy Flick

This scoop was that Lee had just given the Le Monde correspondent some quotes about that incident with French soccer player Zinedine Zidane, who’d head-butted Italy’s Marco Materazzi after the Italian player had insulted Zidane during the World Cup. Supposedly, Materazzi had called Zidane a “terrorist” or something.

And what did Lee have to do with any of this? Apparently because these days, insulting an Arab soccer player by calling him a terrorist is, ipso facto, racist. Spike Lee is perceived as an expert on racism, and also likes soccer; ergo, Le Monde would like to hear his views on the matter. In any case, Lee was happy to oblige.

It occurred to me then, as it so often does, that even if the Arabs can’t win any actual wars their victory in the propaganda wars is basically complete. Because even though an odd duck like me might occasionally wonder what on earth the racial experiences of a Brooklyn born-and-raised black guy like Spike Lee has to do with an French Arab soccer player angry at an Italian, most of the world thinks we’re like those strange Japanese soldiers found on remote Pacific islands long after World War II ended - still fighting the battle decades after the war was over.

Never mind that the big oppressors of African blacks now are Arabs and/or Muslims. These groups now have been redefined along with blacks as “people of color,” and if you even question this you’re putting too much faith in your own lying eyes.

But back to Lee, and his thoughts on the Hurricane Katrina devastation. Whatever you think of his politics, he knows what he’s doing as a filmmaker, and I’m sure that “When the Levees Broke” (which I haven’t seen yet) is directed with his usual skill.

I remain skeptical, however, about the message he made clear while promoting the new documentary, which includes the conspiracy theory that the levees were destroyed on purpose by the government, as well as the notion that it was a mortal offense to call storm survivors refugees.

But isn’t “refuge from the storm” an old and rather blameless phrase? Also, even though not everything is Bush’s fault doesn’t mean that some things aren’t, especially when it comes to Katrina. Certainly the disaster was mismanaged and made even more disastrous by slow response from the federal government as well as local officials. But that doesn’t mean you can reasonably blame everything on the mean old Republicans.

Listening to Lee at the HBO press conference reminded me of an afternoon I once spent with an elderly aunt. She turned to me after watching the news and demanded, “Cathy, why can’t the government stop crime?” I can’t remember how I answered, because there really is no answer to something like that. But elderly aunts aren’t the only people who think these things.

Lee, for instance, went on at length that the devastation of Katrina was more than a natural disaster made even worse by human error; he sees it as yet another avoidable tragedy that the government could have prevented, but chose to ignore.

“This is the most powerful, richest county in the history of modern civilization,” he told assembled reporters at the press conference. “Children should not have to go to bed hungry. This country can do whatever it wants to do. So if the agenda is to send stuff to the moon, to Mars, to Iraq, we’re going to do that. If you’re not on the agenda, you’re out of luck.”

Why can’t the government, in other words, just stop it? But another question is: How much, exactly, is it up to the government to do?

When the Levees Broke Schedule

PajamasMedia Special Correspondent CATHERINE SEIPP writes the weekly “From the Left Coast” column for National Review Online, a monthly column for Independent Women’s Forum and freelances other places, such as the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal op-ed pages. She previously wrote columns for: Buzz, Mediaweek, UPI, New York Press and Salon. Her work has also appeared in Reason, Penthouse, TV Guide, the National Post and Forbes.
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