We all remember back last election cycle when the Save Our St. Bernard group was pressuring all of the hopeful politicians to make a written pledge to oppose the Port of New Orleans. This was an earnest, but naive attempt at good government and to keep our politicians in check. It was kind of like having someone’s undated resignation letter like in the old days, but with a little more class and sophistication.
One such hopeful, Josh Moran, signed the pledge that he would oppose the Port of New Orleans. We were able to get a copy of that oath for you to take a look at for yourselves.
But with just one year into his new term, Councilmember Moran has now seemingly admitted that he does not intend to honor his S.O.S. oath. Why now? It probably took one full year to come up with a half-decent sounding explanation as to why he was backpedaling on his pledge. Or, it may be that Mr. Moran, just like everyone else in favor of the Port, is just angling for his next opportunity since there is more opportunity with the Port than with the Parish. Let’s hear it directly from Mr. Moran:
So there you have it folks. The reason is that Mr. Moran took an ever greater oath “to preserve the health, safety, and welfare” of the people of St. Bernard from the “crumbling infrastructure” bound to occur if we don’t cut a deal with the Port. This explanation has a superficial sense of reasonableness. I’m sure we can all agree that Moran probably didn’t come up with that on his own. Mr. Moran’s explanation is too polished and curated to have been an off the cuff remark.
Google AI reminds us that a “professional public relations person” is someone who strategically manages a person’s public image by crafting messages that help maintain a positive reputation. It seems that Mr. Moran had the help of just such a public relations professional to help him with that messages because, let’s face it, its hard to sell a complete 180 on such an important issue.
And make no mistake, this was a complete 180 as to the Port of New Orleans. When Mr. Moran took the S.O.S. oath, he gave his word that he would oppose the Port of New Orleans to essentially protect the health, safety, and welfare of the residents of St. Bernard. Now that Mr. Moran has declared that his subsequent and superseding oath requires him to negotiate terms upon which the LIT facility can be built. Why? Because now, according to Mr. Moran, fighting “is ridiculous” because “this thing is coming to us no matter what” and because “we have no control over this.” Mr. Moran does want to continue fighting, but fighting does not mean what you think it means anymore. Now fighting means negotiating to “make sure we are getting everything for St. Bernard Parish” because “this thing is coming to us no matter what.”
So if you look at it that way, Mr. Moran is really giving his constituents what they want, even if its the opposite of what they say they want. So what seems like betrayal is really a deep sense of compassion for the people of St. Bernard. Doesn’t that sound much sweeter? We don’t want to misconstrue anything Mr. Moran said, so let’s hear his entire explanation:
Mr. Moran is talking out of both sides of his mouth here. When Mr. Moran says that “this thing is coming no matter what,” what he really means is that he has no faith whatsoever in our lawsuit or our attorneys. Why then vote to fund the lawsuit? The answer seems to be politics. For the sake of politics, Mr. Moran claims to support the lawsuit and claims to “fight, fight, fight,” but that is all for show. When the rubber meets the road, Mr. Moran’s instinct is to forfeit because his commitment was never sincere.
Can we give Mr. Moran credit for anything? Of course, it seems that at least Mr. Moran was honest in telling us that his S.O.S. oath is now secondary to an even greater pledge to the Parish. But does that say about Mr. Moran’s character? We can probably agree that today’s truth is evidence of yesterday’s lie. So does that mean that yesterday’s lie is evidence of today’s truth or today’s lie? Confusing? It should be. As the saying goes, once a liar, always a liar.
So what are we to make of what Mr. Moran says? As usual, we can find the answer by looking to the thinkers of the past who were able to distill the problem and the solutions down to one short, pithy saying.
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
So there is the answer. We should be upset with Mr. Moran because we can’t believe anything he says from now on. His word is no good.
You may ask, I thought the purpose of this site was to oppose the Port? Fair question. We cannot prevail against the Port until our house is in order. So we need to put our house in order first. And if we don’t deal with this now, we should expect the other council members who are looking for a way to sell out to the port will just start parroting the same phrase.
Stay tuned! We are not going to spare any of the turncoats!