Unfortunately I have lived here my whole life and can confirm through living other places for short stints for work and traveling etc that Louisiana's biggest problem is the good ole boy network. For hundreds of years this state has vehemently resisted any semblance of progression. A relative of mine came up with the idea of using the un-used train track between Baton Rouge and New Orleans for commuter purposes, and then I saw on a local FB group that the question was asked of people's opinions. Every Tom Dick and Coonazz Larry with a bad attitude thoroughly explained all of their wildest fear scenarios. See, the real issue is that the citizenry around here has their head's in the swamp hoping to get their needs taken care of by the in-group. That is fine and dandy if you are a low brow dimwit that has no aspirations to move the needle on any ideas you have. However, if you are someone with an ounce of intelligence and don't want to lick refinery boots and get cancer while doing it, then there are hardly any career options for you. The attitude of this state is that if you want to climb the ladder you have to throw someone else off. We can never put faith into our community to the point to where we trust that if we help one another out that we can see the asset investment return the favor.

There are tons of great ideas that work EVERYWHERE but here all day long, but when it comes time for Louisiana to give them a try, suddenly irrational fears take over. The people start to grumble about how some other fucker is going to rip them off and they won't get any of the good use out of it. The divide is ever present and the fear based mentalities are taken advantage of by the formulaic architects that stand to profit off the manipulation and deceit. The argument people make sometimes is that "there is good and bad everywhere, so it isn't just here." and while that low resolution reductionist statement broadly paints an obtuse formality, the truth is in the nuances. The facts are in and Louisiana has tons of cancer and health problems from the refineries. The gulf got slathered with oil and then all the other chemicals to combat the release. The education system is one of the worst int he country. The quality of life is shit, the poverty rates are horrible... people are genuinely not happy here and there's a lot of studies that point this out. So, even though the autharditarians pretend they love it here (because they think that somehow if they fight for the in-group that they will be rewarded for it) it is still just an act. The summer heat will only get worse. The coast will only disappear more. These people will never change. As our democracy decays more and more they will be manipulated into more extremism and nationalist jingoism. They can't wait to vote for another Bobby Jindal and wreck the state all over again even worse than he did. Blind blustering gutted fish bouncing off the painful banks forever a slave to a counter productive mentality.