PSX5Central
Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: hyper on September 09, 2005, 06:57:00 AM
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From The Economist, excellent as always:
The shaming of America
Sep 8th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Hurricane Katrina has exposed both personal and structural weaknesses in America\'s government
EVEN America\'s many enemies around the world tend to accord it respect. It might be arrogant, overbearing and insensitive—but, by God, it can get things done.
Since Hurricane Katrina, the world\'s view of America has changed. The disaster has exposed some shocking truths about the place: the bitterness of its sharp racial divide, the abandonment of the dispossessed, the weakness of critical infrastructure. But the most astonishing and most shaming revelation has been of its government\'s failure to bring succour to its people at their time of greatest need.
The finger-pointing is already under way, with the federal government blaming local government and local government blaming the feds. But if America is to avoid future catastrophes it needs to do more than bicker. It needs to learn the right lessons from this fortnight\'s debacle.
Blame for the shame
Natural disasters on this scale inevitably bring chaos and suffering. Katrina wreaked havoc over an area the size of Britain. And even the best-laid hurricane plans cannot deal with the quirks of human nature. People who live in areas prone to hurricanes tend to become blasé about storm warnings. This insouciance is native to New Orleans, where a lethal local cocktail is called The Hurricane. But none of that excuses government\'s failure.
Local government must shoulder some of the blame. The authorities in Louisiana have a reputation for confusion, inefficiency and worse. Different authorities are responsible for different levees, for example, and several close associates of the former mayor were recently indicted for corruption. Local incompetence exacerbated the disaster: in Orleans Parish, for instance, where 60,000 households do not own a car, hundreds of city buses which might have shipped out stranded people were left to be swamped by the rising waters.
Still, Washington is mostly at fault. The responsibility for mobilising the response to a disaster lies squarely with the federal government. And the responsibility for galvanising the federal government lies squarely with the president.
The administration\'s initial response recalled Donald Rumsfeld\'s reaction to the anarchy in Iraq: stuff happens. George Bush was listless and confused. Dick Cheney, the vice-president, remained on holiday in Wyoming. Condoleezza Rice, the highest ranking black in the country, saw a Broadway show, “Spamalot”, while New Orleans\'s poor looked out at the floodwaters. Mr Bush then added disingenuity to leaden-footedness, declaring that nobody had anticipated the breaching of the levees—even though people have been worrying about the possibility for years and an official report published in 2001 warned of impending disaster.
Mr Bush\'s personal weakness is shaming; but the structural failures in government that Katrina has revealed are perhaps more worrying. After September 11th Mr Bush poured billions into creating the Department of Homeland Security, but the department has flunked its first big test. It is a bureaucratic monstrosity that includes organisations as different as the Coast Guard and the immigration authorities and spends most of its energies in perpetual reorganisation. The department\'s focus on fighting terrorism has also distracted attention from coping with natural disasters, reducing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from a cabinet-level agency into a neglected stepchild. The best illustration of this is its boss: Michael Brown spent nine years at the Arabian Horse Association, before finally being eased out and joining FEMA as general counsel, brought in by its previous head, his college room-mate.
The second structural problem is Washington\'s addiction to pork-barrel spending. The anti-war left is keen to blame the Iraq war for depleting government\'s resources. The real problem, however, is not a lack of resources—Mr Bush has increased discretionary spending faster than any president since Lyndon Johnson—but the way they are allocated. The funding for New Orleans\'s levees, which has fallen by nearly half over the past four years, started dropping in 2001—before the Iraq war, but after Bob Livingston, a Louisiana congressman and erstwhile chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, left politics under a cloud. The recent transport bill contains some $24 billion-worth of pure pork—including $231m for a “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska. Although this sort of thing is endemic in Washington, it has got far worse since the Republicans took over both the White House and Congress.
Out of the depths
The polls suggest that the majority of people don\'t hold Mr Bush personally responsible for the bungling. Things are slowly improving on the ground. The federal government is pouring resources into the region, and ordinary Americans are opening their wallets to charities and their homes to refugees. But if Mr Bush is to rise to this occasion he needs to do more than take charge. He needs to make sure that America is better prepared for future calamities. This means rejigging his second-term agenda: downplaying favourite issues like Social Security reform and fixing the flaws in America\'s government that Katrina has exposed.
The most urgent task is to address the mess that is the Department of Homeland Security. He should upgrade FEMA and re-examine the wisdom of bundling disaster relief with terrorism prevention. He needs to confront the corrupt legislative culture in Washington: the job of the president is to look to the national interest rather than to reward his friends. If he managed to persuade Congress to regurgitate the pork in the transport bill, that would go a long way towards paying for rebuilding the levees. And he needs to start wielding his red pencil and exercising his right to veto bad legislation.
If Mr Bush addresses America\'s failings with the same vigour that he addressed Islamic terrorism in the wake of September 11th, he has a chance of reinvigorating his presidency and restoring respect in his country; if he doesn\'t, he will go the way of his father, limping wounded into retirement.
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Told. There are many lessons to be learned by this experience, but the most important is one that I think will never be acknowledged or corrected.
As a nation, a society, a government, we seem incapable of long term planning. Every decision, from the most insignificant to the most far reaching public policy expenditure is always measured for it\'s short term gain. Politicians make decisions that will benefit their next reelection. CEOs make decisions that will improve their next quarterly financial statement. Consumers buy SUVs today instead of considering whether they can afford to put gasoline in it for the next five years. You NEVER hear any leader ANYWHERE in the United States talk about a 10 year, 20 year or 50 year plan for anything. I find it terrifying that I\'m participating in this gigantic economy that is screaming forward, consuming enormous amounts of resources, changing the planet we live in, and no one in charge has any idea where we\'re going beyond the next 1-2 years.
This is the kind of thinking that led to the disaster in New Orleans. No one thought twice about cutting the funding for moderizing and reinforcing the levees. No problem cutting the funding for the Army Corps of Engineers; the private sector can do it better, right? No one cared that the whole city depended on a collection of pumps that was 100 years old. No one stood in the way of the developers who drained the wetlands which used to provide a natural barrier between the city and storms from the Gulf. It\'s always about what is most fiscally advantageous TODAY, never any interest in investing in preparations for the future.
I\'m not blaming any one government or politician for this. It happens everywhere in the United States all the time. I see it every day. Those rare individuals with vision who suggest a more rational course are usually outnumbered and shouted down by the greed heads who would rather buy a tax cut or pork barrel project NOW, instead of purchasing a safer future.
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It mentioned the President serving the people, which is laughable in this and every other scenario this guy has been put in. The idea of democracy is that the President is your representative and he acts on your behalf because you have given him the right to lead ON your behalf. Great article.
Originally posted by Coredweller
Politicians make decisions that will benefit their next reelection.
\'nuff said!
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oh, you don\'t make decisions everyday so you can keep your job?
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Originally posted by mm
oh, you don\'t make decisions everyday so you can keep your job?
That\'s exactly what I\'m talking about. If any person is required to make stupid near-sighted decisions to keep their job at the risk of long term disaster, then something is very wrong. This applies to our leaders AND to you and me.
Our government is supposed to provide the stable, long term investments in infrastructure and public safety that the private sector cannot be bothered with because it has low short term "profitability." However, we end up with government leaders who believe that market forces should trump all public safety concerns, and every government agency should be privatized. How can corporations (or politicans who owe their reelections to corporate donations) be expected to make investments in public infrastructure to protect us from a natural disaster that "might or might not" happen in the next 50 years? That kind of scope is completely beyond their ability to justify on a financial statement. It\'s not gonna happen.
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that\'s because we live in a republic and not a true democracy anymore
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Just like in Star Wars.
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OT - Anyone watch Rome on HBO? Good show.
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I dig that show. But I\'m a history nerd, so it\'s automatic.
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same here....
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Originally posted by GigaShadow
OT - Anyone watch Rome on HBO? Good show.
I would if I had HBO :(
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get back to hauling my semen around in little buckets, slave!
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Originally posted by Titan
I would if I had HBO :(
Get a fuckin job.
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Or vote in a better president!
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you mean vote in better congressmen
they are the ones with the power
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the republicans are all in league with each other, when does another republican reject anything this guy does
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More frequent than you think.
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all the time
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Originally posted by Jumpman
the republicans are all in league with each other, when does another republican reject anything this guy does
John McCain for example?
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if he doesnt win the next election id move :p
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Just thought Id join in on the one line responses.
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lol. so, sometimes i get mixed up between cloud345, and clowd(alliswell) even though both are 2 different people.
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Originally posted by videoholic
Get a fuckin job.
God bless America! Get a decent job in order to watch even more TV. ;)
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The world is full of fucked up people.
Let\'s just do ourselves a favor and slit our own damn throat.
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Another perspective on Katrina and the Federal Response:
Jack Kelly: No shame
The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed
Sunday, September 11, 2005
It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
"Mr. Bush\'s performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:
More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.
The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.
Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on \'Star Trek\' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.
Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can\'t be on the scene immediately.
Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.
And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren\'t the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?
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"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on \'Star Trek\' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
so owned