Subj : Re: Good State of FEMA article To : alt.tv.farscape From : John I Date : Wed Sep 07 2005 19:04:15 From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape John I wrote: > Nick wrote: > >> John I wrote: >> >>> Nick wrote: >>> >>>> John I wrote: >>>> >>>>> Here is a http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html good >>>>> story on the state of FEMA in 2004 and the election implications of >>>>> the Bush administration's response to the 2004 Florida hurricane >>>>> season. >>>>> >>>>> 'Fridays don't get much busier than this. It's the morning of Sept. >>>>> 3, and Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in >>>>> Washington, D.C., is running at a full clip, having mobilized a >>>>> cadre of disaster-response specialists in its National Emergency >>>>> Operations Center the day before. "This is our 'war room,'" a FEMA >>>>> employee explains. >>>>> >>>>> "Right now we're in 24-hours-a-day activation," he says. "It's a >>>>> double- whammy." Indeed, the agency is still busy helping Florida >>>>> recover from Hurricane Charley's punishing winds and rain when >>>>> satellite images show that an even greater storm, Hurricane >>>>> Frances, will soon make landfall. It appears so threatening that >>>>> most of FEMA's personnel on the ground, along with 2.5 million >>>>> Floridians, have evacuated from the storm's projected path. ' >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> '"They're doing a good job," one former FEMA executive says of the >>>>> Bush administration's response efforts. "And the reason why they're >>>>> doing that job is because it's so close to the election, and they >>>>> can't fuck it up, otherwise they lose Florida--and if they lose >>>>> Florida, they might lose the election."' >>>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Too bad it's not an election year. >>>> >>>> >>>> There you go with no facts again. >>>> Some guy saying that they are doing a good job just because it is an >>>> election year doesn't make it true. Watch me say something: John is >>>> a closet neo-conservative. OMG it's right there in black and white. >>>> It must be true!!! >>> >>> >>> Did you read the article.? >> >> Is there more? I thought you pasted it all in and just gave the link >> as a reference. >> >>>> I was looking back at http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/ (there >>>> is a place on the bottom of the page where you can see storms by >>>> year) Clinton never really had much in the way of hurricane >>>> disasters to test how FEMA would react when he was president so it >>>> is difficult to predict exactly how things would have turned out. >>> >>> You are conveniently forgetting Floyd in 2000. And NC didn't even >>> vote for Clinton. http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=7270 >> >> There is nothing convenient about it. I went to the wunderground site >> and then checked year by year. It looks like Floyd (which was 1999, >> btw) was a category 1 when it hit. I tend to think of category 1s are >> not all that severe. > > And I totally forgot Fran (1996), which was the worst that I have lived > through. 25% of NC timber was lost. it was bad, but clearly not as bad > a Katrina. The season that year was very bad for repeated lashings. I > don't recall any particular bad press about the emergency response. > Maybe no news is good news. > > >> Perhaps it has to do with growing up here. >> Anyway, the reason I brought all that up was because of something I saw >> in rec.humor.funny. I will post it here: >> >> >>> From: Mark.Shepard@xerox.com (Shepard, Mark R) >>> Subject: wonder if they are telling us something >> >> Occurred to me that hurricanes seem to happen in Republican >> administrations. So I checked the top 10 past hurricanes. All happen >> during Republican administrations except one. Supposed God is trying >> to tell us something? =20 >> >> Not including Katrina, the total is $139 billion, of which $10.8 >> happened during a Democratic administration. Does that mean God is 92% >> Democratic? >> >> Andrew 1992 43.7 billion Republican >> Charley 2004 15.0 Republican >> Ivan 2004 14.2 Republican >> Hugo 1989 12.3 Republican >> Agnes 1972 11.3 Republican >> Betsy 1965 10.8 Democrat >> Frances 2004 8.9 Republican >> Camille 1969 8.9 Republican >> Diane 1955 7.0 Republican >> Jeanne 2004 6.9 Republican >> >> all in 2004 dollars >> >> >> >>> And there were earthquakes and floods, not to mention the 1995 >>> Oklahoma City Bombing and the Northridge quake( >>> http://www.drj.com/special/quake94.html) during his tenure. All >>> received FEMA assistance. >>> >>> Also, much of the emphasis was on mitigation. so instead of >>> confiscating little old lady's nail clippers, they were working on >>> threat reduction. >>> >>> The overarching point is that during Clinton the department was a >>> professional organization staffed with people who where specialists >>> in the area of emergency management. Now all levels of management >>> are occupied by people whose qualifications are that they helped run >>> some level of Bush's election campaign, were really good fundraisers, >>> or otherwise were cronies. >>> >>> To argue that the two very differnt organizations are equivalent is >>> simply absurd. >> >> Would you not put the WTC in the same category with Oklahoma City >> bombing? > > Yes. 2001. Bush was on vacation and there was a PDB titled "Al Queda > Determined to Attack US". Rice said, "No one imagined that they would > use airplanes..." or some such blather. They had ignored Clinton's > Terrorism advisor (Richard Clarke) and had not made an orderly > transition from Clinton's anti-terrorism effort. > > But let's not pick at old scabs. FEMA was still a functioning entity > then and it seems like it's response (despite the disaster occuring in a > blue state) was non-controversial. The Republicans have had some > trouble making good on their promises of helping New York since then, > but they had no trouble celebrating 911 at their Convention last year > and basing Bush's second election on the premise that Republicans are > more capable of protecting America from danger than are Democrats. > > I personally prefer a mixed government, but it seems clear that the > cronyism of a solidly Republican a government, particularly one run by > the Texas branch of the Republican Party, is far less able to produce a > working government than is one where a strong and popular Democratic > President is in office. I want to modify this. Clearly it is impossible to generalize to any Democratic President. Bill Clinton was always characterized (usually in derogatory terms) as a policy wonk. This always struck me as a strength. As a more or less liberal President, his belief is that Government should serve the people and form a conduit that rechanneled resources to benefit the many as only a central government can, on top of this he also is a strong free-marketeer. He paid real attention to issues and how government should be structured to serve the greater good. This is clearly evidenced by how FEMA under Clinton became the powerhouse that it was. This is the mostly the opposite of Bush's philosophy. Conservatives think that government is an evil and that private enterprise should be the only source of goods and services. But Bush is not a conservative. He is a crony capitalist. He uses the language of Conservativism, and the Right-wing (radical authoritarians: not conservatives) to consolidate power. His goal is to convert government resources into private resources and shift the burder of taxation down to the middle class and lower, and basically undo the Policies of the New Deal that have been the scourge of the Right for more than 70 years. This goal is revealed in, among ohter places, the gutting of FEMA by his efforts to privatize the agency and to install cronies whose main function is PR rather than emergency management. I think that Gore would have extended Clinton's policies and perhaps even improved them. Kerry, would have been hobbled by the Republican Congress, but he would been forced to govern more from the center. As it stands, we are stuck with a premature lame duck president who is incapable of altering course, despite obvious failures in all areas of policy. .