The horns of a dilemma

[unixronin]

I'm baffled.

On the one hand, I find it difficult to conceive of this massive level of organized, concerted, bumbling incompetence taking place without those at the top of the command chain -- and here, the command chain goes from Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, to the Director of Homeland Security, to George Bush -- raising all kinds of holy hell to get effective action underway.  (Edit:  It's been observed that Brown's previous job was running the International Arabian Horse Association, which he ran into the ground and got fired from for it, then pumped it up on his resumé to make it sound like a more important and better-connected job than it really was.)  On the other hand, I find myself unable to conceive of any plausible hidden agenda -- be it financial or political -- that could lie behind the slowness and obstructiveness of the Gulf Coast hurricane disaster relief being intentional.  Surely any possible hoped-for political gain would be neutralized by the negative effect of the worldwide visibility of the complete incompetence our government has displayed.  It's disasters of this scale that the Department of Homeland Security was chartered to handle and prevent; you can't prevent a hurricane, but as far as handling response after the event, it looks as though you're better off not being protected at all than being protected by Homeland Security.  (As an aside, interdictor says it's very easy to tell the folks who joined Homeland Security out of a desire to protect and serve from those who joined to bully and intimidate people under the color of authority.)  The lesson of Homeland Security so far seems to be that the efficiency and effectiveness of any government agency fall in geometric proportion to its size, and when you put together a department as big as Homeland Security, its actual usefulness asymptotically approaches zero.

Something needs to change, and it needs to change soon; but I don't know whether America as it now is has the spirit and the determination left to go through its government from top to bottom and cut out all the deadwood.

Comments

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

For once, I don't think there was major political/financial gain at work here. I think we just dropped the ball. I do think that Bush' ineptness is probably at the heart of it all. But I think we were caught slumbering in a time when hurricane activity was high and we had our minds and budgets elsewhere.

On the other hand, I know that we haven't been real caring, as a nation about what is happening to the poor these days, and most of the people who couldn't get out were poor folk who had no way to get out.

I'm curious as to what you think we should have done (I seem to think you're a libertarian, correct me if I'm wrong), if you espouse an "every man for himself" policy.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I don't. But it appears to me the principal visible role and activity of FEMA in "managing" this particular emergency has been to PREVENT aid from reaching New Orleans. There's a fully equipped mobile hospital that was specifically designed for use in disasters exactly like this one sitting idle in a Mississippi parking lot because FEMA won't give them permission to come to New Orleans and offer aid. There's a US Navy amphibious assault ship, the USS Bataan (LHD-5), sitting offshore in the Gulf that sailed there on the captain's own initiative; it has a 600-bed hospital that could offload patients from New Orleans hospitals that have no water, food or power ... but FEMA won't give permission for them to begin medevac operations. They're currently providing local basing for two MH-60 Seahawks out of Norfolk, VA and two MH-53 Sea Stallions out of Corpus Christi, Texas, flying SAR, and that's all they've been allowed to do. The imbeciles FEMA put on the ground have turned back shipments of pure drinking water and ice, and even intentionally cut Jefferson Parish's emergency communication lines. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

This is why I say relief efforts in New Orleans would probably be further along if FEMA had just stayed home and watched TV.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I have what may be a bad question. Or maybe it's simply one that requires thought.

You and I and many others we care about are tied, in my case irreversably (and in your case, for at least a good little while), to the medical system. If I don't get medicine on a regular basis, at a minimum I lose my ability to make my living. This means that I'm also loosely coupled to the insurance system. If I had to pay cash for medical attention, I could do it for a while; it would be a hardship, but I could. There might come a time when I need more serious help, though, and would need an environment in which I had access to and means to pay for some fairly high-tech methods and medicines.

These are not federal resources; they are mostly corporate run, or in some cases run by municipalities or even in some cases by religious or other charity groups. But those of us in less than perfect health do need them in order to continue to be effective forces for freedom.

Can we do the necessary re-vamping of FedGov without disturbing these structures so much that we lose their benefit?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think the answer to that can be seen by considering the number of doctors who are dropping out of the system. They don't take insurance -- ANY insurance -- but because they don't have to do the insurance company's paperwork or jump through the insurance company's hoops, they can give you an office visit for close what your insurance company makes you ante up as a copayment. The entire medical-insurance, healthcare-for-profit system is as badly broken as our government is; right now, "How much health can you afford" is right up there beside "How much justice can you afford."

It's clearly not the only way to do it. America loves to sneer at Canada and Britain, for example, for having "socialized" medical systems. But those systems WORK, and they protect the poor right alongside the rich.

I don't have a detailed plan for how to revamp either the government or the medical system. But I suspect both would operate more efficiently and at less cost if, instead of building vast Federal bureaucracies, the watchword was "Do everything at the most local level at which it is feasible to do it."

And that brings us directly back to "That government is best which governs least," doesn't it?

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Something else I'm having a hard time selling to some folks is the idea of independent standards agencies. In the aviation industry, most of the safety checking, both airplanes and pilots, is done by independent examiners, who are in turn licensed by FedGov.

I'm also having a hard time selling the idea of distributed credibility. But both of these ideas - the idea that as much of the current function of government as can be privatized should be. Not sure why that is... folks are getting institutionalized?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Perhaps use UL as an example?

"How much do you trust the FDA to tell you whether something is safe? ...OK. How about CBS or ABC? Remember the pickup trucks they blew up to show how they could catch fire on their own? Yeah. Now, how much do you trust UL to tell you whether something is safe?"

I believe TUV, the German standards body, is an independent body, too. And the British standards Institute, while it holds a charter from Parliament, operates entirely independently of it and Parliament does not, and cannot, tell it what to approve. The most, as I understand it, that Parliament can do is request that BSI study and develop a draft standard for something or other. The Snell Foundation that evaluates and certifies motorcycle helmets in the US is also an independent foundation. (DOT helmet standards, by contrast, are all but worthless.)

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Let's be honest here, the serious hard luck cases in Canada and Britain COME HERE and pay cash to get transplants done on a schedule that saves their lives.

-Ogre

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Does that balance out all the folks who go to Canada to get medication that the FDA is still dragging its heels on approving in the US? Both systems have flaws. Canada's at least doesn't have the vast numbers of completely uninsured who can't afford any medical care at all.
I think it should be possible to come up with a way to have most of the advantages of both while minimizing the flaws -- provided it's being designed with the primary objective of providing good medical care for everyone, instead of making a good fat profit providing medical care for the people who can afford it. (Part of the picture would have to be overhauling the medical malpractice system, too. Malpractice insurance is driving too many doctors and hospitals out of business because people are getting away with, for example, filing malpractice suits for congenital birth defects.)

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

Time to elect a libertarian President and Congress that will go at the executive (and the budget) with a machete.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The question is how to break through the brainwashed conditioning of the vast majority of the electorate to make that happen.

Judging by the opinion polls, the complete bungling of the katrina response has gotten through to some of them ... but what'll you bet me they'll just go vote Democrat instead?

[sierra-nevada.livejournal.com]

Given a choice, most people would prefer to be taken care of, rather than take care of themselves.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yup, sad but true. It doesn't occur to them that they are then dependent upon someone as much as three thousand miles away for their wellbeing, and you can't tell them that it's not their local police department's job to protect them.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it has been 25 years since the Libertarians have fielded a presidential candidate who wasn't a complete nut job.

(which is why I have become a libertarian, instead of a Libertarian)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I disagree with that. Michael Badnarik was one of the sanest Presidential candidates I can remember.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

I'll have to concede on that one. I didn't even bother to look at the Libertarian offering in 2004. (I don't remember looking in 2000, either ... I just recall being rather annoyed with their offerings in the 80's and 90's, which was about the point I stopped being a registered Libertarian)

[databeast.livejournal.com]

all we have learned from this is that:

Homeland Defence: isn't

They failed miserably in the face of a crisis they had *massive* early warning about (you could argue they have had 20 years of early notice about this happening).

I shudder to think about what a miserable response HD would provide in the face of one of their out-of-the-blue terrorist attack we keep hearing about.


America, everythig you have given up in the name of 'security', take it back now, you got short-changed, I hope to hell you kept the reciepts

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Similar disasters in the midwest and New York were handled much better. Why? Less corrupt, more competent local services and a lower concentration of criminals/destitute/sick. This last group were not able to evacuate. The sociopathic criminals are enjoying themselves, with the raping and killing and whatnot.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

and here, the command chain goes from Michael Brown, Director of FEMA, to the Director of Homeland Security, to George Bush

Michael Brown is hopelessly unqualified for the job. His past experience is as a small-town lawyer, then as the highly unpopular and controversial head of an Arabian Horse breeder's association. His appointment as FEMA Director was the most blatant case of political cronyism imaginable.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

So I understand. Not only was he fired from the IAHA after driving it into failure, he then lied about it on his resume.

<WashingtonDC> But what the hell, who cares? He knows the right people, doesn't he? Besides, how likely is it there'll be a real emergency? There hasn't been once in the last four years.... </WashingtonDC>

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/september2005/050905photoops.htm

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread167902/pg1