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Sep. 5th, 2005
[ Much of this piece is inspired by this Washington Monthly article.]
To all the people that say, “Government is the problem” I’d like to remind you of a few things. First of all, we are a government of the people. If you hate the government, you hate the people. When Reagan declared war on the government, he declared war on the citizens of the United States.
The truth is that the government is as good and competent as we make it. FEMA used to be a joke. It had 10x the political appointees than other agencies. (Definition: Political appointee: A political appointee is a person that has been given a job in the government because they helped you get elected, not because of their qualifications for a job. Every agency of the government has at least a few appointees to assure that the president’s agenda is enforced, and also to keep your “buddies” employed between elections.)
In 1992 Clinton saw this problem and decided to turn things around.
Bush, Jr. hated FEMA. Having an effective government agency would discredit the Republican claim that “the government can never do anything right”. The Washington Post says, “ The advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed [James Lee] Witt.”
This year it was announced that FEMA is to “officially” lose the disaster preparedness function. People working on preparedness are being forced to stop working on that because Bush claims he will be creating a new organization to do that. This is a common technique used by the Bush administration to kill a project they don’t like... the are such pussies that they can’t take the negative PR from announcing that they’re killing something, instead they announce that a replacement is being created and then delay, delay, delay, and never actually create the new department.
And then we have the mishandled relief effort of Katrina as a result. Thousands DEAD. Rats eating bodies.
So the next time a Republican or Libertarian says, “the government can’t do anything right” don’t do the usual “moan and disregard”. Turn to them and say, “Well, when your party is in power nothing works because you’re incompetent. That’s why I vote for Democrats... they believe in America and what it can do! We don’t give up, we make it work!”
It’s so easy to say, “I’m not good at doing X, so I’m not going to do it any more.” It takes courage and skill to say, “Let’s do X right.”
America was not built by cynics. It was built by people that believed in the promise of America.
To all the people that say, “Government is the problem” I’d like to remind you of a few things. First of all, we are a government of the people. If you hate the government, you hate the people. When Reagan declared war on the government, he declared war on the citizens of the United States.
The truth is that the government is as good and competent as we make it. FEMA used to be a joke. It had 10x the political appointees than other agencies. (Definition: Political appointee: A political appointee is a person that has been given a job in the government because they helped you get elected, not because of their qualifications for a job. Every agency of the government has at least a few appointees to assure that the president’s agenda is enforced, and also to keep your “buddies” employed between elections.)
FEMA was, in the words of former advisory board member and defense analyst Lawrence Korb, a “political dumping ground,” a backwater reserved for political contributors or friends with no experience in emergency management.
....Because FEMA had 10 times the proportion of political appointees of most other government agencies, the poorly chosen Bush [Sr.] appointees had a profound effect on the performance of the agency. Sam Jones, the mayor of Franklin, Louisiana, says he was shocked to find that the damage assessors sent to his town a week after Hurricane Andrew had no disaster experience whatsoever. “They were political appointees, members of county Republican parties hired on an as-needed basis....They were terribly inexperienced.”
In 1992 Clinton saw this problem and decided to turn things around.
The first thing he did was appoint as FEMA’s director James Lee Witt, a former construction company owner who had worked with Clinton in Arkansas as director of the state Office of Emergency Services, where he earned high marks...According to Randi Rhodes on her radio show last Friday, she saw FEMA completely turned around by Clinton. It became the shining example of how good a well-run agency could be. By comparing the FEMA reaction to each hurricane season from pre-Clinton to 2000, you could see that Clinton was getting it right.
Bush, Jr. hated FEMA. Having an effective government agency would discredit the Republican claim that “the government can never do anything right”. The Washington Post says, “ The advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed [James Lee] Witt.”
This year it was announced that FEMA is to “officially” lose the disaster preparedness function. People working on preparedness are being forced to stop working on that because Bush claims he will be creating a new organization to do that. This is a common technique used by the Bush administration to kill a project they don’t like... the are such pussies that they can’t take the negative PR from announcing that they’re killing something, instead they announce that a replacement is being created and then delay, delay, delay, and never actually create the new department.
And then we have the mishandled relief effort of Katrina as a result. Thousands DEAD. Rats eating bodies.
So the next time a Republican or Libertarian says, “the government can’t do anything right” don’t do the usual “moan and disregard”. Turn to them and say, “Well, when your party is in power nothing works because you’re incompetent. That’s why I vote for Democrats... they believe in America and what it can do! We don’t give up, we make it work!”
It’s so easy to say, “I’m not good at doing X, so I’m not going to do it any more.” It takes courage and skill to say, “Let’s do X right.”
America was not built by cynics. It was built by people that believed in the promise of America.
The new The Onion web site includes full archives for free (used to be for paid members). ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwz reminds us of this classic article:
jwz reminds us of this classic article:It is not enough to say, ‘We must rock the crazy beats,’” President Clinton said Monday in a secret live appearance at D.C.’s famed underground The 930 Club. “If American techno is to become the world’s leader once again, we must drop much bass; we must rock mad, phat-ass, crazy beats; and we must do so quick-fast in a hurry, 24-7, 365. And I am out.”http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29944
The funny part is that I can see Clinton using the term “rock mad”.
To all my 'free market' friends
Sep. 5th, 2005 07:33 amWhen Clinton wanted to fund a program that would seek to double MPG of American cars in the next 10 years, or when Dean wanted to implement the recommendations of The Apollo Alliance (which would do a “Manhattan-project”-style effort to replace our dependency on foreign oil) you all told me that Government can’t do anything right and that ‘the market will solve the problem’.
I asked, “How will the market solve this problem?’ And the reply was, “Well, once gas gets to be really expensive, alternatives will become profitable to produce and the market will provide.”
So is $3.50/gal enough mutharfuccahs?
Get fucking started! You could have had a 10 year jump on this if you had let Government do its job!
I asked, “How will the market solve this problem?’ And the reply was, “Well, once gas gets to be really expensive, alternatives will become profitable to produce and the market will provide.”
Get fucking started! You could have had a 10 year jump on this if you had let Government do its job!
Independent Weekly explains the history of FEMA, from Carter creating it, to Reagan re-tooling it for the cold-war, to Bush Sr messing it up, to Clinton rebuilding it, to Bush Jr, messing it up.
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html