McCain said
Jun. 3rd, 2008 08:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
infrogmation"We must also prepare, far better than we have, to respond quickly and effectively to a natural calamity. When Americans confront a catastrophe they have a right to expect basic competence from their government. Firemen and policemen should be able to communicate with each other in an emergency. We should be able to deliver bottled water to dehydrated babies and rescue the infirm from a hospital with no electricity. Our disgraceful failure to do so here in New Orleans exposed the incompetence of government at all levels to meet even its most basic responsibilities." -- John McCain
Applause. I'm not planning to vote for McCain, and I may never applaud him again, but he earned my applause for saying this.
Though he said it not "here in New Orleans" but 2 cities over in Kenner, Louisiana.
Also, contrary to the McCain campaign official transcript above, he spoke it as "deliver hot bottled water to dehydrated babies". Whatever.
And more importantly, as bad as the "natural calamity" was, the man-made one was very much worse.
And McCain twice voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine Federal, State, and local response to devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. He also voted against emergency relief after the disaster, funding communications for disaster first reponders, and other relevent items.
Perhaps you think such proposals should be opposed on the grounds of keeping the government small.
Perhaps you think William Howard Taft was a damn Commie for authorizing the army to bring food and tents to San Francisco after the great earthquake.
Perhaps you think when the shit hits the fan, it is better to let our citizens die of from lack basic necessities than to spend government funds to save their lives. Maybe you have no problem with America being a country whose government leaves the corpses of its people who die unnecessarily bloated in the sun, to be eaten by rats and dogs.
If so, I disagree with you. But I'd have a modicum more respect for you had the courage to damn well admit it.
Applause. I'm not planning to vote for McCain, and I may never applaud him again, but he earned my applause for saying this.
Though he said it not "here in New Orleans" but 2 cities over in Kenner, Louisiana.
Also, contrary to the McCain campaign official transcript above, he spoke it as "deliver hot bottled water to dehydrated babies". Whatever.
And more importantly, as bad as the "natural calamity" was, the man-made one was very much worse.
And McCain twice voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine Federal, State, and local response to devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. He also voted against emergency relief after the disaster, funding communications for disaster first reponders, and other relevent items.
Perhaps you think such proposals should be opposed on the grounds of keeping the government small.
Perhaps you think William Howard Taft was a damn Commie for authorizing the army to bring food and tents to San Francisco after the great earthquake.
Perhaps you think when the shit hits the fan, it is better to let our citizens die of from lack basic necessities than to spend government funds to save their lives. Maybe you have no problem with America being a country whose government leaves the corpses of its people who die unnecessarily bloated in the sun, to be eaten by rats and dogs.
If so, I disagree with you. But I'd have a modicum more respect for you had the courage to damn well admit it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-04 02:19 am (UTC)But...
Date: 2008-06-04 08:14 pm (UTC)The Mississippi Gulf Coast, which took the burnt of Katrina, responded well (or at least much much better) than the complete ineptitude shown by the City of New Orleans and State of Louisiana.
Apples and oranges. Much smaller population base affected (ie no big cities) and a different kind of damage (as in mostly wind, not flood).
Ultimiately, the question is of government efficacy, not necessarily political philosophy
Precisely. But which party's political philosophy, since the start of the first Reagan administration, has been that government is by it's very nature the enemy? It's the perfect Gingrichian strategy, insist that government is innefficient then, when elected, cut programs and appoint clueless bumblers to positions of authority until this becomes a self-fullfilling proficy.
Sorry, I ain't buying it. I'm old enough to remember when American government worked and our taxes actually bought something. I've also lived in countries with 'socialized' healthcare systems that I'd take in a heartbeat over the sick farce that we have here, and government services delivered in a timely and efficient manner. We can do this too, unless 28 years of rule by 'small government' theocrats has made us too stupid and indifferent to pull it off.
Precisely
Re: But...
Date: 2008-06-04 11:22 pm (UTC)Interesting. When I moved from British Columbia to Ontario in Canada in 1988, replacing my B.C. licence with an Ontario one required one trip the the DMV involving standing in line for 20 minutes and a fee of $30 dollars.
Secondly, the big government, welfare state approach has worked so well in Europe that both France and Germany now possess center-right governments committed to reforming and partially dismantling it. Gordon Brown is still hanging on, but by his fingernails, and "New Labor" isn't exactly Harold Wilson, if you know that I mean.
Sure. Governments that are so 'center-right' that all three countries continue to provide state-subsidized, universal healthcare, massively subsidized, universally available daycare, and affordible public housing options that make what's left of our 'projects' look like what they are, disgracefull, third-world shitholes.
I'm not particularly concerned with ideolgy, more quality of life which, at least compared to my lived experience in other nations, kind of sucks in America. My Canadian friends are always shocked when I tell them what my tax bite is. They're laboring under the delusion that America is some kind of low-tax paradise when in fact, after you taking out the state and federal tax bite and the usurious deductions for 'health insurance' of a kind so shabby and rife with co-pays and denial of service clauses that it would get any Canadian politician who tried to introduce something like it run out of office on a rail, actually leaves me with less money than I had up there.
I don't know if I'm 'close minded' so much as just not willing to accept neocon-libertarian talking points at face value. It really is a negative, poor me philosophy when you get down to it. It's like saying that Americans are too lazy and stupid to deliver government services at the level other western nations do.
Re: But...
Date: 2008-06-04 11:48 pm (UTC)I'm not an advocate for 'big government.' I'm an advocate for government that works. And I'm not willing to buy into catch-phrases like 'government isn't the solution, it's the problem,' or the idea that less government is always better unless I can see some kind of evidence they're not just empty slogans peddled by people who want to hand out tax cuts to their pals.
Certainly there are plenty of examples of bureaucracies, both public and private, that don't work. But there are also ones that do. I'm interested in finding out why that is and exploiting it, rather than engaging in the typical American passtime of repeating groundless platitudes and maintaining that there is nothing, ever, to be gained from looking into why some of these things work better in other countries than they do here. If that makes me 'close minded' then I plead guilty.
the question of government efficacy
Date: 2008-06-04 08:23 pm (UTC)When the storm bigger than Betsy and Camille combined barrelled into the Gulf Coast in 2005, somehow Bush and Cheney were both on vacation.
In the early days of the disaster the Federal response was WORSE than if there had been no Federal Government. Heck of a job.
There was partisan spin from when Rove was brought in to "handle" Katrina after a week of bad press for the administration. Blame the locals-- I don't care if you have a lousy mayor or a great mayor, put 'em in a headquarters with broken out windows and no reliable communications in a city suddenly with no utilities and 80% under water, and there's not a hell of a lot they can do without outside help. I'm no fan of former LA governor Blanco, but however low one could rank her response it was certainly head and sholders above the Federal. (For example, she was the one who finally got people out of the SuperDome-- after FEMA had been promising her buses twice a day each day, it finally dawned on her to assume everything they said was bunk, rounded up buses from the north of the state and sent them down. And contrary to the lies pushed via Fox News etc, yes she did too declare a disaster before the storm hit-- don't take my word, look it up.)
The Coast Guard responders were certainly heros, especially those who disobeyed orders to come to the rescue. As were the informal "Cajun Navy", especially those who persevered and found a route into the disaster area after being turned back by the Feds repeatedly. Have you heard about the good folks of the Louisiana Department of Fisheries and Wildlife? Before the disaster, locals generally just thought of them as the bureaucrats who the got fishing and duck hunting licenses from. But they had a little fleet of intact small boats, and got to work. Historian Douglas Brinkley calculated that the Fisheries and Wildlife saved more people than any other organization by wide margin.
I brought up Taft, an icon of old style small government Republicans. The last time any disaster of comparable scale to Katrina hit the country, he was Secretary of War. He sent out cables for the military to use any resources availible to aid in any way the commanders in the Bay area thought best to address the disaster.
If we couldn't have a response like LBJ or Nixon, I would have settled for one like Taft.
I have great sympathy for the ideals of limited government. But if we are going to have a Federal Government, protecting the lives of Americans on American soil when extrodinary conditions have overwhelmed local resources seems to me something it should do. It seems more basic and esential than many other functions. I'd be willing to entertain arguements against that role some time down the line of shrinking government, well after drug laws have been eliminated and conservative outrage has resulted in the privitization of the Interstate Highway system.
That's not where we're at at present.
Why not take a serious look at what went wrong with Katrina, and how to do better in the future? McCain voted against an investigation. That looks to me to be simple political partisanship put above national security.
Re: the question of government efficacy
Date: 2008-06-06 01:54 am (UTC)I have a number of friends who live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast who are quite resentful of the stories about how well they're supposedly doing. The casinos backed by out-of-state money are rebuilt and booming, but there are still vast fields of ruins throughout the area.
I agree that the New Yorker has had some quite good articles.
"No one expected the storm to be as bad as it was and no one in authority actually expected the levees to fail."
Sorry, that is simply false. Demonstrably and totally.
Katrina was heading towards the coast as a Category 5, of which at the time the US had only been hit by three history. A direct hit without loss of strength was a distinct possibility. That would have resulted in the city being flattened like Homestead Florida, only Katrina was a hell of a lot WIDER than Andrew as well. And a direct hit by a cat 5 would have overtopped the levees even if they had been properly constructed.
And people knew. And warnings were given.
More than half the city had already left or were on the highway leaving before the weather service and news reports over the tv and radio started using language like:
HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL.
AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.
(read the whole National Weather Service Bulletin (http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/warn_archive/LIX/NPW/0828_155101.txt))
National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield told FEMA, Homeland Security, and the White House "I don't think anyone can tell you with confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very great concern". (CNN: Transcripts, tape show Bush, Brown warned on Katrina (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/02/fema.tapes/index.html).
Happy to correct the record for you.
Re: the question of government efficacy
Date: 2008-06-09 12:33 am (UTC)Who was left out of the loop, then? Cheney?
p.s.
Date: 2008-06-04 09:30 pm (UTC)Perhaps downsizing the pentagon is the answer.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-06-04 11:56 pm (UTC)"Only the US government could have built Cabrini Green."
Absolutely. But I agree for probably different reasons than you do. You doubtless feel public housing "doesn't work" whereas it does work in other parts of the western world. At least it works a hell of a lot better than Cabrini Green. You have to go to the third world to find that kind of squalor.
What doesn't work is the way we do some of these things. The world is bigger than America.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-06-05 04:21 pm (UTC)Been there. Not even close. The level of violence and hopelessness in American housing projects is unsurpassed anywhere in the First World. The stats bear this out.
Before I moved to new Orleans I lived in Vancouver, Canada, a city of 2.2 million people. The public housing there runs the gamut from fairly raggedy (Raymur Park and Campbell Avenue projects, which are old-school high rise affair, seedy, but a paradise compared to Cabrini Green or the Iberville)) to very nice mixed-income public housing 'co-ops' like False Creek and numerous, free standing co-op buildings around town. I have friends in these places and they're quite pleased with them. They pay very reasonable rent for clean, well maintained apartments in the city core, the type of neighborhoods which in most American cities are the preserve of the very rich and the desperately poor.
As I mentioned, Vancouver is a city of 2.2 million people. It averages about 30 homicides a year.
The problem I'm having here is you keep throwing out examples of things 'government can't do' when what you really mean is American government can't or won't do it. I agree that there are limits on what 'government' can do, but I'm not arguing in favor of government programs to make me taller or more popular at parties. I'm arguing for responsible government stewardship of the collective well being of it's own citizens which is after all what we pay all those taxes for. Are these things perfect in other countries? No, of course not. but my own lived experience is that other nations do things like health care, public housing, and various other quality of life issues a lot better than we do, and yet we refuse to even consider looking into these things because of pigheaded ideological shiboleths. I call that 'stuck on stupid.'
I understand that the 'small government' and 'government is inherently innefficient' paradigms are viewed by many in America as attitudes growing out of our past as rugged individualists (a past that's lagely a myth. All the rugged individualists in the west would be sucking their water out of a cactus without massive, publically funded water projects for example, and I'd be writing this by ink in candlelight without the Tennessee Valley Authority) but I have to tell you, it feels very similar to attitudes I observed touring the Soviet Union with a Canadian jazz band in 1985. The Soviets had very little faith in 'government' (which of coure was a massive clusterfuck). Stuff was always falling apart because of shabby construction, kind of like the levees here, or that bridge in Minneapolis. Hoover Dam is next probably. Didn't the ACE build that too?) and felt they had no power to change things. They were on their own. Some public building would collapse because the contractor put too much sand in the cement and they'd just say "what do you expect? That's the government. It's just the way they are."
It's a form of learned helplessness masquerading as worldly cynicism.
Re: p.s.
Date: 2008-06-06 02:14 pm (UTC)Excellent analysis of the phenomenon well said. Kudos.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-04 08:18 pm (UTC)He also stood there blinking and fumbling and sweating like a deer in the headlights. It was such a sad-sack, clueless, low-energy doddering-old-fool performance that I'm actually starting to become cautiously optimistic about the election. Maybe they won't actually be able to sell this dolt.
Of course, I was convinced they'd never sell us W. either.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-04 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-04 09:13 pm (UTC)Since then, according to her, he has experienced a fall of Shakespearian proportions, because he will do absolutely anything, say anything, kiss the ring of whatever crazed religious zealot (see pastor Hagee) kiss the ass of a man who slandered him in the lowest possible way (see Bush, George W., and Rove, Karl) and reverse any position, take any stand, spout whatever gibberish it takes to become president.