From the Kansas City Star:
A pernicious story line, recited on talk radio, in state legislatures and in some quarters of Washington, says that government can’t do anything right. Government is the problem, Ronald Reagan famously said. And a vast political and business alliance works furiously to make his declaration a self-fulfilling prophecy by underfunding vital programs and disparaging public employees.
But when disaster strikes, we expect government to work. We need it to work. Last week, it did.
Police, firefighters and medics made their way through the dark and the rain Sunday night to rescue the trapped and aid the wounded. Kansas City had 50 firefighters en route within hours. Its police department sent communications specialists, tactical teams, a search-and-rescue dog and a traffic enforcement squad.
Other cities sent first-responder teams. They worked in the rain that first day, searching the rubble for survivors and for bodies. In a cruel sign that nature hadn’t quite finished its mayhem, two police officers from Riverside were felled by a lightning strike. Officer Jeff Taylor was gravely injured.
Like the city he was helping, he will have a long road to recovery.
Throughout the week, personnel from the state of Missouri poured into Joplin. The National Guard and the Highway Patrol got there quickly. Officials with expertise in emergency management, insurance, mental health, care of senior citizens, land use and power grids followed.
The often-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency got a team to Joplin within hours of the tornado to set up telecommunications and help with logistics and support.
This in no way diminishes the vital role of the Red Cross and other nonprofit agencies, and of businesses, in responding to the disaster. But public employees and government agencies make up the underpinning of the recovery effort.
The need for government help in Joplin will continue for years. Streets must be replaced. Schools and a hospital must be rebuilt. Families will need temporary housing.
It is easy to wax poetic about trimming government spending, and cutting costs to taxpayers, but when disaster strikes, or our elderly loved ones suffer a health crisis, aren't we ALL suddenly fans of government programs like FEMA, Medicare, and even the National Guard?
That is why the Republican rhetoric is simply blown away in the wind when you look out the window and see this bearing down on you.
I don't know about the rest of you, but after seeing the images of the devastation left in the wake of these massive tornadoes, I am one hundred percent on support of having my taxes raised to pay for the programs that help my fellow Americans.
But hey if we are going to get serious about cutting government costs, I know a couple of wars I would gladly see come to an end. Just a thought.
The GOP is currently holding disaster aid as hostage and wants to strip the NWS funding , NWS--National weather Service is what gives people that 15 or 20 min to try and find shelter from tornadoes..it is just shameful that anyone could vote against their best interests by voting for the GOP.
ReplyDeleteA very timely article, considering the unbelievable weather that has been occurring this spring.
The people who constantly push the anti-government rhetoric don't even really know what that means. It's simply a trite, overused generic complaint because the economy is only making the rich richer and the rest of us poorer. People say and think stupid shit when they are barely staying above water economically. They don't realize that it is the big corps who are actually pushing the anti-government rhetoric, because those corps want less regs. They just manage to keep on convincing dumb people that the way to a better life is to yell at the government. I'm actually getting pretty tired of it. Government can be wasteful, redundant, inefficient, and opaque, but you can pin those same problems on all non-government too. I like a government that builds safe roads and bridges, retrofits existing structures, keeps our water and air and workers safe,supplies emergency workers and libraries and parks and student loans, and all of the other great things that government does. As a citizen who believes in being a contributing member of my country, I am happy to pay taxes. The others are just selfish, short-sighted, and stupid.
ReplyDeleteTurning FEMA Around
ReplyDeleteHas Obama saved the once-maligned federal agency?
Turning FEMA Around
It’s not exactly the Rapture, but the tornadoes that have been tearing through the Midwest and South this year certainly have an end-times feel to them. Just this past Sunday, an F-5 level tornado (that’s as fierce as it gets) plowed through Joplin, Missouri, killing at least 125 people, flaying the bark off trees, crumpling cars like aluminum cans, and basically flattening everything in its six-mile path. At last count, that brings this year’s tornado count up to nearly 1,000, leaving more than 480 dead—the worst twister season since 519 people died in 1953 (an era, note, before Doppler radar and early-warning systems became widespread).
For now, the main political debate has been about whether climate change is responsible for this outburst. But that's probably not overly productive. As Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters notes, we simply don’t know: “It is either a fluke, the start of a new trend, or an early warning symptom that the climate is growing unstable and is transitioning to a new, higher energy state with the potential to create unprecedented weather and climate events. All are reasonable explanations, but we don’t have a long enough history of good tornado data to judge which is most likely to be correct.” It’s just way too early to try to make any grand pronouncements about these tornadoes.
What’s not too early to ask, however, is how well the government is reacting to these disasters. Back in April, The New York Times sent a reporter down to Tuscaloosa, Alabama—a state where tornadoes have killed more than 250people—and found that residents generally had upbeat things to say about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency that had been reviled for its bureaucratic bungling after Hurricane Katrina turned New Orleans into a fish tank. “It ain’t like Katrina,” said one homeless resident. “We’re getting help.” So has the Obama administration really turned FEMA around?
Has Obama saved the once-maligned federal agency?
http://www.tnr.com/article/environment-energy/89135/fema-disasters-tornado-midwest-obama
Thanks for finding and posting this article.
ReplyDeleteThe tornado devastation is so awful, and the rescue/recovery operation so daunting (hampered by the weather). So heartwrenching to see those so severely affected and so sad about the loss of life.
It's odd to see the National Guard out after a natural calamity. I had to go to work in Northridge the day after the 1994 CA earthquake, and the National Guard were lining the (slightly buckled) streets. Not in a threatening way, but it felt weird driving to work then.
The President will be speaking at a Memorial Service in MO @ 3pm EST.
ReplyDeleteThanks Gryphen. Seems the lesson we, as a nation, have neglected is that- yes, we are our brothers keeper and he is ours. We are all in this together and that ultimately we are only as strong as our weakest link.
ReplyDeleteI know that may sound trite or corny but that is really all there is to life. The rest just become details we sort out in order to follow those principles.
A sincere agnostic.
Gryphen, I don't know how many people are aware of it, but New Orleans would be under 25-40 feet of water right now if it weren't for the protection system put in place and operated by the Federal government--the river levees and the Morganza and Bonnet Carre Spillways. They built it after the detestations of the Flood of 1927, and it worked.
ReplyDeleteI love how Ryan's plan wouldn't increase taxes on the wealthiest who certainly were involved in the financial collapse of America. He wouldn't cut one penny from the bloated military budget. But by golly, he wants to cut FEMA, Medicare, and Social Security. Could he possibly be a butt boy for the Koch brothers? Well, yes he is definitely a Kochsucker! It will be interesting to see if he can be re-elected. He should be tarred and feathered and run out of the country. Selfish bastard. In his perfect world, the working class is indentured to the elite. He would take us all back to a Dickensian world of slums, work houses, and child slavery.
ReplyDeleteWell said womanwithsardinecan!
ReplyDeleteHow did the right wing so successfully fool the vast majority of the public, into believing its okay to waste their tax dollars on $15,000 field toilets, supplied to the military (but not used) by corporations whose shareholders include Cheney and Rumsfeld===but that it is "unpatriotic" and displays a personal weakness, to expect the government to spend some of that money on programs that actually help the taxpayers whose paychecks were ravaged to supply such money?
ReplyDeleteI am a survivor of an EF5 tornado, just like the the one that Joplin experienced. Both my mother and grandmother were injured in the one I experienced and were recipients of the many government agencies' aid both state and federal at that time. Seventeen people died in that tornado and hundreds of other were injured. For all the aid and assistance from across the nation which we were given I am eternally grateful.
ReplyDeleteI for one, am also thankful for what the government provides in times of disaster both then and now. I wish that government would work as effectively all the time not just for times of disaster. There shouldn't be such partisan politicking as we are seeing now and yes, maybe I'm just dreaming that such a thing is possible.
I look at Joplin's devastation and see my own past disaster. The only difference is the year it happened (1966), and the fact that the aid that we as a city received wasn't fodder by Congress' efforts to cut aid/services/benefits to those who need it most. EVERYONE pulled together across party lines to help but nowadays, the comments by Republicans in Congress about linking aid to cutting Medicare burns me up because as it was justly pointed out, it is downright mean, cruel and heartless. I hope that all those who support such mindset get voted out in the next elections because there is no common sense to it nor any amount to empathy to what the Joplin tornado's have gone through and will continue to go through as they rebuild their city, their homes and their lives.
God help us if they aren't voted out. And may God bless the victims in Joplin with strength, courage and foresight for the future.
It is time to let these politicians, both active and retired, pay for their own healthcare and pensions. Few companies these days offer pension plans, why are taxpayers on the hook for these millionaires? By the way, the Bitch got off her bus long enough to get attention and ride a motorbike at the "Stealing Thunder" rally. Toad and Pissy Piper also got their mugs on camera.
ReplyDeleteIs it too soon to conclude that this batch of conservative chuckleheads is just chock full o'irredeemably awful human beings? If so, let me know when it's time, 'cuz I don't want to miss out, also, too.
ReplyDeleteIn my view Republicans in general are sociopaths by nature, but from first-hand observation I can tell you that even they line up with their hand out when there is a program that will benefit them -- even while dissing government aid out of the other side of their greedy mouths.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet there will still be those in Missouri, some who have even benefited from this aid, who will vote against their own best interests and vote teabagger for a smaller government or even libertarian for no government. Because they just can't seem to connect the fact that those taxes they say they shouldn't have to pay go directly to helping them when a tornado or flood or hurricane or earthquake comes along.
ReplyDeleteAnd they're either too stupid or too much in denial to realize they are hypocrites.
Like the 'baggers than say no government healthcare but keep your hands off my medicare.
They vote Republican even as they are being aided by the very disaster funds the g NO p want to cut.
Idiots.
Let's raise taxes on the middle class some more to fund our urgent matters. Most of us are willing to do so. Let's leave the wealthiest of all out of it. To shame them. Since we can't get them on board anyway, let's at least move forward. Some good PR should accompany this:
ReplyDelete"Who is NOT doing their share?"
Let's see, do we want our First Responders to be secular, just doing the job they were hired and trained to do?
ReplyDeleteOr do we want them to be a private, religious entity that offers their charity with Jesus strings attached at the most critical and disastrous time of our lives?
This is what happens when we allow these supposed 'adults in the room' to declare war on government, taxes, and rights to privacy.
ReplyDeleteThese are what makes America run, we run on government, local, municipal, state or federal. We make up the government so how did we let them hi-jack the message and say they are 'they' and they are the enemy?
OzMud said...
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why the very people who scream about lowering taxes to save the taxpayer money and stop govt overspending are the same people who vote year after year to raise their own salaries. why aren't congressional elected officials paid at minimum wage scale?
I mean doesn't a person get into politics because they genuinely want to serve their country and make a difference? It's not about the money and perks right?
*cough*
You are doing great work Gryphen, keep it up !
ReplyDeleteNice article, I was in Joplin last Thurs, my step dad's sister lives there, the devastation is unbelievable. I have lived around tornadoes my entire life, and have never seen devastation like this.
ReplyDeleteIf the GOP continues the nonsense they are currently parroting, they will be fortunate if one of them can be elected dog catcher, but then again people are idiots.
My step-aunt's house was severely damaged, but she was uninjured, at 82 years old, she is going to have to start over.