FEMA and Cheney: Two More Harbingers of Doom
Just a short post today. FEMA goose-stepped into the shelter I've worked at on Friday, assuming everything in their field of vision (real or imagined) was theirs to appropriate. One of my work associates actually had to unplug and remove power cords from our computers to be sure FEMA folks (walking down the crowded hallway three across in matching shirts and egos) wouldn't snag them for their own use. As opposed to using them to register students for school.
Today plans were made to move the computers out of public view altoghether, closer to the evacuee admitting area, to ensure that FEMA's burgeoning need for space didn't swallow us up. Everything got snarled for several hours, though, as the new bungler-in-chief representing the Feds showed up: Dick 'Tin Man' Cheney. Probably picked out shelter out because it was well run -- no thanks to bozos from D.C.
I apologize to my readers (and I now understand I have several regulars -- thank you!) about my pessimism. After serving many years in military structures, and with a degree and specific coursework that discusses the issue, we are in the 'code red' danger zone. Command and control are in place, the situation is technically stabilized, but the energy and emotional drain on managing this situation, and the civilian response, is overwhelming the local and state agencies that have been managing things to this point. Commanding Oficers need Executive Officers to fight battles. Submarines need A and B teams to ensure that crews are not stretched too thin mentally. In wars, divisions and batallions move in and out of place, covering for each other so that front-line solidiers can get required R&R. We don't have that here. There is no backup batallion for the city government. There is no respite for the command team, not without turning this into a military operation. Which we can't because our military is off making democracy safe for the impending Shi'ite takeover of Iraq.
Ahem... Where was I. Oh, exhaustion. Unless we can distribute the load of managing these shelters, reduce the population density as well as total population at any one point, we will start seeing classic 'Skinner Box' behavior. I already have reports of the city needing to do regular sweeps of the bathrooms to stop people from copulating in them. Maintenance and cleanup crews are rubbed down to nubs, and as a result the shelter area is being trashed to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The time for more decisive action, and a disruption of the rising chance of additional trauma to evacuees already hurt is nigh. I hope I'm not the only person reading up on this stuff.
Today plans were made to move the computers out of public view altoghether, closer to the evacuee admitting area, to ensure that FEMA's burgeoning need for space didn't swallow us up. Everything got snarled for several hours, though, as the new bungler-in-chief representing the Feds showed up: Dick 'Tin Man' Cheney. Probably picked out shelter out because it was well run -- no thanks to bozos from D.C.
I apologize to my readers (and I now understand I have several regulars -- thank you!) about my pessimism. After serving many years in military structures, and with a degree and specific coursework that discusses the issue, we are in the 'code red' danger zone. Command and control are in place, the situation is technically stabilized, but the energy and emotional drain on managing this situation, and the civilian response, is overwhelming the local and state agencies that have been managing things to this point. Commanding Oficers need Executive Officers to fight battles. Submarines need A and B teams to ensure that crews are not stretched too thin mentally. In wars, divisions and batallions move in and out of place, covering for each other so that front-line solidiers can get required R&R. We don't have that here. There is no backup batallion for the city government. There is no respite for the command team, not without turning this into a military operation. Which we can't because our military is off making democracy safe for the impending Shi'ite takeover of Iraq.
Ahem... Where was I. Oh, exhaustion. Unless we can distribute the load of managing these shelters, reduce the population density as well as total population at any one point, we will start seeing classic 'Skinner Box' behavior. I already have reports of the city needing to do regular sweeps of the bathrooms to stop people from copulating in them. Maintenance and cleanup crews are rubbed down to nubs, and as a result the shelter area is being trashed to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The time for more decisive action, and a disruption of the rising chance of additional trauma to evacuees already hurt is nigh. I hope I'm not the only person reading up on this stuff.
posted by Da Shlom at Saturday, September 10, 2005
1 Comments:
FEMA is a part of the department of homeland security, such as it is. So you'd expect, what? Competence? You're better off expecting a delusional psychosis. Example: the war on terrorism. Let's apply a seldom used but reasonably effective approach called logic.
Have we had large, government sponsored, "wars on" in the past? You betcha -- the "war on drugs." So how are we doing there? Because, we'd probably expect similar results from our war on terrorism, unless the approach taken is quite different.
Many years into the war on drugs we find billions of dollars have been spent, at least hundreds of law enforcement professionals dead or injured, even more civilians affected including thousands in prison, drugs available on the street in any mid-sized or larger American city. Drugs easily available in virtually all public high schools, and in many public middle schools. The evolution of drug abuse patterns throughout the "war" includes a shift from heroin to cocaine to crack, ecstacy, meth.
Similar to the war on terrorism, there's not just a single nation to bomb (although that certainly hasn't stopped us from unreasonably invading Iraq), there are broad economic issues (like oil production), the "enemy" is insidious and works in cells across our nation with the explicit support of users.
It doesn't seem to me a big stretch here to assert that our war on drugs has not succeeded. But I don't want to debate the policies, just look for past performance as an indicator of future success in similar endeavors.
So we have a federally run (even though local law enforcement play a role here, they are shifted and twisted in response to a justice department run funding carrot and stick), highly funded activity that is pretty much a mess in terms of an objective review of outcomes.
Now look at the war on terrorism. Again, not to debate the policies, although certainly easy pickings. Just look at the logic flow. Why would we expect it to work any better than the war on drugs has worked? Hence my claim of delusional psychosis.
The biggest shame here is that no one (okay, very few? no one in mainstream media?) is exposing the logic failure.
So, back to FEMA. In a model in which American ports do not inspect cargo (other than the most occaisional spot check at a small number of locations), where the boarders are essentially pourous with Mexico, where we factually can't succeed at stopping drug lords from importing volumes of illegal chemicals, we think we can stop terrorists from entering the nation, or from bringing dangerous materials with them?
Any smart terrorist could just subcontract the work to the local drug dealers.
But we are certainly safe from little old ladies entering an airport with a scary cigarette lighter, or from children carrying any pointy and thus federally dangerous toy.
And these are the folks controlling FEMA.
So on top of a level of inherent incompetence, egotism, and lack of caring from any federal beaurocracy, these guys aren't even at the highest levels expected to think logically.
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