NY Times Krugman nails it again: "A Can't-Do Government"

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. "The New Orleans hurricane scenario," The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, "may be the deadliest of all." It described a potential catastrophe very much like the one now happening.
So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of whitewash. This time, we need accountability.
First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any help at all.

more...

[KeepItReal]

1. If not for disasters, Bush & Co wouldn't even have an approval rating

He is in fucking hiding pre-9/11 and was under seige in Crawford before the hurricane.

[Burried News]

2. Smirking - grounds for impeachment. Yes in the RIGHT context.

"At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government."
"So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses, Americans are dying."
From Krugman article.

[babylonsister]

3. He does get to the point, doesn't he? I am so glad

the NY Times allows his outrage so lots of people can read him!

[ohtransplant]

4. Criminal negligence.

These people seem to be too poor for help.

* can yelp all he wants to the contrary. Actions speak louder than words.

Sad...Proufoundly sad...

[MadisonProgressive]

5. This says it all

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on sinking levees. "The corps," an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain."

[PerpetuallyDazed]

8. Duh.. they wanted it to happen!

I have yet to see a cap on gas prices.

I have yet to see any sort sort of leadership taking control over the ensuing chaos.

It makes perfect sense to me.

[babylonsister]

13. Welcome to DU, PD! !

[pgw]

6. a disgrace

I have been an avid reader of DU for quite awhile but this is my first post. The response to this disaster is a disgrace. This is America for god's sake. I hope that this will finally open the eyes of those who voted for this President that he really just doesn't care. However, considering how he and his group of pirate's manage to get away with everything, I don't think it will.

[Lindsay]

9. Welcome to DU, pgw.

I think a lot of eyes have been opened.

Whether that will actually lead to change is another question.

But I do believe a lot of people will no longer buy into the old bullshit.

[babylonsister]

14. Nice to have you signed on, pgw! nt

[Bodisat]

7. The media needs to stay on this story

because the death of Americans are clearly on the shoulders of this administration, and it's sad, ridiculous and shameful if it gets away with it.

[babylonsister]

12. I've been proud of the media for getting the truth out there.

And Bodisat, welcome to DU!

[Paradise]

10. Here's your "ownership" society, for you, freepers. nt

[bvar22]

25. Compassionate Conservatism:

The Republican Ownership Society




The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. I'm sure you'll all bow your heads with me an mourn the loss of the

civil servant. Krugman didn't mention the words, but it's the loss of the civil servant from FEMA and other government agencies which has created this heinous era of neglect and inefficiency.

My dad was a 40 year long civil servant. It was something I was proud of -- being the daughter of a civil servant. It wasn't until I came to the states back in the late 70s when I realized that Republican types felt that civil servants were akin to welfare leeches. So, the slothing off of civil servants began more than twenty years ago. It was America's loss because you'll never find a more dedicated and patriotic American worker, than a civil servant.

[glitch]

27. Very true - and it needed to be said. The way the Reagan era slammed and

libeled civil servants was blatant.
And the minions have been at it ever since.
Despicable creatures, they see the treasury as a source to be looted, that is all. And now they are using our taxes to pay Blackwater and Halliburton to go to New Orleans. Not to save lives, just another opportunity to loot.

[Supersedeas]

15. Buried in a thick coat of whitewash - ty Lee Hamilton for a contribution

to history

[culturalelite]

16. be fair to Bush

Don't forget, we have to fight the terrorists over there so that we don't have to fight the hurricane over here.

[Gronk Groks]

18. Not enough helicopters or airplanes?

In America? Oh that's right the government ones are in Iraq and Bush can't possibly ask his business partners/friends to loan/rent to the government aircraft because it's LABOR DAY WEEKEND. Much too profitable to ignore for some Refugees down in Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama.

Oh and welcome to DU Cultural Elite!

[Just Me]

19. He sacrificed the safety and security of Americans,...

,...to pursue a war for profit. Traitor! :mad:

[chomskysright]

17. my letter to Krugman: he's mapping 'MALEVOLENT NEGLECT'

Mr. Krugman:

You stated:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/opinion/02krugman.html

"I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor. "

I think what we are mapping out here, Mr. Krugman, is what I am calling 'Malevolent Neglect.' It has certain 'constructs' (psychologists map out the 'interior', if you will, of a phenomenon.) See below.

---------- Forwarded Message ----------


There's a phenomenon going on here re: lack of federal assistance in N.O. and what took place prior to 9-11. I'm using the phrase (as psychologists are prone to assign something a descriptor as a kind of short-hand) "Malevolent Neglect."

We now have 2 BIG instances of Malevolent Neglect: 9-11 and New Orleans.

Both are associated with information voluminously parlayed to Bush's administration prior to the event. This is established.

Back up: get away from the smoke: what do you see: 2 events with massive warning, should've-been-planning, finger pointing during which nothing goes into the US Cabinet and little impact on the U.S. Congress.

I keep thinking back to Stanley Milgram's experiments; to Zimbardo's prison experiment. There are big archetypal forces being examined in all of these settings: sadism and torture.

There is a social psychology experiment being played out here---either consciously or unconsciously. I think some of both, more conscious than not, with the related parties, particularly Rove I think, working the pieces onto the board and then whistling as he walks away into the dark of the night, knowing that sometime/ somewhere the levee will break, the terrorists will take over the planes, the London Muslims scrambling in their back-packs because they all of a sudden figured out what was up.

[Chiyo-chichi]

21. excellent.

I was just about to quote the same paragraph that you did. I was just going to say that it's evidence that they just don't give a shit about people. "Malevolent Neglect" is much more eloquent.

[iNViSiGOD]

20. People like Dubya....

probably see this as an easy way to rid themselves of some of the nations less then well off people.

[novak goes postal]

22. Bush should be so ashamed

If He only had a brain.....

[FDR33]

23. The Ruthuglican

administration is a complete disgrace. They have proven once and for all that they are completely incompetent. They are running the economy into the ground, they've put this country in a war it can't win, and now they've shown that they can't even respond to a natural disaster.

What happened to the SECURITY president? I guess homeland security only applies to the evildoers with brown skin. If some guy with a turban started shooting up downtown NO, Bush would have send 4 army divisions to kill him in a public display of security in action, but if hundreds of thousands of black people are trapped and dying in their own city they get: "Help is....on the way."

Disgusting. WORST PRESIDENT EVER!

[Miss Chybil]

24. But China evacuated 760,000 people before a typhoon... nt

[nigelthebrit]

26. August 2005 - the month reality hit back

A White House insider told Ron R Suskind, of the "New Yorker" magazine in October last year: "You guys have studied objective reality, but...we're an Empire now, and we create our own reality". What a temptation to fate that was!

So, when the history books come to be written, August 2005 will be seen as the month that actual, or objective reality, rather than make-believe "reality" finally hit back - with a vengeance, in the form of two avenging angels.

The first of these was a 48 year old bereaved mother called Cindy. The second was in the form of a Hurricane called Katrina.

[McCamy Taylor]

28. Right on target as usual.