Must Reads.
The End of the Bush Era by E.J. Dionne
9/11 and the Sport of God by Bill Moyers (against religious fundamentalism and probably more palatable than Sam Harris, even though he echoes some of Harris's points.)
Katrina Shows the Importance of Government by Steven Hill (If you're like me, you've already encountered the argument that government is obviously going to respond slowly to disasters -- it's government, after all, and can't do anything without bumbling. Of course, the rhetorical play is that conservatives have damned government by "the soft bigotry of low expectations" and self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, FEMA responded rapidly during the four hurricanes in Florida last year, an election year in a swing state governed by the president's brother, so you make the call.)
posted by Eric 3.0 @ 12:00 AM
1 Comments:
Always an interesting read.
I concur with your assessment of the government's ability to screw something up. Pardons, change that to "everything."
However, I am unsure where to fall on your statement concerning hurricane response.
I live in a "red" state and suffered through a hurricane over a year ago. Response was not referred to as "rapid," and FEMA is STILL screwing things up in the area. I also note that we didn't have a Cat 5 hurricane, either--which is one of the reasons that most of us enjoyed a restoration of power and drinking water within 10 days. Another contributing factor was that the land to which I refer was not located 18 feet below sea level...
Is it possible that assistance was notably better in FL for hurricanes 2-4 simply because "assistance" was already in the state and could commence throwing wrenches into the works with much greater speed?
Merely a suggestion...
M.
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