superpower, my ass.
not only is there an elephant in america's living room, but the emperor on its back is naked, holding his dick in his hand and demanding more comic books and jujy fruits.
maybe a few people aren't willing to admit that they knew the levees would fail and we'd be left with what we've been left with, but i do not believe that anyone (except maybe the presidiot, whose inner circle seems to keep him pretty cheerfully uninformed) actually did not know. is that unwillingness the entire problem here, the thing to blame for all of this destruction? maybe some people have taken their all-american can-do attitudes to a fatal extreme. in an article published today:
The prospect of more vulnerable populations on a more turbulent Earth has U.N. officials and other advocates pressuring governments to plan and prepare. They cite examples of poorer nations that in ways do a better job than the rich:
-No one was reported killed when Ivan struck Cuba in 2004, its worst hurricane in 50 years and a storm that, after weakening, killed 43 people in the United States. Cuba's warning-evacuation system is minutely planned, even down to neighborhood workers keeping updated charts on which residents need help during evacuations.
-Along Bangladesh's cyclone coast, 33,000 well-organized volunteers stand ready to shepherd neighbors to raised concrete shelters at the approach of one of the Bay of Bengal's vicious storms.
-In 2002, Jamaica conducted a full-scale evacuation rehearsal in a low-lying suburb of coastal Kingston, and fine-tuned plans afterward. When Ivan's 20-foot surge destroyed hundreds of homes two years later, only eight people died. Ordinary Jamaicans also are taught search-and-rescue methods and towns at risk have trained flood-alert teams.
Like many around the world, Barbara Carby, Jamaica's disaster coordinator, watched in disbelief as catastrophe unfolded on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"We always have resource constraints," she said. "That's not a problem the U.S. has. But because they have the resources, they may not pay enough attention to preparedness and awareness, and to educating the public how to help themselves."
in order to educate the public on how to help themselves in an emergency situation, you must first make them understand that there will be emergency situations that no one, not even the united states government, will be able to prevent. i have heard too many people say that the footage they've seen of the flood survivors and the aftermath they're trying to live in doesn't "look like america," as though we, as privileged citizens, were somehow immune to acts of nature--people flying first class don't have to suffer leg cramps, and americans don't have to worry about dangerous weather patterns. but what else would people think when no one has put a sufficient amount of effort into impressing upon them that that can not, under any circumstances, be the case? when the officials responsible for keeping the public informed will not admit that that isn't the case? even when flood drills were run in new orleans, they were run according to the events that would unfold during and after a category 3 hurricane, which is what the levees were believed to be able to withstand. they acted out a scenario that they were almost completely confident they could handle, and then when it was over they said, "see? we told you we had your backs." but that scenario was not the worst-case one, and that's the one FEMA existed to prepare for. we're shocked, now, that nobody had a plan, but it was a mistake on everyone's part to assume unquestioningly that there was one.
we can't get so accustomed to being able to expect better that we don't remember to check in once in a while and make sure that "better" is what's actually being delivered. the american people were told that measures had been taken to ensure their safety, and, because no tragedies struck in the interim, no one got on anyone's ass and demanded that they prove it. but how were the people heading up these measures convincing themselves that they had done the job? were they using the same standard--nothing bad had happened, so they must have got it right? i think we had a group of self-satisfied people standing in a circle and patting one another's backs, and now their combination of hubris and indifference has led to exactly the sort of catastrophe they were in place to prevent. so what are they doing now? they've split up into smaller groups, where they alternately pat the backs of the people around them and point angry fingers at the people in the group next to them. so far no one's made any admissions as to where, exactly, the failure originated, or suggestions about how we might get it right next time.
we could always send some of our public officials down to cuba for while, and see if they pick up any pointers.
maybe a few people aren't willing to admit that they knew the levees would fail and we'd be left with what we've been left with, but i do not believe that anyone (except maybe the presidiot, whose inner circle seems to keep him pretty cheerfully uninformed) actually did not know. is that unwillingness the entire problem here, the thing to blame for all of this destruction? maybe some people have taken their all-american can-do attitudes to a fatal extreme. in an article published today:
The prospect of more vulnerable populations on a more turbulent Earth has U.N. officials and other advocates pressuring governments to plan and prepare. They cite examples of poorer nations that in ways do a better job than the rich:
-No one was reported killed when Ivan struck Cuba in 2004, its worst hurricane in 50 years and a storm that, after weakening, killed 43 people in the United States. Cuba's warning-evacuation system is minutely planned, even down to neighborhood workers keeping updated charts on which residents need help during evacuations.
-Along Bangladesh's cyclone coast, 33,000 well-organized volunteers stand ready to shepherd neighbors to raised concrete shelters at the approach of one of the Bay of Bengal's vicious storms.
-In 2002, Jamaica conducted a full-scale evacuation rehearsal in a low-lying suburb of coastal Kingston, and fine-tuned plans afterward. When Ivan's 20-foot surge destroyed hundreds of homes two years later, only eight people died. Ordinary Jamaicans also are taught search-and-rescue methods and towns at risk have trained flood-alert teams.
Like many around the world, Barbara Carby, Jamaica's disaster coordinator, watched in disbelief as catastrophe unfolded on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"We always have resource constraints," she said. "That's not a problem the U.S. has. But because they have the resources, they may not pay enough attention to preparedness and awareness, and to educating the public how to help themselves."
in order to educate the public on how to help themselves in an emergency situation, you must first make them understand that there will be emergency situations that no one, not even the united states government, will be able to prevent. i have heard too many people say that the footage they've seen of the flood survivors and the aftermath they're trying to live in doesn't "look like america," as though we, as privileged citizens, were somehow immune to acts of nature--people flying first class don't have to suffer leg cramps, and americans don't have to worry about dangerous weather patterns. but what else would people think when no one has put a sufficient amount of effort into impressing upon them that that can not, under any circumstances, be the case? when the officials responsible for keeping the public informed will not admit that that isn't the case? even when flood drills were run in new orleans, they were run according to the events that would unfold during and after a category 3 hurricane, which is what the levees were believed to be able to withstand. they acted out a scenario that they were almost completely confident they could handle, and then when it was over they said, "see? we told you we had your backs." but that scenario was not the worst-case one, and that's the one FEMA existed to prepare for. we're shocked, now, that nobody had a plan, but it was a mistake on everyone's part to assume unquestioningly that there was one.
we can't get so accustomed to being able to expect better that we don't remember to check in once in a while and make sure that "better" is what's actually being delivered. the american people were told that measures had been taken to ensure their safety, and, because no tragedies struck in the interim, no one got on anyone's ass and demanded that they prove it. but how were the people heading up these measures convincing themselves that they had done the job? were they using the same standard--nothing bad had happened, so they must have got it right? i think we had a group of self-satisfied people standing in a circle and patting one another's backs, and now their combination of hubris and indifference has led to exactly the sort of catastrophe they were in place to prevent. so what are they doing now? they've split up into smaller groups, where they alternately pat the backs of the people around them and point angry fingers at the people in the group next to them. so far no one's made any admissions as to where, exactly, the failure originated, or suggestions about how we might get it right next time.
we could always send some of our public officials down to cuba for while, and see if they pick up any pointers.
posted by juniper pearl @ 2:22 PM
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