Toy Story Tragedy


I'm going to be busy at work today, so alas, posting will be light, but...I managed to plow through a good bit of Disaster yesterday, and for me at least, one thing kept sticking out: this administration took FEMA and used it as a disposable plaything, gutting it the way a bratty kid might set up a toy train wreck or erector set collapse. This was done for strictly ideological reasons--some administration officials didn't like the way FEMA money was used to "play politics" under the Clinton administration.

To be fair, the book also mentioned that successive administrations, for years, had underfunded levee maintenence or improvement (or earmarked monies for dubious projects, like MRGO and/or Red River dredging).

That said, an enabled FEMA might well have mitigated some of the effects of the disaster. A gutted FEMA was worse than no agency at all...which evidently suited some in this administration just fine.

I'm not quite done with the volume--and I don't generally go for plowing through something like this in just a couple of sitting, but it makes for quite compelling reading...hopefully I'll be able to finish it up this evening.

And yes, BOTH the underfunding AND FEMA's gutting are infuriating. It goes back to something Scout mentioned at her own site and at After The Levees: what sort of government do we want? At the very least, it should be "competent." And it shouldn't be in the business of playing games with vital agencies--especially if they WORK--regardless of ideological considerations (for example--despite nonsense GOP rhetorical claims, the last TWO Democratic presidents RAISED military spending). They OWE that much to the citizens who elected them.