Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Meet Me in the Middle

E. J. Dionne, Jr., one of my favorite liberal columnists, describes the plight of his lefty Democrats as being unable to attract enough moderate votes to gain control of either the White House or either House on the Hill. On first blush, as a committed moderate this argument makes a lot of sense since I’m very upset by the actions of conservative Republicans in all branches of government.

Dionne cites an electorate with 45% of the voters describing themselves as moderates, 21% liberals, and 34 % conservatives, and he lays out a path a path for liberals to capture the votes of us centrists. To those of us in the middle disillusioned with the performance of President Bush who promised to be a uniter but has done so much to offend both liberals and moderates Dionne’s recipe looks attractive, but I’m afraid it will not pass the taste test.

Both liberals and conservatives treat us as a passive lot who must be won over to the side of truth – theirs, naturally. But that’s what got us into this sorry state. In the sixties we went along with Lyndon Johnson’s war and guns and butter economy, and beginning with Reagan we’ve bought into a national muscularity in foreign affairs that culminated with the shock and awe beginning of our pratfall in Iraq and the sorry attempt to destroy Social Security.

Do you want to know who was really responsible for Vietnam and Iraq? It wasn’t the aggressive Democrats of the sixties for the former nor was it the neocons of the new millennium in Iraq; it was us moderates who gently sidled up to Lyndon and Dubya. We are responsible because we just went along, as usual.

The moderates must lead the country out of the wilderness. Impossible you say. If that’s the case we’re doomed to lurch from left to right, forever tossed on the waves of bunk that are bashing the ship of state from left to right and back again. America was a land of moderation for much of its history, but the sensible center was not up to the political, economic and political turmoil of the last century. A president of the left center had to rise and save the nation in the thirties and one from the right moved center stage to move us back on course and govern through the Cold War.

These two aberrations, left and right, addicted us to government from the edges that led us too far, first one way then the other. The moderates have seen no other way but to pick one side or the other to move us back. My view is that we’re wrong in choosing the way we have; we’ve followed and not led. We must break the cycle of choosing between the left and the right and make them move to us. You don’t see the difference? Bear with me

The liberal Democrats are debating whether to remain true to their core beliefs or to move slightly to the center to attract more of us. Obviously, the conservatives are doing the opposite but secure in the knowledge that they have to entice fewer of us to their 34% base to maintain control of the levers of power.

The problem is that we sheep are simply waiting to be divided and led to slaughter. As I’ve written before in my essay on the gang of fourteen million, we must lead from the center and demand that the extremes bow to us rather than the other way around. Naturally, this isn’t going to be done by creating a third party or by recruiting our own candidates. It has to be done by individual voters rejecting the extremes and saying so loudly and clearly to those running the parties.

Right now we should be angry with the Republicans. Even if we’re members of that august group – which I was until the build up to the Iraq War – we must punish them for their adventurism in both foreign and domestic affairs. At the same time, we should make it abundantly clear that we are not buying into the liberal claptrap and that we will punish the Democrats for moves away from center, too.

Above all, we must be prepared to punish our own cherished congressional representatives of either party who bring home the bacon but who are ideologues in all things non-constituent oriented. Just because they fight for the local military base or for the multi-billion dollar bridge project, if we see that that their larger presence is taking us down the wrong road as a nation, we must vote against them. If they perceive that before the next election and move toward the center, we can forgive and vote for them – ONE LAST TIME.

Above all, if we’re lucky enough to be represented by a moderates such as members of `The Gang of Fourteen’ in the Senate or Blue Dog Democrats in the House, we must do our best to praise and publicize them to our neighbors. They’re rare but out there and they must be cherished and recognized.

Would this strategy work? Compared to what we’re used to it couldn’t hurt to try.

With the Red Sox and Yankees gearing up for a showdown in Fenway, I’m shifting my brain into gear for something really important for the next several days. Blogs are out until the middle of next week.

So Blog on without me!

Wild Bill

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Lessons Learned

Before all the commissions and committees blow forth the final fog about how the governments performed or failed to perform in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and before we are so locked in on the scent trails pointed to by the Congress and its hired hands might it be possible for us draw a few preliminary lessons of our own?

It is quite clear that we haven’t done nearly so much in disaster planning and preparedness as most of us had assumed and inferred from official pronouncements and media interpretations. Judging from the actions of local, state and federal leaders and agencies, we weren’t nearly as prepared for a category 4 or 5 hurricane strike on the Gulf Coast as we should have been, let alone two such events in less than a month. That, of course, says nothing about preparedness for a terrorist attack on a major population center

It is clear that the City of New Orleans, other local entities, the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the federal government were far from ready for an event for which they’d been given as much notice as would ever be possible. The Hurricane Center in Miami clearly sounded the alarm in a timely and crystal clear manner. The potential physical damage of Hurricane Katrina was known to officials in all of the jurisdictions. None of the three levels of governments appear to have been nearly properly prepared or acted as well as we or they would have liked.

With the coming of Hurricane Rita on the heels of Katrina, however, it appears that the impacted governments drew many lessons from the earlier hurricane and did their level best to deal with the situation. Many things went right and quite a few did not. Clearly all three levels of government performed with far more energy, as we fully expected they would after the disaster that unfolded to the east of them.

The citizens took the warnings and the orders to evacuate far more seriously for Rita. That led to many new and unanticipated problems such as turning the highways out of Houston into endless parking lots. But with the newly exposed problems, I’m certain that all levels of government will respond even better in the next great storm. Obviously, everyone will work to find ways to stagger the exodus of refugees from the next hurricane. Governments can learn and have shown it in the month since Katrina.

Before we go too far in condemning President Bush, the governors, mayors, county judges, and their administrations for their failures in these two storms, we should note that many public officials performed competently, effectively, even admirably and obviously charitably. Then we should draw a deep breath and indicate much as the early colonist observed watching a condemned man ascend the gallows, “There but for the Grace of God, goes John Bradford.” I used to work on disasters for federal agencies and know full well how lucky I am not to have been in the chain of command in responding to Katrina.

From all that I can see, we’ve learned much and will deal with future natural disasters far better than we did with Katrina and Rita. But what about events caused by man – attacks by enemy states and terrorists? Those are very scary thoughts.

First, it’s unlikely that we’ll have any better intelligence than that provided by the Hurricane Center. Looking back on lessons of the Cold War, an attack by a prospective enemy state is likely to offer only a few hours or days warning and that is probably going to be general rather than target specific. Who will be advised to evacuate? Who will help the refugees? Who would obey the logical order of evacuation that we will surely learn from Rita? You know who, nobody!

In the case of terrorism, there will almost certainly be no warning. Obviously if the government becomes aware of an impending attack it will move heaven and earth to stop it, but there is unlikely to be time to advise residents of the target area to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Clearly if there is a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction, all the logic in the world regarding planned evacuation will be out the window. If Houston highways were snarled, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

To me, Secretary Chertoff’s program to plan for catastrophic events at the federal level is right on target. State and local officials must deal with smaller events – even up to the horror that was 9/11, and the federal government must use its resources to prevent such catastrophes and to respond to them in case its intelligence and intercession fails.

Katrina and Rita must be reminders that we must do more to develop intelligence on both natural and man induced calamities. In the case of hurricanes, it looks as though we have an excellent system in place. We must spend more money on earthquake identification and prediction and on the tsunamis that can result from those quakes under the sea. We’re doing research on bodies in space and that must continue.

But the most important lesson to be learned from the disasters of August and September 2005 is already receding from view. Pork is the enemy of public safety in these perilous times. Already defenders of one president, governor or another are proclaiming that they spent more on the Corps of Engineers (or the Bureau of reclamation, etc.) than their predecessor or successor. This is where the bunkum hits the fan. The legislators and their friends in the executive have classically played games with budget figures and they show every sign of continuing.

Spending money on the Corps does not mean they are spending money on projects required for public safety. Spending money on Homeland Security does not mean they are funding project essential to protecting us. The Defense budget has always been laden with pork, but these have almost always meant add ons to the budget not substitutions of Congressional views on defense policy for the leaders of the DOD. These redundancies have often been wasteful but not detrimental to our safety.

Homeland Security and Corps of Engineers pork, on the other hand, is not added onto the required funding. It is in lieu of projects needed for national security. Your Congressional representatives in both Houses are knowingly steering money into hometown boondoggles. This used to be a relatively harmless pastime designed to get them reelected and to assure that a little federal money fertilized the grass around city hall. That won’t do in this age.

Take your pick: global warming is creating more powerful hurricanes or we are entering a multi-decadal cycle of more frequent and powerful storms. From a homeland security perspective either option works as well as the other; giant storms are coming. More of our citizens live in danger zones, and we can’t afford to be penny wise on Corps projects and ignore the possibility of paying ten times as much to lock the barn door after Dobbin is gone.

We are living in an age of terror and the United States is the number one target. While we can’t ignore the possibility that a shopping mall in Lincoln, Nebraska will be the scene of a suicide bombing, we must know that New York, Washington, Chicago, the Port of New Orleans and other major metropolitan targets are what Osama bin Laden would like to take out. We can’t afford to have pork looted from the Homeland Security budget to satisfy the pipedreams and electability of craven politicians.

You’ve got to have some idea whether the project being pushed in your town really adds to the safety of all of us. If it doesn’t blow the whistle! The lives and safety of tens or hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens is in the balance.

Don’t stand idly by in this; the security of the nation is at stake.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

The Bush administration is going to great lengths to assure that casualty counts from Iraq are accurate – and misleading.

American service men and women killed are reported in a straightforward fashion. Those killed by hostile action are identified and those killed in accidents are so reported and both are added together to provide the count used by the government and reported to the media.

Is there any other way counting could be done? Actually, yes!

Those Americans wounded in action are quiet properly listed but those injured in accidents are compiled separately and only the former are given regular reporting coverage by the Pentagon. Thousands of Americans badly injured – up to and including those permanently and totally disabled in the hostile environment that is Iraq are not classified as casualties unless they were wounded by enemy action.

During previous wars such as World War II and Korea the military provided many more of its own services. Proud units such as the famed transportation command `The Red Ball Express’ came under fire and suffered many casualties, including many from accidents that would not qualify under today’s counting methods. Today, in Iraq many jobs formerly performed by the army and other services such as kitchen duty and truck driving are performed by contractors. Drivers and support personnel killed, wounded or disabled by hostile action or accident are carefully kept off the casualty books.

All of these techniques and many other statistical feats show a far rosier picture in Iraq than if standard operating procedures used in reporting casualties in prior conflicts were used. Men and women are still being killed and injured; they just don’t count like their grand parents.

As long as you know!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

No Money Down - No Payments Due - Ever

Where have all the cloth coats gone? Since when did Republicans become the party of easy credit cards and ostentatious display? When did the GOP decide to live on debt and pass the bill on to their grandchildren? Well that’s only technically that they’re stiffing their grandchildren; really it’s more like leaving the bill for the children and grandchildren of the middle class. How on earth did these neo-robber barons conceive of – no, pull off – hijacking the party of trust busting TR and Honest Abe and turn it once again into the tool of the successors to J. P. Morgan, the Astors and the old time pre-reform Rockefellers?

For all of the profligacy, the Democrats seemed at least partly committed to being the party of Robin Hood. Growing older, I’ve come to realize that the handling charges in such entities as non-profit organizations are more than enough to assure home addresses in Georgetown, Beacon Hill, and Palo Alto, but their hearts, bless their hearts, seemed always to be in the right place. So it was as they soaked the rich to help the lot of those most in need.

Dang, how did these boys from Texas and Wyoming gull the middle class into thinking they were guiding their party down the garden path of fiscal responsibility while in actuality they were lining their pockets and charging the bills to the grandchildren of the rubes buying the McMansions and Humvies? Some damn trick, eh?

Now as The Used car Salesman in Chief, aka, Dubya peddles the snake oil guaranteed to cure the ills of the Gulf Coast at no cost, really at less than no cost since taxes will continue to go down for all taxpayers – especially those of the neo robber barons. Does this not sound surprisingly like the line put forth by Professor Henry Hill? But this isn’t The Music Man with a formulaic happy ending; this is real life.

We’re going to have to restore the Gulf Coast of this there can be no doubt. And, regardless of your views on Iraq, we’re going to have to continue to pour lives and treasure into that unhappy land. But, `read his lips’, we’re not going to have to pay for either one. For the Used Car Salesman in Chief, it’s all one big Washington’s Birthday Sale; drive your Hummer off the lot with no payments due until your grandchildren grow up and take over the payment book.

It’s galling to me that the party of Robert Taft and all those `pay as you go’ Republicans are more than happy to avoid reality and spend, spend, spend far faster than the democrats they label as the party of big spenders, all the while institute policies undermining the middle class and creating budget and trade deficits that really don’t mean anything. “Now who’re you gonna believe – me or your lyin’ eyes?”

The Administration’s got economists lined up from Capitol Hill to Wall Street guaranteeing that these deficit numbers don’t mean a thing. “Buy now, no payments due until 2018!”

I know there are Cloth Coat Republicans out there. They’ve sent people to Congress from Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, even from Arizona and Nebraska, so when are they going to wake up around the rest of the country? It better damn well be soon. It better be, those same law makers getting ready to max out our national credit card just recently passed Bankruptcy Reform. Our grandchildren just won’t be able to roll that debt over and continue to make minimum monthly payments.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

The Gang of Fourteen Million

Some months back, the U.S. Senate was in grave danger of completely breaking down. The Republicans were threatening to use the `Nuclear Option’ to overcome the Democrats use of filibusters to prevent votes on President Bush’s judicial nominees. The Democrats, in turn, were threatening to shut down the federal government if the rule change on filibusters was imposed.

This increasingly dire situation festered for months and only diminished when `The Gang of Fourteen’ stepped in and boxed ears on both sides of the aisle. Seven Republicans and seven Democrats – just fourteen percent of the body - stepped forward and made it clear that despite the clamoring of crazy conservatives on one side and loopy liberals on the other they would propose centrist ground rules that would determine how the Senate would deal with judicial nominees. At least for the time being, the senators on the fringes and the leaders had no choice but to abide by the will of `The Gang.’

Rarely has the country been so polarized. Corruption of the redistricting process has led to a situation in which the vast majority of seats in the House of Representatives are no longer competitive. Sophisticated analytic tools have made `safe’ redistricting of the Congressional districts and has led to great polarization within the legislative body. Instead of having to answer to relatively balanced groupings of citizens, most members of congress are forced to move hard right or left to satisfy the narrowed political spectrum that they now represent.

The legislative changes have driven most moderates out of the Congress and sent the level of discourse in Washington to new lows. This process has tended to highlight the relatively recent phenomenon of Red and Blue states. With the level of comity working its way toward little or none, what are moderates to do?

`The Gang of Fourteen’ has shown us the way. Those of us committed to the center must assert ourselves and become `The Gang of Fourteen Million.’ Surely, those of us not frothing at the mouth at the diatribes of el Rushbo, Sean, and Bill O’Reilly or Michael Moore and Al Franken must realize that to continue to entrust our government to representatives of either group without checks on their behavior from outside the loony bin is a recipe for certain disaster.

The excesses of the liberals during the run up to the darkest days of Vietnam is a perfect example of the left gone wild, and the culmination of the conservative era that we live in today has led to the disastrous situation in Iraq and to the inept response to Katrina that stares us in the face today.

The hubris of Lyndon Johnson whose guns and butter madness led to a massive failure in the welfare state, the horror that was Vietnam, and to the long term run of inflation that wiped out the savings of millions of Americans.

Now, the `starve the beast’ mentality of the right together with an overarching hubris among our leaders has led us into the trap of Iraq and to our inability to respond effectively to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

When I was young, I supported the policies and people that brought us the Johnson failures. I switched to the ideas being espoused by Ronald Reagan and actually voted for George W. Bush in his race against Al Gore. I was wrong. And despite admitting to errors that could disqualify me from pontificating – you know that’ll never happen - I’m convinced there is an answer.

`The Gang of Fourteen Million’ must be formed, and it begins with each of us. The policies of the hard right and extreme left are not the answers. That the left arose to save America during The Great Depression and it was answered by the messianic Reagan era means only one thing to me. While the rise of extreme politics, government, and economic policies may be needed in time of crisis, during normal, relatively prosperous times, only moderate leaders should have their hands on the levers of power.

As we consigned the wild eyed liberals to a life of wandering in the desert, we should now be purchasing one way tickets to the Sahara for those pushing us toward the brink of extreme right wing radicalism.

It is time for divided government. I will be supporting Democrats in 2006 not because I love them or believe in them but to punish the incumbents for their massive failures. If neither or either but not both Houses of Congress fall to the Democrats, I’ll support the Democratic nominee for president in’08, again as punishment for the failure of this administration. But I will vote for the Republican if both houses are controlled by the Democrats. I will never again give my votes to a single party in control of the two active branches of government, except in times of crisis such as The Great Depression.

Surely, out of 300 hundred million Americans there are fourteen million of us with a commitment to moderate government, and we must work to find one another and to proselytize from among thinking people who are disturbed by the situation in which we find ourselves. It’s not as if you or I must be the single founder; there are already fourteen of our kind in the Senate and literally millions who voted for them, most consciously. All we have to do during conversations – or rather shouting matches - in which our left and right wing brethren are foaming as others simply listen is to speak up and indicate that we don’t agree with extreme solutions or candidates and indicate how we intend to vote.

In many states, the shift of just a few percentage points would be enough to determine the winner of the presidency. Even in many `safe’ districts, just a few thousand votes could determine control of the House of representatives.

We can do it, and we better!

Whew! After this screed you must be tired. I am. I’m going on vacation for a week or so, and the blog and you will be the better for it.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Monday, September 12, 2005

Heck

Heck, Ah don’t get it. Bubba gets away with anything with the lingo. Heck, he’s got a lot redder neck’n mine. Ah mean heck, Ah went to Yale – and Harvard too - and so’d ma Daddy and lots o’ other kin. Now Ah axe ya straight out, what the heck’s meanin’ o’ heck?

Ah mean Bubba says it depends on the meaning of `is.’ But me, no, the media just assumes that `heck’ means `heck’. Pardner, in freshman English at Yale, Ah learned all about irony and sarcasm and lots o’ other big words, but let me say `heck’ and they stick me with `heck’.

If you cain’t see that the mainstream media’s pickin’ on us good ol’ country folk and funnin’ us cause we’re bumpkins, you cain’t see nothin’.

Heck, Ah say somethin’ bout raisin’ a iddy biddy bit o’ `heck’ in Nahlins a long time ago, and the New York Times and the Washington Post are all over me as not bein’ sensitive. Heck, Bubba’s never stopped raisin’ heck and all they can say is, “Looky how smart that good ol’ boy is.”

A’right, let’s git raht to it. When Ah said “Brownie, you’re doin’ a heck of a job,” why’d the Times just jump at thinkin’ I meant`heck?’ Ah’ll tell ya why, cause they’re backin’ Hilary and give her all the breaks when it comes to the lingo. If she said `heck’, heck they’d be sayin’, how bout that red state sensitivity?

Why couldn’ Ah a' meant ya ain’t cuttin’ the mustard, Brownie? They don’ know fer sure. But no, how’d they know that wasn’t irony or sarcasm or some such b.s. meanin’? Ah’ll tell you why; they just got it in fer folks 'at say `heck’ an’ you know who you are.

You know’d Ah meant heck. Don’ you lissen to them pin heads from New York City an’ Washington. D’ya evr hear how funny they say nuculeer? Who you gonna believe us’n or them’n?

U Betcha!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Denial is Dereliction

While Mark Twain’s warning that the women and children should be locked up and guarded when the legislature is in session is humorous and not without some merit, democracies need their legislatures.

Last week, even while the parties were fighting and feuding, it was a matter of life and death that the Congress perform effectively and it did. It passed two emergency appropriations that will permit the emergency response and rebuilding of New Orleans to proceed. The Congressional role was simple. The members saw it. The Congress succeeded.

While the role of the various levels of government in catastrophes is less clear today than in the happy summer days prior to Katrina, there was virtual unanimity on the view that the federal government had to open its wallet and cover the cost of cleanup and reconstruction. The President asked for the money and the Congress appropriated it. Without that approval, the calamity that faces the nation on the Gulf Coast could have unraveled our entire society.

Does anyone out there disagree to this point? Excellent, I’ll proceed.

Al Qaeda tried to behead the government of the United States. The mad scheme of Osama bin Laden to destroy major symbols of America – The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and either the White House or the Capitol – failed at a certain level as the president and the Congress survived, and the government was able to respond to the attack.

In retrospect, however, part of that failure by al Qaeda was based on the heroic response of only a few individuals on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, the great good fortune that Mr. Bush was not in The White House, and the Congress was not gathered in one place at the moment of proposed impact.

When New Orleans was drowned, the Congress had to perform. What if a quorum of one or both Houses, due to terrorist or enemy nation attack, was not available to legislate? Fortunately, that was not the case with Katrina and those of us not working on the rescue and cleanup can continue to enjoy ourselves as the government lives.

But there are people, very bad people, dedicated to undermining the ability of the United States government to perform its duties, and September 11 should have been the ultimate wake up call, but it wasn’t.

In the four years since the attacks by al Qaeda, the federal government has made great strides in physical security of the Capital. Four years of construction assures that those attempting to destroy the Capitol, The White House, the Pentagon, and most other strategic and symbolic points in the Washington area will have a much more difficult time with their diabolical plans. Presidential succession is clear, and it appears that the Executive Branch takes its responsibilities seriously in this vital area.

The Congress, however, has not kept pace. While the buildings and grounds of the Legislative Branch have been hardened and a successful beheading of the government is far less likely, certainty can never be assured. The levees protecting New Orleans would stand up against a Category 3 storm, but there was no guarantee beyond that level and Katrina proved it to be the case. When the disaster occurred, the Congress was called upon to act, and it did.

But again in the case of one or both Houses not being able to legislate, what would happen if Washington or another city was laid as low as New Orleans and there was no way to constitute a working Congress? We just don’t know. And Congress has been derelict in not facing this question that was raised many times in the aftermath of 9/11.

So we had two disasters – 9/11 and Katrina – four years apart and an intact responsive government was required after both, and, by the grace of God, we had it.

Could there not be a category 5 attack on the government and the country? Of course, and we’ve been under warning for four years. But the Congress has diddled and failed to protect us. Denial of the possibility amounts to dereliction of duty. SHAME!

Congress must act to redress this failure!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Friday, September 09, 2005

Losers!

Americans hate losing and love winning! I’ve had experience with both. In 1980, I lost a round robbin ping pong match with my sons – as I recall I wasn’t wearing proper foot wear, and, recently, I was nosed out in a golf match with my buddy, Lewis, in which I was suffering greatly from an injury that I didn’t claim because of my strength of character.

I ran for public office three times in the town to which I retired and won each time. I won’t say I was scared even a little in those races, but I have stopped shaking now that decade has passed since that first race.

This morning, I read with interest Richard Holbrooke’s expansive op-ed piece in the Washington Post. Mr. Holbrooke tears apart – effectively, in my judgment – the failure of the Bush Administration in the War on Terror. (I’ve linked the article so you can decide.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR2005090801857.html

But Mr. Holbrooke is a fortunate man this morning. He is not – as Wolf Blitzer of CNN would echo, “NOT” – the United States Secretary of State. Had John F. Kerry won the White House, Mr. Holbrooke would have been the leading candidate to occupy the biggest office in Foggy Bottom.

So, regardless of how effectively President Kerry and Secretary Holbrooke were managing the debacle in Iraq and the War on Terror in their still new administration, the Secretary would not be penning long thoughtful articles on how to deal with Osama bin Laden; he’d been back filling on the government response to Katrina much as the real incumbent in State is doing.

Messrs. K & H can take some solace in having been found wanting at the polls. They’re not in charge of anything this morning.

My shoes really were the problem and I was a sport not to talk about my injury. But losing isn’t all bad; just ask John and Richard this morning. Whew!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Steady! Clear Eyes!

Bill’s crew is now being buffeted by spin machines bearing category 5 winds. From the left, we learn that a heartless president and his market based buddies simply don’t care about the poor, especially poor Blacks, and that they dithered as New Orleans went down for the third time.

From the right, we learn – I heard it myself on Rush Limbaugh and read several incoming screeds from right wing acquaintances – that it (I guess the whole disaster) is the fault of the liberals and the dependency they created on the welfare state. One Evangelical preacher claimed the whole thing was God’s retribution on New Orleans for being a place of sin and evil. The inference I drew was that the good folks who spent their money on the sin got away.

Whew! With spin gusts of this magnitude it is difficult to sort out what those of us rational liberals (as my buddy Frank Lewis labels us) ought to be seeing as the debris flies past.

For openers, no matter how much fog is pumped in from the right, the federal response was a day late and a dollar short. While George was cutting brush and ducking Cindy Sheehan and while Dick was fishing or ranching, their underlings in charge of emergency response were trying to figure out what to do when a storm that every man woman and child with cable TV knew was going to be a monster. Message to Dubya: you were in charge; your boys goofed; it was your watch; you better chop off some heads and pray that that will stanch your bleeding.

To the left: taking advantage of this will get you elected, but if you simply revert to form and don’t spend money on infrastructure – mega-billions - you’ll wind up where you’ve been for that last generation – in the electoral wilderness; another killer storm will come on your watch, guaranteed.

The human tragedy being played out before us is wrenching. But if we elect people to deal with that alone, we will repeat this scene again and again. Our heartland supplies the world through the Mississippi and in turn is resupplied from sources around the world via that great way.

We must spend the money to correct the bad policies of two generations to make the river viable and the ports along it, especially the facilities around New Orleans, must be part of this process.

We cannot ignore our national infrastructure. Our ports, bridges, and airports must be updated constantly.

Our emergency preparedness organizations cannot be used as places to dump political hacks.

We must do these things with a minimum of recrimination. For openers, let’s name the reconstructed levees in New Orleans for Ronald Reagan. This will serve two purposes: returning irony to government and establishing the end of such foolishness.

Blog on!

Wild Bill

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Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Starve the Beast - Continued

I have been blaming the conservative movement for starving the beast, for robbing Peter to pay Paul – but not really paying Paul at all, and I believe that I’m right in that assessment. But the major complaint must be reserved for those pandering – that’s the politicians who took the campaign contributions. By starving the beast, Wild Bill and all the rest of us had more money to spend, or to paraphrase our great leader, `Who knows how to better spend your money, you or bunch of bureaucrats in Washington?”

The conservatives have sung this siren song of cutting our taxes and getting the `deadbeats' back to work for so long that it is second nature for many to believe it. I’m not going to argue for carrying deadbeats – if I could really identify them other than by resorting to stereotypes – and that’s where they get us. Cutting taxes and spending in almost all areas are the culprits, and the vast majority of us are culpable with the panderers.

Your government – and mine, our presidents and congress have known that New Orleans faced the fate that befell it last week for well over a generation and they chose to put off the need to fundamentally address the issue, praying that the calamity would not occur on their watch. For once, I won’t lay even the lion’s share of the blame on George W. Bush. For a century, federal action, inaction, and policy initiatives in the Mississippi Valley, including the Missouri and Ohio extensions, have been directed in ways that made Katrina’s wrath inevitable.

But it is far more than that. It is in underfunding meat inspection, and border security, and national parks, and veterans care, and a thousand and one other programs not even associated with those `deadbeats’ that we postpone crises in many areas to a day of reckoning – none nearly so dramatic as Katrina, however.

The conservative mantra is that if you cut taxes and spending, the economy will grow and make us rich. Until Katrina made it obvious that that is not necessarily true, it was difficult to point to a real example that even Wild Bill could understand as a counter. But by not investing a reasonable amount in correcting what man has done to the Mississippi all that our so called leaders could do was pray that the inevitable would be postponed until they qualified for their pensions and Medals of Freedom. For more than a generation, the problems in the Mississippi had become obvious to more and more observers, and yet the conservative movement demanded cuts in taxes and spending. The economy will grow us out of our problems.

A reasonable investment in river management made under Saint Ronald Reagan and carried through under Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 might well have mitigated the disaster that we face, but now we must invest an unknown multiplier of those sums to correct a generation of neglect. Thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars in lost gross national product and federal tax receipts will result from Katrina.

But it was up to a single storm to make obvious that we were living on the cheap, and there are more shocks to come. Gasoline prices spiked. The produce of the heartland from Montana to Pennsylvania must be transported but there is no easy method besides the river. The products destined for up river from New Orleans lays stalled out to sea. Will the loss in federal revenue from all these transactions ever be made up?

`Pay me now or pay me later.’ We have starved the beast, and now we must pay. I plead guilty for my share in the debacle.

Hold your president, your senators and you representative in Congress accountable!

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Monday, September 05, 2005

Buck? What Buck?

Two generations ago, one man was forced to make vital decisions greater than any person in his position had ever faced. He decided that the atomic bomb would be dropped on Japan, and he decided that the U.S. would lead a coalition of armed forces to defend South Korea against an attack from its neighbor. He decided the latter as part of a drive to assert the power of The United Nations.

Harry Truman made those decisions and stood by them. Every day, those two decisions are dissected in a hundred coffee shops, a thousand college classrooms and in numberless bars. Boldly, on President Truman’s desk, a small plaque proclaimed, “The Buck Stops Here.” Every day he is damned to Hell and praised to high Heaven for those choices.

Today, newspapers all over the world are reporting on the great lengths that the White House of George W. Bush is going to churn out disinformation describing how the failure of government to respond to the calamity that faces us in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is the primary responsibility of the three states and the many local governments most impacted by Hurricane Katrina and not that of the federal government. How low can we go? Pretty damned far down I’d say. “Can you hear me down there?”

Why do we have a federal emergency management function? To me it’s simple; in the first instance to bolster the state and local response to crises that are too large for them to effectively manage without additional resources from outside and in the second to stand in when a calamity completely overwhelms the states and local entities.

Katrina was known to be a dangerous storm many days before it struck the Gulf Coast; it killed eleven people in Florida. It was known to be developing into a killer storm several days before it struck. That it would strike the Gulf Coast at about its point of attack was clear. The states and local governments warned their citizens to evacuate. (We know now that evacuation of New Orleans was a physical impossibility.)

The states (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) and the localities most impacted mobilized and threw all of their resources into the breach – minus those National Guard troops and equipment in Iraq. The federal government was monitoring and preparing during this phase of the situation.

The storm struck. The rest is history. The states and locals were overwhelmed. The federal response was late and insufficient.

The states and locals are saying they were completely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm. It is self evident that they are correct in this assessment.

The White House is moving Heaven and Earth to shift blame from George W. Bush to the States and locals.

Buck? What Buck?

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Starve the Beast

For several decades, it has been the conservative mantra to “starve the beast.” Cutting taxes and entitlement programs are, according to the believers, the basis for America’s prosperity and power.

But for old feds who dealt with disasters of the past, it’s sad to see the sorry state of governmental response to Katrina. I will not slam the leaders of Homeland Security or FEMA; their day on the griddle will come soon enough.

My complaint today is with the conservative movement that consciously moved to “starve the beast.” It is very difficult to say this is how we used to do it when we never faced a calamity of anywhere near the magnitude of Katrina. But I’ll try.

The conservatives want to remove the feed bag from the old ox and let private charity deal with as much of the problem facing us as possible. I don’t find that an unworthy goal, but let’s look at recent situations. Based on a visit to the website of the Red Cross, it appears that about $558 million was donated to that institution for the Tsunami last year - a lot of money. The Salvation Army’s site indicates that Americans have already donated more than $32 million to aid the victims of Katrina as of this morning (Sunday, September 4, 2005.) This too is a great outpouring.

Let’s just assume that private donations from around the world to all of the charities committed to helping the victims of Katrina quadruple those for the tsunami and that Salvation Army collections for Katrina increase tenfold from those now in the coffers. With all wild speculation, we might assume that $5 billion in private charity will be collected and expended on this disaster. That would be an amazing outpouring of money and empathy.

But let’s step back and note that insurance losses are expected to exceed $25 billion, and that the total losses are likely to exceed $100 billion. The catastrophe makes all these payments pale in comparison with the need. The federal government passed an emergency appropriation of $10.5 billion yesterday. Based on my reading of some of the provisions, it will be some time before much of that aid buys food and blankets for individuals.

When FEMA was set up in the 1970s, it was able to tap the entitlement monies of the grant making federal agencies to deal with the disaster facing the nation. Thus, HUD, HHS (then HEW), Labor, and the rest were dunned and expected to come up with money – right now - from their unexpended and uncommitted grant program monies.

Today, the emaciated beast has almost no money in any of these pockets and FEMA and Homeland Security look like a bunch of incompetent braying jackasses.

Thank goodness, the emergency appropriation is but a down payment on the great loss. Unfortunately, the money must still trickle down to state and local governments and ultimately to individual victims through the elaborate grant making process. This will be short circuited to the greatest extent possible, but relief and recovery will take time – much time.

My points are that intentionally “starving the beast” has made response far slower than it would have been and, far more important, that private donations, however great, can never displace government as the principal mitigator of true calamities.

The starved beast of government is shown for all its shortcomings as it responds to Katrina. Citizens who see a role for government in the life of the nation must demand that irresponsible tax cuts CEASE! Government by pork – as in the recent highway bill – may get men and women reelected to Congress but ultimately undermines the government’s ability to perform in emergency situations.

The people must demand more of their government than tax cuts for the rich and no joint sacrifice in the face of war and disaster. Your president, your two senators, and your representative are dancing. Will you demand that they stand and deliver?

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Saturday, September 03, 2005

The Party's Over

Today's blog posting is the most important of Wild Bill's career. It is not written by him but by the editors of the New York Times. As my pal El Rushbo proclaims daily, the Republicans are the party of ideas and the Democrats are bankrupt. Sadly for Rush, the bubble burst when the levees failed. Attached is today's lead editorial in The Times. It states the case perfectly. The excesses of the party of ideas are exposed nakedly before us. "Starve the beast" will no longer do. When you undermine government's ability to respond, you undermine the security of the nation.

I quoted a Republican yesterday: "Government's the enemy until you need a friend." Our emaciated friend wasn't up to the task and the society is suffering.

Government's ability to protect us must be restored. Be gone George! Crawl back into your hole Rush!

Here it is in a nutshell: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/03/opinion/03sat1.html

Blog on!

Wild Bill

Friday, September 02, 2005

Give Him an Extra Buck

In an early scene in Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, the brilliant doctor demonstrates for adoring medical students his wizardry in pain suppression by describing his sure fire methods and then kicking his subject in the testicles. As they cart the writhing old man off on a gurney, Frankenstein, in a muttered aside, orders, “Give him and extra buck.”

America has not suffered pain for a long time. The Great Depression is but the subject of anecdotes of semi-senile seniors like Wild Bill. World War II has been made glamorous by those glorifying the `Greatest Generation’ and who have transformed the pain and fear of the times into glory. Vietnam is invoked but never analyzed.

But America is in pain today, and it is a phenomenon that we are ill equipped to face. Far away, our sons and daughters are facing deadly danger from an almost invisible enemy. Here at home, Louisiana and Mississippi are confronting a natural disaster greater than any in living memory, probably greater than any in our history as a nation.

It is our great misfortune that these two events are more than a little related. Thousands of members of the National Guard from the states most impacted by Hurricane Katrina who would ordinarily be part of the cleanup and solution are, instead, victims of the natural disaster. Not only are they unable to lend their muscle and expertise to mitigating the problems, their families are less able to cope the situation with their loved ones being in harms way on the other side of the globe.

The human catastrophe on the American Gulf Coast is of epic proportions with hundreds if not thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. The closing of the Port of Southern Louisiana, the largest port in the U.S. and the fifth largest in the world was quickly felt around the country when gasoline prices jumped off the charts. All of these possibilities have been studied for years. THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SURPISE TO THE ADMINISTRATION!

It appears that the oil producing facilities and port infrastructure in the Gulf region are not beyond repair and that the port will be ale to be saved and put back in operation – after heroic effort and the passage of much time. Sadly, the process will be slowed by the absence of those who make the system work and who find themselves disbursed to the four winds by the flooding and destruction.

America’s great heartland production is stuck waiting for the port to reopen, and the supplies necessary to run the states above the Delta sit offshore.

Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presided over a government and country that has worked overtime to undue the structures put in place by administrations from the early nineteen thirties until the late seventies that gave government a great role in solving the calamities that had marred these earlier periods.

The politics of `me’ based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand where everyman is an island has come to reign. Government is just a boatload of bureaucrats looking to pick the pockets of honest folks and to bask in luxury while the genius of the market languishes.

In today’s Washington Post there were two columns that inspired this posting. E.J. Dionne, Jr. quotes former Maine Senator and Defense Secretary William Cohen who pithily put his finger on the problem. “Government is the enemy until you need a friend.” David Ignatius invokes the late Eric Sevareid view that civilization is only about seven meals away from anarchy. (Dionne’s column is linked at the end of this posting. I couldn’t attach Ignatius’s column but recommend that you read it on line. It is entitled: Time to Mend the Safety Net.)

For a generation, America has drifted away from Europe in its ideas of what a government should be doing. Our leaders have smiled knowingly that our course toward the selfishness of bigger houses and more wasteful engines was far superior to the cozy dwellings and motor bikes of “Old Europe.” We know that materialism is better than the semi-socialist schemes of Denmark and Holland.

But now we are facing joint calamities made worse by starving government budgets. Ignatius points out that it is not the `thousand points of light’ of Bush 41 that the man standing on the roof of the house surrounded by flood water is looking for to save him. It is the Coast Guard, the police, or the National Guard soldier at the helm of a rescue boat that he is seeking.

It is government – federal, state and local – that must put the Mississippi River and the lives of our dispirited citizens back together. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army can provide hot meals and shelter in the short term. But it is government – fueled by us all – that must restore lives and guide the restoration of the heartland. These governments have been emasculated and laughed at by a generation of me firsters, and it is not nearly well enough equipped to do the job as it should be.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090102032.html

Blog on!

Wild Bill