In the swirl of finger-pointing and blame-gaming, the issue of partisanship is omnipresent. No doubt there are some commentators for whom the decision to focus on the national level is motivated (if not self-recognized) by partisanship. There are others who are feel vindicated in the "I told you so's" about the Bush administration. There are those who think people - including local governments - ought to have been more self-reliant. There are still others who are coming to a harsh realization about how their beliefs in government have not been borne out. There is a very thoughtful - though not completely focused on this issue alone - post over at ObWi.
Having grown up in a hurricane zone, I'm going to suggest something here that probably a lot of people on both sides won't like. The right won't like it because it implies something about the relationship between people and their government that departs from the fetishism of self-reliance. The left won't like it because it undermines their belief that all thinking people hate Bush with a passion, and that the outrage over the hurricane is an extention of this personalized ire:
People have come to expect the government to help - nay, help quickly and fix everything - when disaster strikes. When that striking disaster is a hurricane, that government is the federal government, and specifically, FEMA.
Rightly or wrongly, people expect FEMA to take care of them. Wait, before you click the comment button. I'm not saying local government shouldn't do something, I'm not saying the state shouldn't. I'm talking about expectations, especially in hurricane zones. We have learned the pattern over the years. In my grandparents' time, there was little warning, lots of destruction, and little help beyond what your friends and neighbors could offer. In my parents' time, there was more warning, and if the damage was bad enough, then a disaster was declared, insurance payments were made. In our time, we have much better warnings and the preemptive declarations of emergencies and disasters based on projected damage, commitments of the feds to states/localities of funds before the damage, and insurance agents on the ground in the immediate aftermath.
Along with this advancement, however, there has been an upward shift of responsibility. Does anyone else remember from childhood the phrase "Don't make a federal case out of it!"? A federal case was something rare, and a big deal. We have racheted up the number of things that are federal cases, from drug laws, mandatory sentencing, you name it, up to and including the idea that disasters of many kinds are federal cases. It has happened in "lefty" ways, and in "righty" ways, so we can't just blame it all on FDR. I would love to see a graphic (and I've looked unsuccessfully, so if anyone has one, link us up) of the number of states of emergency and or disaster areas declared over the last fifty years. My sense, perhaps horribly off, is that it is much more common now than even twenty or thirty years ago. Inasmuch as a natural disaster can be a social construct, it seems to me that our common understanding of "major hurricane" is now "national event" i.e. federal case.
Lest we be too quick to blame the paternalist state (hold with me libertarians), or the sheep the U.S. citizens have become (same to you bootstrap conservatives), or decreasing standards of living that leave people unable to care for themselves (hang on heartstring twanging democrats), there are some evolutionary factors that merit consideration. Some of these are positive reasons for federal action, and some negative, but there are real, factual reasons why we have come to believe in the federal response to hurricanes.
First, meteorologic technology has advanced. In scientific terms, we simply know more about hurricanes. A great deal of this advance has to do with a federal commitment to the National Weather Service. Exceedlingly brave pilots fly into hurricanes to collect data that exceedlingly smart scientists analyze with increasinly sophisticated models. This knowledge is huge advance over the information of the past, which was limited to watching the barometric pressure bottom out and running for your life. In addition to having more knowledge, the public is much better informed. In addition to the regular media, nearly everyone who lives in a hurricane zone has one of these cheap crazy little radios that only gets one channel: the National Weather Service. You can lose your electricity, gas, telephone, and cellular, but with one AA battery still be connected to the calm voice from the NWS telling what to expect, and how to prepare.
Second, we have accumulated experience with hurricanes. The learning about effects, likely consequences, and timelines have improved the preparations and responses of individuals and governments. We know what kinds of houses withstand the storms, we know how long it takes to evacuate, we know what kinds of steps to take. Coastal areas of North Carolina, for example, are full of houses on thick stilts, built to federal specifications, and are reached by high bridges, likewise built to federal specs in order to withstand hurricanes and floods.
Third, populations have grown, and among the fastest growing areas experiencing the biggest real estate booms are many in the coastal southeast. The bigger the population, the harder to rely on local response only. The bigger the population, the more investment, the bigger the economic impact. The scope of action required to deal with large populations affected by hurricanes is arguably beyond the capacity of most cities and many states. That hurricanes strike in the highly populous but poorest states (the Gulf states, and Florida is rich but has no state income tax) of the union cannot be ignored; that is, the most populous areas of the states most likely to suffer are the least financially capable to respond.
Fourth, the U.S. economy has changed. The idea of "local only" impact from a major hurricane like Katrina is a thing of the past. Globalization, economic integration, "just in time" inventory, worldwide markets, all mean that a large-scale local impact of a hurricane has an influence on the national and international level. With Katrina most of us probably think first of gas prices, but we must also consider shipping of agricultural products from the midwest and everything else that came through the ports in the Gulf, and numerous other ramifications to our global trade.
Fifth, financial interests have eclipsed human costs in measuring "bigness" of hurricanes (although perhaps we will see another shift). Along with the general growth, there has been an expanding economy in hurricane prone areas, especially in travel and tourism and the widening ripples (casinos, retail, restaurants) these industries cause. This means that it is not just "regular people" who have an interest in quick federal response to hurricanes, but entire sectors of the U.S. economy.
There are other reasons that we have come to expect federal reponse to hurricanes. There are also a host of reasons that people are offering that this shouldn't be the case. I'm not really talking about whether people should have come to expect the federal government to repond. They have, and there are lots of reasons why.
I think about the unnamed 1928 storm that overflowed Lake Okeechobee, killing thousands of people in Florida (and more in the Caribbean) and compare it to that all the storms in my memory that have followed. The more recent storms have been expensive in dollars, but (barring Katrina) not costly in lives. We have - or thought we had - come a long way, and the federal response has played no small part in these changes. This is why it's wishful thinking to try to go back to a lower level response: people remember.
The increasingly national level responses to hurricanes have become better from the perception of people, who are better warned, and more likely to get out of the way and to receive timely aid. The responses have become better from the perception of state and local government, who have come - based on experience of the last fifty years - to expect the feds to help with the impact of disasters that have national and international repercussions beyond their local destruction. And the responses have become better from the perception of businesses, because the quicker financial assistance helps compensate for the burdens they bear in the aftermath of a storm due to lost assets and revenue, as well as helps lessen the impact on the national economy. The nationalization of hurricane relief has resulted in a more comprehensive response decreasing the loss of life, time of response, and impact on the national economy.
I'll say it again: the extensive scope of a disaster like a major hurricane has national implications. For the past fifty years, the people of the United States have expected and received a federal response from both Democratic and Republican administrations. There has been a federal agency - for a period cabinet level - devoted to major disaster relief. This is more than a symbolic commitment to responsability by the federal government. If we consider this signal from the government combined with the expectations of the people, it is no surprise that there was both a belief that the federal government would aid the population of the Gulf and an outcry when that belief was not fulfilled.
Posted by binky at September 11, 2005 10:23 AM | TrackBack | Posted to PoliticsBinky,
Interesting idea, although New Orleans doesn't really fit all your points (it's barely doubled in size in the past 60 years, and it's population growth is stagnant).
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/opinion/baroneblog/columns/barone_050907a.htm?track=rss
I wonder if there isn't another factor at play here, too, that Bush has been seen many times at hurricane devastated areas providing relief.
I don't know how healthy it is for a political state to simply describe the anatomy of public perception without looking to the physiology of it, the effect this perception has and whether it's one that will help the state and its citizens prosper. You speak about how local areas are unable to respond because they are poor, but why are they poor? New Orleans is a hub of trade and tourism, an economic center, so why does it rely on the state of louisiana to pay for its football team? Why does it pay its assistant DAs less than anywhere in the state? It is a city overrun with housing projects (did I mention how the residents stole the pipes out of them to sell for scrap) and other entitlements, but the hand out philosophy hasn't worked there. People there continue to rely on government to bail them out, they have that expectation. Mayor Nagin told the residents of New Orleans to bring enough food for several days to the Superdome, but within a day of the "evacuation" to the Superdome (that's Nagin's hair brained argument if you hadn't heard it, that the evacuation plan that called for local direction of the disaster plan only required residents to be moved to higher ground--within a city that was flooding, and the state and feds were supposed to move them out of the city, presumably through flooded streets) the evacuees were complaining about lack of food, because they expected the government to give them a hand out. This paternalistic government has not helped New Orleans grow in population or economic advantage, because if their economy is better off, why can't they afford to pay for their own football team? Why can't they pay school bus drivers enough that more than a few of them will show up to evacuate people who are going to die if they don't get evacuated? This perception is fed on by local politicians/parasites who promise to continue the hand out policies if elected (like New Orleans DA Eddie Jordan summarily firing 53 whites who had more experience and scored higher on job interviews, and replacing them with the black voters who supported him), which they do (obviously).
And for the media to feed into this notion that it's legitimate for people to blame the government when a disaster relief doesn't go as planned is unhealthy. It's okay for people to feel that way, but for them to think that way creates the same circumstances that led to this tragedy.
Posted by: Morris at September 13, 2005 09:35 AM | PERMALINKYeah, Morris, and no poor people benefited from federal aid, in the relative absence of local aid, when three consecutive hurricanes shredded northern florida last year. But they, of course, were the poor whites, the swing state poor, the citizens who had elected the president's brother governor. They had the good fortune to get their asses handed to them by Mother Nature a few months before a presidential election.
No one was talking about bootstrapping, or inadequate local preparation, then. Best not to bite the hand that feeds, right?
Binky, thank you for a wonderful, insightful post. Very interesting stuff.
And Morris, thank you for avoiding the sin of the GOP, and not demanding that we not engage in "the blame game" just before trying to pass the buck to anyone but the federal government, or at least those individuals close enough to the president to splatter his clean duds. If I hear the phrase "blame game" one more time I'm going to puke.
Posted by: joshua at September 13, 2005 10:05 AM | PERMALINKand by the way, will someone puh-leeze teach morris how to use hypertext.
Posted by: joshua at September 13, 2005 10:06 AM | PERMALINKI knew I'd seen a poll about this:
"Respondents also disagreed widely on who is to blame for the problems in the city following the hurricane -- 13 percent said Bush, 18 percent said federal agencies, 25 percent blamed state or local officials and 38 percent said no one is to blame. And 63 percent said they do not believe anyone at federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired as a result."
http://us.cnn.com/2005/US/09/07/katrina.poll/
Of course, this 31 percent federal blame, 25% state or local blame may have been effected by the media coverage, but I would guess it reflects to a great extent the political worldviews of the respondents rather than just their perception of this particular crisis.
Joshua, I have tried. He does not seem interested. Draw your own conclusions.
It seems I was not clear enough.
I am talking about several states, not just New Orleans. I didn't list simply growing populations, but also economic importance and other factors. Just because the population of New Orleans is stable does not mean it is disqualified on all other grounds.
Likewise, it was poor states not poor cities I meant to highlight. It is precisely this disjuncture... booms or healthy tourist economies in some areas, but states who are overall on the low end of the financial scale. Louisiana and Mississippi are two of the poorest states, yet have areas - particularly those related to tourism - without which they would suffer major economic loss. My home state of Florida is quite rich in terms of segments of its population and its tourist economy, but also has many of the hallmarks of a poor state (e.g. education rankings). That is has no state income tax is likely related to both things.
And unsurprisingly, my point had nothing to do with whether or not it is "okay" for people to feel the way they feel. The post is an explanation of the reasons that have developed over the last fifty years that provide evidence for why people do rely on government, and how government has accepted that responsibility. Demographic, economic and political changes have occurred such that the federal government has acknowledged and taken on responsibility for certain things. By word and deed, the federal government has come to claim control over national disasters. I ennumerated multiple reasons why hurricanes can be considered national in scope - and why people believe they are national in scope - and therefore as such, are within the purview of the responsibilities the federal government has taken on for itself. A final note: I talked about beliefs not feelings.
Posted by: binky at September 13, 2005 10:25 AM | PERMALINKJoshua,
I'm not against the government helping out people in crisis, as in the Florida examples. But the government has a responsibility in creating its citizens' dependence as much as the citizens who become dependent do. This dependence is created not as much by rare assistance in the case of disasters but with consistency in New Orleans, a culture of entitlement is at work here. The trouble comes in when the local citizens (bus drivers) don't show up to evacuate people, then it's suddenly another government's fault; when looters steal so much designer clothes piled so high over their eyes they can't even see the cop (that's NOPD, not Blackwater, because I know it matters to you) telling them to put it down, and professors show up on TV talking about how it's self help disaster relief and how it offends them to call this behavior uncivilized; it's not the fault of gangs raping and shooting at helicopters, it's the government's fault for not bringing in troops fast enough. This kind of rhetoric perpetuates the idea that a citizen is entitled to goods of other citizens and government, and it perpetuates criminal activity and the breakdown of society so obvious a week ago (before Blackwater went in).
Morris, are you serious?
What you just wrote is that some people thought self-help in this situation was appropriate - presumably since, you know, there was no running water and stores were closed. Do you think that's some how uncivilized? And how does accepting that in any way condone gang rapes?
Newsflash - It's possible to have 1) both an incompetent government and 2) vicious criminals. It's just unfortunate that our dear leaders (both in the NOPD and the White House) didn't do more to protect us from a situation in which the vicious criminals would have free rein to terrorize the innocent for days.
"it's the government's fault for not bringing in troops fast enough"
If, in fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that such behvior will occur, then the government that refuses to respond is at fault. What, just because it's the fault of organized crime that we have drug trafficking then we shouldn't have police forces trained to catch drug smugglers and dealers? Because fires occur due to electrical shorts, the government shouldn't train firefighters?
This smacks of hypocrisy. There is an expectation that people must plan for all eventualities but that government is exempt. Why is is wrong for individuals to fail to plan well for and respond to a hurricane (by "choosing" not to evacuate) but not wrong for the government to to fail to plan well for and respond to a hurricane? It's especially hypocritical because the government has the authority, and means, and the personnel dedicated to this very task.It's their job. And I went through a great deal of explanation above to show why both government and the people agree on this.
If Morris flunked his exams, if I failed to show up to teach, if Joshua failed to write the brief he was assigned (guess about what you are doing Joshua, sorry) we would have failed to do the jobs for which we had accepted the responsibility. The federal government has accepted the responsibility for responding to and taking command of the reponse to major natural disasters.
This is also why it is consistent to believe that given the scope of a major hurricane its effects would be beyond the capacity of the locals, and the responsible federal agency - which supposedly plans for such events - would take charge as is described in its own rules and regulations.
If I have a fire in my kitchen, I can put it out with m extinguisher. If my whole house is burning, the fire department must handle it. If vast swaths of forest are burning, it requires a higher level of coordination and support. We have fire departments and train firefighters because we know there will be situations that are beyond the individual's ability to address. We have a federal agency to respond to national disasters because we know there will be situations that are beyond a locality's ability to address.
Posted by: binky at September 13, 2005 11:08 AM | PERMALINKBro,
This professor wasn't talking about people taking clean drinking water and food, and pictures I've seen on TV haven't been people taking a case of Gerber so their baby will survive. They've been taking everything they can carry (a hose was my favorite, you can always use one of those in a flood), and this professors was trying to say that it's civilized to steal, pillage, loot, whatever you want to call it. Now, if you'll excuse my ignorance on the subject, what civilization except those referred to as barbarians (the Mongols) even by non-Western civilizations (the Chinese--who presumably aren't all white devils) believes stealing to be a civilized act when done by its citizens for their own benefit and not for a compelling interest of their tribe/nation? This is more suicidal poison from the ones who believe our nation should be tolerant of those who seek to destroy it, who want to protect the right to assemble of organizations dedicated to our destruction. And if as you say there was such an obvious reality that hoodlums were going to take over that the White House should have been expecting state and local officials to fail and had troops standing by (when everybody knows the national guard called up 12 hours later by blanco than by Mississippi's governor is and was controlled by the governor), then what is the assumption there except that (to turn the race card Joshua played back around) New Orleans is filled with blacks who can't be left of their own devices without stirring up lots of trouble. And what is the effect of that kind of federal presumption of local incompetence except creating further dependency on the federal government, taking that power away from local and state officials, further away from the people.
Binky,
I love how you characterize New Orleans' population as "stable," that's rich. Why isn't it growing, in a country who's population is growing, in a world whose population is growing? That's like saying a person who doesn't get a raise even to compsensate for inflation has a "stable" income.
You did a very good job at pointing out good reasons why people would believe the federal government would be thought of as the agency to respond, but I doubt most people in this country could come up with more than one of them if hard pressed. What many people see is Bush on the news handing out cases of drinking water to people in Florida, so they feel like the federal government is responsible, as well as the state government since Jeb Bush is there too, and the poll I cited above shows that most people even after a week of media coverage attacking the federal response, still do not believe disaster relief is specifically a federal responsibility. The perceptions of many (or maybe any, if you've read some German philosophy or Freud) are not based on thoughts, coldly analytical, but are based also on feelings, perceptions that are their own reality regardless of to what conclusions the facts would lead another.
And once again the NTP and the SFJ speak different languages. (I'm guessing on the SFJ, of course).
I'm thinking, maybe I should have a t-shirt made up that says "coldly analytical." I'll make it pink, so other people can feel good about it.
Posted by: binky at September 13, 2005 11:40 AM | PERMALINKBinky,
I agree that the government is responsible when they screw up, but their responsibility does not preclude the citizens from having responsibility to do their duty (like driving school buses to save lives, not raping, not looting). When the focus of the debate and the media is on the government's failure rather than that of the people, when celebrities come on TV talking about how Bush screwed up (but not Blanco, Nagin, or the citizens of New Orleans), when Nagin comes on talking about how the state and federal government screwed up, when Blanco comes on talking about how the federal government screwed up, the responsibility of the people of New Orleans to behave in a civilized way is forgotten, unmentioned. And I don't think we should forget about the thousand New Orleans police who stayed on the job, the school bus drivers who did show up, they are the unmentioned, forgotten heroes. But if we're going to call this tragedy a failure, then we have to mention the names of everyone who failed and not just send responsibility up the ladder. We have to ask ourselves if we would have done any differently than Bush, Blanco, Nagin, or the looters in New Orleans, and set the standard accordingly. We have to ask what's behind the perception of New Yorkers after 9/11 who united, and what's different about the New Orleanians who turned on each other, to the point of trying to kidnap their police chief.
This failure didn't happen two weeks ago, this failure's been happening for decades. The government has chosen other priorities besides levees, like protecting wetlands, democracy in the Middle East, and also pork projects. The people of New Orleans have learned that anything goes, and money made feeding addictions spends as well as money made watching out for each other. They've learned that their government will take care of them, so there's no need for them to take responsibility which would lead them to feeling pride and investment in their community and their own life. This isn't the responsibility of just Bush, it's the responsibility of everyone who could have something noble but chose another path.
Posted by: Morris at September 13, 2005 12:09 PM | PERMALINKMorris - Wow. We agree - criminals are bad. And wow, some idiots working for one of the cable networks put a controversial loon on television just so more controversy would ensue. So thanks for the extra detail (as sad as it is) on what you were talking about. But now ... well, I really fail to see how bringing this up has anything to do with Binky's point. If anything, it strengthens her point, as does your last post - people expect the government to do these things, "shoulds" be damned. And if a government recognizes that its got this role (if through perception if nothing else - though Binky brings up lots of material reasons for why it should fill this role), if it's as idiotic to lethally blunder the way Bush's executive branch did - of course it's going to be blamed.
Again, this does not absolve criminals of their crimes. And it doesn't make Blanco a saint. But this was a national disaster and you seem oddly interested in making everyone except Bush responsible.
Other than that, I'll just note you seem to do an awful lot of shifting back between New Orleans and non-New Orleans focused arguments depending on the point you are making, and you aren't being entirely consistent. Oh, and as to why New Orleans isn't expanding, 2 thoughts: differential growth rates, and New Orleans is nothing but urban area and is surrounded on all sides by other developed areas, industrial sites or water. But really, that's a pretty damn minor point in terms of Binky's discussion.
Posted by: Armand at September 13, 2005 12:32 PM | PERMALINK"This failure didn't happen two weeks ago, this failure's been happening for decades."
I don't think you'll find anyone here that will disagree with this statement. However, when all else fails, and a disaster happens, there is a federal agency that is supposed to pick up the pieces. Regardless of how long whoever ignored levees, dry forests, unrestricted and unregulated building in coastal areas etc.
And I'm not sure you've noticed, re: facts vs. feelings, but they are remarkably consistent on the case of NOLA. When the "cold analytical" types and the "perceptions that are their own reality" folk agree, I'd say there was some kind of agreement going on.
Posted by: binky at September 13, 2005 12:35 PM | PERMALINKHmmm - I would have thought you were an INFJ (though I don't know that I've ever met anyone who's scored that way). You sure do judge a lot to be a P. ;)
Posted by: Armand at September 13, 2005 12:57 PM | PERMALINKAlternatively, I'm a blue, orange, green, gold personality.
Bro,
Being a P is as much about being spontaneous as it is about judging. And like a good a zen buddhist I am spontaneous enough to allow myself to judge when I feel like it. And like a good taoist I know that there may be no fundamental good and evil, but to experience it that way is to be human.
i'd like to take a moment to consider the consequences of the state / local schism we've identified here, thanks to the GOP, as odious.
so here's where i end up (correct me if i'm wrong, or just lambaste me and change the subject if i'm right but you don't want to admit it): despite the fact that most of us pay federal taxes that exceed our local taxes at a factor of somewhere between 3 and [infinity], we nevertheless shouldn't look to federal help for any major emergency. thus, we better emplace -- and quickly -- emergency plans for state and local maintenance of interstate highways, interstate railways, all shared waterways, rivers and streams and damns, high capacity power transmission wires, maintenance of parks, environmental standards, and pretty much everything else.
because -- just to be clear where i'm coming from -- if the storm of the f*&king century, which affects to some meaningful extent every state on the gulf coast, doesn't demand that the federal government come in and get s*&t together but quick, then none of those other things do.
kidnappings going federal? who even needs the FBI. why should i pay for 'em. i want joey bagadonuts on the corner to hunt for my little daughter when she's abducted. leave the feds where they belong: incompetently turning old problems into new ones . . . overseas.
by the way, three cheers for the commander in chief -- if i'm not mistaken, this is the most daring acceptance of culpability he's ever uttered. after several days of him and his minions heaping blame on everyone in sight. so, "um, i guess, i dunno, the buck stops, like, here?"
yeah, bub -- too little too goddamned late.
Posted by: joshua at September 13, 2005 03:11 PM | PERMALINK