by DrDebugDU » Sun Sep 04, 2005 3:00 pm
When the levee breaks<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html">www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002331.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.<br><br>-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004.<br><br>This picture is an aerial view of New Orleans today, more than 14 months later. Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city and the sun is out, the waters continue to rise in New Orleans as we write this. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block- long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal. With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until until it's level with the massive lake.<br><br>There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.<br><br>New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.<br><br>Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.<br><br>Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. (Much of the research here is from Nexis, which is why some articles aren't linked.)<br><br>In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:<br><br>The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.<br><br>The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.<br><br>"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest."<br><br>That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:<br><br>"The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don’t get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can’t stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn’t that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can’t raise them."<br><br>The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.<br><br>The 2004 hurricane season, as you probably recall, was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane- and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history. Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June 5:<br><br>The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.<br><br>"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.<br><br>There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:<br><br>That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.<br><br>But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.<br><br>The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach. The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions:<br><br>"We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.<br><br>Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefitted the rich.<br><br>And now Bush has lost that gamble, big time. We hope that Congress will investigate what went wrong here.<br><br>The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home, and yet -- after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf -- there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisiana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Disaster in the Making<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.sfbg.com/38/52/news_fema.html">www.sfbg.com/38/52/news_fema.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>Disaster in the making<br>As FEMA weathers a storm of Bush administration policy and budget changes, protection from natural hazards may be trumped by "homeland security."<br><br>By Jon Elliston<br><br>FRIDAYS DON'T GET much busier than this. It's the morning of Sept. 3, and Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., is running at a full clip, having mobilized a cadre of disaster-response specialists in its National Emergency Operations Center the day before. "This is our 'war room,' " a FEMA employee explains. <br><br>"Right now we're in 24-hours-a-day activation," he says. "It's a double whammy." Indeed, the agency is still busy helping Florida recover from Hurricane Charley's punishing winds and rain when satellite images show that an even greater storm, Hurricane Frances, will soon make landfall. It appears so threatening that most of FEMA's personnel on the ground, along with 2.5 million Floridians, have evacuated from the storm's projected path. <br><br>Inside the op center, scores of personnel from FEMA and a host of other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Health and Human Services, buzz around in what appears to be a state of controlled chaos. They work the phones, hover over computer screens, and trade the latest weather forecasts. Using a time-tested system of disaster management, they've split their tasks into 12 "emergency support functions" designed to bring in food, water, medical care, electricity, housing, transportation, and other desperately needed resources as soon as Frances moves on. <br><br>John Crowe, a Department of Homeland Security geospatial mapping expert detailed to FEMA to help track such outbreaks of rough weather, steps outside the building for a quick cigarette. "Everybody's really running into gear here," he says between puffs. "FEMA's ready, about as ready as they've ever been." <br><br>FEMA's relatively quick response to the hurricanes has thus far won mostly high marks from Florida officials, who remember well a time when the disaster agency seemed the last party to show up after catastrophes. In addition, President George W. Bush has paid multiple visits to assure storm victims they will get whatever help is needed, and he promptly secured more than $2 billion from Congress to fund Florida's recovery. <br><br>As storms continue to batter the Panhandle, no one would call Florida lucky. But with national elections just around the corner, the hurricanes could scarcely have hit at a better time or place for obtaining federal disaster assistance. "They're doing a good job," one former FEMA executive says of the Bush administration's response efforts. "And the reason why they're doing that job is because it's so close to the election, and they can't fuck it up, otherwise they lose Florida – and if they lose Florida, they might lose the election." <br><br>Such political considerations may indeed make this round of recoveries go better than most. But long before this hurricane season, some emergency managers inside and outside of government started sounding an alarm that still rings loudly. Bush administration policy changes and budget cuts, they say, are sapping FEMA's long-term ability to cushion the blow of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and other natural disasters. <br><br>Among emergency specialists, "mitigation" – the measures taken in advance to minimize the damage caused by natural disasters – is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post- disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster mitigation dollars. <br><br>As a result, some state and local emergency managers say, it's become more difficult to get the equipment and funds they need to most effectively deal with disasters. <br><br>In the Bay Area, where living on an earthquake fault should prioritize disaster preparedness, state and city funding for emergency management and citizens' training is often precarious. <br><br>"We have a limited state grant, but we rely more heavily on federal funding," says Lt. Erica Arteseros, coordinator of the San Francisco Fire Department's Neighborhood Emergency Response Team training program. She describes the tight budgetary situation of a year ago, when NERT funding was cut on both city and federal levels. "We had to operate pretty much on a shoestring." <br><br>"We need every Homeland Security dollar we can get," agrees Amy Gaver, director of community preparedness and youth services for the Bay Area chapter of the American Red Cross. "Training people to take care of themselves in a disaster should be a necessary investment on the part of the government." <br><br>On the state level, California disaster management agencies voice concern about the ongoing congressional proposals to halve federal funding for training citizen disaster response teams. Adam Sutkus, state director of the Citizen Corps program, says, "Congress often argues that federal money isn't adequately used by state agencies and local programs. But here in California, 92 percent of the funds for fiscal year 2002 were used directly on the local level. That proves that we do need and use the money. The proposed federal cuts could be very damaging to Californian volunteer disaster response programs." <br><br>In North Carolina, a state regularly damaged by hurricanes and floods, FEMA recently refused the state's request to buy backup generators for emergency support facilities. And the budget cuts have halved the funding for a mitigation program that saved an estimated $8.8 million in recovery costs in three eastern N.C. communities alone after 1997's Hurricane Floyd. In Louisiana, another state vulnerable to hurricanes, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer.<br><br>Consequently, the residents of these and other disaster-prone states will find the government less able to help them when help is needed most, and states and the federal government will be forced to shoulder more recovery costs after disasters strike. <br><br>In addition, the White House has pushed for privatization of essential government services, including disaster management, and merged FEMA into the Department of Homeland Security, where natural disaster programs are often sidelined by counterterrorism programs. Along the way, morale at FEMA has plummeted, and many of the agency's most experienced personnel have left for work in other government agencies or private corporations. <br><br>In June, Pleasant Mann, a 16-year FEMA veteran who heads the agency's government employee union, wrote members of Congress to warn of the agency's decay. "Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation's emergency management capability is being eroded," he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors." <br><br>So while they're far from where hurricanes hit hardest, FEMA's Washington-based disaster managers find themselves in the middle of a perfect storm of their own. <br><br>'All hazards'<br><br>FEMA has dealt with disasters since long before the term "homeland security" came into vogue after the 9/11 attacks. <br><br>Created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to handle the country's worst-case scenarios, FEMA has always struggled to define its precise mission. In theory, it's responsible for "all hazards," which means the agency coordinates efforts to keep the United States safe from the full spectrum of domestic dangers, be they "acts of God" like weather emergencies or acts of human enemies like al-Qaeda terrorists. <br><br>In the 1980s, the Reagan administration endowed FEMA with extraordinary powers to keep the country running – powers bordering on martial law, critics argued. The agency became responsible for "continuity of government" plans devoted to salvaging national authority in the event of a nuclear attack. Other plans, drafted by the likes of National Security Council aide Oliver North, laid the groundwork for rounding up rabble-rousers in the event of societal breakdown, whatever the cause. (The troubling implications of the agency's early work had a long legacy in popular culture, thanks to the X-Files TV show and movie, which often referenced the specter of how FEMA rule would supplant constitutional government.) <br><br>As the cold war ended, FEMA turned greater attention to handling natural disasters, but the agency proved unequal to the task. In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew assaulted Florida and other Southern states with 170 mph winds, killing 23 people and leaving a trail of devastation. The severity of the storm caught FEMA off guard, and the agency did too little, too late to help the state recover, enraging thousands of storm victims. Several days after Andrew dissipated, Dade County's emergency manager famously pleaded, "Where the hell is the cavalry?" <br><br>Two months later, President George H.W. Bush paid a price of sorts at the polls when Bill Clinton shrunk the incumbent's once-sizable lead and came within two percentage points of beating Bush in Florida. It was an important lesson learned for both the politicians and the emergency agency. <br><br>In 1993, Clinton's new FEMA director, James Lee Witt, set the agency on a corrective course. Witt, who had served under then-governor Clinton as director of Arkansas emergency management, embarked on an ambitious campaign to bulk up the agency's natural disaster programs while staying prepared for "all hazards." Witt's changes eventually reversed FEMA's reputation for being unfocused and ineffective. The agency garnered praise from both Democrats and Republicans for improving coordination with state and local emergency offices and turning attention and resources to the benefits of disaster mitigation. <br><br>"Mitigation is the cornerstone of emergency management," a FEMA Web site explains today. "It's the ongoing effort to lessen the impact disasters have on people's lives and property." Under mitigation plans, houses in floodplains are moved or raised above the flood line, buildings are designed to withstand hurricane winds and earthquakes, and communities are relocated away from likely wildfire zones. According to FEMA estimates, every dollar spent on mitigation saves roughly $2 in disaster recovery costs. <br><br>The need for more systematic mitigation efforts was driven home by 1996's Hurricane Fran, which killed 37 people and caused tens of billions of dollars in damages. In 1997, Witt established Project Impact, which would become the agency's most high-profile mitigation program. <br><br>Under the project, FEMA fostered partnerships between federal, state, and local emergency workers, along with local businesses, to prepare individual communities for natural disasters. Impact partnerships sprang up in all 50 states. In Seattle, for example, the grants were used to retrofit schools, bridges, and houses at risk from earthquakes. In Pascagoula, Miss., the project funded the creation of a database of structures in the local floodplain – crucial information for preparing mitigation plans. In several eastern North Carolina communities, it helped fund and coordinate buyouts of houses in flood-prone areas. <br><br>By the time the Bush administration entered office in January 2001, some 250 communities had signed up for Project Impact. FEMA seemed sturdy, having found its role and proved itself capable of fulfilling it. But in the field of emergency management, some things can change as quickly as the weather. <br><br>Bush's FEMA<br><br>From its first months in office, the Bush administration made it clear that emergency programs, like much of the federal government, were in for a major reorientation. <br><br>At FEMA, Bush appointed a close aide, Joe Allbaugh, to be the agency's new director. Allbaugh had served as then-governor Bush's chief of staff in Texas and as manager of his 2000 presidential campaign. Along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, Allbaugh was known as one part of Bush's "iron triangle" of professional handlers. <br><br>Some FEMA veterans complained that Allbaugh had little experience in managing disasters, and the new administration's early initiatives did little to settle their concerns. The White House quickly launched a government-wide effort to privatize public services, including key elements of disaster management. Bush's first budget director, Mitch Daniels, spelled out the philosophy in remarks at an April 2001 conference: "The general idea – that the business of government is not to provide services, but to make sure that they are provided – seems self-evident to me," he said. <br><br>In a May 15, 2001, appearance before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Allbaugh signaled that the new, stripped-down approach would be applied at FEMA as well. "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective state and local risk management," he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." <br><br>As a result, says a disaster program administrator who insists on anonymity, "We have to compete for our jobs – we have to prove that we can do it cheaper than a contractor." And when it comes to handling disasters, the FEMA employee stresses, cheaper is not necessarily better, and the new outsourcing requirements sometimes slow the agency's operations. <br><br>William Waugh, a disaster expert at Georgia State University who has written training programs for FEMA, warns that the rise of a "consultant culture" has not served emergency programs well. "It's part of a widespread problem of government contracting out capabilities," he says. "Pretty soon governments can't do things because they've given up those capabilities to the private sector. And private corporations don't necessarily maintain those capabilities." <br><br>The push for privatization wasn't the only change that raised red flags at FEMA. As a 2004 article in the Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management would later note, "Allbaugh brought about several internal, though questionably effective, reorganizations of FEMA. The Bush-Allbaugh FEMA diminished the Clinton administration's organizational emphasis on disaster mitigation." <br><br>In February 2001, for example, the Bush administration proposed eliminating Project Impact, a move approved by Congress later in the year. (On the very day the White House proposal was submitted, a magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked Washington state, which was home to several communities where Project Impact had sponsored quake mitigation efforts.) Ending the project and trimming other FEMA programs, the White House argued, would save roughly $200 million. In its place, FEMA instituted a new program of mitigation grants that are awarded on a competitive basis. <br><br>The administration also made a failed attempt to cut the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster preparedness expenditures. Since the 1990s, the federal government has paid 75 percent of such costs, with states and municipalities funding the other 25 percent. The White House's attempt to reduce the federal contribution to 50 percent was defeated in Congress. <br><br>At the same time, Allbaugh gave off contradictory signals on the value of mitigation, on one occasion chastising a community for doing too little to prepare in advance for disaster. In April 2001 he caused a stir when he asked Iowans, then in the midst of massive flood recovery efforts, "How many times will the American taxpayer have to step in and take care of this flooding, which could be easily prevented by building levees and dikes?" <br><br>A month later, the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration's moves against mitigation programs were causing worries in disaster-prone states. "Statehouse critics of the proposed cuts contend that in the long run they would cost the government more because many communities will be unable to afford preventative measures and as a result will require more relief money when disasters strike," the newspaper noted. <br><br>By ignoring the logic of fully funded mitigation and other preparedness programs, Bush's first FEMA director earned some scorn among emergency specialists. "Allbaugh? He was inept," says Claire Rubin, a senior researcher at George Washington University's Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management. "He was chief of staff for Bush in Texas – that was his credential. He didn't have an emergency management background, other than the disasters he ran into in Texas, and he wasn't a very open guy. He didn't want to learn anything." <br><br>Allbaugh's troubled tenure at the agency would be a relatively short one. In December 2002, he announced he would leave his post. While political observers expected Allbaugh to join the Bush reelection effort, instead he set about creating a string of lobbying firms, including New Bridge Strategies, which helps U.S. companies win reconstruction contracts in Iraq. This summer, he started another consulting company with Andrew Lundquist, the former director of Vice President Dick Cheney's secretive energy policy task force. The firm's first client was Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest defense contractors. <br><br>The merger<br><br>The early problems at Allbaugh's FEMA, nettlesome as they were, paled in comparison to the challenges the agency faced after 9/11. In the wake of the terrorist attacks, leading members of Congress pushed for a radical restructuring of the government's antiterrorism apparatus. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) proposed legislation to merge several federal agencies into a new security-focused umbrella department. At first the White House opposed the plan, calling it impractical and unnecessary. <br><br>But then, as former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke explained in his recent book Against All Enemies, "the White House legislative affairs office began to take a head count on Capitol Hill." Realizing that the Lieberman bill would likely pass both houses of Congress, with no credit given to the White House, in June 2002 the administration changed its tune, calling for a new Department of Homeland Security that would be even larger than the one Lieberman had proposed. <br><br>Under the administration's plan, 22 government agencies, FEMA among them, would be merged into the DHS. Analysts in and out of government warned against subsuming the emergency agency's vital functions in a new superdepartment. "There are concerns of FEMA losing its identity as an agency that is quick to respond to all hazards and disasters," the agency's inspector general noted in a memo to Allbaugh. Congress's Government Accountability Office judged the merger to be a "high-risk" endeavor for FEMA, and the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington think tank, cautioned in a report that such a move could hobble the agency's natural disaster programs. "While a merged FEMA might become highly adept at preparing for and responding to terrorism, it would likely become less effective in performing its current mission in case of natural disasters as time, effort and attention are inevitably diverted to other tasks within the larger organization." <br><br>But Bush's proposal won out, and a shift in priorities from natural disasters to counterterrorism immediately took hold. In its 2002 budget, the White House doubled FEMA's budget to $6.6 billion, but of that sum, $3.5 billion was earmarked for equipment and training to help states and localities respond to terrorist attacks. <br><br>Michael Brown, a college friend of Allbaugh's who had served as FEMA's general counsel, was recruited to head the agency, which would now be part of the DHS's Emergency and Response Directorate. When the reorganization took effect March 1, 2003, Brown assured skeptics that under the new arrangement, the country would be served by "FEMA on steroids" – a faster, more effective disaster agency. <br><br>But the merger into the DHS has compounded the agency's problems, says FEMA employee and union president Mann. "Before, we reported straight to the White House, and now we've got this elaborate bureaucracy on top of us, and a lot of this bureaucracy doesn't think what we're doing is that important, because terrorism isn't our number one," he says. "The biggest frustration here is that we at FEMA have responded to disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11, and here are people who haven't responded to a kitchen fire telling us how to deal with terrorism. You know, there were a lot of people who fell down on the job on 9/11, but it wasn't us." <br><br>The FEMA program administrator says the crux of the problem is that the agency is buried in the DHS, which is regarded as a "do-nothing agency" among FEMA's action-oriented staff. "You know, FEMA could do well by itself, and FEMA was starting to do well by itself. But that's changed." <br><br>Rubin, the George Washington University researcher, agrees with these assessments. "DHS has done a number of things to FEMA that are making it very, very hard for FEMA to function as it used to," she says. "A large number of people who are experienced with natural hazards no longer are doing that primarily or at all." <br><br>On Aug. 4, 2003, Brown announced FEMA would at least be permitted to keep its name, if not its status as an independent agency. He has insisted FEMA will stay prepared for "all hazards," even the nonterrorist ones. "Yes, it's a new world, it's a dangerous world, and the Department of Homeland Security will have a focus on terrorism, but it's not the only focus," he said in early 2003. <br><br>But the tension between Brown's competing duties has proved unavoidable. In May 2003, for example, the DHS staged TOPOFF 2 – officially billed as "the largest homeland security exercise in the history of the United States" – to test the government's ability to deal with a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction. The same week of the exercise, hundreds of real-life tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, causing some FEMA staffers to find themselves torn between practicing for terrorism and handling an actual natural disaster. And while resources for the DHS exercise were readily available, according to Mann, FEMA's headquarters staff was forced, that same summer, to cancel disaster training drills due to budget shortfalls. <br><br>Whither mitigation?<br><br>In 2003, Congress approved a White House proposal to cut FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program in half. Previously, the federal government was committed to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a given disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush formula, the feds now cough up only 7.5 percent. <br><br>Such post-disaster mitigation efforts, specialists say, are a crucial way of minimizing future losses. It's after a disaster strikes, they argue, that the government can best take the steps necessary to avoid repeat problems, because that's when officials and storm victims are most receptive to mitigation plans. <br><br>Larry Larson is executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, an organization that keeps a close eye on mitigation matters. The Bush administration, he says, is "being penny-wise and pound foolish" by cutting the HMGP formula. His group has pressed Congress to restore the federal investment to 15 percent of disaster costs, and he expects some legislators will soon take up the cause on their own. "Florida's going to be looking for mitigation money so that they can rebuild in a safer fashion," he says. "I'm sure that the Florida delegation is going to be thinking now about how the state can't do what's needed with the recent cuts in post-disaster mitigation – how they can't do today what they could have done before." <br><br>Pressed on this issue, Bush administration officials have said the formula puts more of the mitigation burden on state governments, where it belongs. But the National Emergency Management Association points out that, now more than ever, cash-strapped states can't afford to pick up the balance. "The federal focus on terrorism preparedness has left states with an increased responsibility to provide support for natural disasters and emergencies," noted a report released by the association this summer. "State budget shortfalls have given emergency management programs less to work with, at a time when more is expected of them. In fiscal year 2004, the average budget for a state emergency management agency was $40.8 million, a 23 percent reduction from fiscal year 2003." <br><br>The administration also argues that its new pre-disaster mitigation grants, which are awarded on a competitive basis, will help states pick up the slack. But again, emergency managers say it's not enough. In recent congressional testimony, a NEMA representative noted that "in a purely competitive grant program, lower income communities, those most often at risk to natural disaster, will not effectively compete with more prosperous cities.... The prevention of repetitive damages caused by disasters would go largely unprepared in less-affluent and smaller communities." <br><br>And indeed, some in-need areas have been inexplicably left out of the program. "In a sense, Louisiana is the floodplain of the nation," a 2002 FEMA report noted. "Louisiana waterways drain two thirds of the continental United States. Precipitation in New York, the Dakotas, even Idaho and the Province of Alberta, finds its way to Louisiana's coastline." As a result, flooding is a constant threat, and the state has an estimated 18,000 buildings that have repeatedly been damaged by flood waters – the highest number of any state. And yet, this summer FEMA denied Louisiana communities' pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. <br><br>In Jefferson Parish, part of the New Orleans metropolitan area, flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue is baffled by the development. "You would think we would get maximum consideration" for the funds, he says. "This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it." <br><br>Brain drain<br><br>Within FEMA, the shift away from mitigation programs is so pronounced that many longtime specialists in the field have quit. "The priority is no longer on prevention," says the FEMA administrator. "Mitigation, honestly, is the orphaned step-child. People are leaving it in droves." <br><br>In fact, disaster professionals are leaving many parts of FEMA in droves, compromising the agency's ability to do its job. "Since last year, so many people have left who had developed most of our basic programs," Mann says. "A lot of the institutional knowledge is gone. Everyone who was able to retire has left, and then a lot of people have moved to other agencies." <br><br>There are at least two reasons for the exodus. On the one hand, FEMA, like the rest of the federal government's civil service, is hitting a demographic brick wall. Its staff of veteran managers, most of them baby boomers, is reaching retirement age. <br><br>But another factor is at work: disillusionment at the agency's new direction under the Bush administration. In February 2004, the American Federation of Government Employees surveyed 84 FEMA personnel about the state of things at the agency. The results showed a dramatic downturn in morale: 80 percent said FEMA has become "a poorer agency" under the DHS, and 60 percent said that, given the chance to move to another agency and make the same salary, they'd do so. <br><br>For some, quitting the agency has become an especially attractive option, since FEMA is outsourcing more and many former employees have found work with contractors. It's an understandable choice, Mann says. "They're saying, OK, I can't develop my career here any more, so I might as well cash out." <br><br>Not everyone who has left did so because of disenchantment, asserts Laurence Zensinger, a longtime FEMA official who resigned this year and joined Dewberry, a Fairfax, Va.-based engineering firm that does disaster work for the government. Under the DHS reorganization, he says, some of FEMA's capabilities have in fact been strengthened, because the new arrangement aids coordination among federal agencies that FEMA regularly works with. Furthermore, he says, the rise in public and governmental attention to emergency programs since 9/11 has, in a larger sense, benefited the agency. "I think there's a lot that's happening that's sort of lifting all boats," he says. <br><br>Nevertheless, FEMA must now get by with a smaller number of in-house specialists. The irony, disaster researcher Rubin says, is that FEMA will now have to hire former employees like Zensinger as contractors. "Now, frankly, the senior brains and the people with 20, 30 years of operational experience, there's more of them in the private sector than there are at FEMA. It's a significant shift. If the government's going to get smaller and the catastrophes keep getting bigger, the net effect will be to outsource what you need. It might be cheaper, it might be more expensive, but it's not a great way to run this part of government." Following the current spate of hurricanes, she predicts, "you will see FEMA contracts flying left and right so they can get these people back who know how to do this stuff." <br><br>'An exposed nerve'<br><br>In case Congress hasn't gotten the message, former FEMA director Witt recently restated it in strong terms. "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded," he testified at a March 24, 2004, hearing on Capitol Hill. "I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared. In fact one state emergency manager told me, 'It is like a stake has been driven into the heart of emergency management.'" <br><br>Lately, though, Witt has had nothing to say publicly about the agency's performance. His disaster management company, James Lee Witt Associates, recently won a $250,000 contract with Orlando, Fla., to help the city get its share of post-hurricane FEMA money. A company spokesperson says Witt will be making no comment while Florida's recovery efforts continue, out of respect for his former colleagues. <br><br>Waugh, the Georgia State University expert, says the recent hurricanes could serve as a wake-up call to highlight FEMA's drift in priorities. "If you talk to FEMA people and emergency management people around the country, people have almost been hoping for a major natural disaster like a hurricane, just to remind DHS and the administration that there are other big things – even bigger things than al Qaeda. <br><br>"This is an exposed nerve in the emergency management community, in the sense that resources have been shifted away from hurricanes, tornadoes and other kinds of disasters – the kind of disasters that are more likely to occur than terrorism." <br><br>Jon Elliston is a North Carolina-based writer who specializes in national security issues. This article was funded by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and includes reporting by Folio Weekly in Jacksonville, Fla., Gambit Weekly in New Orleans, and Independent Weekly in Durham, N.C. Bay Guardian news intern Jeannette Huang contributed to this report.<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>CNN/New Orleans:"Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breeches" and that's (many links)<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4523783">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4523783</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>Nothing Without Hope (1000+ posts) <br>Wed Aug-31-05 01:49 PM<br>Original message<br><br>CNN/New Orleans:"Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breeches" and that's<br><br><br>Edited on Wed Aug-31-05 02:47 PM by Nothing Without Hope<br><br>only the beginning:<br><br>The failure to drop those sandbags and patch the levees was a catastrophe - it's resulted in the major flooding of downtown NO that may well have been avoidable. Mayor Nagin tried desperately to reach Bush, but he was unable to do so. Guess * had other priorities, like getting a manicure perhaps. To my knowledge, the fact that Bush wasn't answering the phone from the mayor of New Orleans requesting urgent, life-and-death assistance has so far not showed up in any of the major media - it was heard by people listening to Nagin's announcement and was reported here at DU.<br><br>But Nagin's fury at the failure to patch the levees in time to avert greatly intensified catastrophe and more deaths is in a CNN article this morning:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.levees/index.html">www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.levees/index.html</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.levees/story.new.orleans.3.ap.jpg"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br>Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breaches<br><br>Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Posted: 7:21 a.m. EDT (11:21 GMT)<br><br>(snip)<br><br>According to the mayor, Black Hawk helicopters were scheduled to pick up and drop massive 3,000- pound sandbags in the 17th Street Canal breach, but were diverted on rescue missions. Nagin said neglecting to fix the problem has set the city behind by at least a month.<br><br>"I had laid out like an eight-week to ten-week timeline where we could get the city back in semblance of order. It's probably been pushed back another four weeks as a result of this," Nagin said.<br><br>"That four weeks is going to stop all commerce in the city of New Orleans. It also impacts the nation, because no domestic oil production will happen in southeast Louisiana."<br><br>Nagin said he expects relief efforts in the city to improve as New Orleans, the National Guard and FEMA combine their command centers for better communication, followup and accountability.<br><br>FEMA is a real mess, both from cut funds and from the fallout from a Bolton clone, Albaugh, being sent in by the Bush Administration. He was so insanely abusive and disruptive, many of the career FEMA management personnel left. The disastrously mismanaged mission in New Orleans has cost lives and according to Mayor Nagin, set back by a month the schedule for reopening New Orleans. Here's a post on the Bolton Clone dispatched to FEMA:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4520347&mesg_id=4520775">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4520347&mesg_id=4520775</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>YES ! Joe Albaugh, 1 of Bush's campaign managers & nutcase.<br><br>This man has a truly violent temper and short trigger to go with it. At one of his first meetings with career FEMA high level staff, one woman who was called on to make a report started out by introducing herself to Albaugh with her name and title. He went ballistic, screaming and raging - DID SHE THINK HE DIDN'T KNOW WHO SHE WAS?!?!?!? HOW DARE SHE PRESUME SUCH A THING??? . . .yada, yada, yada along the same line for minutes to the dead silence of everyone else in the room who had never seen such a display of temper. In other words, someone following standard business etiquette was screamed at and berated in front of her peers.<br><br>This was typical behavior for Albaugh, and one result was that many, many of the top level FEMA people left for other jobs or took early retirement because Albaugh wouldn't allow them to do the jobs they were trained to do. This was a tremendous loss of institutional knowledge for the relatively small federal agency. Albaugh hated being at FEMA and left after about a year. Although he had zip experience with disaster relief or any kind of government/public service before his explosive period with FEMA, when he left there he started a very high priced consulting firm on counter-terrorism.<br><br>Bush initially put Albaugh in place to gut FEMA - I mean why should all that federal money go to people in trouble and need through some natural disaster. Bush's attitude was that if you weren't wealthy enough to private pay someone to help you handle a disaster, you deserved whatever befell you. Anyway, when 9/11 occurred, he couldn't outwardly gut FEMA, but he pretty much emasculated it by putting it under DHS.<br><br>And then there is the cut in funding. For example:<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x151655">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x151655</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: 9/28/04 La should have received FEMA disaster mitigation grants, but got 0<br>From the information in this thread, it looks like the plan to allow New Orleans to be devastated by storms and floods has in effect for at least several years.<br><br>Here are some other threads on how all the different sources of funding that was supposed to be used to protect the city and provide relief efforts has been systematically gutted:<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4482567">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4482567</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: Bush has slashed Clinton's Disaster Mitigation Program. (unbelievable)<br>Posted by barbaraann GD Forum Sun Aug-28-05 12:23 PM<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2042880">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2042880</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: New Orleans district, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Cut by Bush<br>Posted by usregimechange GD-P Mon Aug-29-05 12:25 AM<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4490119">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4490119</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: Bush Cut Hurricane, Flood Protection Funding to New Orleans<br>Posted by Lori Price CLG GD Forum Sun Aug-28-05 09:59 PM<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2042922">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2042922</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Thread title: DU media Blast Bush's cuts to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<br>sregimechange GD-P Mon Aug-29-05 12:54 AM<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2045974">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2045974</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>thread title: Cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers... not a politicization, just<br>4MoronicYears GD Forum Tue Aug-30-05 08:44 PM<br><br>Is all of this just incompetence, callousness and greed? Maybe - but maybe not. I am beginning to suspect LIWOP - Let It Worsen On Purpose. Those levees were not repaired, when they were the highest priority. Funding was not there. And then there is the shipment of the people who SHOULD have been pitching in, OUR National Guard, overseas as cannon fodder in Bush's war of choice. Even the paltry 3500 who were supposed to arrive didn't make it yesterday, according to this thread;<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4520347">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4520347</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: FEMA not doing so good in N.O - National Guard never showed up today<br><br>Finally, and far from least, there really are larger, scarier reasons to be concerned about a conspiracy in which what has been happening to the National Guard and FEMA is a part. Read through this thread and think about it:<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4519574">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4519574</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: Think about the implications of this: Nat'l Guard in Iraq, NorthCom HERE.<br><br>Peace Patriot (1000+ posts) <br>Wed Aug-31-05 04:55 PM<br>Response to Reply #36<br><br>51. Wow! Just wow! I hadn't put two and two together on this one. Great<br><br><br>thread! I was wondering about all this, when half of California's Guard was sent off to Iraq, and they had to pull the Guards off the Golden Gate Bridge, due to lack of personnel (they didn't admit this, but that's why). I was thinking, what the hell? Our Guard is off to occupy Iraq, and to subdue, and possibly kill and torture, Iraqis, with no justification whatsoever, and we can't even guard the GG Bridge? Then I was thinking about it re: Katrina. Louisiana's Guard and its equipment over in Iraq, when they are most needed HERE. <br><br>It just hadn't occurred to me that the REASON for all this may be to REPLACE our National Guards with permanent U.S. military who DON'T LIVE IN the places where they may be called upon to control crowds and aim their weapons at people. The Guard are our neighbors, friends and family members--familiar people in our communities, often local professionals--less likely to get trigger happy in tense situations. Less prone to robotic obedience to unlawful or inhumane orders. Because it's their HOME, their community, and because they are NOT permanent military. <br><br>Well, the upshot may be that WE end up feeling just like the Iraqis--shoved around, brutalized, humiliated, "detained," imprisoned without charge or hope of trial, shot at, wounded, tortured and killed, and our neighborhoods invaded, sacked and bombed--by people we don't know, and who don't know us. <br><br>Who was it who said that injustice toward one is injustice toward all? And if we ignore the injustices in Iraq- -and other places like Guantanamo Bay--those injustices will come home to us, and have already harmed us from a distance. Their loss of human rights is our loss of human rights. And the agent of injustice is "our own" government, which, of course, will have to brutalize US to stay in power, and will need obedient robots who are trained, not to keep order, but to kill whoever the government says is "the enemy." <br><br>Chilling, indeed. <br><br>I have never thought that the Bush Cartel was incompetent. They may seem to be--and, indeed, they sometimes seem to be more than incompetent. Their behavior seems insane at times. But I think that our perception of incompetence or insanity is based on our own notions of what the goal is. WE would think, okay, if you're going to invade Iraq and liberate its people, the FIRST THING you would do--the most important plan you would have--is civil order. Not so Donald Rumsfeld--who, as Baghdad was looted, seemed to relish it, and even equated looting with freedom. To us this seemed insane. Not to him. Because the goal wasn't liberation (which requires civil order); the goal was to utterly destroy any sense of civic duty in Iraq, to smash their infrastructure to smithereens, and to make them completely dependent on Bush Cartel largess, and probably also--in Rumsfeld's diabolical mind--to give the more hoodlum element among Iraqis a taste for predatory capitalism.<br><br>If we set aside our common sense, and our own ethical and democratic values, and understand what the Bush Cartel's goals really are, then we will be better able to figure out the way to defeat them. I've been trying to make this point about election reform. Their goal all along has been direct control over the vote totals in elections. Their goal with the "Help America Vote Act" NEVER WAS reform of the election system after the mess in Florida (that put Bush in the White House!). Their goal with this legislation was just the opposite--to gain MORE control over elections for the purposes of fraud; to gain ABSOLUTE control over them, with Bushite electronic voting machine companies recording and counting all the votes using SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code WITH NO PAPER TRAIL. They further had the goal of corrupting the election system almost beyond repair--which is why they permitted the lavish lobbying of companies like Diebold and ES&S (even as recently as at the Beverly Hilton this August--a week of fun, sun and high-ending shopping for election officials from around the country--sponsored by Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia). And it is why they appropriated $4 billion for the purchase of new election systems--not to improve democracy, but to destroy it forever. <br><br>Democrats (of the honest variety) who got involved with electronic voting, thinking it would be more efficient or more reliable (or whatever they thought) than the debacle of "hanging chads" and Republican riots in Florida, were absolutely HOODWINKED--because they didn't understand the Bush Cartel's true GOAL. (And the corrupt Dems--such as state/local election officials and the War Democrats--may have understood it, and didn't care.)<br><br>That is not incompetence. That is not insanity. That is brilliant, masterminded evil. <br><br>This year, the Bush Cartel cooked up a new official-sounding "National Commission on Elections," co-chaired by James Baker (!!!) (architect of FLA '00), and Jimmy Carter, and what I think this phony "commission" is going to do is recommend the federalization of our elections (which Bush's "pod people" and some stupid or corrupt Democrats in Congress will embrace), in order to destroy our power in state/local venues to reform the election system (get rid of Diebold, ES&S and all non-transparent voting systems). Although many of our state/local election officials are corrupt, the power over election systems still resides at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. The Bush Cartel wants to stop this local election reform movement. (I don't know if Jimmy Carter understands what they are up to, or can prevent it; but the presence of James Baker tells us all we need to know about this commission--and they have also proceeded in a way that indicates they are up to no good.)<br><br>We need to understand their true goals, and not get hoodwinked by their lies and "talking points" into thinking that they and their minions desire civil discourse. And we need to be really smart about this-- including understanding their current plan to install a War Democrat in the White House--among other things to get a Draft (which George Bush cannot do) and to expand the war in the Middle East. We cannot stop them cold, but we CAN maneuver within their game plan, to gain strategic objectives: prime among them, in my opinion, ELECTION REFORM. <br><br>We need...<br><br>Paper ballots hand-counted at the precinct level (--Canada does it in one day, although speed should not even be a consideration, just accuracy and verifiability)<br><br>or, at the least...<br><br>Paper ballot (not "paper trail"<!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> backup of all electronic voting, a 10% audit (automatic recount), strict security, and NO SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code! (...jeez!).<br><br>We may be able to pressure a War Democrat on the progressive policy of transparent elections--as we meanwhile work from the bottom up, in state/local venues, to remove corrupt officials and begin restoring integrity to the counting of our votes. <br><br>Understand their true goal. Find the strategy that will counter and defeat it. I don't think we can do much about the Cartel's true goal in sending the state National Guards to Iraq, until we have transparent elections in some states--and begin electing state governors and other state officers who will fight it. It's interesting that both the right and the left agree that the 2nd amendment empowers peoples' militias such as the state National Guards as a RIGHT of the people. Perhaps we can unite on this issue. In any case, Bush's misuse of the National Guard--and his culpability in the New Orleans disaster--should bring some focus on this matter, while we work on ELECTION REFORM!!!!!!, in order to regain the power to correct it.<br><br>Nothing Without Hope (1000+ posts) <br>Wed Aug-31-05 06:02 PM<br>Response to Reply #51<br><br>54. I agree! And do you see how the plan for massive reorganization and<br><br><br>consolidation of the US military bases, mostly into Southern areas and areas dominated by GOP voters, may fit into this? It's certainly NOT for the avowed purpose of saving a modest (for the Pentagon) amount of money over 20 years - that's been shown to be a LIE. So why are they so keen to do it? Pork and payoffs, yes, but I don't think they'd be so exercised about it if it weren't part of a bigger plan.<br><br>I think that's part of the groundwork to facilitate military control of US citizens. Martial law enforced by the military. It's already happening now because the Guard has been banished as cannon fodder.<br><br>I do suspect the constant drumbeat about LOOTERS LOOTERS LOOTERS that we are hearing may also be related to the desire of the neocon cabal for "justification" for martial law. No wonder they wanted citizens to keep guns - it's not just to placate the NRA, it's to give an excuse for more forceful suppression as violence breaks out.<br><br>Since you've come with me this far, there's another thread that I think we should all read through. It's about the attack of Iran. They sure do want to do it, and so does the Hawk faction of the Likud that is so close to the US neocons. Don't know when, but the desire is strong and the preparations have been in progress. PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE THREAD PLUS THE INFORMATION AT THE LINKS. Note: so far as I know - as is noted later in the thread - the business of the "cancelled military leaves after Sept 7" looks to be only a rumor. If anyone here knows different, they should post about it. Here's this vitally important thread - there are more pieces to the picture in it like the seemingly pointless banishment of General Byrnes and much more. Whether or not the attack on Iranian sovereignty is imminent, the information in this thread is important to add to the total picture:<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2037110">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2037110</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Thread title: All the pieces are on the board, folks....time to get worried.<br><br>Nothing Without Hope (1000+ posts) <br>Thu Sep-01-05 04:23 AM<br>Response to Reply #71<br><br>75. I started writing out a full reply and realized it needs to be a synthesis<br><br><br>Edited on Thu Sep-01-05 04:39 AM by Nothing Without Hope<br><br>thread of its own. I just can't do it right now - too tired. I'll post a new thread on that tomorrow evening and put a link to it here.<br><br>In the meantime, here are older threads with some of the pieces in them but not put together and organized to make the full argument as I (ignorant as I am of the military and political forces involved in this) see it.<br><br>Unfortunately in the oldest threads some of the links to full online newspaper articles no longer work. But many do and there is still a lot of info and excerpts. Especially important are the maps - which bases are being moved where? Where is the military presence going to be if the neocons behind this get their way? How does it tie in to politics and to their plans for domination and - I believe - wish to develop a domestic Pentagon-directed military force to stifle dissent and enforce their edicts?<br><br>Here's the original thread I set up on the base moving plan.<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1782877&mesg_id=1782877">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1782877&mesg_id=1782877</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: LAT: Military base closings will shift troops to the South- POLITICS!!!<br>Nothing Without Hope GD-P Forum Sat May-14-05 04:29 AM<br><br>and here's a recent thread on Ellsworth and a New Mexico base:<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2039290">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2039290</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: LA Times: Ellsworth AF Base in S Dakota to remain open, Thune's ass saved<br>Nothing Without Hope GD-P Forum Sat Aug-27-05 06:12 AM<br><br>Both of these threads have lots of good links. Here's another older thread that hints of these possible connections I'm going to be pointing out:<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1787395&mesg_id=1787395">www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1787395&mesg_id=1787395</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br>Thread title: Colorado Springs is the "New Nuremberg" for The Religious Right (pre 1945)<br>IChing GD-P Forum Mon May-16-05 07:29 PM<br><br>I'll write some kind of synthesis thread to try to show what I'm thinking about this tomorrow and link to it here. I am hoping that we can get a good dialog going with input from some of the experts here at DU. The weird, sudden, massive base closing/moving/reorganization plan CRIES FOR EXPLANATION. We know they are lying, and we need to find out the truth.<br><br>calipendence (1000+ posts) <br>Thu Sep-01-05 03:42 PM<br>Response to Reply #56<br><br>100. The Bush Regime has already screwed California twice in this way...<br><br><br>Edited on Thu Sep-01-05 03:46 PM by calipendence<br><br>The first incident was when FEMA sat on a request to clean up national parklands of fire hazard bark beetle infested timber, which made the wildfires that much worse in impact down here in Southern California a few years ago. Many months earlier Gray Davis and a bipartisan group of California politicians had requested emergency assistance in clearing out these fire hazard trees. They got a response the week before the wildfires came that they were turned down. Had at least they turned it down more immediately, perhaps the state could have done something about it.<br><br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/31/MNG3S2NI081.DTL">www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/31/MNG3S2NI081.DTL</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>Secondly, think back to when Bush's feds did nothing to stop Enron and it's buddies rape California (and many other western states) with their criminal energy trading schemes. That was another example of us all paying for their gross negligence to do their duty of protecting the American public. They are
