There is a terrible irony shadowing the catastrophic events of today in the Northeast. The damage inflicted by Hurricane Sandy, the subsequent casualties and the aid and rescue responses by FEMA, local and state emergency management is a not-too-subtle reminder of one of the primary roles of government: when faced with calamity, the government is there to help.
Yet, as the Eastern seaboard gets pounded with one of the biggest storms in history, and local, state and federal government are working to mitigate damage as the storm progresses, the nation is still coming to grips with making a choice next week over what exactly the role of government should be.
Is it to help those who need it the most? Or should we cut government down to a size where it could be drowned, perhaps in the 14 foot waves flooding Manhattan’s Battery Park? Maybe, at a supposed cost savings to the federal government, emergency services could be contracted out like the Iraq War in the early 2000’s. Or maybe like in the case in Tennessee, where fire fighters stood by and watched one man’s house burn down and didn’t turn the hose on to put it out because he didn’t pay his local emergency services fee.
Emergency management is not a utility. It’s not your gas, water or garbage bill. It is the direct response for when an entire region is struck by calamity. Having worked in municipal public works in three different departments, in the event there is a local disaster, emergency response is your underlying duty when you get employed by city government. My job’s ID badge says on the back: “All San Francisco employees are designated by the State and City law as ‘Disaster Service Workers’. In the event of a declaration of emergency, any employee of the city and county of San Francisco may be assigned to perform activities which promote the protection of public health and safety or the preservation of lives and property.”
When I was living in San Francisco’s Marina district — the section of town hardest hit during the Loma Prieta 7.1 magnitude earthquake of 1989 — my entire neighborhood had no power or running water for a week. Aftershocks were coming three to five times a day. Knowing there were shelters to go to if our homes were uninhabitable, food and water if we ran out, that public works was out shoring up buildings so they wouldn’t collapse, and that there were places to go to get federal financial assistance from FEMA for losses was a tremendous relief.
Our losses were on a relatively small scale compared to the losses inflicted now and to be suffered in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Yet at this moment, the very question about diminishing the role of government — thanks to the Tea Party — is part of our current political discourse. The people pulling their Tea Party strings in Congress are also paying big dollars this election for initiatives to deny state and local public employees including fire fighters, police and other emergency workers their right to unionize and have a political voice.
One of California’s state initiatives on the ballot — Proposition 32 — is proposing in essence to do in California what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin. I guess these wealthy backers trying to break the backs of public employees can simply airlift themselves out of the region and land safely somewhere out in the Caribbean where their fifth home is located. They don’t give a shit about us, and are willing to pay to codify what will eventually become privatized public services across the states, all from the savings of public employee salaries stripped free from government budgets. And they will probably profit from it.
Government’s black eye in the view of a large swath of the public is not entirely undeserved. Yes, covertly and directly, bad things have been inflicted on us by forces of government, and we do have cause to distrust it as a whole. You can look at what happened recently with the government’s too-cozy relationships with big business — the contracting out of warfare in Iraq, the management of environmental disasters such as Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, and for the West Coast the silence behind the environmental aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima disaster — and it can cause you to grow quite cynical about government if you aren’t already feeling that way.
But this, as we have said time and again, is what government HAS become. What we took for granted as public service has eroded over time. Metaphorically and literally polluted by private interests, greased palms of dirty politicians, and bald and blatant grabs for control over natural resources, government has become a mixed bag of policies that are too qualified and compromised now to make a larger impact on the public good.
What we have taken for granted for so long is the age-old concept that government is there for the larger good of society. That government’s role is as the main force for development and maintenance of public infrastructure. That role of government is a concept as ancient as the time of the Roman emperors who built roads, bridges and aqueducts for the health and welfare of the people and the empire, as was the care of the public affected by natural disaster. This was so that their society could function at its fullest, protecting public health and safety and preserving lives and property.
During this time of climate crisis and calamity, when storms like Sandy and last year’s Irene are becoming more norm than anomaly, destruction will be greater and more costly over time. To consider diminishing government’s role this election year when so many will be so much in need is no longer a matter of a loss of compassion. It is a loss of reason. Given the portents of wind and rain, what we take for granted — that we have time to experiment with the public’s safety if we decide to diminish government’s role in handling and securing it — is nothing short of insanity.
Fe, seeing Mr Obama with Gov Christie someone wrote,
‘He’s a good person, you can feel it’.
Perhaps that will be enough. Capable, not complacent. Real. I liked so much in The Audacity of Hope when he asked himself whether he is still honest. It is an important question.
Thanks for brilliant piece, Fe. In Italy they have an expression “It’s raining…thieving government”, as an indication of their deep mistrust of government, to the extent that they even blame the rain on them (ironically, of course). But seems quite apt for these times!
Pam:
Thank you. Love Solnit.
Lovely article Fe.
Yes it is easy to rail against the big, bad, bloated government until it is YOUR city/neighbourhood/home that has just been destroyed. In a moment of weakness today as I looked at so many images of destruction I did wonder; how many of the people whose homes were flooded, burned or otherwise lost or damaged in this storm who had previously aligned themselves with the “less is more” tea-pubs would now be willing to forgo any FEMA funds to help them rebuild? Sandy has delivered another lesson in the all politics is local (and personal) theme.
http://www.zcommunications.org/our-words-are-our-weapons-by-rebecca-solnit
Some will continue sleeping. Some will awaken….
http://youtu.be/5HGpgKXoPHc
Myst, five toro horns? Five anything = Venusian, five toro horns = supervenusian!
Fe – An excellent summary of where we stand today, both as a nation and a world. I am convinced the Republican Party is slowly committing suicide right in front of us, the rest of the world that is, and we’ll better off without them. It won’t be easy, but we’re facing one of those necessary, giant shifts in human history and they see only a ‘owie’ to their misdirected pride.
As so many people have commented across the media, the sheer amount of delusion seems overwhelming to those of us on the outside. I may be invoking Godwin’s Law here, but it’s like Adolf’s crew in the bunker at the end: we’re winning any moment now!
Only it will be family members, friends, and other people we know who will be hit hardest when the shift takes hold, not some genocidal maniacs in leather coats. Therapy anyone?
Fe: Thank you for delivering the fundamental lesson that every one of us (or at least those who have received a public school education) should know by heart. The fact that it needs to be said speaks almost as loudly as the events that brought you to render this important service.
be: Thank you. All points, especially the last one are well taken.
mystes: Excellent evaluation of our current position, thank you.
Great article, Fe! Having seen a millennial drought here, and wildfire after wildfire last year, I have never been more convinced of the protective role of our infrastructure. But wouldn’t it be *great* if we could figure out how to rein in the destructive side of our ‘protectors?’
I am in the middle of some kind of global change of heart/mind right now vis. who is “doing” the dirty and why. It is looking more and more to me like a systemic collision of bad-planning, human pettifoggery and accidental malice. In other words, remediable, but from another level or scale of intention.
It is precisely the fact that we are in the endgame of the Imperial legal construct and culture that gives me hope. We *are* on the road to Somewhere, and when the shaking stops, I think that the blueprint will have more to do with Merovech (cf the Quinotaur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinotaur) and less with Charlemagne ~ or any of his pretenders.
Take heart, Green Queen. The hour is upon us…
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Very thought-provoking Fe, thank you for this timely article. Even before the Romans, tribes had leaders who looked out for the welfare of all the tribe members; it is instinctive in times of trouble, as well as when looking forward, for groups to have leaders and some form of council to prepare for and consider these possibilities. There is the immediate family (Cancer), and then there is the tribal council (Capricorn), each providing a form of protection. As Pluto performs his function of bringing to light the pollution, the outmoded and the waste, it is government now under the scalpel.
In 1945 most Americans had faith in most of the leaders they elected to government roles. We took for granted they would work together for the common good. Fifty years later we still took for granted the services provided by government which we had paid for through our taxes, but we were losing faith in the leadership itself. Still, in large part we (the masses) believed that the system was not so much at fault as the chosen leaders themselves were to blame. We were very naive then and now, less so. Much more available information has swayed us this way or that way, but almost all of us want change.
What brings clarity as well as confusion is catastrophy. First the confusion. People dependent on those things we take for granted; electricity, transportation, food and shelter, need help when catastrophy hits. How much help and how quickly they get it will affect how they think of their government’s functionability. Clarity comes as a result of the realization that we are all in it together. Clarity can lead to more awareness and conscious growth. I don’t doubt that some of the poor people who are suffering right now without electricity, or have been driven from their homes or hospital beds, are “undecided voters” or even Tea Party advocates who believe that less government is the answer to the country’s problems. Maybe they had not even planned to vote. Intervention, divine or otherwise, has provided an opportunity to see through the cacophony of talking heads and allow many to think about their own values and what the role of their tribal leaders should be. What a price to pay! This evolution business don’t come cheap does it?
be