Getting a Head Start on the Angry Mob
Posted on
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
by Gary A. Ballard
What do I see in the New York Times online edition? Some promising news about the upcoming battle to provide Americans with healthcare, of course. It seems that the major health insurers are now ready to drop their objections to covering people with pre-existing conditions. How big of them to show a readiness to work with Congress after decades of obstructing any progress on universal healthcare based on the objection that people with chronic conditions were unprofitable and thus unworthy of coverage.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the insurers softening their stance. This country needs universal (GASP SOCIALISM!) healthcare in the worst possible way. Our economy has suffered greatly for it, our businesses are getting gang-raped by the onerous cost of making sure their workers are well enough to come to work, and families are one goddamn disease away from total financial ruin. But make no mistake, this was not the insurers being magnanimous, nor is it a signal they are really ready to give up the gravy train fed from the bone marrow of cancer patients.
This is an industry realizing that their customers have had enough and they aren't going to take this shit lying down anymore. Well, the ones that can still stand, that is. For whatever his flaws and failings may be, Pres. Obama is committed to providing every American healthcare, and the amount of public hostility towards insurers as well as the shift in Congressional party makeup makes the writing on the wall clear in gigantic, 90-point Helvetica type. Your money-siphoning days are over.
Of course, these insurers are still opposed to a government-run health care system. They are opposed because if a government system is run in competition to their own, the chances are they will lose most of their business. Not because the government system will automatically be better (though it certainly couldn't be much worse) but because that system will likely be CHEAPER, and these companies have never really had to compete on price to individuals. Sure, they'll offer group discounts to businesses, because that money is guaranteed. But individuals? They've never wanted to have to compete for individuals, because those are nickel and dime customers. It's harder to please them, the margins are terrible and the industry has spent almost 40 years pissing them off. I can almost guarantee that if offered a chance between a cheaper government-run system and a private insurer, the cheaper option would win out for 70% of the population. With that kind of competition, what are insurers going to offer customers for the higher premiums?
All they would have at that point is better doctors (very subjective), lower wait times and... well, what else do they have? Their entire business model would have to change, and they might actually have to market themselves. It's a lose-lose proposition.
But within their willingness to work with Congress on dropping the pre-existing condition restrictions is a fun little poison pill. They only want to do it if Congress can mandate that every American must be covered by insurance. That means they want to pull the same crap the auto insurers did years ago - i.e. make everyone have to buy coverage from the insurers. At that point, their pool of healthy customers is large enough that it offsets the need to help the deadbeats with Parkinson's. And of course, they would resist any government intervention in pricing policies.
Let me be blunt, health insurance industry. The free ride is over. In whatever form it finally comes, you will not be able to keep things going as they are. Whether it takes 20 years and goes through three Presidents and multiple changes of Congress, the American people are fed up with your bullshit. You'd better get a head start now, because there's an angry mob right the fuck behind you and they won't stop until they get what they want.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the insurers softening their stance. This country needs universal (GASP SOCIALISM!) healthcare in the worst possible way. Our economy has suffered greatly for it, our businesses are getting gang-raped by the onerous cost of making sure their workers are well enough to come to work, and families are one goddamn disease away from total financial ruin. But make no mistake, this was not the insurers being magnanimous, nor is it a signal they are really ready to give up the gravy train fed from the bone marrow of cancer patients.
This is an industry realizing that their customers have had enough and they aren't going to take this shit lying down anymore. Well, the ones that can still stand, that is. For whatever his flaws and failings may be, Pres. Obama is committed to providing every American healthcare, and the amount of public hostility towards insurers as well as the shift in Congressional party makeup makes the writing on the wall clear in gigantic, 90-point Helvetica type. Your money-siphoning days are over.
Of course, these insurers are still opposed to a government-run health care system. They are opposed because if a government system is run in competition to their own, the chances are they will lose most of their business. Not because the government system will automatically be better (though it certainly couldn't be much worse) but because that system will likely be CHEAPER, and these companies have never really had to compete on price to individuals. Sure, they'll offer group discounts to businesses, because that money is guaranteed. But individuals? They've never wanted to have to compete for individuals, because those are nickel and dime customers. It's harder to please them, the margins are terrible and the industry has spent almost 40 years pissing them off. I can almost guarantee that if offered a chance between a cheaper government-run system and a private insurer, the cheaper option would win out for 70% of the population. With that kind of competition, what are insurers going to offer customers for the higher premiums?
All they would have at that point is better doctors (very subjective), lower wait times and... well, what else do they have? Their entire business model would have to change, and they might actually have to market themselves. It's a lose-lose proposition.
But within their willingness to work with Congress on dropping the pre-existing condition restrictions is a fun little poison pill. They only want to do it if Congress can mandate that every American must be covered by insurance. That means they want to pull the same crap the auto insurers did years ago - i.e. make everyone have to buy coverage from the insurers. At that point, their pool of healthy customers is large enough that it offsets the need to help the deadbeats with Parkinson's. And of course, they would resist any government intervention in pricing policies.
Let me be blunt, health insurance industry. The free ride is over. In whatever form it finally comes, you will not be able to keep things going as they are. Whether it takes 20 years and goes through three Presidents and multiple changes of Congress, the American people are fed up with your bullshit. You'd better get a head start now, because there's an angry mob right the fuck behind you and they won't stop until they get what they want.
Labels: Corporate Corruption, Health Care, Politics, Privatization
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This FEMA Trailer Sure Does Stink
Posted on
Friday, July 20, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Something at FEMA stinks. We've known this since 2005, of course, when the bodies of dead New Orleans residents started flowing down Canal Street as the survivors of Katrina were left to boil in the destruction of the Superdome. But since those early days, Americans seem to have assumed that FEMA would take care of the problems, would bring New Orleans back from the brink of destruction, despite all evidence to the contrary. Congress seemed totally uninterested in figuring out how such a tragedy could occur on US Soil, at least until the Democrats regained a majority in the House and Senate. Now we know that the stench coming from FEMA smells like formaldehyde.
That's right, FEMA was providing residents of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast with trailers so full of formaldehyde, the air was literally killing them. For over a year now, FEMA field staff had let the top brass at the agency know of this problem, and for over a year, their pleas were ignored. Not because there was no evidence, because the one time FEMA actually allowed testing of a trailer under living conditions, the trailer was found to have 75 times more formaldehyde than is allowed in the workplace. After that one test found a positive result, they halted testing. Why? According to Rep. Henry Waxman's statement in the video linked above, because FEMA attorneys didn't want FEMA to have to deal with the issue.
What is it these poor, mostly black homeless bums from New Orleans want? FEMA got them a damn trailer for free. They want to be able to breathe in it? If FEMA let those subhumans breathe in their trailers, FEMA might have to actually clean up their city which is still in ruins. That's like... hard and stuff. Oh and it doesn't enrich Republican donors, or land developers looking to scoop up land on the cheap.
I feel it necessary to point out that the preceding paragraph was written with an overdose of sarcasm. But it really does seem as if FEMA and Homeland Security really does want to exterminate the residents of New Orleans. First, we let them swelter in ungodly heat, flood waters and filth for almost a week claiming that entry to the city was impossible, even when we saw hordes of reporters and actors sweltering alongside the city's residents. Then we discovered that the levees were not only not built to withstand a hurricane of Katrina's strength, but were built incorrectly as well. Next, we found out that a private company charged with rebuilding and upgrading New Orleans' flood-prevention pumps was incompetent and incapable of doing so. And now this. The message is clear. Homeland Security and the Bush Administration don't just dislike poor black people, they are actively engaged in trying to exterminate the poor mendicants.
When do they start sending in the trains to collect the unwashed masses?
That's right, FEMA was providing residents of New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast with trailers so full of formaldehyde, the air was literally killing them. For over a year now, FEMA field staff had let the top brass at the agency know of this problem, and for over a year, their pleas were ignored. Not because there was no evidence, because the one time FEMA actually allowed testing of a trailer under living conditions, the trailer was found to have 75 times more formaldehyde than is allowed in the workplace. After that one test found a positive result, they halted testing. Why? According to Rep. Henry Waxman's statement in the video linked above, because FEMA attorneys didn't want FEMA to have to deal with the issue.
What is it these poor, mostly black homeless bums from New Orleans want? FEMA got them a damn trailer for free. They want to be able to breathe in it? If FEMA let those subhumans breathe in their trailers, FEMA might have to actually clean up their city which is still in ruins. That's like... hard and stuff. Oh and it doesn't enrich Republican donors, or land developers looking to scoop up land on the cheap.
I feel it necessary to point out that the preceding paragraph was written with an overdose of sarcasm. But it really does seem as if FEMA and Homeland Security really does want to exterminate the residents of New Orleans. First, we let them swelter in ungodly heat, flood waters and filth for almost a week claiming that entry to the city was impossible, even when we saw hordes of reporters and actors sweltering alongside the city's residents. Then we discovered that the levees were not only not built to withstand a hurricane of Katrina's strength, but were built incorrectly as well. Next, we found out that a private company charged with rebuilding and upgrading New Orleans' flood-prevention pumps was incompetent and incapable of doing so. And now this. The message is clear. Homeland Security and the Bush Administration don't just dislike poor black people, they are actively engaged in trying to exterminate the poor mendicants.
When do they start sending in the trains to collect the unwashed masses?
Labels: Bush Administration, Corporate Corruption, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Politics, Privatization
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If You Ask Me, Vol. 2: Privatization
Posted on
Friday, March 16, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
One of the oft-repeated political platforms I've heard in my life has been that the US government has become so inefficient that only privatizing certain government operations can allow those operations to provide their benefits effectively again. Over and over the neocon and conservative agenda has tried to hammer the point home, over and over again suggesting various governmental functions would be better performed by outsourcing those functions to the private sector, or even worse, allowing the private sector to provide those services in a competitive, free-market environment. We've heard this shrill meme about health care, utility deregulation, Social Security, military logistics, education, disaster relief, you name it, the neocons under Bush have probably suggested everything except their own jobs would be better served by privately-owned businesses. If you ask me, that's total horseshit, and here's why.
Now, I'm hardly going to trumpet the track record of government organizations with regards to efficiency. About the only department that even comes consistently close is the Internal Revenue Service, and that's just because they are taking our money. I've had plenty of professional dealings with government agencies, either as a beneficiary of their services or as an employee at a company that has won a government bid. Those government agencies are masters of bureaucracy and political infighting, lethargy and inertia. But I've also worked in corporate environments from retail to advertising to the media.
It ain't just the government.
In fact, corporations are just as susceptible to inefficient, idiotic courses of action. The only difference between corporate and government efficiency is that corporations focus on turning a profit, while the government focuses more on meeting a set of legal and bureaucratic criteria within their allotted budget before the next budget appropriations are decided. It's as important to the government employee that their budget be spent, because if the money isn't spent, they might not have a job during the next budget cycle, whether the money is spent well or not. Corporate employees should be focused on profit, spending the least amount of money budgeted to achieve the most profitable results.
Sounds simple, right? Corporations do things more efficiently, getting more done for less money. Such things are not so simple, because human beings are involved. If you ask me, there is nothing inherent in either corporate or government structures which makes one more efficient than the other, because those structures are only as good as the person running them. It's the old computer saying "Garbage in, garbage out." If you put a functional, incompetent moron in charge, say someone like Mike Brown, you get a complete cockup in operations the agency has handled thousands of times before. I'm quite sure Pets.com couldn't be lauded as a model of corporate efficiency anymore than Bush, Jr.'s FEMA. So what good is trumpeting privatization as the savior of effective government when such outsourcing is only as good as the company outsourced to? How would one explain the eagerness with which the neocon movement embraces privatization?
If You Ask Me #1: Accountability
The word accountability is an important one, and it's one that's been almost completely absent from the government since Bush, Jr. was installed into his imperial office. Whether public or private, no organization will operate efficiently without accountability, because without accountability, leaders will not know who to fire when the inevitable fuckup results. Trimming the stupid from an organization is vital for establishing and maintaining efficiency and efficacy, which means firing the people directly and indirectly responsible for such demonstrable fuckups as Katrina relief, the theft of Iraqi Reconstruction funds, or the Walter Reed scandal. We're not talking screwups that result in a few dollars being lost, we're talking about monumental cluster fucks that were either deliberately achieved or the result of awe-inspiring incompetence on levels heretofore unimaginable.
Trimming the fat from a government budget isn't just about cutting dollars, but cutting dollars being used badly. How is it that a company like IAP was given the job of administering Walter Reed hospital for $120 million AFTER they'd failed to provide ice to Katrina victims in their previous government contract? Was Jerry Lewis not available that week? And why, after seeing the deplorable fuckup that IAP has achieved at Walter Reed, why is this company not being fined, their contract torn up and their administrative people being arrested? There may be no law against existing as an idiot, but there's got to be laws against taking government money and doing fuckall with it.
If You Ask Me #2: Snuggling with the Vice-President
I should call this the Haliburton principle. If the #2 man in the government was an executive in a company within the last decade, that company shouldn't be allowed no-bid contracts. It doesn't matter if Dick Cheney had something or nothing at all to do with Haliburton getting such sweetheart no-bid contracts in Iraq. Government needs transparency, and even the hint of impropriety on such a large expenditure of government money smells like corruption.
The smell worsens when one sees the number of fuckups and improprieties performed by a company like Haliburton. Overcharging for soda, providing US soldiers with contaminated water and then covering up the knowledge of said water supply, failing to provide food to the troops at the front lines because it's too dangerous, running empty supply trucks so that gas can be charged (or I should say overcharged) and other illegalities have run rampant throughout Haliburton's government contract work and yet no one is on the dock for it. The Vice-President hasn't been called to Congress to clear the stink of corruption surrounding the whole affair. And #1 above hasn't even been approached, as Haliburton still has those contracts and are not barred from future government contract work.
If You Ask Me #3: Guaranteed Money is the Cash Cow
At the grunt level of corporate life, government contracts are what I lovingly refer to as "a ginormous, wasteful pain in the ass." Working for a government agency is a nightmare of paperwork, arcane regulations, and over-demanding louts. Invariably, half the agency you work for is competent at their job and willing to help, while the other half can barely chew gum while answering their email. Often, political dick-waving between mini-fiefdoms within the agency can derail a project for months while feathers are unruffled and petty prejudices are catered to. So as a grunt, I often wonder why the fuck a company wants to put itself through that hell for government work which is often not overly profitable due to the amount of extra work involved?
Government work is the ultimate corporate cash cow. See, consumers and private clients are fickle, as likely to buy your competitor's produce as your own based on price, performance or just a fit of pique. But government work is guaranteed money. Once you sign that contract, corporate CFO's know that revenue is coming within a certain time frame. You can put it on the books as certain as the sun will rise in the morning. And based on what I've seen in the last six years with groups like IAP or MWI or Haliburton, that's a truism at all levels of government, regardless of performance, competence or efficiency. The money is spent and the job may or may not get delivered on time, on budget or on goal, but by damn the corporation will get its money. Barring an act of Congress, the money is already theirs. Congress being what it is, the chances of losing the contract, or losing any of the money from the contract are slim and none. If Haliburton execs can't be brought up on charges before they move their HQ to Dubai, if the IAP boardroom can count most of that $120 million on the books after the fines have been levied, and MWI gets paid the full $26 million for non-functioning pumps in New Orleans as well as an additional $4 million for portable pumps to help the non-functioning pumps, how could anyone expect that private businesses will do any better at a government function than the 30-year government veteran with the gum-chewing problem?
If you ask me, guaranteeing money is a really bad idea. Paying companies even after their fuckups are public is an even worse idea. Not only should the corporation who performs such egregious mistakes have all the money from the contract confiscated, they should be barred from government contracts for a decade at least. If there exists no other corporation who can perform the job, the government should do it for its damn self. All of it goes back to #1, corporations with government contracts have to be held more accountable for their actions.
But that's really the fly in the entire government ointment, isn't it? The overriding theme for the Bush administration's term has been dodging accountability. If Cheney and Bush can't be held accountable for the mistakes and deceptions of the Iraq War, why should private contractors be held accountable either? Privatization is a great buzz word, but what it really means is corporate welfare. The neocon movement's driving motivation for privatization isn't effective government, it's enlarging the government tit so that big money can get more big money, directly from the taxpayer's breast. Poor people have been enjoying a free ride for too long. It's time for corporate executives who are also campaign contributors to get some of that easy, guaranteed money. They are rich, so they deserve it. These vomitous leeches on the underbelly of America have convinced themselves that they are the new nobility, the chosen few born with the divine right of kings to plunder and pillage the serfs.
You might think I'm exaggerating, but look closer. There are kernels of truth in even the most grandiose hyperbole, and the truth is there if you look hard enough. If you ask me, we don't need more privatization, we need more accountability. That's something which has been rarer than oxygen in space these last few years.
Now, I'm hardly going to trumpet the track record of government organizations with regards to efficiency. About the only department that even comes consistently close is the Internal Revenue Service, and that's just because they are taking our money. I've had plenty of professional dealings with government agencies, either as a beneficiary of their services or as an employee at a company that has won a government bid. Those government agencies are masters of bureaucracy and political infighting, lethargy and inertia. But I've also worked in corporate environments from retail to advertising to the media.
It ain't just the government.
In fact, corporations are just as susceptible to inefficient, idiotic courses of action. The only difference between corporate and government efficiency is that corporations focus on turning a profit, while the government focuses more on meeting a set of legal and bureaucratic criteria within their allotted budget before the next budget appropriations are decided. It's as important to the government employee that their budget be spent, because if the money isn't spent, they might not have a job during the next budget cycle, whether the money is spent well or not. Corporate employees should be focused on profit, spending the least amount of money budgeted to achieve the most profitable results.
Sounds simple, right? Corporations do things more efficiently, getting more done for less money. Such things are not so simple, because human beings are involved. If you ask me, there is nothing inherent in either corporate or government structures which makes one more efficient than the other, because those structures are only as good as the person running them. It's the old computer saying "Garbage in, garbage out." If you put a functional, incompetent moron in charge, say someone like Mike Brown, you get a complete cockup in operations the agency has handled thousands of times before. I'm quite sure Pets.com couldn't be lauded as a model of corporate efficiency anymore than Bush, Jr.'s FEMA. So what good is trumpeting privatization as the savior of effective government when such outsourcing is only as good as the company outsourced to? How would one explain the eagerness with which the neocon movement embraces privatization?
If You Ask Me #1: Accountability
The word accountability is an important one, and it's one that's been almost completely absent from the government since Bush, Jr. was installed into his imperial office. Whether public or private, no organization will operate efficiently without accountability, because without accountability, leaders will not know who to fire when the inevitable fuckup results. Trimming the stupid from an organization is vital for establishing and maintaining efficiency and efficacy, which means firing the people directly and indirectly responsible for such demonstrable fuckups as Katrina relief, the theft of Iraqi Reconstruction funds, or the Walter Reed scandal. We're not talking screwups that result in a few dollars being lost, we're talking about monumental cluster fucks that were either deliberately achieved or the result of awe-inspiring incompetence on levels heretofore unimaginable.
Trimming the fat from a government budget isn't just about cutting dollars, but cutting dollars being used badly. How is it that a company like IAP was given the job of administering Walter Reed hospital for $120 million AFTER they'd failed to provide ice to Katrina victims in their previous government contract? Was Jerry Lewis not available that week? And why, after seeing the deplorable fuckup that IAP has achieved at Walter Reed, why is this company not being fined, their contract torn up and their administrative people being arrested? There may be no law against existing as an idiot, but there's got to be laws against taking government money and doing fuckall with it.
If You Ask Me #2: Snuggling with the Vice-President
I should call this the Haliburton principle. If the #2 man in the government was an executive in a company within the last decade, that company shouldn't be allowed no-bid contracts. It doesn't matter if Dick Cheney had something or nothing at all to do with Haliburton getting such sweetheart no-bid contracts in Iraq. Government needs transparency, and even the hint of impropriety on such a large expenditure of government money smells like corruption.
The smell worsens when one sees the number of fuckups and improprieties performed by a company like Haliburton. Overcharging for soda, providing US soldiers with contaminated water and then covering up the knowledge of said water supply, failing to provide food to the troops at the front lines because it's too dangerous, running empty supply trucks so that gas can be charged (or I should say overcharged) and other illegalities have run rampant throughout Haliburton's government contract work and yet no one is on the dock for it. The Vice-President hasn't been called to Congress to clear the stink of corruption surrounding the whole affair. And #1 above hasn't even been approached, as Haliburton still has those contracts and are not barred from future government contract work.
If You Ask Me #3: Guaranteed Money is the Cash Cow
At the grunt level of corporate life, government contracts are what I lovingly refer to as "a ginormous, wasteful pain in the ass." Working for a government agency is a nightmare of paperwork, arcane regulations, and over-demanding louts. Invariably, half the agency you work for is competent at their job and willing to help, while the other half can barely chew gum while answering their email. Often, political dick-waving between mini-fiefdoms within the agency can derail a project for months while feathers are unruffled and petty prejudices are catered to. So as a grunt, I often wonder why the fuck a company wants to put itself through that hell for government work which is often not overly profitable due to the amount of extra work involved?
Government work is the ultimate corporate cash cow. See, consumers and private clients are fickle, as likely to buy your competitor's produce as your own based on price, performance or just a fit of pique. But government work is guaranteed money. Once you sign that contract, corporate CFO's know that revenue is coming within a certain time frame. You can put it on the books as certain as the sun will rise in the morning. And based on what I've seen in the last six years with groups like IAP or MWI or Haliburton, that's a truism at all levels of government, regardless of performance, competence or efficiency. The money is spent and the job may or may not get delivered on time, on budget or on goal, but by damn the corporation will get its money. Barring an act of Congress, the money is already theirs. Congress being what it is, the chances of losing the contract, or losing any of the money from the contract are slim and none. If Haliburton execs can't be brought up on charges before they move their HQ to Dubai, if the IAP boardroom can count most of that $120 million on the books after the fines have been levied, and MWI gets paid the full $26 million for non-functioning pumps in New Orleans as well as an additional $4 million for portable pumps to help the non-functioning pumps, how could anyone expect that private businesses will do any better at a government function than the 30-year government veteran with the gum-chewing problem?
If you ask me, guaranteeing money is a really bad idea. Paying companies even after their fuckups are public is an even worse idea. Not only should the corporation who performs such egregious mistakes have all the money from the contract confiscated, they should be barred from government contracts for a decade at least. If there exists no other corporation who can perform the job, the government should do it for its damn self. All of it goes back to #1, corporations with government contracts have to be held more accountable for their actions.
But that's really the fly in the entire government ointment, isn't it? The overriding theme for the Bush administration's term has been dodging accountability. If Cheney and Bush can't be held accountable for the mistakes and deceptions of the Iraq War, why should private contractors be held accountable either? Privatization is a great buzz word, but what it really means is corporate welfare. The neocon movement's driving motivation for privatization isn't effective government, it's enlarging the government tit so that big money can get more big money, directly from the taxpayer's breast. Poor people have been enjoying a free ride for too long. It's time for corporate executives who are also campaign contributors to get some of that easy, guaranteed money. They are rich, so they deserve it. These vomitous leeches on the underbelly of America have convinced themselves that they are the new nobility, the chosen few born with the divine right of kings to plunder and pillage the serfs.
You might think I'm exaggerating, but look closer. There are kernels of truth in even the most grandiose hyperbole, and the truth is there if you look hard enough. If you ask me, we don't need more privatization, we need more accountability. That's something which has been rarer than oxygen in space these last few years.
Labels: Government Corruption, If You Ask Me, Privatization
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Incompetence Keeps Its Day Job
Posted on
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
There are news stories that make you think, news stories that make you sad and news stories that really have no impact on you whatsoever. Then there are some news stories that make you so intractably furious, so outraged and disgusted that language should fail even the most accomplished wordsmith. One can only be left in a puddle of quivering anger jelly, that bilious substance that fuels this angst-ridden collection of feelings. You see, it wasn't enough that Republican campaign contributors with fat contracts and Republican politicians failed the city of New Orleans so spectacularly during the events of Hurricane Katrina. No, that wasn't enough. The right wing greed machine and the companies it employs to clean up its messes have decided that New Orleans didn't deserve working flood pumps before the thankfully mild 2006 hurricane season.
Yep, that's right. The new flood pumps that were put in place in early 2006 to protect New Orleans from another hurricane, whether that hurricane was a pedestrian Category 1 or the more dangerous Katrina types, those life-saving pumps were installed in a non-functioning state. They were fucked, in essence. The pumps themselves were defective, testing of the pumps was half-assed at best and the decision was made by the Army Corps of Engineers to go ahead with this catastrophuck in the making. The Corps had no way of knowing if any of those pumps would work, what capacity they would work at, nor did they apparently know how bad the flooding would be in case of a hurricane.
How is this acceptable? How is this making good on Bush's promise to use the $5.7 billion Congress allocated to protect New Orleans better than it was pre-Katrina? How are people not being fined, fired and jailed for this kind of absolute cockup?
The really galling part lies here:
This is unacceptable. First off, this company which has shown its corruption and incompetence before, is given an extremely important contract. Said incompetent company was founded by friends of the President's brother and a Republican campaign contributor. Isn't that the very definition of corruption, or at the least, a conflict of interests? The Corps of Engineers shouldn't be withholding 20 percent of the contract, they should be demanding all the money back and for this company to complete the work for free. At the very least, the company should be barred from seeking such contracts in the future, should they ever manage to complete this contract acceptably. But no, the Corps decided to pay them an additional $4 million for extra portable pumps. This company doesn't deserve more money to deliver what they were supposed to already have delivered.
How do politicians support this sort of vile profiteering? How can they endorse such rampant incompetence? These douchebags have stolen money from the American public, and are likely to be the cause of future deaths that will not only be a goddamn tragedy, but will, I would hope, cause these politicians to lose their cushy jobs. Does this just not get through to them that these current Republicans and friends of Republicans are tarring their Party with the unwashable stench of corruption the likes of which this country has never seen before?
But of course, the story is likely to not get front page news. I couldn't even find this story on CNN.com, which was plastered with the smug piehole of that cunt of an AG, Alberto Gonzales, who knows he won't lose his job despite being consistently wrecthed at it. New Orleans has almost been the forgotten abused child since the bodies stopped floating in front of TV cameras, except when celebrities show up for Mardi Gras. Congress sure has forgotten about the city, what with Senators spending three weeks just arguing over whether they can actually debate the fucking Iraq War without emboldening the terrorists.
What the fuck is wrong with you ivory tower jackasses? Is the petty squabbling more important than people's fucking lives? Get on with it, and get on with actually helping New Orleans. And for fuck's sake, get on with prosecuting the bejeesus out of any shitheel corporation like MWI, IAP or Haliburton that wants to suck off the government tit while pissing on the American people who are funding their welfare windfall.
Yep, that's right. The new flood pumps that were put in place in early 2006 to protect New Orleans from another hurricane, whether that hurricane was a pedestrian Category 1 or the more dangerous Katrina types, those life-saving pumps were installed in a non-functioning state. They were fucked, in essence. The pumps themselves were defective, testing of the pumps was half-assed at best and the decision was made by the Army Corps of Engineers to go ahead with this catastrophuck in the making. The Corps had no way of knowing if any of those pumps would work, what capacity they would work at, nor did they apparently know how bad the flooding would be in case of a hurricane.
How is this acceptable? How is this making good on Bush's promise to use the $5.7 billion Congress allocated to protect New Orleans better than it was pre-Katrina? How are people not being fined, fired and jailed for this kind of absolute cockup?
The really galling part lies here:
The drainage-canal pumps were custom-designed and built under a $26.6 million contract awarded after competitive bidding to Moving Water Industries
Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla. It was founded in 1926 and supplies flood-control
and irrigation pumps all over the world.
MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Centerfor Responsive Politics.
MWI has run into trouble before. The U.S. Justice Department sued the company in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.
Because of the trouble with the New Orleans pumps, the Corps has withheld 20 percent of the MWI contract, including an incentive of up to $4 million that the company could have collected if it delivered the equipment intime for the 2006 hurricane season.
This is unacceptable. First off, this company which has shown its corruption and incompetence before, is given an extremely important contract. Said incompetent company was founded by friends of the President's brother and a Republican campaign contributor. Isn't that the very definition of corruption, or at the least, a conflict of interests? The Corps of Engineers shouldn't be withholding 20 percent of the contract, they should be demanding all the money back and for this company to complete the work for free. At the very least, the company should be barred from seeking such contracts in the future, should they ever manage to complete this contract acceptably. But no, the Corps decided to pay them an additional $4 million for extra portable pumps. This company doesn't deserve more money to deliver what they were supposed to already have delivered.
How do politicians support this sort of vile profiteering? How can they endorse such rampant incompetence? These douchebags have stolen money from the American public, and are likely to be the cause of future deaths that will not only be a goddamn tragedy, but will, I would hope, cause these politicians to lose their cushy jobs. Does this just not get through to them that these current Republicans and friends of Republicans are tarring their Party with the unwashable stench of corruption the likes of which this country has never seen before?
But of course, the story is likely to not get front page news. I couldn't even find this story on CNN.com, which was plastered with the smug piehole of that cunt of an AG, Alberto Gonzales, who knows he won't lose his job despite being consistently wrecthed at it. New Orleans has almost been the forgotten abused child since the bodies stopped floating in front of TV cameras, except when celebrities show up for Mardi Gras. Congress sure has forgotten about the city, what with Senators spending three weeks just arguing over whether they can actually debate the fucking Iraq War without emboldening the terrorists.
What the fuck is wrong with you ivory tower jackasses? Is the petty squabbling more important than people's fucking lives? Get on with it, and get on with actually helping New Orleans. And for fuck's sake, get on with prosecuting the bejeesus out of any shitheel corporation like MWI, IAP or Haliburton that wants to suck off the government tit while pissing on the American people who are funding their welfare windfall.
Labels: Bush Administration, Corporate Corruption, Government Corruption, Politics, Privatization
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:00 AM
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Bizarro World: Where the Right Went Wrong (Book Review)
Posted on
Monday, March 12, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
It's a telling indictment of the political world we live in today that not only did I read a Pat Buchanan book, but there were parts of it I actually agreed with. Buchanan is the kind of bigoted, right-wing douchebag that I not only disagree with vehemently, I actually have wished violence upon the man many times. Not the kind of death-wish violence reserved for evil people like Dick Cheney or Osama Bin Laden, mind you. It's more of the "someone should punch him directly in the face" type of violence. But the events of the last six years have created such a Bizarro version of the world that I've no choice but to admit that in Buchanan's 2004 book Where the Right Went Wrong, he actually has some points on which we both can agree.
Why would someone who leans left enough to be considered a social democrat on most days want to read someone as proudly right-wing as Pat Buchanan? Unlike many of the members of the current administration who think even hearing a dissenting opinion is tantamount to treason, I do believe in hearing viewpoints that I cannot agree with, even from people whose politics I find morally offensive. Failure to listen to the opposing side, even when that side wanders into moonbat territory, sets up an echo chamber within one's own mind. In short, it's wholly positive that one can hear another viewpoint that makes one think, "How can any sane, intelligent person actually believe this?" With that in mind, I spied Buchanan's book in the dollar store while Christmas shopping, and for $1, I can certainly hear what Mr. Buchanan has to say no matter how much it raises my blood pressure with indignation.
Imagine my surprise to find a reasoned, sane, intelligent argument criticizing the very right wing, authoritarian government of George W. Bush. That's right, Buchanan wrote a detailed treatise tearing apart the administration of Bush's first term for unnecessary and illegal secrecy, ill-advised foreign policy mistakes such as the war in Iraq and even his free trade policies that have resulted in massive outsourcing and the destruction of the American manufacturing sector. In short, Buchanan made sense, strengthening my beliefs about the inadequacy and illegality of the Bush presidency.
And then the real Pat Buchanan came out from behind the curtain.
The first half of the book was quite good, and something I could certainly agree with. Midway through the book, he begins to go off the track a bit, delving into the history of other imperialistic regimes such as the Roman and British empires. While those are instructive, he loses steam when he begins trying to chronicle the birth of Islam and the rise of the Islamist political movements. Had he ended the book there, it would have been anticlimactic, but at least he'd have stayed in the village of reason.
But the trainwreck of Buchanan's particular brand of bigoted, intolerant right-wing beliefs cannot be restrained throughout an entire book. The last half of the book goes through what conservatives should believe, and in true wingnut fashion, it hits all the low points. From his fearful mistrust of immigrants diluting the Eurocentric nature of American culture to his outright homophobic discrimination against gays, Buchanan shows his true colors. He repeats all the worst conservative half-truths, such as his tirades against "activist judges" that goes so far as to criticize the Supreme Court for ending segregation, claiming they not only lacked the Constitutional authority but were actively part of a left-wing conspiracy to strengthen the Judiciary Branch. One gets the idea Strom Thurmond was his ghost writer on parts of the book. Never mind that had the Court not ruled against segregation, we'd likely never have removed that embarrassing stain from our public school system. Buchanan claims to be the last "Goldwater conservative" but his social views on things like gay marriage reveal that be a lie. Goldwater, for all his conservative views, believed that the government should stay out of the sexual arena. Buchanan seems to have no such qualms.
In the end, the book misses the mark by a great deal, not because Buchanan's wingnut nature spoils the logic of the first half of the book, but because he lacks the strength of his convictions. The book was published before the 2004 election with an eye towards influencing those elections. But after all the egregious errors and deliberate lies Buchanan criticizes the administration for, he still urges conservative readers to vote Republican in 2004. Somehow, he still believed that Bush was a decent sort of man, worthy of the presidency, choosing to believe the errors and corruption he'd highlighted earlier in the book were the fault of Bush's advisers and not the man himself. It was more important to Buchanan that conservatives not vote for a Democrat than that they hold the President accountable for incompetence, corruption and deception.
Here's a hint, Pat. Party loyalty above all else is what has fucked the conservative movement these last six years. Party loyalty despite blatant corruption is what has led the Republican party astray. It's what has killed over 3,000 troops in Iraq, it's what killed hundreds of Katrina victims in New Orleans, and it's what has wasted billions in fraud from no-bid contracts. It's what has led to the despicable crime against our veterans at Walter Reed hospital. Take your party loyalty and shove it up your ass, Mr. Buchanan, right up there with your racist screeds against hard-working immigrants and homosexuals. In short, you are just as responsible as President Bush for all the lives lost to his administration's fuckups, as is anyone who voted Republican in 2004 despite his policy's failure in Iraq. You made Bush what he is today.
The book is an interesting read, but only for those who don't already drink the Kool-Aid Buchanan has been swigging for years. Otherwise, readers might be tempted to vote McCain in 2008. If that happens, the right will really go wrong and nothing will be able to bring them back.
Why would someone who leans left enough to be considered a social democrat on most days want to read someone as proudly right-wing as Pat Buchanan? Unlike many of the members of the current administration who think even hearing a dissenting opinion is tantamount to treason, I do believe in hearing viewpoints that I cannot agree with, even from people whose politics I find morally offensive. Failure to listen to the opposing side, even when that side wanders into moonbat territory, sets up an echo chamber within one's own mind. In short, it's wholly positive that one can hear another viewpoint that makes one think, "How can any sane, intelligent person actually believe this?" With that in mind, I spied Buchanan's book in the dollar store while Christmas shopping, and for $1, I can certainly hear what Mr. Buchanan has to say no matter how much it raises my blood pressure with indignation.
Imagine my surprise to find a reasoned, sane, intelligent argument criticizing the very right wing, authoritarian government of George W. Bush. That's right, Buchanan wrote a detailed treatise tearing apart the administration of Bush's first term for unnecessary and illegal secrecy, ill-advised foreign policy mistakes such as the war in Iraq and even his free trade policies that have resulted in massive outsourcing and the destruction of the American manufacturing sector. In short, Buchanan made sense, strengthening my beliefs about the inadequacy and illegality of the Bush presidency.
And then the real Pat Buchanan came out from behind the curtain.
The first half of the book was quite good, and something I could certainly agree with. Midway through the book, he begins to go off the track a bit, delving into the history of other imperialistic regimes such as the Roman and British empires. While those are instructive, he loses steam when he begins trying to chronicle the birth of Islam and the rise of the Islamist political movements. Had he ended the book there, it would have been anticlimactic, but at least he'd have stayed in the village of reason.
But the trainwreck of Buchanan's particular brand of bigoted, intolerant right-wing beliefs cannot be restrained throughout an entire book. The last half of the book goes through what conservatives should believe, and in true wingnut fashion, it hits all the low points. From his fearful mistrust of immigrants diluting the Eurocentric nature of American culture to his outright homophobic discrimination against gays, Buchanan shows his true colors. He repeats all the worst conservative half-truths, such as his tirades against "activist judges" that goes so far as to criticize the Supreme Court for ending segregation, claiming they not only lacked the Constitutional authority but were actively part of a left-wing conspiracy to strengthen the Judiciary Branch. One gets the idea Strom Thurmond was his ghost writer on parts of the book. Never mind that had the Court not ruled against segregation, we'd likely never have removed that embarrassing stain from our public school system. Buchanan claims to be the last "Goldwater conservative" but his social views on things like gay marriage reveal that be a lie. Goldwater, for all his conservative views, believed that the government should stay out of the sexual arena. Buchanan seems to have no such qualms.
In the end, the book misses the mark by a great deal, not because Buchanan's wingnut nature spoils the logic of the first half of the book, but because he lacks the strength of his convictions. The book was published before the 2004 election with an eye towards influencing those elections. But after all the egregious errors and deliberate lies Buchanan criticizes the administration for, he still urges conservative readers to vote Republican in 2004. Somehow, he still believed that Bush was a decent sort of man, worthy of the presidency, choosing to believe the errors and corruption he'd highlighted earlier in the book were the fault of Bush's advisers and not the man himself. It was more important to Buchanan that conservatives not vote for a Democrat than that they hold the President accountable for incompetence, corruption and deception.
Here's a hint, Pat. Party loyalty above all else is what has fucked the conservative movement these last six years. Party loyalty despite blatant corruption is what has led the Republican party astray. It's what has killed over 3,000 troops in Iraq, it's what killed hundreds of Katrina victims in New Orleans, and it's what has wasted billions in fraud from no-bid contracts. It's what has led to the despicable crime against our veterans at Walter Reed hospital. Take your party loyalty and shove it up your ass, Mr. Buchanan, right up there with your racist screeds against hard-working immigrants and homosexuals. In short, you are just as responsible as President Bush for all the lives lost to his administration's fuckups, as is anyone who voted Republican in 2004 despite his policy's failure in Iraq. You made Bush what he is today.
The book is an interesting read, but only for those who don't already drink the Kool-Aid Buchanan has been swigging for years. Otherwise, readers might be tempted to vote McCain in 2008. If that happens, the right will really go wrong and nothing will be able to bring them back.
Labels: Bush Administration, Literature, Politics, Privatization
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:30 AM
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