As part of the war discussion today, Joy Williams sends this video -- warning: garden-variety profanities -- of a landslide in Santa Cruz County, California. The buckets of money going to Afghanistan are needed back home, she writes:
My county just got denied FEMA funding because even though we can't rebuild without federal help some places are more desperate than ours, like Joplin (which is bad, for sure), but we also have existing disaster areas that could get worse next year unless we get some funding. We had a terrible rockslide that could turn into a mudslide, that could destroy our home, next rain season, unless we get it cleaned up. FEMA turned Jerry Brown down for the funding. I'm not exaggerating about the severity... Our county got hit in numerous places and doesn't have the money to clean up this $2.1 million mess on our road. It's not something we, the residents can do either, nor should we even touch it as it's too unstable.
That was our alpaca corral that it slammed into. And now the county had to make a road through our PRIVATE property so that 33 other families can have access to get out of there. And next rain season that could all turn into mud and destroy my home. It was the rain this last year that caused this disaster.
So I want that $2 billion a month to go to rebuilding of our infrastructure and to FEMA, and to fight off climate change. So that folks like us don't have to be turned down. So that Americans who meet catastrophe don't have to live in an unstable situation like this while money goes to a war on the opposite side of the world that makes absolutely no difference to us except that it drains our resources when we have a real problem. Priorities, people! Afghanistan is not a priority, it's a fixation by the Obama administration and is alienating him from the rest of the country.
So ya, I don't want the war to go on, I want the money to come home. And our troops.
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"That's crazy!" I'll tell you what's crazy. You living there is what's crazy!!! Why would one build there? I'm a Liberal and I don't care if your house gets wiped out. It probably doesn't belong where it is.
I fully support bringing that money back home though.
I have property that is currently being threatened by rising flood waters. I'm so tired of hearing people chastise my neighbors and me for living in areas so close to water. I guess I could sanctimoniously sit back and click my tongue at Arizonans or Californians who have lost their homes to fires for building in the desert, or to people who build on mountains and lose their homes to landslides, or to people who build their homes on the plains susceptible to tornadoes, or on fault lines, or near oceans. How about that bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis a few years back. I'm sure you felt like those Minnesotans got what they deserved building an interstate over a river in a cold climate.
Since the big push in Iowa seems to be to relocate all our cities away from rivers, I'm sure you won't mind building on prime farm land? Is that more sustainable than building adequate levees? Your comments, Sarah, are not only short-sighted, they're mean and childish. Have some compassion for people who are left homeless by natural disasters.
NaturalDisastersHurtEveryone1
Amen.
....Sarah you're also pretty arrogantly assuming that this was a natural disaster and not man made or man exaggerated. You may want to ask the people of New Orleans what man made disasters can do (RE: Katrina; BP Oil Spill; Water Runoff).
If people build in these kinds of areas, then they should have insurance to cover the cost of their homes and to pay for the cleanup as well. The taxpayers should not be billed for cleaning up the mess for the rich people living and building in these areas.
These people in the video are stupid, especially the old white due that was walking toward the landslide with power lines down. What an idiot.
I don't think he was right rushing towards the thing yes, but again you are assuming so much about what happened. You've conducted a scientific study to prove that this wasn't a failure on behalf of zoning permits, infrastructure problems, or water leaks? You've also concluded that the family doesn't have insurance to cover this? You've also concluded that insurance companies don't fight you on claims for these things and that they adequately cover your loss damage after a disaster? Oh you haven't? Then your comment has 0% credibility and you are essentially levying judgement on something you know nothing about and have done no research on. Oy vey.
Sarah, I don't know where you live but there are large parts of the country where development couldn't have happened without major public works projects. Few would be living south of Redding in California or in large parts of the Southwest were they not stealing water from other people.
A couple of yrs ago we had a road give out the same way ~ fortunately no one was on the road at the time.
I call Santa Cruz home ~ so call me crazy! But here's the thing, it doesn't matter what part of the country you live in, each area has its own nemesis. The NE has snow storms and hail storms and NorEasters. The SE has Hurricanes and Tornados. The SW has wild fires. CA has slides and quakes.
In Santa Cruz we have NOT asked taxpayers to rebuild our homes ~ actually I know of none lost this way ~ we do ask, however, that the Army Corp of Engineers come out and help secure mountainsides in the best manner available. Why are we entitled to this? We are entitled to this because we are Americans, plain and simple! We, especially in the Bay Area in CA, pay some of the highest taxes in the country and we don't think it is too much to ask for a little return on that investment. Overall, less federal money is spent on the state of CA than on most states and yet the revenue we generate is greater than most. But most of all the fact that we are American and we work together for the greater good - should be reason enough!
Your problem, Sunny, is trusting the Army Corps =P
www.thebiguneasy.com
@Natural, Her words were not chosen with care; but I think her point was, people should be aware of the more eminently OBVIOUS dangers when they choose to build. Or don't you have compassion for assigned emergency responders who parish trying to defend expensive houses built in the most indefensible locations just for the view. Again...and again...
I don't care where people choose to live, but they should at the very least consider what the costs to others (not to mention their family) will be BEFORE the expected happens and they start demanding public assistance in the face of the inevitable. (The hazards of cut banks and hillsides like that are visually obvious and predictable.) So get off your better-than-thou high horse.
.....So you're chastising someone else for being on a high horse? That seems like a blatant contradiction to me, although I'll give you perhaps in the effect of attempting to humble someone else one must egress more egoism than normal. This is especially so when considering the initial poster was also riding a high-horse. Hmm...
Additionally I didn't realize you had done a study of the area to conclude that it was in an "eminently obvious" danger zone. So please tell us what that study concluded. Please tell us all the incident of the area that should cause us pause since the roads were built and the houses were built. Oh and please tell us how long they've been there and how many mudslides they've been subjected to in your study. Oh and BTW you can't build on property w/o permission from the government. So really what you'd be complaining about is that an area that was "obviously unsafe" was zoned residential and then had a roadway paved (by the government) to access this unsafe area. Which would then render public assistance necessary since it would be the government's fault for having allowed construction in the area to happen at all. So why no public assistance again?
Sorry that came off way more aggressive than I was intending it to. It seems like people use hindsight 20/20 when judging other's and what they experience. Why build in NE if you're afraid of tornadoes? Why build in NOLA if you're afraid of flooding? Why build in FL if you're afraid of hurricanes? The logic seems to be that it's your personal fault if a hurricane destroys your house along the beach in FL and what I'm trying to get across is it's way more complicated than that. In the wake of hurricane Katrina people couldn't point fingers fast enough at the residents of NOLA claiming that they were idiots for building below sea level. Then we find out in the following months that Katrina actually wasn't even a category 1 when it touched down in NOLA and that the flooding was man made. But people didn't ever bother to research what happened or abstain from judgement until that research was done. They were ready to jump down the throats of people who had been living in that city w/ no problem for generations because "the obvious" happened. It seems to me people are way to willing to issue judgement and my annoyance w/ your post came from you harping on someone else who was asking the initial poster (who made that quick-to-judgement call) to not pass judgement so easily. It just seemed blatantly hypocritical to me. W/ that said I was being way to aggressive and I wasn't trying to be rude. I'm sorry for that.
yeah. but you forgot to mention i spelled "perish" wrong. no biggie though.
For what it's worth, the number one weather related cause of death is heat. Heat waves kill more people than lightning, hurricanes, floods and tornadoes combined.
Heat causes hundreds of thousands of acres to burn and destroys crops. It causes roads to buckle and transformers to explode. And people using air conditioners causes spikes in energy consumption wreaking havoc on the energy grid and the price of oil.
Nothing has influenced where Americans live more than heat. Bodies of water are nature's air conditioner. That's why coastal regions are more highly populated than inland regions. It's not because of the pretty view.
The cost of this landslide has got nothing on the cost of 100+ temperatures that happen every summer.
There is no doubt that what we need to do is to spend the next 10 years at least to pull out from anywhere around the world and concentrate on our problems at home! If we do not fix things here... being stationed all over the globe and wasting money in useless and wasteful wars... are activities that in the long run are not going to help us in any way, shape or manner and are not in our own self-interest!
now now, wars are not wasteful for everyone. just think, if you can sponsor wars at the tax payers expense you can have them replace your heart with a pump. then no one can accuse you of having no heart and you can sponsor more wars at the tax payers expense and let the tax payers country turn to rubble.
THe metaphor is: Standing by While the disaster that is the Obama Presidency slides downhill destroying everything in it's path.
seems to me this is a local issue not a FEMA type emergency...local authorities should shoulder this burdent since they allowed residential construction in an unstable area to begin with.....engineering of the road is at fault
and that is why we ask the Army Corp of Engineers to assist ~ but they only do that AFTER there has been a problem ~ FEMA determines if there is a problem - are we seeing the picture?
Sarah, please do not take this the wrong way... but not caring for neighbors is not good!
I do not live there, but I do not feel I can blame them alone... none of us are capable of making such decisions on our own.... but not having firm rules, not having clear guidelines, and, even worse, not being taught that living together is serious business that requires clear guidelines... I find it easier to talk about that that to simply condemn my fellow human beings and that does not mean I want to excuse them all... I simply think that governance is serious business and to pretend that we have the most freedom money can buy... when we are ignoring so much common sense and so much intelligent thinking... that is the problem in my opinion. Anger toward one another is not in our own self-interest either! We have been making fun of California for too long... their way of doing things is good in some things and not in others... we need a kind of federalism that redefines things in terms of how best we can live with the land and air and sky we live in and under... cutting off our noses to spite our faces... which is what we humans do too often... is not going to work!
I find it interesting, but not really surprising, that my nephew, an Army sergeant currently deployed in Kandahar, is blasting the president today for his complete lack of understanding about the needs of our nation, and urging him to "go back to Kenya, where he came from." Uh-boy. I think he's drunk the kool-aid.
Today is Thursday June 23, 2011.
The water temperature in the central Gulf of Mexico is 85 degrees Farenheit.
It is early for it to be that high
The magic number for old coasties like me is 88 degrees.
There are issues present and potential everywhere.
Tropical dolphins are being seen in the Puget Sound where I live. Perhaps this warm water explains why they have come north?
Just to add a little background info, our valley has been populated since the 1850s and that hillside has never been an issue. It never showed the slightest tendency to slide until we had the wettest spring on record this year. So whether you think our rockslide is a local issue or a national one, please don't chastise Joy for living where she does. Circumstances change as the climate changes, and not every change is foreseeable. There but for fortune...
Thank you, Claire, for saying this. If we all lived in perfectly safe places every American would be squished into a little piece of land about the size of a farm or city block! No one can predict with total accuracy natural disasters. We had a mudslide not far from where I live earlier this Spring. Fortunately no one was hurt, but there were people trapped on the other side of it for a couple days. You just never know if these things are going to happen, and we all have to help our neighbors out. That is the right thing to do, not judge and criticize people for living where they live.
I grew up across the road from that slide - this is a very old area. Glad everyone is OK!
Actually, FEMA is denying aid in more than just Joy's area. We had a tornado here in the Twin Cities a few weeks ago that killed 3 people and caused millions in damage. The city applied for FEMA aid, and was turned down. We were told that it is something the city and state can take care of, along with volunteers. Is that the new standard now---"Sorry, you're on your own, you deal with it"? Does this have anything to do with repubs in Congress refusing to appropriate more money for disaster aid unless the president makes corresponding cuts in social programs?
-- ya think?
Doggone right I do. I have NEVER heard of FEMA denying aid for a disaster.....until now. So remember America, if a tornado devastates your town, a flood innundates your city, a hurricane obliterates your coastal community....tough. You have to sacrifice so millionaires and corporations can get more tax breaks.
what a bunch of idiots.
This has been going on since before Obama. Three years ago there were 3 major fires within 2 months in Santa Cruz county. FEMA disaster funds were also denied then for the hundreds of people who lost homes.
was the landslide in an area previously burnt-off?
No. The last fire in this area was probably 100 years ago.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first wars ever in the history of the US where we didn't increase taxes to pay for them. Instead Bush cut taxes and for some crazy reason Obama has extended those tax cuts. If I wanted to do something huge with my time and resources like travel for a year I'd either cut back on some expenses to save money and/or make extra money. Otherwise my debt would increase too much. Basic economics. Our nation opted for cutting back on all the programs that help people here at home---medicaid, scholarships, FEMA, etc---to pay for these wars. It's time to either get uninvolved with the wars to bring back not just the troops but the money or get rid of all those darn tax cuts to the rich and big businesses that are killing our nation. IMO, they're immoral.
First, let me say that I loved my years living in Santa Cruz.
But,
There are many (beautiful) areas of the county where building permits should not have been issued. The problem is/was that many of these structures either did not apply/pay for permits until after the structures were built, expanded or altered; or they were "grandfathered" from before permits were required. There are many areas of the county that experience various kinds of problems - flooding, slides, wildfires, etc. - every few years on a regular, seasonal basis. Choosing to live there means you choose to live with known problems.
"The Government" is not responsible for where and how I choose to build my house (thank heavens and the Constitution) - I am. When Mother Nature and the weather conspire to make my living space unlivable it is my problem, not the governments.
If/When there is some sort of <u>natural</u> disaster - tornado, earthquake (yes, I was there during Loma Prieta), hurricane, flooding, etc., I recognize it as part of my choice of where to live and I am grateful for government assistance as a helping hand, but I don't expect government assistance as a complete financial solution.
Now, if it is a government problem such as building nuclear reactors on a major river which then floods the facility, or releasing water from an over-full dam - then it is a government-created problem and I would expect much more assistance.
Just remember how fiercely we all protect our freedom and ability to choose how and where to live. That freedom is a responsibility as well as a right. It is our responsibility to take care of ourselves as best we can. If we want "the government" to take of us, well, that is not democracy, it is a very different kind of <s>rule, dictatorship</s>, government.
Flooding, tornado and wildfire damage this year has been devastating to see, and it's just barely summer.
My thoughts and sympathy go out to all those who have had to struggle with Mother Nature this year.
Elyn, I can't decide whether your post is ignorant, heartless, or both. There is absolutely NO PLACE on earth that is completely safe to live on....no place in the universe, for that matter. No matter where you live, you run the risk of some kind of manmade or natural disaster. I live in MN, and although I am completely safe from earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes, I do have to deal with the occasional tornado or blizzard that comes my way. I have lived in many places across the country, and each one had its own particular risks.
As for it not being the government's responsibilty to deal with these disasters....that would fall under the Constitutional mandate to provide for the security of the citizens. Helping rebuild after a natural disaster is far more justifiable than going after potential terrorists on the other side of the world, at a cost of nearly a trillion dollars and 6000 American lives. It is infinitely more justifiable than bailing out companies like AIG and Goldman Sachs from the financial catastrophe of their own making. Or, since it seems that money trumps all else in your worldview, NOT cleaning up a disaster has serious economic consequences, not just to the people in the disaster area, but to the local and state, and hence, national economies. For example, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan had a major economic impact that is being felt far outside Japan. What if the Japanese took your view, and told the people that it's just tough about all that death and destruction, but it's their fault for living on a chain of volcanic islands that also sits atop a subduction zone susceptible to massive earthquakes? What would happen is that no only would even more people die, but the economy of Japan would not rebound for likely decades.
So, putting aside the likelihood that you haven't got a sympathetic bone in your body, NOT helping rebuild after natural or manmade disasters has major economic consequences. Maybe that will make more of an impact on you.
1) The government is of the people, by the people and for the people.
2) Among the purposes of the government is to insure domestic tranquility and promote the general welfare.
This is how the American system of government works: we pay taxes and elect officials to work for us and to collectively solve problems.
Something else that Joy and I have not stressed is that the slide is not on provate property, it's across a county road. So while she is of course concerned about her house, in a sense that's not the point: the county's request for FEMA aid is not about having someone's private property repaired at government expense, but about restoration of a public road that provides automobile access to the more than thirty residences beyond the slide. That does make it a governmental concern, be it local, state or national.
Funding can't fix everything. Crescent City, CA was able to get FEMA funding to rebuild the harbor that was destroyed because of the tsunami. Now 600 workers have been hired and tools and clothes have been purchased. But they have nothing to do because no one seems to have a plan.
I believe we should bring more troops home, they need not be furlowed but can be put to use in our country. Some can be sent to help with patroling the border. Others can we used to help with clean-up from the disasters across the country. Others can be used to help convert some of the thousands of acres in our military bases to usable farmland. This farmland could be used for corn for gasohol production. Others can be used to build dikes and levees around powerplants to protedt them. The money saved from helping these other countries can be used in our country toward these projects. We would benefit from these projects along with the thousands of private sector jobs that would be created during their implementation. I believe it's time to tell the Generals to get out of the sandbox we need to take care of ourselves for awile.
I hate that we are losing our men and women in a series of seemingly never-ending and completely unwinable wars in the Middle East. And I despair at the unacceptably huge number of $$$$$$$$$ that are poured down that "military-industrial" rathole when the infrastructure here at home is in such dangerously desperate need of basic maintenance.
But we keep allowing our political system to be controlled by corporate interests - who are in business to make a profit - which is what corporations are supposed to do.
Building, improving and maintaining infrastructure is not currently seen as "profitable". We don't currently recognize the value or profit of the stability created by safe, effective and efficient infrastructure.
Stability is encouraged when the population doesn't feel it has to worry about safe schools, water and bridges; reliable power source(s); efficient communication systems and properly trained and supported emergency services.
When we are comfortable with the stability of the infratructure that surrounds us, then we start to encourage better teaching; imagining and constructing more efficient transportation systems; conserving and protecting water and other natural resources; creating additional new and innovative power source(s); creating more accessible and efficient communication systems; and providing more effective and intelligent emergency services.
All of which is very profitable indeed - but it takes time, vision, imagination, patience, investment, tolerance and intelligence. Qualities that seem sadly lacking in way too many of our current congress-critters.
IMO - It looks to me like the unanswered question is "What kind of government do you want?"
Large or Small?
Do you want the Government to:
- Conduct military actions such as wars which are (at least on paper) supposed to protect American citizens from additional attacks from "outside" such as the 9/11 tragedy, or not?
- Stay at home, inside our borders and fix the roads, schools, water supply, power grid, you know - the Infrastructure - etc. etc., or not?
- Tightly guard our borders and forbid non-Americans from coming to America, or not?
- Provide free (or at least affordable) medical care to every citizen, or not?
- Tell me what kind of medical procedures I am required to undergo, or not?
- Provide free, accessible, excellent K-12 education for every citizen, or not?
- Tell me what teachers can or cannot teach in their classrooms?
- Tell me exactly who I can and cannot marry?
- Pursue, prosecute and punish drug cartel individuals, or not?
- Tell me what kind of chemicals / herbs/ pharmaceuticals I can or cannot use, or not?
- Tell me what where and what kind of house I can build, or not?
- Tell me what kind of food I should or should not consume?
- Outlaw, forbid or control my religious expressions, or not?
- and on, and on, and on, and on
Basically, do you want a government that takes care of your own personal needs - when and where you want and need them - but that doesn't tell you what to do?
Yeah, me too - but there are 311,615,527 other Americans who probably don't all want the same thing you or I want.
"Government" is not simply some big, distant entity that lives back there in Washington DC. It is created by the individual people you and I have elected. "Government" is also the precedent, policies and processes that we have allowed to develop and/or continue.
You don't like it?
Change it.
Thanks Claire for adding those notes. And please note that there were living animals on the other side of that fence, so there was concern that they weren't injured (fortunately they weren't, but their hay barn was crushed). Not everything is as you think it is, there was no house built on that mountain so no one made that mistake. It had stood there for thousands of years, probably millions of years. The road is county property.
As to living in an unsafe spot, this place held up wonderfully during the Loma Prieta quake in '89 and has had no major issues for as long as I've lived here. This was a freakish event caused by all the incredible rains this spring. Unprecedented rains.
And just to let you know? No place is 100% "safe".
I grew up there - lived across the street from that landslide (on an old ranch) between the ages of 6 and 10. We used to climb up that hill for fun. Wow.
You did? When? We've been here since 1982. (the old ranch across the road).
No amount of money will keep California from falling into the ocean. Buy a clue and leave now, or pray your home gets destroyed before the quake so your insurance pays off to fund your evacuation.
Uh, no, not according to most geologists Jimmy, that's a myth. More than likely, what will happen is we will have sizeable quakes, but even more than that is increased crazy weather, like everyone else will. BTW, unless it's government insurance you can't get insurance against mudslides or rockslides. It's still better than tornadoes!
I can't decide which is more idiotic, three unwinnable wars or a gotdamn alpaca ranch.
small ~ but NOTABLE Correction:
we are spending $2-BILLION PER WEEK in Afghanistan
Over $10-BILLION per MONTH!!!