I find it irritating that Washington Post removes the url and replaces it with their homepage so that I have to go back and find the url and open it in a private tab.
I don't want to limit the news and what we discuss here to news outlets funded by advertisements and charity. I also want professional outlets that produce content that at least some people consider worth paying for.
There were stockpiles of supplies in Puerto Rico, too, but that didn't mean it was successfully distributed to the people who needed it.[1] Is there a secret plan for disbursing this stockpile to 300+ million Americans? If so, why wasn't that plan utilized in PR?
Aid was delivered to the island. Local officials failed to distribute it, apparently willfully. Abandoned/hidden aid is still being discovered in warehouses and other locations [1].
That’s insane. Do you know the reasoning for wastefully leaving supplies to rot? Is it laziness? It’s one thing to keep supplies or money for yourself. But this isn’t the case here.
I have heard speculation that it was to make the federal government look bad. Or perhaps the local government benefits from maintaining a crisis situation. I’m not Puerto Rican.
The disaster in PR was used as a political weapon because we elected sociopaths. If such a disaster happened in the mainland at a larger scale and such a thing happened, I imagine there would be a coup.
As much as I want you to be right—that there would be a coup if our government in the mainland delivered these results—I’m fearful that certain cities or even states could be abandoned. I’m fearful a certain political block would even support this as a cleansing and restoring America to some fantasy version.
The OP said if something similar happened in the mainland. Is NO not the mainland? It’s fine if you’re shifting the goal posts (you weren’t OP after all). But some more details should be provided then.
You’re right there. Though PR doesn’t really have many cities/towns that can be equivalent to San Juan, but even if it was only San Juan or the second most populous city in PR, that would be more equivalent to NO.
I don’t agree with the OP, regardless, of any coup happening if the help to some analogous US mainland situation happens.
I’ll pick some swing states so the mainstream politics isn’t too onesided: Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina. They are all top 10 by population, PA top 5, decent sizes (though none except Michigan are in top half of state sizes).
Arizona would fit as a swing state that is top 15 in population and size (top 10)
New York and LA have too much power for stuff to go too wrong with them. City-wise that leaves Dallas - Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago for cities close to PR population, but all below still.
I mean america is a Federation not a centralized country. There are rarely federal plans that are not somewhat affected by the state or territory that plan is for. PRs failure is completely on them and doesnt really reflect on the federal government, which, if you recall, explicitly pointed out the corruption but was unable to do anything about it due to political grandstanding
Was all of Hurricane Katrina’s after math the local government’s fault too? Was not properly helping 9/11 first responders into the next decade the local government’s fault?
Clearly, it’s to give people a sense of security and calmness given a potential virus outbreak. But also feels like government PR to other governments, with a message of “If you’re trying something, watch yourself.”
Not trying to insinuate propaganda or elevate conspiracy. But anyone with a security background or who worked in disaster preparedness have any insight as to why an article like this would basically reveal a bunch about our national security? Seems to break most of my understood “Rules of Operational Security”.
Agree. While the government keeps citizens safe on one side, it is also actively involved in unlawful act of weaponizing pathogens.
The first article in this magazine about mycoplasma gives us a briefing on this topic: http://www.betterhealthguy.com/images/stories/PDF/PHA/2009_0...
The obvious answer is that the details disclosed are not considered operationally sensitive. The more interesting question would be why these and not other details that weren't, but you obviously won't get answers to that.
A second answer is that, in situations like we currently face (balanced on a hope that a global outbreak doesn't get worse), PR is to some extent security. If you're confronted with a frightened dog, make soothing noises.
> Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?
> Ambassador de Sadesky:
It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.
---------------------------
An adversary can only be deterred by what they know.
Publicizing stockpiled healthcare supplies informs adversaries that a chemical or biological attack would be less successful, reducing such an attack's likelihood.
> In real life, however, many Mondays and many party congresses passed after Perimeter was created. So why didn't the Soviets tell the world, or at least the White House, about it? No evidence exists that top Reagan administration officials knew anything about a Soviet doomsday plan. George Shultz, secretary of state for most of Reagan's presidency, told me that he had never heard of it. [...] The silence can be attributed partly to fears that the US would figure out how to disable the system. But the principal reason is more complicated and surprising. According to both Yarynich and Zheleznyakov, Perimeter was never meant as a traditional doomsday machine. The Soviets had taken game theory one step further than Kubrick, Szilard, and everyone else: They built a system to deter themselves. [...] By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis.
There are lots of government emergency stockpiles around the country. Some secret. Some not.
If you go to Grand Canyon Caverns, just east of the Hualapai reservation, and take the tour, you can see the old stockpile from the 1940's. According to the tour guide, in the last five or ten years, the government has started adding to it again.
Color me shocked that an article that's supposed to be about some topic manages to find a way to convert itself into another "Trump Bad" story halfway through.
Is WaPo actually capable of writing an article that doesn't have a "Trump Bad" angle?
The article had specific criticisms about the actions of a new administration. Do you have any specific issues with those criticisms or do you think administrations should be immune from criticism? Every new admin has it's own priorities.
The entire analysis starts from the assumption that any administration goal is inherently either a fabrication or misguided.
"efficiencies" is clearly just code word for destroying all things good, obviously, and totally not worth even considering whether there is any meaning to the idea. I mean, if Trump wants it, it must be bad amirite?
Occasionally, they quote folks, like Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University in support of Trump. But every time, they carefully treat the quote and the person as obviously either stupid or corrupted, surrounding the quote with statements like "But critics say it will allow biotech companies to lobby for more of their specialized, and often more expensive, drugs to be included[...]"
Direct quote from an expert, treated as obviously worthless, followed by a weasel-words "some critics" which is treated as the clearly superior refutation of the idea from the actual knowledgeable person.
It's almost like they started with a narrative of "Trump is trying to kill us all by destroying our disease preparedness" and then sat down to write an article that looked like journalism but actually just told that story.
Trump's budget proposals always include big cuts to CDC's budget. After recent criticism of this, the administration said it is just a negotiation opening tactic.
i.e Basically, "Hey democrats, if you want more funds to fight pandemics to stop us all from dying, you gotta give us something else, like even bigger increases to the military budget and Space Force, or even more tax cuts to companies".
There used to be a pandemic specialist on the National Security Council, that position has been cut. Not to mention other positions.
This Snopes article, in fact, contradicts you. Quoting:
"funding for the CDC’s global disease outbreak prevention efforts had been reduced by 80%, including funding for the agency’s efforts in China. But that was the result of the anticipated depletion of previously allotted funding, not a direct cut by the Trump administration.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 84.0 ms ] threadI didn’t even need to sign in to my wapo account to read this article, so presumably you’ve just hit some quota.
[1]https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/puerto-rico-fires-em...
[1] https://www.npr.org/2020/01/20/797996503/political-unrest-in...
The result was only minor civil unrest.
One medium-sized city of PR wasn't devastated. Most of the territory was.
I don’t agree with the OP, regardless, of any coup happening if the help to some analogous US mainland situation happens.
I’ll pick some swing states so the mainstream politics isn’t too onesided: Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina. They are all top 10 by population, PA top 5, decent sizes (though none except Michigan are in top half of state sizes).
Arizona would fit as a swing state that is top 15 in population and size (top 10)
New York and LA have too much power for stuff to go too wrong with them. City-wise that leaves Dallas - Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago for cities close to PR population, but all below still.
Clearly, it’s to give people a sense of security and calmness given a potential virus outbreak. But also feels like government PR to other governments, with a message of “If you’re trying something, watch yourself.”
Not trying to insinuate propaganda or elevate conspiracy. But anyone with a security background or who worked in disaster preparedness have any insight as to why an article like this would basically reveal a bunch about our national security? Seems to break most of my understood “Rules of Operational Security”.
A second answer is that, in situations like we currently face (balanced on a hope that a global outbreak doesn't get worse), PR is to some extent security. If you're confronted with a frightened dog, make soothing noises.
> Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.
---------------------------
An adversary can only be deterred by what they know.
Publicizing stockpiled healthcare supplies informs adversaries that a chemical or biological attack would be less successful, reducing such an attack's likelihood.
https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/amp
Edit - https://outline.com/KDNvtL
If you go to Grand Canyon Caverns, just east of the Hualapai reservation, and take the tour, you can see the old stockpile from the 1940's. According to the tour guide, in the last five or ten years, the government has started adding to it again.
Is WaPo actually capable of writing an article that doesn't have a "Trump Bad" angle?
"efficiencies" is clearly just code word for destroying all things good, obviously, and totally not worth even considering whether there is any meaning to the idea. I mean, if Trump wants it, it must be bad amirite?
Occasionally, they quote folks, like Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University in support of Trump. But every time, they carefully treat the quote and the person as obviously either stupid or corrupted, surrounding the quote with statements like "But critics say it will allow biotech companies to lobby for more of their specialized, and often more expensive, drugs to be included[...]"
Direct quote from an expert, treated as obviously worthless, followed by a weasel-words "some critics" which is treated as the clearly superior refutation of the idea from the actual knowledgeable person.
It's almost like they started with a narrative of "Trump is trying to kill us all by destroying our disease preparedness" and then sat down to write an article that looked like journalism but actually just told that story.
i.e Basically, "Hey democrats, if you want more funds to fight pandemics to stop us all from dying, you gotta give us something else, like even bigger increases to the military budget and Space Force, or even more tax cuts to companies".
There used to be a pandemic specialist on the National Security Council, that position has been cut. Not to mention other positions.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/
Can you address these facts from Trump's perspective instead of just taking cheap shots at the media?
Go on believing he is the most evil man in all of human history of you like.
"funding for the CDC’s global disease outbreak prevention efforts had been reduced by 80%, including funding for the agency’s efforts in China. But that was the result of the anticipated depletion of previously allotted funding, not a direct cut by the Trump administration.