Thank you.  You said, more usefully and eloquently, something I tried to articulate a few days ago.

Democratic senators should carry this list in their pockets and refer to it regularly.  Democratic candidates for the House and Senate should build this list into their campaigns.

Don't confuse reconstruction with emergency relief? That train just left the station, Reed. The Bush administration just said it wants to give $50 billion dollars to FEMA.

And a pony!

 (Yeah, I agree on the points, but in this country at this time, the reconstruction is going to be the shiniest showcase of American ingenuity in looting the world has ever seen.)

Can't argue with that, Mr. G.

Now, all you have to do is put it into a slogan of 20 words or less. 

From Mr. Hunt's bio, it appears he's better versed in technology than I am. Perhaps you know more still.
What I do know is that of the Baby Bells, BellSouth is one of the better run. Ma Bell paid a bitter price back in the salad days of de-monopolization and in some places never quite recovered. ATT stock is a thin shadow of its former self, Lucent essentially collapsed completely and that hardly helps pension and 401k holding Americans anywhere. (Not excusing stupid CEOs or bad business decisions, just hoping for some comparisons.)
As for why we should build the best communications system anywhere when we have the chance, hmmm? Start with, it is the smart thing to do. The luxury of not having to jerry-rig around old systems and marry the sub-par with the spanky-fabulous should keep the costs comparitively low, and for heaven's sake, we have to start somewhere.
Maybe someday America's communications systems could rise to the level of oh, say, Finland's or Amsterdam's.

I get it, it's a comedy piece right?

Don't confuse poverty with stupidity: trust people to make good decisions about how to put their lives back together

They don't confuse poverty with stupidity Mr Hundt. They equate poverty with a lack of character.  

Give people freedom of choice: let them have cash and vouchers for transportation, food, clothing, housing, and then let them make choices about where to go and what to do.

Here's a $2000 debit card, now get lost nigger, we've got billions to dole out to our campain contributers.

Don't winnow the group of the afflicted down through a complex sorting of who was where, and how damaged, and so forth. Be generous and broad in providing reconstruction aid.

Sorry, this is the easiest way to divide up the booty to all of our corporate masters?

Take the opportunity to design and build the most efficient and secure and environmentally sound transportation, port, oil and gas, business and residential communities in the world. For example, build the best communications network in world to replace the old one -- Bell South allegedly lost 20 switches, which is a staggering number;help this great company rebuild the most efficient modern network in world. For example, deploy a wireless data network across whole region for first responders and also for commercial users.

Have all reconstruction efforts be transparent to the public, doing all planning and contracting on the Net.

I'm sorry, I can't even read this one without rolling on the floor laughing.

Don't confuse reconstruction with emergency relief. Whatever reforms are necessary at DHS, it is clear that DHS should have nothing to do with reconstruction because its mission is to protect the rest of America from the next calamities and to provide emergency relief when necessary.

See #3

Don't build a permanent reconstruction bureaucracy. Every reconstruction agency or authority should be managed by real managers, not political appointees, and should go out of business when the work is done.

But all we have is hacks. EVERYTHING is about politics. (See Suskind)

Set high and explicit goals, and meet them. Don't talk about "years and years": be specific about what is to be done and when.

See Iraq

Involve the affected people and empower them; don't manage from Washington.

See #2

Be open and honest in all planning, decisions, and execution.

This is where I realized it must be a comedy bit.

Get real Reed. These people just intentionally contributed to the deaths of thousands of your fellow American citizens and you sit there making lists. Four days. Four days they left people to die horrible deaths

You know people. Wouldn't your time be better spent trying to convince some (supposed) Democratic leaders to wake the hell up and start calling these inhuman bastards out for the monsters they are?

People are dying out here Reed.

Wake the hell up.....

Josh: This is your place and I apologize for being rude to your guest, do what you feel you have to do...........

I gather, Mark C, you found the federal efforts to be somewhat wanting.  From CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey Sept 5-6

Do you think that any of the top officials in the federal agencies responsible for handling emergencies should be fired, or don't you think so?

Yes, should be fired  29%
No, don't think so     63%
No opinion  8%
   
Such a lonely boy.

Excellent idea to have ad hoc reconstruction management organizations.  One model is the RTC/FDIC where RTC cleaned up the savings and loan mess in a statutory 6-year time period.  This special-purpose branch of the FDIC met its statutory deadline with the return of a tiny residual operation to the FDIC.  The staffing was career and temporary executives and staff.  I was there, and it was very hard as a manager to get people to understand that their jobs weren't forever.  The best part was that, in spite of a few rough management moments because of the speed with which we had to get the job done, the job did get done at the very low end of the original estimates.  I do not think that outcome would have happened if the bureaucracy went on forever or was incorporated into a cabinet-level agency.

Lonely? Oh I don't know, thirty percent must be at least a small crowd, right Ellen.

And isn't basing your opinion of the federal efforts on poll results just a little twisted. Or is that just me?

Lonely?

I'd rather be in the thirty percent, or 10 percent or whatever infinitely small percentagage of people who are angered by the fact that the entire administration of George W Bush stood by while thousands or tens of thousands of people died in the most horrible conditions imaginable.

It wouldn't bother me in the least if I was the only person in the whole world who had a problem with the fact that at the very least George W Bush is guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

That doesn't appear to bother you Ellen. But that's your problem isn't it.

Personal Responsibility after all.......

Chill out, Mark.  Twenty or twenty-five per cent of us would have fired the horse show judge before August 29.  How is it so few are unimpressed with his recent performance.

Answer: the average American's become convinced that government (Bush's "bureaucracy") is the problem; he no longer expects anything (other than tax cuts) from the government and doesn't hold it accountable. 

It's an interesting issue, Ellen.  I think you could argue for a bail out on the basis that, hey, the region needs a regulated telecom provider.  But, I'm not so sure I'm willing to just go along with Reed and say "It's a great company."  Who says?  By what standard?  Was its service as good in poor neighborhoods as rich ones?  Did it provide broadband access in poor neighborhoods, as well as rich?  I don't know.  But, before they get any taxpayer money, the public it serves should probably get to either give it a thumbs up or demand that changes be made.

Or, I guess you could argue that they had tons f money, they must be insured.  I think you could still give them public money, beyond insurance, as long as it creates something better to, and available too, perhaps freely available to, the community.

....but in this country at this time, the reconstruction is going to be the shiniest showcase of American ingenuity in looting the world has ever seen.

Yes, I agree, Halliburton will probably pocket most of the reconstruction money. And, the government overseer will be a high school buddy of the assistant to the administrative assistant to the vice president, who just got fired as a male go-go dancer - his only previous job.

Ellen

Re: Chill out, Mark

The reason I originally posted to this thread, in my admittedly over-snarky way, was because Reed Hundt does know people and I hoped (against hope) that maybe, just maybe, my words might jar something in him that might cause him to focus on the gross incompetence (if not worse) of the Bush administration. Utter incompetence that has now manifested itself in the deaths of thousands of Americans citizens.

That's why I posted. Not to get in a pissing contest with you. So this will be my last post on this thread.

But I must say I find your complete disregard for the unnecessary deaths of thousands (you never mention them at all) well frankly, kind of creepy. I don't know, maybe you're in shock or denial.

So here is something that might jar something in you

Good luck to you. I mean that.

Great list that also applies, unfortunately, to Iraq.  Too bad the boys in charge won't learn.

If you are looking for a model for rebuilding, I would suggest that far more acceptable to most in the South would be a detailed discussion of TVA -- Tennessee Valley Authority.  TVA projects (and governing authority) covers Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.  It is a Federal Regional Authority with certain specific areas of competence.  None of these issues could have been addressed by indivicual states -- but each state benefited mightly from the whole project. 

TVA is primarly a water management system.  It was designed to stop the deadly floods in the system that came year after year, and it was designed around all the problems that contributed to the deadly flooding and loss of life and property.  And while it has made a few mistakes -- and there have always been a few complaints -- it has been doing its thing since the 1930's.

The origin goes back to one of Teddy Roosevelt's good buddies, George Norris, Republican from Nebraska who served in the Senate for I think, 7 terms.  Chuck Hagle says Norris is his hero.

Norris campaigned against the attempt by the Harding Administration to give away the Mussle Shoals Dam project, built during WWI and designed to manufacture nitrate for gun powder.  In 1920 the Senate came within a couple of votes of handing it over to Henry Ford for a Dollar.  Nitrates, of course, are most useful in Agriculture -- and Norris wanted the Dept of Ag to do extension work and teach modern ag -- thus the nitrates.  But Mussle Shoals was also potentially flood protection, so between 1920 and 1933 Norris campaigned for more flood protection (withoutsuccess) but in 1933 he found FDR loved the project, and thus it became a go.  TVA is Flood Protection, Soil conservation, Reforestration, protection of navagatable waterways, ag modernization, electrical production, (about 85% of the South had no electricity outside Urban Areas in the early 1930's) and in the private sector it led to rapid industrial development and a vast improvement in standards of living. 

TVA was the first Government program that required equal pay for equal work even in the segregated workplaces of the 1930's -- and FDR let the Commission inforce this.  It also required local communities to vastly improve their schools -- and for states to enlarge and improve trade schools and ag colleges if they were to benefit from TVA services. 

And I haven't mentioned that little project at Oak Ridge which drew much of its power in the early 1940's from TVA.  I have mixed feelings on that aspect of it all.

Anyhow -- New Orleans has many many problems -- but the big one is water management -- and to do that successfully you have to work regionally.  There are multiple interests that have to be accomodated.  Human Communities, International Trade, the Oil, Chemical industries, the tourism industry, Environmental concerns Health issues ------- it is a goodly group of unrelated values and interests, sometimes in conflict, that have to be at the decision table. 

I certainly don't expect the Bush Administration or this Congress to do anything like this -- instead, I think we need to talk about the importance of Big Projects that take time to build, but that actually leave the infrastructure for a better life behind them.  We need to talk about the success of TVA in otherwords -- something the grandchildren of George Norris and FDR can rightly be proud of as legacy. 

I think it is rotten that people are talking about cities that slipped underwater and were given up. 

We need to be talking about Amsterdam -- a city below sea level, that has multiple lines of protection now which have been built up over many centuries.  In fact some of the massive piles under Amsterdam come from Oak that was harvested and shaped on Manhattan Island, when it was called New Amsterdam.  Let's look closely at how the Dutch managed to become world class water managers and engineers, and build a great city below sea level, and keep improving its protection
generation after generation. 

These are all common sense goals and guidelines. And in that there is a problem. The political, common sense and pragmatism are mutually exclusive concepts with each existing in uniquely separate universes. We live in the political one.
 


thepeoplechoose

There really are many issues here.

David Brooks also has a vision of building a Republican theme park of New Orleans.

What no one addresses is the central issue of eliminating poverty in this country. Everyone likes to change the subject so that the mantra had become the platitudes of welfare reform.

Once the poor stayed poor but were coerced into forced labor camp employment opportunities the republicans declared, Mission Accomplished!, and with a nod and wink signaled to the rich that the word poverty would never offend their sensitive wallets again. 

All tooo often these tragedies result in spending sprees and, oh boy, do Americans like to spend and plan all the things they would like to have.

But NO culture cannot be manufactured or captured in glass and steel and floodgates.

Recovery is about people.  Recovery is about making people right, safe, welcome, dignified, honored for their sacrifice, worthy, empowered, native, entitled to speak, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights despite Barbara Bush's crudities, and so on.

It's not about as XTC once sang, Making Plans for Nigel.  It is not about Brooks, or Halliburton, or speculators, thieves, and conmen.

Let's not forget people.