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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: TimF who wrote (259583)11/12/2005 1:16:25 PM
From: tejek  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574304
 
People in FEMA were more worried about meeting the legalities of their assignment rather than doing their job; more concerned about appearances rather than being effective.

The problem is that the whole system is designed to make people more concerned about the regulations and the legalities and certain political concerns and CYA than being effective. Sometimes you get great people in the right positions and you can get around that to an extent but large government bureaucracies, or even corporate bureaucracies tend to work in the negative way that Welsh describes. If people in positions in the system tried to go around the all the legalities and politics and concern for CYA in the past they probably got punished for it in some way. They might have been fired, or maybe just not promoted, or possibly even just lost political power within the organization without actually losing their position. All of these things tend to chase out or keep down the people who don't play the game. That fact tends to get people who do play the game in the positions to make decisions when a crisis happens.


You are making this far more complicated than it is. Brown, as one example, was an incompetent. His job track record was not stellar BEFORE he went into FEMA. In fact, the guy was more concerned with presentation than performance; to whit, his comments in an email re. his blue shirt from Nordstrom's. Many people in gov't are there because they care about people. Apparently, the people Bush appointed were more concerned about their six figure salaries and their appearance.

And even with Brownie gone, things have improved only slightly. People from TX to FLA continue to suffer. And that's because FEMA has lost its effectiveness under Bush.