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Sunday, September 4, 2005
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 Sunday, September 4, 2005
started 9/4/2005; 9:01:56 AM - last post 9/7/2005; 10:19:54 PM
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Doc Searls - Sunday, September 4, 2005 
9/4/2005; 1:01:56 PM (reads: 13446, responses: 7)
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War on Error 
| | As a country we rebounded from 9/11 with a War on Terror. How will we rebound from Katrina, a tragedy the depths of which we have barely begun to plumb? |
| | 9/11 killed thousands in an instant. We also knew quickly who was lost and who wasn't. With Katrina, we're barely beginning to know who's missing and who isn't. Our federal government, near as I can tell, had no plan to match loved ones separated in a disaster. The federal response to Katrina was (and in many ways remains) as disastrous as the hurricane and the flooding that drowned New Orleans. Citizens in numbers beyond counting are still waiting for help. And dying. |
| | When we drain the drowned districts, we won't bulldoze them, damaged beyond recovery as they may be. Not right away. First we will need to search for the dead, finding hundreds, or perhaps thousands, who died in a nightmare of unrequited longing for help, praying to God for his able children to aid his unable ones. |
| | Katrina was what we are sure to avoid calling an "act of God". Yesterday my eight year old son asked how God could make something like Katrina happen. Not "let." Make. |
| | Ever notice that's how people answer questions they're not prepared to answer? Good Question, they say. |
| | While we're not answering that one, we will face the question New Orleans' survivors will ask, over and over again. Why weren't we prepared? Why didn't we do more? |
| | Thus will begin our War on Error. |
| | Whatever else it causes, this war will change national priorities. Also social and personal ones. |
| | With nobody but God and ourselves to blame, and with nobody but ourselves to help, we will put people first. And we will do our best to protect our civilization from acts of God for which people must be prepared. |
| | The next hard question is, Which "we"? Our federal, state and local governments? Or ourselves? Or both, together, in some new way? |
| | Back during the last presidential campaign, Phil Windley made a useful distinction between the politics of elections and the politics of governance. The latter, he told me, was what mattered most. In governance, he said, the distinctions between parties are, while important, also irrelevant to the most basic concerns of citizens, which are about making sure the water runs and the roads get fixed. |
| | Phil also told me about the emerging Net-based ecosystem of governance, in which government organizations were developing fresh and highly symbiotic relationships with Non-Governmental Organizations, or NGOs. In fact, some NGOs were one-person operations — individuals obsessed with, say, auto safety or water quality. |
| | When the blaming stops and the fixing truly begins, we'll need more than our government organizations to step forward. As citizens, and as groups of citizens, will need to do what government simply can't do. |
| | Yes, we need bureaucracies. But bureaucracies can't imagine anything. Including predictable acts of God. |
| | People, on the other hand, can. |
| | In the War on Error, people will need to take the lead. Governments will need to follow or get out of the way. |
Next?
| | Here's betting President Bush nominates Antonin Scalia to fill the vacancy. And somebody as Scalia-like as possible to replace Scalia. No cipher like Roberts this time around. |
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Steve Grimaud - Re: Sunday, September 4, 2005
9/4/2005; 6:08:36 PM (reads: 943, responses: 0)
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Fascinating! I read the Escapable Logic post from 2003 about how all the government bureaucrats are incompetent and replacable by a mindless web application, how those self-same bureaucrats are causing the most problems and need to be escorted out of the building by an IT SWAT team, and how the big cost of government isn't the payroll, but the bloated programs (unidentified).
Then, I read your post above about how the federal government has failed the disaster recovery effort and needs to get in there now to set things right... Oh, really. First, which of those incopentent, dangerous bureacrats that you would send home for all of our safety would you want to take over the lead of this effort? Second, why is it that we want less government, except when we want more, except we doubt they'd be able to do the job right because they're unimaginative and bureaucratic-minded, except they should be able to figure all this out ahead of time, except that only one or two non-government people did so...There seems to be some internal logic problems with the reasoning on your post and the one over on Escapable Logic that you point to.
How about this: Local, state and national government agencies were overwhelmed by the multiple catastrophies the gulf coast endured last week. Now that we've come to some sort of understanding of the scope and range of problems, let's start to reestablish order and safety in the area so that relief from all directions can begin.
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Doc says "Whatever else it causes, this war will change national priorities. Also social and personal ones.
With nobody but God and ourselves to blame, and with nobody but ourselves to help, we will put people first. And we will do our best to protect our civilization from acts of God for which people must be prepared."
After reading and admiring Doc for years, I finally joined so I can say thank you for covering the Katrina disaster as you have. The lines quoted above are about the only optimistic comment that I have seen, and I certainly hope your optimism is justified. But it will take an enormous effort to take our country back from politicians responsive only to special interests and create government -- at every level -- that is responsive to the needs of all the people.
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niti bhan - War on Error
9/5/2005; 9:19:32 AM (reads: 741, responses: 0)
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When I read your post "War on Error" my first thought was of the many post apocalypse science fiction novels, the good ones, like by a Nivens, Silverberg or even Brin. New Orleans disintegrated into the anarchy that most of these systems/worlds descend into, using violence and terror tactics almost as written. It implies systemic disease, and my serious suggestion is pulling together key writers in this field and having them brainstorm for possible solutions/options.
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Mike Warot - Re: Sunday, September 4, 2005
9/5/2005; 6:55:29 PM (reads: 742, responses: 0)
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Clearly there were failures on multiple levels. The blitzkreig on context is already starting. It's important to be mindful of the advantage of blogs, that is context. We're creating a post-factoid era here in our humble blogs.
Its my hope that one of the big changes we see as a result of this is the end of spin and factoids, and a return to honest conversation about government.
--Mike--
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Julian Bond - The poor
9/5/2005; 11:39:07 PM (reads: 824, responses: 1)
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I wonder if it's time to go back and think again about the best way to deal with the poor in a modern civilized, western country. The comments I've seen so far have been polarised within the current frames of reference with no attempt to think outside the box.
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Doc Searls - Re: The poor
9/6/2005; 2:56:58 AM (reads: 828, responses: 0)
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The problem is, those boxes don't work. I don't think we have much choice about thinking again.
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Steven Schwartz - Re: Sunday, September 4, 2005
9/8/2005; 2:19:54 AM (reads: 751, responses: 0)
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An FYI: It is not fully set up yet, but the LJ community War on Error has been founded to discuss ways that the technical community can aid in distributed non-governmental response to disasters, primarily in terms of setting up an infrastructure for people to use to connect -- social software for disaster management, as it were. The community itself isn't ready to be that, by a long shot; we're all about brainstorming and planning.
Steven Schwartz
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