Philosophies for and against FEMA

The continued devastation from Hurricane (and later categorically downgraded) Sandy raises a number of concerns about how and where we live. Amazingly, media outlets have raised the possibility that the extreme weather we've been experiencing globally is connected to changes in our climate. There is still great hesitancy on the part of pundits and politicians (and even the people at The Weather Channel), but it's an improvement. But that's not what this post is about.

Something else has been striking to me the last few days. Jonathan Chait wrote, in New York Magazine, a piece entitled, "Why Democrats Are Right to Politicize Sandy." He began the article this way:

Disasters are inherently political, because government is political, and preventing and responding to disasters is a primary role of the state. But there is an innate tension in overtly politicizing a disaster. At the moment of greatest urgency, emotions run so hot that it’s hard to fairly assess the costs and benefits of disaster response. On the other hand, moments of normality are too cool, and it is far too easy to minimize the costs of preparing for an eventuality that is far from the horizon.
What you are going to see over the next week is an overt effort by Democrats to politicize the issue of disaster response. They’re right to do it. Conservatives are already complaining about this, but the attempt to wall disaster response off from politics in the aftermath of a disaster is an attempt to insulate Republicans from the consequences of their policies.

Regardless of one's politics, it's difficult to argue that such disasters are apolitical happenings. Built into any response to such situations is an inherently political dimension. As I'll briefly note below, these instances bright attention the the tensions and divisions that exist across the political spectrum about how we are to live as citizens in a society. It is because of this reality that praise from New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican who has stumped for presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for President Obama is particularly noteworthy in a political realm so committed to attacking the other party. You can read more about an appreciative Christie here. A striking contrast is Michael Brown, President George W. Bush's FEMA director who is widely seen as mismanaging the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. He spoke of Obama's administration responding too quickly.

Scott Horsely of NPR adds to the growing discussion about what Sandy brings to light. Romney and Obama embody fundamentally different public philosophies about who we are as a people and what role institutions have in our society. They usually speak of their different visions for America. I guess "visions" are more digestible than speaking about one's public philosophy. Horsely writes,

For Obama, the federal government is a critical vehicle for that kind of help. Republicans put more faith in local government, and even voluntary efforts.

This tension is debated on the New York Times Opinion Page which further illuminates just how differently we view the role of government or the role of citizens self-organizing to respond to such crises. As this debate will surely continue, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves that this question about the role of government isn't something new. We have long questioned how large and powerful a government to have. But as Paul Krugman asked just a few short years ago, what do we do when the private market isn't interested in think like monitoring the threat of natural disasters? And what do we do when there's not profit to be made in helping citizens, communities, and regions come back from complete devastation? It is difficult to make the case for a strong government response when a political party so unabashedly attacked government's role in keeping our society just that: a society.

Citizens or Consumers?

Writing about health care reform, Paul Krugman poses a very important question: "How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as 'consumers'?" It's a good question. Taking the time to read Krugman's article is well worth the few minutes in order to better understand some of the changes being suggested by Republicans. Medicare is at the heart of the matter and it has a profound way of shaping our next (current?) election cycle. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee quickly put together a video stressing the impact of such a move away from Medicare as we know it to a voucher system that will somehow work with private insurance.



But stepping back from some of the political positioning of the Democrats and Republicans, how does language of the market shape our democracy? Lizabeth Cohen studied 20th Century America and classified it as a "Consumers' Republic." When did we shift our thinking to apply the consumer model to everything?

 

The book that really made me think about the use of language and how we think about citizens was Creating Citizen-Consumers: Changing Publics and Changing Public Services. It made concrete what I was thinking at the time. I felt--and feel--strongly that we're transforming the role and relationship of government with citizens. But more than that, we're changing the ways that citizens think of themselves, how they act and engage in the world. If we wholehearted adopt market language, what changes occur? Are we more than we buy? One of the challenges we face in the United States is the dramatic shift away from active citizenship to a model that makes us more like Amazon. I love the ease and ability of order books or (nearly) anything else on their website, but when we make government replicate that model we radically alter institutions.

But rather than talk about abstract "government," we can see how a consumer model changes many other institutions as well. Cooperative Extension is everywhere. But in recent decades and years, there has been a strong push to replicate the Amazon (or insert some other amazing one-click shopping type of website here). Where are the relationships between Extension educators and community members? Norman Rockwell's depiction of the County Agent has been replaced by a digitized button.

This..

...or this?

Fundamentally, we must ask: What kind of people do we want to be? The challenge is that we must also ask what kind of people we want to be, together. Market language and thinking gives each individual a "vote" but only to the degree that their decision-making based on purchases turns citizens into an aggregate that does little to recognize the human person and his or her ability to be a relational being. But if we embrace this notion that we're simply consumers, we are little more than data. I don't want to be data. I am a citizen.