A new example of how little Americans know about their own country – Washington Post, September 28
Puerto Rico is not a foreign country, at least it isn’t if you live in the United States. It is a U.S. territory, and those on the island who were born in Puerto Rico are American citizens (though, like denizens of the District of Columbia, have no voting rights in Congress).
But a new poll by an outfit called Morning Consult, as reported in the New York Times, found that only 54 percent of Americans know that people born in Puerto Rico are American citizens.
Someone belonging to the 46% of uninformed Americans is headline editor for the print edition of the Washington Post.
(The print edition headline, ‘Why can’t we get out of here?’ asks stranded American, was changed to ‘Why can’t we get out of here?’ Airports in Puerto Rico, other islands, damaged and slow to recover for its online version.)
On September 20 Puerto Rico was hit by hurricane Mary, then a category 4 storm. The U.S. has a professional civil defense organization called FEMA. It seemed overwhelmed, which is normal in the immediate aftermath of a large devastation. But the hurricane hit Puerto Rico 8 days ago and it the event had been predicted several days before. There was ample time to prepare and to get ready for recovery action. Why were there no distributed emergency depots for food, gasoline and diesel? Now hospitals are still shut down for lack of emergency power.
The problem with FEMA, it is said, is that it is too centralized and bureaucratic. Local disaster managers need full authority and readily available goods and funds they can spend right away, without asking higher ups. Meanwhile there is enough aid on Puerto Rico, but for lack of available transport, it is stacking up at the harbor and the airport. Now, a week too late, the U.S. military gets called in. It is incompetent at winning wars, but it traditionally knows a bit or two about logistics. In a few weeks Puerto Rico will be swamped with military trucks.
On September 10 the category 5 hurricane Irma hit Cuba very, very hard. A week later MEDICC reported:
87% of the population affected now has both electricity and water. No outbreaks of infectious diseases are reported, and cleanup is prioritized in both the capital and hardest-hit central provinces. Food processing centers are operating in all these provinces, and cooked food is being distributed in shelters (where 26,000 remain of the 1.7 million evacuees) and in areas without electricity.
Teaching activities have resumed throughout the country as of September 18, …
Tarik Cyril Amar, of the history department of Columbia University, remarked today:
Tarik Cyril Amar @TarikCyrilAmar
catastrophe in puerto rico reminiscent of late-Soviet chaos. Except, USA hasn't lost a Cold War and is much richer. How ARE they doing it?
In 1976 the French anthropologist Emmanual Todd predicted the fall of the Soviet Union. Fifteen years later his prediction came true. In 2001 he predicted the The Breakdown of the American Order:
Todd notes some disturbing American trends, such as rising stratification based on educational credentials, and the "obsolescence of unreformable political institutions."