As I write this, Hurricane Charley is striking Florida and getting ready to charge up the East Coast. Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of President Bush, has called out the local National Guard units, and disaster relief crews across Florida are on alert to respond to whatever emergencies may arise.Insurance policies refer to hurricanes, tornadoes and similar natural disasters as “acts of God,” and damages suffered as a result of these events are often reimbursed by government or private sources. The concept here is that we must spread the risk so that none of us suffer disproportionately because of things that none of us can control.
Unfortunately, as Asian Pacific Americans, we know that even things that seem to be fair and balanced to the majority of society can have a disproportionate impact on just one group. For example, the forced incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II was called a “military necessity.” Authorities alleged that Japanese Americans were a threat to the West Coast, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, so this preventable disaster went ahead with very few protests.
Determining what is preventable and what is a disaster is a subjective, oftentimes politically charged process. If a beachfront community in North Carolina depends on summertime beach-house rental income, for example, local authorities may be less willing to order a “mandatory evacuation” of coastal areas, even if conditions are not safe. The words “mandatory evacuation” have the legal effect of allowing tourists to get their rental fees refunded.
In some respects, this entire country is being run in disaster mode on a regular basis. Bush puts forward budget requests that plunge our economy into hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of debt, and then several months later he asks the taxpayers to pay billions more for military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would be like going to your boss and saying that you were happy to live on $50,000 per year, but dire circumstances require that you now be paid thousands more.
Even Congress does not thoughtfully ponder many of its actions but pushes through sweeping changes such as the USA PATRIOT Act. That book-length bill, which has done much to undermine our civil liberties, was printed only hours before Congress approved it, meaning that almost no one had a chance to read it in full.
Even principled legislators cannot vote against scandalous items because last-minute, all-or-nothing votes make it hard to stop bad projects without jeopardizing good ones as well. Both Republicans and Democrats are complicit in this dysfunctional budget-making process, which requires a major overhaul before our economy goes bankrupt.
Speaking of bankruptcies, professor Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School, co-author of The Two-income Trap: Why Middle-class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke, wrote in 2003: “This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. More people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college. And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce.”
Another disaster looming on the horizon is the potential insolvency of our pension system. Millions of retirees have done their duty and paid into company and government pension systems during their working years, and yet now these pension funds are being allowed to go broke.
In the electoral arena, a disaster like the one we all suffered in 2000 is very likely to recur if we do not address it right away. Electronic records of votes from Miami-Dade County in the 2002 Florida governor’s race were just reported lost, after several computer crashes wiped out the audit trail. This was one of the most significant and widespread uses of touch-screen voting since the 2000 debacle. There are major concerns about those jurisdictions that will be relying on electronic voting that does not leave a paper audit trail in the November presidential election.
In sum, true leadership means doing more than making televised public appearances in the aftermath of natural disasters and expressing sympathy for lost lives and property. Asian Pacific Americans and others should demand that candidates explain in detail how they will address preventable disasters for voters, pensioners and struggling families that could wreak as much devastation in the years ahead as any one hurricane, fire or flood.