How the World's Only Superpower Is Vulnerable to Catastrophe

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/how-worlds-only-superpower-could-topple-any-minute



The U.S. security complex is up in arms about cyberhackers and foreign terrorists targeting America’s vulnerable infrastructure. Think tank reports have highlighted the chinks in homeland security represented by unsecured ports, dams and power plants. We’ve been bombarded by stories about outdated software that is subject to hacking and the vulnerability of our communities to bioterrorism. Reports such as the Heritage Foundation’s “ Microbes and Mass Casualties: Defending America Against Bioterrorism” describe a United States that could be brought to its knees by its adversaries unless significant investments are made in “hardening” these targets.

But the greatest dangers for the United States do not lurk in terrorist cells in the mountains surrounding Kandahar that are planning on assaults on American targets. Rather, our vulnerabilities are homegrown. The United States plays host to thousands of nuclear weapons, toxic chemical dumps, radioactive waste storage facilities, complex pipelines and refineries, offshore oil rigs and many other potentially dangerous facilities that require constant maintenance and highly trained and motivated experts to keep them running safely.

The United States currently lacks safety protocols and effective inspection regimes for the dangerous materials it has amassed over the last 60 years. We don’t have enough inspectors and regulators to engage in the work of assessing the safety and security of ports, bridges, pipelines, power plants and railways. The rapid decline in the financial, educational and institutional infrastructure of the United States represents the greatest threat to the safety of Americans today.

And it’s getting worse. The current round of cutbacks in federal spending for low-visibility budgets for maintainence and inspection, combined with draconian cuts in public education, makes it even more difficult to find properly trained people and pay them the necessary wages to maintain infrastructure. As Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution points out, the 2015 budget fresh off the press includes a chart indicating that non-defense discretionary spending — including critical investments in infrastructure, education and innovation — will continue to drop severely, from 3.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 to just 2.2 percent in 2024. This decision has been made even though the average rate for the last 40 years has been 3.8 percent and the United States will require massive infrastructure upgrades over the next 50 years.

[hobbit709]

1. All great empires rot from within one way or another.

[newfie11]

2. We can't be bothered to look within

That would take away the war on terrior propaganda and where would the MIC use their weapons of mass destruction.

Yes we better wake up and look around at the infostructure in America. But the that's apparently not a money maker for the rich.

Again I say what planet do they and their money plan on living on when they've completely distroyed this one.

[bananas]

3. We have met the enemy, and he is us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_%28comic_strip%29#.22We_have_met_the_enemy_and_he_is_us..22

Probably the most famous Pogo quotation is "We have met the enemy and he is us." Perhaps more than any other words written by Kelly, it perfectly sums up his attitude towards the foibles of mankind and the nature of the human condition.

The quote was a parody of a message sent in 1813 from U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to Army General William Henry Harrison after his victory in the Battle of Lake Erie, stating, "We have met the enemy, and they are ours." It first appeared in a lengthier form in "A Word to the Fore", the foreword of the book The Pogo Papers, first published in 1953. Since the strips reprinted in Papers included the first appearances of Mole and Simple J. Malarkey, beginning Kelly's attacks on McCarthyism, Kelly used the foreword to defend his actions:

<snip>

The finalized version of the quotation appeared in a 1970 anti-pollution poster for Earth Day and was repeated a year later in the daily strip. The slogan also served as the title for the last Pogo collection released before Kelly's death in 1973, and of an environmentally themed animated short Kelly had started work on but did not finish due to ill health.

<snip>

http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/04/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html

... In the poster, under the quote, Pogo is seen holding a litter pick-up stick and a burlap bag...

[LiberalEsto]

4. B-b-but improving infrastructure might create jobs

for the 99%!

And the 1% can't have THAT, can they?

[MisterP]

5. foresight an' buildin' resilency is for Commies! just fear yer neighbor and buy ghuns ghuns ghuns