Tag: conflict prevention

• September 30, 2008

  HOLDING TOGETHER COMMUNITY IN TIMES OF DISASTER: WHITHER AMERICA

  Is America learning from its disasters how to hold people together in community, how to prevent and manage conflict? It is not clear that anything will be learned from the current direction of leadership. The level of corruption from the Republican administration has been astonishing, and can only guarantee that people will be at each other’s throats. This is not how to prevent conflict and build community. Here is this note of concern on FEMA’s response to Ike:

  With hurricanes Gustav and Ike slamming ashore, focus again turns to FEMA’s performance, and we continue to be less than inspired. After Gustav, the agency admitted that it underestimated how much food and water and other goods that Louisiana would need. It promised the people of Houston ice and water in the immediate aftermath of Ike. It turns out that the Salvation Army had hot meals going and a local radio station

  …

• September 23, 2008

  McCain’s Temper and Global Conflict

  I have been uneasy for eight years with the trend in American politics of anointing men with tempers. This is not safe in terms of global conflict. I think of the incredible pressures of the White House, and the reality of having the ability to destroy the earth many times over. I think of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how we might have all died when I was six years old if John and Bobby Kennedy had uncontrollable tempers. I opposed John Silber and Howard Dean, two Democrats, for president because of their tempers, which I personally witnessed. In conflict, character is everything, far more important than strategy, though strategy matters. More will emerge in the future about anger and George Bush, and about the conduct of the war, but in many ways that is history now. What matters now is whether Americans make a wise decision about their future.…