I guess we all should have seen Walter Reed coming.

[Raven]

I'm sitting here wondering why I'm so shocked at the testimony today about the conditions at Walter Reed. After all, we have a major American city that has been virtually abandoned by this government. Then we have soldiers being sent to Iraq without proper protection. We had a Secretary of Defense who was proud of the fact that we were going to wage war on the cheap. Finally, we have a country where more and more people are slipping into personal insolvency but a government that says "spend, spend, spend." This should not be a surprise to us at all.

What is a little surprising is that the conditions at Walter Reed were not brought to light by medical staff who take an oath to do no harm or by military brass whose loyalty should have been to their troops. Where the hell have those people been?

[Sydnie]

1. They tried.

When they couldn't affect a change, they quit. They have been replaced by people who were not invested as those that were there before were.

Much like the CIA. A bloddy forehead is often a reason to leave. :banghead:

[dkofos]

15. Who is they??

ti

[Sydnie]

17. The staff

but many of the staff were replaced with "outsourced" services and people filling those jobs (nurses and such).

[dkofos]

18. well here is to the staff who after loosing their jobs to contractors

kept their mouths shut.

[Sydnie]

20. Or were shut up

I imagine there was a lot of "you ever want to work in this business again" going on, can't you?

[dkofos]

21. NO

[SharonAnn]

2. I'm not shocked. It's the kind of thing I expect from Bushco. What else are they hiding?

Who knows? We may never know all of the damage they've done, but those who are suffering from their dereliction of duty are suffering from the damage.

[sutz12]

3. It's what you get when you have people who hate government in charge. nt

[KansDem]

7. The Bushistas have always been about corporate rule...

The reason nothing has been done about Post-Katrina New Orleans or Walther Reed Medical Center is: there's no profit to be had. No money to be made from humanitarian undertakings.

This is fascism pure and simple.

We've heard for decades about how some candidate for public office (usually Republican, usually conservative) would "run the government like a business." Well, they have and this is the result...

[EST]

4. I am sure most of us did.

Sadly, 99.9% of us are in no position, except en masse, to do anything about the blind, soulless juggernaut.

Robert Heinlein brought up this scenario in his novel "Glory Road," fifty years ago.

Any time a grunt wants or needs something the wicked witch of military policy stamps it "denied" and that's that. If the army wanted you to have a mother, they'd have issued you one.

Once in a while, a kindly old fairy godmother in a remote corner of the building puts down her knitting, reviews the request and approves it.

Such circumstances are so rare as to be quite remarkable.

[stevedeshazer]

5. The medical staff, like everyone else, fear retribution.

I'll admit, the Walter Reed scandal surprised even a cynic like me.

All this shows a purposeful pattern of neglect along strict class lines. Bush's base support of the wealthiest among us derives all the benefit. Everyone else no longer matters.

We've reached a low point. I hope it's thelow point. But I doubt it.

[CJCRANE]

6. There's the old saying

about if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it - has it really fallen?

The same thing pertains to any scandal - it isn't an acknoweldged scandal until the MSM notices.

[TahitiNut]

8. "Privatization."

What we'll hear, over and over, is the "cumbersome bureaucracy" and the "broken system" and the failure to follow-up. What this actually betrays is the factionalization and fragmentation of the organizations through 'subcontracting' the functions of that organization to profiteers and the infusion of personnel who're NOT ANSWERABLE to the management hierarchy and its policies and procedures, being employees of contractors and subcontractors having codicils and their own incompatible and unresponsive practices. IMHO, it's completely INSANE to infuse the military with mission-critical functions that're sold to the lowest bidder and whose performance is constantly put between the rock of demand and the hard-spot of under-staffing for the sake of increased profits. The absolute last thing anyone should do is 'out-source' on-going functions of the government. Yet that's exactly what they've done.

[Hugin]

10. Hear, Hear!

That's the truth.

[TahitiNut]

23. It's frustrating. It's the elephant in the room and it's almost ignored.

The utter insanity of privateering ongoing support and operational functions is beyond detestable. There is NO ACCOUNTABILITY in out-sourced roles. None. It's all about profits. ENTIRELY. Jesus! I worked for a federal contractor for five years and it was massively appalling.

[Hugin]

26. Privatization is a downward spiral...

To increase their profits even more contractors often hire unqualified or at best inexperienced
workers... Charge the government as if these hires were fully qualified and then pay the individual
employees less due to "entry level status" and then rake off the difference as additional profit.

What a scam.

:eyes:

[Lex]

9. Walter Reed hospital = Katrina.

Same ol' tune, different song.

Bush and his Repuke Congress over the last 6 years has been beyond reprehensible.

[ComerPerro]

11. I can't believe anyone is suprised by this

[porphyrian]

12. I've never talked to a wounded vet who didn't. - n/t

[katmondoo]

13. Just heard Walter Reed was privitized starting 2000

The year of the Bushies

[izzie]

16. Like having private people ride around in subs for fun I think

you will find this every place inside the govt. now. Hell we even have for profit jails. Since Bush took over it has just got bigger. GOP congress has been working on this for years under Clinton. All that tax payers money is a very sticky item and 'for profit people' do not like it to get out of their hands with our some staying with them.

[TahitiNut]

24. The GOP has been pushing this shit for decades, including Congress's GOP.

The DOE is probably about 90% out-sourced ... and what an abomination that is!

[izzie]

14. I am not shocked. This is how this group does things,

We have known it since GOP took over congress. I can recall when they were building golf clubs around DC forget hospitals. Money was going to their things and not what people needed. Generally people in the GOP do not like a govt. that gives out a service and generally Dem. feel that is what govt. is. When one party takes over you can be sure of what will happen. Top of that their was so much money to be got out or our taxes for the guys running it. GOP with a President and Vice on their side filling agencies with the same type you had to know this would happen. I would have taken bet on it.

[kestrel91316]

19. Wasn't it Grover Norquist, that great American patriot, who said

the goal was to shrink the US government down until it was small enough to drown in the bathtub?

Methinks they are done with the shrinking part and have moved on to the attempted drowning part.

They really want NO GOVERNMENT AT ALL. No regulations whatsoever of any of their nefarious plans. They just want private contractor stormtroopers for attacking anyone they perceive as an enemy.

[DainBramaged]

22. Back in 2003, I had arguments with some Con friends about the effects of

the cuts to the VA budget.

Now the chickens have come home to roost and one of them doesn't remember our conversations.

I guess I'll have to send him a few links via email

A lot of links.

And then just disassociate myself from him because he is pure slime. I gave him a chance until he started to blame the troops.

[TahitiNut]

25. When you take a federal organization with lots of out-sourcing ...

... and shrink the budget (or only hold a lid on it) then the FIRST to go are the individual contributors - the PEOPLE actually performing the jobs. The LAST to go and the FIRST to get fat are the Program Offices and (so-called) coordination roles - people who do nothing but broker and middle-man the contract functions and operations. It's the biggest CANCER in the government today.

The biggest 'stick' the contractor has is cutting off the delivery of services - and they use it - it's the WORST of 'unionism' and 'capitalism' combined. Think about it. The contractor is the one who employees and controls the workers (and takes their cut off the top of the payroll). Like a corrupt union, they pull workers off the job or put unqualified and under-qualified people in the position - in effect staging work slow-downs and monkey-wrenching the operations until the contracting agency shovels more taxpayer funds their way. This is why it's costing us more in real terms and accomplishing less. Even the decreasing effectiveness is peddled by the reichbots as some specious rationale for doing MORE of what's decreasing the effectiveness in the first place. It's a vicious cycle.