Puerto Rico’s Health Care Is in Dire Condition, Three Weeks After Maria

It's my opinion that while the Jones Act probably does increase the cost of shipping goods two and from the island, its not a magic catchall fixit - and beyond that, every report I've read makes it clear we've enough stuff there to take care of people, but its not making it from the places where it landed, to the places where people are - and therefor complaints about the Jones Act seem mostly to be political haymaking - as the old saying goes, never let a good crisis go to waste.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabotage

http://gcaptain.com/american-maritime-industry-fights-back-f...

PolitiFact rated 48% of her statements that they reviewed "false", "mostly false", or "pants on fire".

http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rachel-maddow/

Perhaps the most egregious example, she once falsely claimed a political candidate had advance notice of the Oklahoma City bombing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/maddow-...

It's sad that they abuse their tax free status and made themselves into a tax haven that is abused without actually bringing much income into the country, then changed tax regulations and increased deficit spending before being forced into austerity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_government-debt_c...

I hope they will allow Congress to incorporate them into the USA as a state after this.

> There are urgent attempts to help. The federal government has sent 10 Disaster Medical Assistance Teams of civilian doctors, nurses, paramedics and others to the island. Four mobile hospitals have been set up in hospital parking lots, and the Comfort, a medical treatment ship, is on the scene. A 44-bed hospital will soon open in badly wrecked Humacao, in the southeast.

> But even as the Army Corps of Engineers is installing dozens of generators at medical facilities, and utility crews work to restore power to 36 hospitals, medical workers and patients say that an intense medical crisis persists and that communications and electrical difficulties have obscured the true number of fatalities directly related to the hurricane. The official count rose on Tuesday to 43.

> Matching resources with needs remains a problem. The Puerto Rico Department of Health has sent just 82 patients to the Comfort over the past six days, even though the ship can serve 250. The Comfort’s 800 medical personnel were treating just seven patients on Monday.

I don't really know enough to say whether our military is doing all it can, but it's certainly doing something significant. And they appear to still be hobbled by the laws of physics and the limits of human resourcefulness and endurance.

Military officers have unprecedented power in government. They now fill the roles of Secretary of Defense (the first since WWII; an essential reason for the job is civilian control of the military), White House Chief of Staff (and a very powerful one at that), and National Security Advisor. Many see them as the source of stability in the White House, given the erratic behavior of Trump. Think of the implication: Only military officers can be trusted; others (diplomats, other government leaders) are sub-standard.

In foreign policy, all issues are now handled primarily through the military, not the State Department - war not diplomacy. The State Department has been radically sidelined, to a degree unprecedented in memory or even history. Jobs are left unfilled, personnel are ignored - given no responsibilities or input - and talent is leaving in droves. (See foreignpolicy.com if you want to read coverage of it.) The President and much of the GOP openly advocate for military solutions to problems and mock diplomacy, and the America First people say that's how to deal with the world.

"Love" of the military - a widely used expression - has become an ideology and now almost a norm. If you don't "love" the military, you aren't patriotic. It is put on a high pedestal. In the NFL controversy, many say the people kneeling are being disrespectful to the military - but the flag and the anthem are for the country, not for one executive branch institution. I was at a small college graduation in a rural area and ROTC graduates, and only them, were given a standing ovation - not the summa cum laude grads, not the PhD's, not those providing other services to community and country, nobody else.

Civilian-military divide is a serious problem. With an all-volunteer military, many civilians have no contact with it and little understanding. When there was a draft, all of society was familiar with the military and it was seen as a normal institution with all that implies (remember where the terms SNAFU and FUBAR come from). Now civilians know little about it and therefore idealize it - as if the military are movie heroes - and in my limited experience a significant part of the military think they deserve that worship (e.g., recently Sec of Defense Mattis was on tape telling soldiers that people who didn't serve are (something derogatory); a year or two ago I read an editorial in a well-known defense policy publication that suggested only those who serve should get to vote; General Kelly this year said citizens had no moral right to question those who serve and should 'just say thank you'). Also, members of the military, and especially enlisted, are overwhelmingly conservative and disproportionately represent other demographics too, and are not representative of the society they serve.

...

Above is a roadmap to fascism; it's almost out of the textbook. The U.S. has powerful institutions, but you really need to stick your head in the sand to think it will just work out - that's not how prior generations built the country and institutions that were inherited by today's citizens; what will they pass on to future generations?

The idealization also is a critical disservice to the soldiers, to whom society has a great, very serious responsibility. If U.S. voters are going to send them to risk and otherwise ruin their lives, both physically and psychologically, the citizens had better do everything they can to avoid it and they'd better make a very careful decision, which requires a very clear-eyed, realistic understanding of the military.

And finally, this ideal military doesn't perform well. Corruption is rife; over the last ~5 years a large number of generals and admirals have been removed for it, and we all know about the weapons programs. Iraq and Afghanistan were badly planned and executed - the U.S. defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in less than 4 years, yet these two current wars continue for 14-17 years and counting. How many soldiers lives and souls were wasted due to the military's failures? It's a horrible thing to think, but far more horrible is gloss over it and for citizens to not ask tough questions, see the military for what it is (a normal human institution), and fail their responsibilities to today's soldiers.

> I have previously suggested crowdfunding the expatriation of Puerto Rican residents. If you know of someone in Puerto Rico, get in touch, get them a job on the mainland, and get them out of there on a commercial flight.

Preferably, to a swing state. The current lack of political power - no senators, no congresspeople, no electoral votes - will always mean PR is treated very differently than even the smallest state.