Since nothing really new in the Gulf of Mexico must be something new at WH? Time will tell!

In the blogosphere there are very few rules, but one of the few is to avoid responding to those who engage in ad-hominem attacks (please see: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html) I am, clearly, breaking this rule in responding to you.

It is the goal of Homeland Security Watch to avoid both personal attacks and political partisanship. This does not mean we avoid critical thinking, or criticism, or hide our political preferences. But it does mean that, whatever our preferences, we endeavor to address the homeland security issues of the day with fresh eyes-and-ears, humility, and intellectual restraint.

When you consistently attack the same personalities in the same demeaning ways, you undermine your argument. Even more, you discourage us from reading you. Too often there is in your approach too much anger, too much self-righteousness, and too much repetition. I typically leap over your comments without reading them. This is unfortunate, because buried beneath your abuse of others is sometimes an interesting insight.

Today I am responding for two reasons: First, out of respect for my readers, including you, I want to engage you as directly as I can regarding how to offer constructive contributions to this blog.

Second, I am responding because I perceive the anger at our political leaders you have expressed — especially in regard to the disaster in the Gulf — is wide-spread and it makes no sense to me.

My father, a rock-ribbed Republican, who watches Fox religiously, and is consistently opposed to President Obama notes the anger at Mr. Obama regarding the oil spill is childish, self-indulgent, reality-rejecting opportunism.

The Economist, a rightist, libertarian, British news weekly writes in its June 5-11 edition:

A disgusted nation is likely to turn on its leaders, and so America has done. This is in the face of a large and, it seems, increasingly well co-ordinated operation to respond to oil as it comes to shore, and over a thousand boats out at sea working with booms, skimmers and dispersants. An army of 500 claims adjusters has yet to reject any of the 31,010 claims BP has so far received for financial loss. Other probes are looking at what happened and what the future of the offshore industry should be. Criminal and civil investigations into negligence are being launched. This is a long way from the dysfunctional response to the far larger catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina…

(Read the rest at http://www.economist.com/node/16274343)

Without anger, rancor, or name-calling, can you explain the anger, rancor, and name-calling? What is it about this event or your worldview that results in such a confident accusation that our political leaders are personally complicit in the disaster and deceitful in their purposes?

And to my colleagues and fellow readers: Confíteor vobis, fratres, quia peccávi nimis cogitatióne, verbo, ópere et omissióne: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa.

“Tightening the relationship between responsibility and accountability….”

As I represent global “experts” in addressing wastewater and water purification development projects, much needed infrastructure, parctical, permanent, eco-friendly, earthquake resistant housing with solar and rainwater retention package, skimmers, booms and so much other technology….and first off whether it be the USCG or Southern Command, hats off to you and thank you for your commitment to country and service….however that’s where my appreciation for human being ends!

I (we) are sickened, truly disgusted by what we are subjected to when we see so many other souls so victimized by not only a US government so inept and corrupted, by nation after nation whcih has turned its cheek the other way and allowed the less fortunate Haitian population sit in the mud all this time….The UN should be disowned in every way…it is truly inherent with the same distrustful and deceitful and corruptive practices which BP portrays in its intentional deceit.

We are at great peril! You Mr. President and both side of the Congressional aisle should indeed be running to the exit door, NOW!

What you Mr. President have accomplished by your ongoing television appearances and your constant useage of Air Force One is to prove government’s inability to portray any resilience as you are gridlocked by partisanship and corruptness by corporate entities which have taken ownership of not only the US, but Europe and other -

Government led by “smug-smiled Pelosi and “Mr. Barney” and so many others in and out of the beltway all the way down to the local Selectmen have proven how far the lack of compassion has evolved in “responsibility and accountability….” A present administration who has failed so blantantly, not in every way, however in the important fiscal impact of a President and both sides of the aisle creating a deficit growing daily soon to place the last nail in the coffin of a bankrupt US and world economically, spiritually and every other way..We are not only leading to War once again, but the real prospect of extinction which only by the hand of our Creator will not happen entirely.

$12trillion+ in deficit, BP giving dictate to the government, a world with much uncaring of those who sit in squalor. The Jew whose home is threatened by missles falling from the skies, but a world immersed in compassion only for those whose agenda is one more example of the deceit, the ill-intent, let me remidn you again Mr. President as we have not forgotten Hank and the guys and the lack in transparency unknowing in accountability of at least $750 billion in stimulus monies –

These are teaching momements…we are really thinking that people are learning something..yes, We are learning just how resilient we must have to be as enslaved individuals, good people of Haiti, residents of the Gulf coast, the Palestinian who looks not to his fellow brethren, the Hebrew, but to Dubai and to the “Brutes of Tehran” who see marble building constructed in the sands and they left as pawns by dysfunctional and individuals like BP who could give a damn other than making sure their coffers are overfilled with monies…

World War II played out less than 100 years ago and here we go again, the same deceit, the bankers, governments whose leaders safeguard their own, while sending hopeless individuals to do the dirty work to enable not resilience, or responsibility in assuring trasnparency, but self-agenda.

While your discussions herein are thought provoking and you should be applauded by your caring for others, unfortunately for us involvd and affected each and every day, time is running out as we know that digging for oil is not a new technology. The risks were known. BP chose not to spend a dime in preparedness and cares little even today as potrayed by its ongoing attempts in and out of court to assure that it can use whatever means to circumvent any responsibility and accountability.

One of my solutions, BP to give each legitimate claim not only what it owes, but to assure even fairer compensation, 10,000 shares of BP stock..the reason..when BP reopens this well in less than two years to recapture the wealth it has found beneath, each claimant now has an interest in this well and others in the region. You know that BP will never go bankrupt as its resources far too valuable and its ego so arrogant in demeanor!

Just like the good people of Haiti sitting in the mud, the good people of the Gulf holding their $5,000 check from BP in hand will be soaked in oil for even far longer and you Mr. President, your White House staff and BP executives should be handcuffed and locked away in your pledge in oath before the Lord that people will have Rights and be protected..what rubbish!

A lesson? Unfortunately history has supposedly taught us lessons and we have a Bible in this Judeo-Christian based beloved Republic which clearly gives the lessons to be learned, however it is greed and arrogance which prevails for it is too difficult to read history and the Bible as you, the community organizer and junior Senator from Chicago has proven in your obviously limited scope.

Never mind the slaves of the past and never mind impressing us with the lessons of the Koran Mr. President, we are fully aware of slavery and of the dysfunctional and hatred among those in the Middle East for generations.

What we see in the 21st century, Haitians subjected to the elements and political corruption, the people in the Gulf region getting a very real understanding of what every government has been since Babylon, corrupt and Mr. President, unfortunately we are all enslaved, no matter color of skin or economic status to those who have no concern for responsibility and accountability as the 21st Century enslavement and dictate whether by government to people or corporate entities to government, despite our spirituality which will comfort us in our last breath, our Life is at peril!

Good post, appreciated discussion, however at the darkest hours, the clock is ticking and it ios quite evident with no Churchill and foresight as well as commitment to fellow man, hold onto your hats for the ride is for sure to get much perilous as the months ahead arrive with so much more anguish!

God Bless all of us!

Sustain is almost certainly a combination of tenere (to hold) and the prefix meaning up or down. If my memory is correct, then — as you suggest above — there is a conscious human choice and action to hold in place by external means. (I don’t have the time to look up right now.)

In contrast (and here I am more certain of the etymology), resilient is a compound of salire meaning to leap, gush forth, or sally forth. Re is the prefix meaning again. So… something is resilient when it leaps again, gushes again, et cetera. This is much more an internally generated action.

Does this interesting difference have practical implications? Well, I think your third paragraph begins to suggest an affirmative answer.

I am also inclined to think of sustainable things and resilient people. But that may just be a bias. Worth further thought.

Thinking about Armitage’s definition brought to mind some discussions with colleagues who have asked me to distinguish resilience from sustainability (a very Portland sort of discussion). Many wonder whether resilience as a buzz word has simply become another way of saying sustainability without provoking an eye-rolling gesture or yawn from others. I would like to think they are different, albeit overused, descriptions with separate but very complementary characteristics.

To the extent that both of them seek to explain human behavior (or at least frame human understanding of relationships) within complex systems, I tend to see sustainability as a primarily rational response to taming our appetites. As we practice disciplines that lead to sustainability, we acquire new appreciations of our needs and wants as well as our relationship to resources and one another. The more we internalize these virtuous behaviors as values, the more likely they are to yield added value to us and others that we might experience through positive emotions as resilience. The satisfaction that we can cope with a situation or that we may be bowed but far from broken signals this response in us and others.

In this sense, resilience expresses itself in a far more primitive but perhaps more purposeful way than the rational and deterministic sort of response that characterizes sustainability. The difference between purpose or meaning, which is provided by resilience, and characterization of options and alternative responses or behaviors associated with sustainability suggests that resilience may not depend upon sustainability but it certainly benefits from it.

Thanks again for another thought-provoking post.