Back during the Bush and Obama years, I remember hearing so many right-wing conspiracies about FEMA camps.

Why didn’t anyone ask “If FEMA has the ability to set up camps and transport large numbers of people, why aren’t they doing that every time there’s a big hurricane or wildfire?”

  • JollyG@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    6 hours ago

    When bad people do good things they are generally seen as sinister, as if they are concealing a horrible action behind a facade of good will. So if you believe the government is fundamentally evil, and you see it trying to do something good (which is the whole purpose of FEMA) then its actions are going to look sinister to you. So stories about FEMA having camps (at their core, these are stories about the government using the facade of aid and assistance to hide something evil) will make sense to you because they are consistent with your sentiments about the what the government is. So too would stories about FEMA using disasters as a pretext for land snatching or stories about FEMA ignoring people in peril because these are all stories about an evil government. To the extent that they are consistent with your sentiments about the government, they are easy to accept as true, even if they contradict each other.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 hours ago

    Fake news promised FEMA camps staffed by Obama death panels if the ACA passed.

    The ACA passed, where are the promised camps?

    👀

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      6 hours ago

      We have death panels, they’re the insurance guys who write prior auth regs and doctors who handle appeals.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        6 hours ago

        Yeah but the promise was that the boomers will be targeted but they got Medicare

        Wagies are the ones subject to corporate death panels after paying the premium AND the boomers socialized option

  • d00phy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    6 hours ago

    Just read a good article today about FEMA response. They said all response starts at the local level. At some level, there might be a FEMA rep involved, but the local or state leaders have to request the help. Even then, FEMA doesn’t run the show. It’s run by the state and local people with FEMA assisting to provide needed resources and guidance. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read the article.

    IIRC, the camps of those days were after the fact for people who had lost their homes riding out the storms.