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Firefighter Hero-Worship and Hypocrisy: When Public Employees Save Lives
There’s really been only one story in Flagler County in the past few weeks: The wildfires. I’ve had a chance to see the disaster up close a few times, and to see firefighters in action at several of the fires. These men and women’s valor can’t be understated. Nor can the effort they’re putting out, though words really are cheap when trying to convey the magnificent work getting done out there, and the price being paid for it. County firefighters have had all leaves canceled. They’ve been working on mandatory 36-hour shifts for weeks, with no end in sight. As County Administrator Craig Coffey put it yesterday, “we’re at the end of our rope,” though somehow last week the same county administrator and his deputy, along with the Palm Coast city manager, thought it was fine to skip town and attend a conference at a posh resort in Clearwater. The conference was titled: “Making magic: how bold can government be?” Very bold, obviously.
But the fires have been a story of disconnects all around.
Northeast and South Florida are in drought conditions. Fires aren’t raging only in Flagler, Volusia, St. Johns and Putnam. If you bring up the Division of Forestry’s map of wildfires in the state, not a single one of the division’s districts is spared, though northeast Florida has the bulk of them. So when is Gov. Rick Scott going to declare a state of emergency? It’s not just an alarmist designation. It’s a financial urgency for counties like Flagler, where the county fire department alone has been spending $40,000 a week just on overtime. That doesn’t include other costs. The county had a $350,000 reserve for this sort of disaster. But it’s burning through it. A disaster designation from the state would release more dollars and other forms of aid. But this is the Scott administration we’re talking about. It starts fires. It doesn’t put them out.
It’s not just the fires. The drought alone would warrant a disaster designation. The average water demand for the week a year ago in Palm Coast was 7.2 million gallons of water per day. Last week, it was 8.8 million gallons. That’s a 22 percent increase. The population hasn’t increased 22 percent. By some measures—labor force and school enrollment—it’s fallen by a percent or two. Richard Adams, the city’s public works director, attributes spiking water use directly to “extended drought conditions.” Last year then-Gov. Charlie Crist sought and got a federal disaster designation for Flagler and 34 other counties in response to a freeze and last year’s drought. He got it. Where’s Scott now? Probably scouting the location for his his next tea party spectacle.
There’s a local disconnect, too.
Flagler County firefighters have been battling wildfires since December, when the county’s burn ban was first declared, though the first sizeable fire broke out in March with the 350-acre Old Brick Road blaze. Then in May it’s as if hell started franchising all over the western portion of the county, anchoring its most destructive business just west of Espanola. It’s been 13 years since Flagler County has seen anything that destructive. But to many people on the east side of the county the fires might as well be in another world, because the smoke hasn’t been blowing this way. Last week when smoke blew over Palm Coast for a day, a fireman told me that he got “a ton of calls” at his station—which never happens: people usually call 911—from people asking if there was a fire somewhere. He couldn’t believe it. People still have no clue, though those who do have been generous: at the county’s Emergency Operations Center yesterday, Flagler County’s Marine Corps League was dropping off crates of water for the firefighters, as many people have, doing their part for the cause.
Finally, there’s this inexcusable disconnect: those firefighters people fall in a heap to call heroes and lavish with praise are the same public employees, unionized employees, most of the same people and the lawmakers they elected just finished bashing, insulting, demeaning and robbing. They’re the same public employees whose unionizing rights have been under assault. The same public employees whose salaries have been cut. The same public employees whose health benefits have been sheared or premiums jacked up. And in Flagler County, they’re the same public employees who’ve gone without a raise for three years, yet who, when the fires aren’t burning, are blamed for everything wrong in government.
The disconnect is unreal. The hypocrisy is unreal. Get with it, people. Words are the cheapest commodity next to false flattery. Don’t just call these firefighters heroes. That’s meaningless. Here’s what would make a difference: quit trashing public employees. Quit trashing the unions that keep them strong. Quit voting for clueless lawmakers who trash either. And put your money where your hero-worship is for a change next time you think a tax cut is more important than paying for the men and women saving your property and your skin.
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38 Comments so far
Show AllActually, Tristam makes some very good points. In fact, people are trashing public employees when they trash their unions.
Conflating firefighters unions with firefighters is not an error in logic. It is sensible, unless you are a Nominalist who does not believe in the existence of categories. But that approach to life is sterile.
If unions do protect the interests of their members, that is good, because it is why they exist. If they do not protect their members' interests (as is the case with "company" unions), they are worthless. Your complaints seem to be addressed to the effective unions - which is a way to trash public employees.
If public employees are not underpaid (as you contend), that is not due to the munificence of politicians or the public; it is due to the efforts of the unions.
When is likeitornot finally going to learn the proper use of an apostrophe?
Apostrophe's are beyond his limited comprehension's.
The apostrophe-mangling wasn't that egregious in previous incarnations, and I'm beginning to wonder if it's deliberately exaggerated or affected-- turning an impediment into a "signature", as indifferent spellers sometimes cope with embarrassment by perversely making a "joke" out of spelling things wrong.
Or maybe it's just early-onset dementia. ;)
Readers out here are chuckling at comments on likeitornot's apostrophegate, and I think yours is the funniest, O.S. Thank's.
Bill in Dubuque
The only pathetic loser around here, as usual, is you. Not only are you simply incapable of using apostrophes, or learning what every school kid learns by the second grade--that plurals don't take an apostrophe--but you can't tame that reactionary impulse to ALWAYS blame teachers, unions, public employees for being greedy, dishonest, and failing to understand their own situation. Only the lecturing likeitornot can understand what others' lives are all about, and deliver his clueless lectures full of grammatical and punctuational errors, in defiance of those teachers who could never teach this idiot anything.
You are so fucked up, man
Public employees in most places, and I assume it's true in Florida as well, have made the following bargain for years: Lower salaries in return for decent pensions and health care benefits. It's been a well know fact that state and local governments have preferred such an arrangement because it delays payment until retirement--a good deal for local and state governments. Now, state and local governments, with the collusion of people with attitudes like yours, are reneging on this bargain and trying to screw the firefighters and other public workers by cheating them of the pensions and health care offered in place of higher wages. So, are you proud of yourself now that you know that you're advocating cheating these workers out of what they've earned at the bargaining table?
Public Service employees had their retirement robbed by things like "contribution holidays", where your employer could skip payment into your benefits. Then when the market crashed, you find they were investing your retirement for you.
http://bit.ly/l5ACPI
Posted by likeitornot...
NOT!
Lickitornot, if you don't like onions, then why don't you forfeit your two week vacation? If you don't like onions, then why don't you forfeit your weekends? If you don't like onions, then why don't you drop your employer-provided healthcare?
You are right, likeitornot - unions are bad, and have nothing to do with the public employees who make up their membership. Not.
So if a public employee is underpaid, or his/her benefits are cut, why then that employee only has to talk to the boss - which just happens to be a politician funded by corporations - in order to make it right. Right? Wrong. Unions exist BECAUSE history has shown employers - especially the government - will fuck over, underpay, and slash benefits for its workers given the opportunity, all in the name of increasing profits and slashing expenses. We wouldn't NEED unions if the government and employers would do the right fucking thing by its workers, instead of only caring about their bottom line, and the bottom lines of their campaign contributors.
Bash the union, you are bashing the union membership.
Like it or not, Jerkowitz, those firefighters would still risk their own lives to enter a burning building to drag your sorry ass out and save it. Those truly brave men and women deserve every bit of their pay and much more, every bit of the benefits they receive and much more, and every dime of pension they are lucky enough to live long enough to enjoy, and much more. So just shut up, ok?
Nice try. But educated people read this page.
"These men and women’s valor can’t be understated." I hope he means "overstated".
The backward fire departments make them wear full bunker gear on a wildland fire, leading to heat exhaustion.
Bunker gear is made for entering burning buildings, not out in the sun all day!
Hey you don't need no Government funded "Socialist tax grabbing" firefighters putting out the Fires.
Fire the lot of them and let the "Free Market" put the fires out.
Excellent observation! How much longer will it be before the police and firefighters are outsourced to a private company, like Blackwater/XE?
It's been proposed. The practice of sending someone a bill if a 911 call is answered is also spreading.
Exactly. This whole campaign by the corporate-funded powers-that-be to demonize "public employees" and slash their benefits and pay, collective-bargaining rights, etc, is going to backfire on them bigtime someday in the near future. When firefighters, nurses, teachers, and waste and sewage employees stop doing their jobs in protest, just watch how fast these corporate whores start backtracking and apologizing. Especially when it is their mansion on fire, or their wife or kids waiting in line for treatment after an accident, or the axle on their Mercedez broken after going over the 50th pothold in a mile. Of course, they can just "privatize" all such jobs so that never happens - which is what they are trying to do - and make out like bandits on the stock they own of the corporations who take over such jobs, while the rest of us non-Elites can't afford the bills for the same services.
This is a great article by Pierre Tristam focusing on the various disconnects all around. One more disconnect I would mention is in the news coverage. Fires and floods are mentioned many times AFTER some totally pointless news story, only to quickly move on to another pointless item.
The "local disconnect" of people in neighboring areas NOT giving a damn is telling! This really is the most fundamental problem of all: that people seem to care ONLY when something affects them directly and immediately and until then, continue on with their various mindless pursuits.
Thank you Alcyon. Public workers are social parasites UNTIL somebody's personal home is in danger. It is then that nothing is too good for the heroes. No, nothing is too good for them UNTIL the crisis is over. Then they can get lost. They make too much money anyway. They get too many benefits. They are the reason that the National Debt is out of control.
Do they expect to be paid for drinking coffee and cleaning up the fire house? What? Another fire is in progress? Well, that's why we have the fire department, and they had damned well be trained, know what they are doing, and be willing to die for the public good.
I always love to hear the gripes about Public Employees and how much the make. Well here is some news for you. A lot of Public Employees make under $50,000.00 a year and way under that.
As far as bad mouthing Firemen and Women and EMT Guys and Gals. If you are saved by one of these folks you will sing a different song.
A lot of my co-workers work really hard and receive no thanks.
As far as the National Debt goes ask your Politicians why plants closed and jobs went to China. It has nothing to do with benefits.
Hero's to some and bums to others but when you need these folks you better hope they show up.
I am a retired firefighter from the Bay Area with 25 years of service. When I joined the fire department, you worked 24 on / 24 off for fourteen days, then you got a day off and the cycle was repeated. For this, we received around $400 to 500 a month. You were required to live in the city, and the fire chief and his brother owned most of the rundown housing that we could afford. Every year or so, the city voted a raise in pay of about $10. The chief and his brother raised the rents by $10.
If you had a dirty job to do, like clean out your attic, or dig a drainage ditch, you could hire an off duty fireman, they work for peanuts.
When the IAFF started to organize in the county, the fire chiefs were sitting outside in their cars taking names. Many were fired for talking to a union representative. My buddy and I are charter members of Local 1775, IAFF.
I've always found it interesting that the people who gripe the most about firefighters being lazy tax-eaters are the same ones who want to know why you weren't there faster when they need you. I've also noticed that none of them are willing to enter a burning building and drag somebody out. They have no desire to work in the mess of a major traffic accident, fighting to save lives and minimize injury, sometimes battling a fire in the wreckage at the same time.
There are very few departments left where the firefighters sit around and play cards until the alarm goes off. They spend the day training, doing inspections, keeping up the equipment, keeping the firehouse and the engines clean. In the evening after supper, some are detailed to do night inspections of public places such as bars and restaurants to see that the exits are not blocked and the place is not overcrowded. There are night drills, and then, night and day there are medical calls, fires large and small, auto accidents, lockouts, and endless paperwork to record all this.
Most firefighters attend college in their off-duty hours as the minimum requirement to advance is an AS degree in Fire Science. Then there are oil fire schools, structural fire schools, aircraft fire schools, EMT training, Paramedic training, etc.
I listened to a disk jockey on the radio read an add for a test for firefighters in San Francisco. When he finished the ad, he said, "$1,100 a month is a lot of money to sit around and play checkers. Of course it ain't half enough to get me to go into a burning building."
I have fought forest fires and big brush fires. You spend days on the fire line, grabbing a nap when you can, hoping somebody will come by with a sandwich and some water. The smoke is so thick you can hardly see, or breathe. You cut and chop, you dig trenches, you work for hours, then see the fire jump right over your work and you and your crew hightail it to keep from being encircled and cooked.
There are times when you have to bring a charred body, sometimes a buddy, out of the chaos. You finally get a short break and lie down on a lawn to rest and are immediately unconscious, only to be awakened again minutes or perhaps an hour or so later. "C'mon, let's hit it, there's a breakout in sector (X) and you are back in it. This goes on for days, sometimes weeks before either the fire is brought under control, or they get enough firefighters brought in from other states to get you some relief.
"Yeah, put the hammer down on these greedy tax-eaters, what the hell do they do for their pay?"
Great story, minitrue.
"Quit trashing the unions that keep them strong. Quit voting for clueless lawmakers who trash either. And put your money where your hero-worship is for a change next time you think a tax cut is more important than paying for the men and women saving your property and your skin."
The ultimate irony is that although only conservatives trash unions, many working class people call themselves conservatives and vote for the worst of them.
Thank you minitrue for sharing your experience.
Don't you get it, Pierre? In the new Florida, which is now run by deluded ideologues who think Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs, spending tax money on crucial public employees is considered wasteful, while giving away billions of those same tax dollars to big corporations -- which invariably take the money and run without increasing their hiring -- is considered "creating jobs."
It's all part of the dumbing down of our society and the total abdication by conservative politicians of reason and decency in government. And we -- America's middle and working classes -- have only ourselves to blame for this trend. For too long we dozed and stayed away from the voting booth, allowing the gangster elements of modern conservatism to seize control of the Republican Party. Now it's too late and the goose-stepping has begun in earnest, although it's disguised as "faith-based" and "fiscally conservative" governance. America's future is likely to get much more oppressive and violent before it gets any better.
Of course Ricky isn't saying a word, the fires haven't reached The Villages yet.
Pierre, when are you coming back to the DB News-Journal?
We are a capitalist species? Goddamn, where did I put all my capital?
Why are most first responders conservative? They actually support the same politicians that cut their wages and benefits.
It's like the right to work states not allowing unions. They have the poorest standard of living and lowest taxes. They constantly vote against their own self interest...I don't get it.
It's a continuing race to the bottom....things used to work just fine when taxes were higher.
"Cheer up!" he said, "Things could be worse."
So I cheered up.
And sure enough, things got worse.
Dude, this disconnect you just discovered was evident back in 2001. Remember all those firefighter and police heroes on 9/11? They were lazy unionized government employees on 9/10.
"Dude, this disconnect you just discovered was evident back in 2001. Remember all those firefighter and police heroes on 9/11? They were lazy unionized government employees on 9/10."
And when the smoke had cleared and the bodies were buried, we went right back to 9/10. We are despised until needed.
That's always the case with the indispensable; they are resented for their necessity.
Garrison Keillor read these words like a poem on his "Prairie Home Companion."
I'm just now learning it is a song:
*
The Bravest
Words and Music by Tom Paxton
The first plane hit the other tower, right after I came in. It left a firey, gaping hole where offices had been. We stood and watched in horror, as we saw the first ones fall, Then someone yelled "Get out, get out! They're trying to kill us all!"
I grabbed the pictures from my desk and joined the flight for life. With every step I called the names of my children and my wife, And then we heard them coming up, from several floors below, A crowd of firefighters with their heavy gear in tow
Now every time I try to sleep, I'm haunted by the sound Of firemen pounding up the stairs, while we were running down.
And when we met them on the stairs, they said we were too slow. "Get out, get out!" they yelled at us, "The whole thing's gonna go!" They didn't have to tell us twice, we'd seen the world on fire. We kept on running down the stairs, while they kept climbing higher.
Now every time I try to sleep, I'm haunted by the sound Of firemen pounding up the stairs, while we were running down.
Thank God we made it to the street; we ran through ash and smoke. I did not know which way to run; I thought that I would choke. A fireman took me by the arm and pointed me uptown, Then "Christ!" I heard him whisper, as the tower came crashing down.
So now I go to funerals for men I never knew; The pipers play "Amazing Grace", as the coffins come in view. They must have seen it coming as they turned to face the fire. They sent us down to safety, then they kept on climbing higher.
Now every time I try to sleep, I'm haunted by the sound Of firemen pounding up the stairs, while we were running down. Of firemen pounding up the stairs, while we were running down.