NRC broken windows
I happen to like this model of controlling a complex system:
A new design for healthcare delivery
By Steven J. Spear and Donald M. Berwick
November 23, 2007
Excerpts of speech concerning “broken windows” of NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein:
"Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on the State of the Nuclear Renaissance"
INPO Atlanta, GA
November 15, 2007
“First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law.
It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.’
If the public believes that standards at nuclear plants are not being enforced, it leads to an erosion of public confidence in the whole nuclear energy industry. On the other hand, when industry does its job, it leads to public confidence in nuclear power more broadly—which lends credence to the work of the NRC. And when we, in turn, hold the utilities to a high standard of safety and security, it enhances confidence in the job you are doing."
I guess I have troubles with the phrase… "if the public believes”…how does the public know, if the regulators see events through a ideological lens. How do we know the NRC is holding the utilities to high standards…who over sees the overseers?
The NRC and nuclear industry should fund a seminar about NYC'S broken windows…invite a group of experts to explain it and the results. How about seeing broken windows through the eyes of a black man and through the eyes of the mentally ill? They should think of broken windows and inner city disorder as a complex problem. We all should get an idea of what’s true with this metaphor…and what is an illusion. I happen to think this is a great case study issue…and it would help the NRC and nuclear industry with helping them understand cause and effect in a complex system….and inaccurate political rhetoric. A independent regulator should be above inaccurate political hyperbole.
It is so astonishing…NRC commissioner Klein…is recklessly playing with a road-side cultural and racial IED bomb with talking about the “broken windows” theory of causes with problems and incidences. Effectively, he knowingly or unknowingly was speaking in racial code or class warfare words…to a group of white men of INPO. I am not sure he has a full understanding about the undertones…but as a US governmental official…he should have fully understood the terms of these code words. He should have had somebody on his staff who understands how this phrase was politically developed. I hope he doesn’t look at all nuclear plant problems…problems across many plants…in such simplistic ideological and distorted political terms. Can you imagine the nuclear meltdown of the Renaissance being implemented exclusively though the ideological lens of race and class?
I like to know what the racial and gender percentage is of INPO with this private nuclear organization. INPO is a southern based organization with their headquarters located in Atlanta Georgia. Is he telling the nuclear executive’s to “rule out” those nuclear minority employees…as the means to remove the heat from the whites? Whom are the minorities, those that don’t have your exclusive special ideology of true belief…that cover-up of the magnitude of disorder in the nuclear industry. Basically giving tickets and arresting vagrants in the broken windows theory (panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed)…is that how Klein sees nuclear industry with increasing problems through the lens of a violations of rule or code? What is going on below the rules or equipment breakdowns…why is bureaucracy allowing this? Is he normalizing the problems in the nuclear industry…where he should be thinking this disorder is the beginning of the death rattle of the Renaissance. One wonders if the events are so numerous…that these executives only has the time to digest these problems through a interpretation of a rule violation?
Is Palo Verde and Vermont Yankee there“panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed"…who is their corporate vagrants' and graffiti artist? I have issues of when we see disorder…do we punish the lower class with legal troubles…or do we see the complexity of the whole system? Do we have a mostly complete model of the component interactions in our heads before we began to correct complex system problems? Is our operative mental model…is it simplified in order to blame one class of people... then to shield blame from another group of people? I have real issues with this “broken window” theory, as Klein has extraordinarily simplified with what is causing the troubles with the inner city problems. His conclusion of lower levels of crime as a result of the ideological "broken windows" is absolutely disconnected from the results of lower levels of crime.
Doesn’t it bother people that nuclear plant profits are the only source that is powering corporate profits? If nuclear profits are so important for the bottom line of the whole corporation…are they spending enough money to keep the plants away from small troubles relative to their importance for the organization? If the nuke’s are so important for keeping corporate ship from sinking…does that equate to having to keep the plant’s connected to the grid without maintenance?
“Perception lead to reality” is a mind blower to me….does he mean that if we believe that minor law violations of the lowest class people is at the root of the problems with the disorder of our nation. Does he mean if we believe his (NRC) and nuclear industry disclosed perception of industry’s problems…everyone would internalized it…our perceptions will become the public reality independent of the real evidence and facts? Is the Reactor Oversight Program (ROP) the illusion created “perception”…with the deeper truths hidden underneath it? Obliviously “Perception leads to reality” is a class code word/phrase…I like to understand more deeply what this means through the lens of his class of people. What is the NRC’s definition of “perception leads to reality” and how did our culture come up with this phrase…what does it really means? Is he saying the current problems in the industry aren’t significant…is he talking about a type of over confidence or willful blindness…in the face of the nuclear Renaissance. Are they as enlightened as the Renaissance implies?
Everyone who has studied the nuclear industry over a number years understands there always has been a periodicity (3 to 5 years) with large reactor accidents and corruption charges against the industry….are we at the next incipient stage of the new accident that wrecks once again the credibility of the nuclear industry? Are we at a particularly critical time with shortages and high cost of energy, we are at war and a president has lost his popularity, both the House and Senate are controlled by the democrats…the next presidential election may go democrat…would a TMI or Davis Besse style accident have a bigger political outcome than past accidents?
In the “broken windows metaphor”, whom are the “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed” in the nuclear industry…who are the self righteous corrupt police (Keric) managers and political executives with Gucci shoes making deals with the mafia? Who is telling the truth and who is creating a political illusion? Are the nuclear “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed”….the lower level plant operators, maintenance people and troubled NRC inspectors. Is he saying, if you only finger these low level nuclear malingers with simple rules and code violations the whole industry will correct itself? Is he telling the nuclear executive’s to come up with a political scape goat…an illusory tool as Giuliani’s white broken windows …where we absolved the high level executives and regulators with a fancy social theory …and we put the mentally ill in prison? Don’t we remember prior to 9/11 Giuliani’s private life and his political life was in tatters...the whole broken windows theory was in disrespect because of the way he managed his being a mayor?
The broken windows theory shows absolutely no correlation with the reduction crime in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Many cities including San Francisco showed even lower reductions in crime than New York City in the same timeframe…. with SF having no broken windows theory. Basically the crime rate of the US population has been declining since the 1990…..the implementation of the broken windows occurred during a reduction of crime rates. “Unlocking America: Why and How to reduce America’s Prison population”…basically shows us the increasing jail population had nothing to do with the crime rates…an increase or decline.
There is no doubt in my mind that Giuliani was playing the poor, racial polarization and unjustified crime wave illusion as a mean to polarize the population against each other in his mayoral election campaign of NYC. It was profoundly undemocratic. The Klein “broken windows metaphor” only brings to the nuclear table nothing but confusion and disorganization with understanding what’s wrong in the industry. If our community is the whole nation…how can we blame one class of people for the chaos cause by us all? How come we haven’t figured out law violations for the police and political managers who allowed increasing chaos from our troubled population. It is a discredited narrow finger pointing conservative republican ideological and political tool. Giuliani/Keric’s broken windows class metaphor has no place being within an independent federal regulator’s speech concerning nuclear safety. Here is the lie:
City Homicides Still Dropping, to Under 500
By AL BAKER
Published: November 23, 2007
“The low number of killings by strangers belies the common imagery that New Yorkers are vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or die in robberies that turn fatal.”
And there is a disgusting hint of race baiting in a white organization…real or unintentional. There is just no question that “broken windows” and the southern republican strategy is an ideological code word of winning elections while dehumanizing large groups of people. Giuliani aim was to create fear in the white minds about rising black and inner city crime in order to push the white’s into voting. It did not express a profound truth. There is no doubt in my mind that mayor Giuliani with the “broken windows” social theory was playing the great white Republican southern strategy of president Nixon and Reagan in New York City. He was picking on the littlest and most troubled population of people…creating a political illusion of threatening crime and disorganization…in order to create fear in the white population and get them to vote Republican. You put people into jail and give them police tickets as the means to gain political office…white people get into political office and black people go to jail …you don’t get down to the factors that demoralized groups of people. Who does the metaphor represent for the black and mentally disturbed people in the current nuclear industry…who is going to get fingered with the chaos in the industry today?
What would be the more appropriate non class and non race based term that we can use instead of “broken windows…because I believe our upper and privilege class of people is creating magnitudes more disorder than our disadvantaged people. Here we sit sub prime mess…$500 billion at last count…I’d say that is a lot more chaos than what the poor and low level criminals have done. The hopeless poor break widows and litter…while rich breaks bank's such as Citigroup and dries up liquidity for us all.
Op-Ed Columnist
Republicans and Race
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 19, 2007
Excerpts:
The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.
And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization.
True, he never used explicit racial rhetoric. Neither did Richard Nixon. As Thomas and Mary Edsall put it in their classic 1991 book, “Chain Reaction: The impact of race, rights and taxes on American politics,” “Reagan paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities without reference to race — a conservative politics that had the effect of polarizing the electorate along racial lines.”
You can’t get away from the conservative Bush people has turned out to be one of the most undemocratic administration in the history of this country. It certainly has turned into an administration that has become immensely disliked across both the American public and the Republicans themselves. The ethic’s of the NEI, INPO and the whole nuclear industry has to be questioned with cleaving to the undemocratic Bush people so closely.
I have spoken in the past…and I will say it clearly again…the nuclear industry has shown their true colors with backing this undemocratic and untransparent administration. This is so ethically dysfunctional…this ranks up there as the nuclear industy’s greatest failure…bigger than the early days of the 1960 and 1970’s. They have shot themselves in the foot and the executives in the industry has poorly served their employees, the utilities and the American people….long term this is going to be horrendous. I don’t think these guys know what ethic’s means…except following a corrupt untransparant leader. Remember, this whole Renaissance has been backed by this failed Republican ideology….its based on having an extreme Republican administration for a far as the eyes can see. What would the industry…past and future…look like through an extreme reactionary liberal and the democrat’s lens? You see how fragile the utility executives have made this?
That’s when we, and the nuclear industry are going to regret their Bush’s years.
Its interesting thinking what the NRC has become…nuclear power is so politically powerful…it’s become a protection system for both the Republicans and the Democrats. The politician’s are so afraid a nuclear event will taint their administration and media cycle.
All I can say is a system who demands this amount of protection…un-transparency…is a danger to everyone in the USA. Opaque is dangerous and transparent is safe.
Thanks,
mike
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