by dohboi » Wed 17 Feb 2016, 14:13:19
More here on the general subject:
"Thirsty for Democracy: The Poisoning of an American City": Special Report on Flint's Water Crisis
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n 2014, an unelected emergency manager appointed by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder switched the source of the city’s drinking water from the Detroit system, which they’d been using for half a century, to the corrosive Flint River.
Soon, residents were complaining about discolored and foul-smelling water, which was plagued by a host of problems. First, the water was infested with bacteria. Then it had cancerous chemicals called trihalomethanes, or TTHMs. A deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, which is caused by a water-borne bacteria, spread throughout the city...
...quietly, underground, the Flint River water was corroding the city’s aging pipes, poisoning the drinking water with lead, which can cause permanent developmental delays and neurological impairment, especially in children.
...FBI has opened an investigation, and a special counsel for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office has announced top officials, including Governor Rick Snyder, could face criminal charges, including manslaughter...
Hmmm...FBI...Last time I checked, those guys are kinda FEDERAL, so it looks like, in spite of the whining and mewling and puking of various zealots around here, this has indeed and unquestionably become a federal issue.
And just so you don't miss the fact that this is all part of a completely out of control pathological privativize-abso-f'n-lutely-everything ideology:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n 2011, this governor, Governor Snyder, signed into law a law called the emergency manager law. It enabled the governor to send an emergency manager, under the guise of being fiscally responsible, to cities and school districts that they deemed financially in fiscal crisis.
It just so happened most of these places were majority African-American cities.
Privatizing services and selling off assets, that’s their main purpose. Well, here in Flint, they’ve privatized our garbage collection. They’ve sold off our parks...
And as we can see, the real root of the privatize-all ideology is clearly just a means to continue to wage war on the poorest and most vulnerable, and of course, on Blacks.