By now, everyone has heard about the Flint Water Crisis. It has made national news via the main stream media, social media and most recently through channels that always signal public outrage, through celebrity activism. From Presidential candidates to famous “A” list celebrities, to professional sports figures, the outrage over the poisoning of a US city by it’s state government has reached epic proportions. However, the FWC is just the result of a number of things that happened in Michigan since 2011.
In November, 2010, the voters in Michigan cast their votes for Governor. They voted for former Battle Creek resident and Ann Arbor venture capitalist, Republican Rick Snyder. He defeated the Democratic challenger Virg Bernero, who at that time was the mayor of Lansing, Michigan. Since then, Snyder and the republican controlled state legislature have systematically implemented their plan to eliminate democracy in Michigan and install their version of the modern day oligarchy. But it isn’t totally their fault. Oh no, no, no. The Michigan voters are clearly to blame.
People are easily manipulated. It’s not hard to fall into the traps of political rhetoric and shiny promises. Snyder offered a business background and a promise of jobs to a state that housed one of the hardest hit industries during the great recession, the auto industry. The great people of Michigan were starving, literally, for jobs, higher wages, reduced unemployment and an economic recovery that would help their state pull it’s head above water. So, it was easy for them to buy into the promises of a former business man who coined himself as “one tough nerd”. People didn’t buy the rhetoric (be it rational or not) from Snyder’s democratic challenger, Virg Bernero, especially after they placed a lot of the blame for their shrinking middle class on outgoing democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm. In hindsight, the voters of Michigan made a mistake.
In late 2012, the governor and his administration tried to push through their plan for state takeover called PA 4. It essentially gave them the power to systematically take over Michigan cities, communities and school districts by appointing state controlled emergency managers. Once appointed to a city, all elected officials of that city would be stripped of their power to control their local government and that power would be turned over to the EM that would be appointed by Snyder. In fact, the governor could essentially appoint an EM to any city that had any evidence of financial distress. The misconception is that the whole city had to be in financial distress. Not true! In fact, any part of the city’s financial dealings could trigger an appointment by Snyder. If the city was totally solvent, but for one reason or another they were late on a payment to the state, the governor then had the ability to appoint his EM to take over said city.
This controversial power grab, known as PA 4, was put up for referendum on the Nov 2012 ballot and was voted down by the people, thus not allowing Snyder to have this power. Bravo to the voters of Michigan! Uh, what’s that? Wait a minute! In December 2012, just six weeks after the voters of Michigan spoke, Snyder and his cronies pushed new legislation through the lame duck session called PA 436. This bill was almost an exact duplicate of PA 4 except for the fact that the lawmakers attached an appropriations measure to the bill making it basically repeal proof. Essentially, Snyder and his regime gave themselves the power they were after originally and made it so the people, the voters of Michigan, could never vote it out. That is anti-democracy at it’s worst.
Following the passage of this dictatorial legislation, Snyder and his republican legislature became aggressive at their plan to inflict their brand of governing in every town, city, community and school district that they saw fit. Flint, Detroit, Ecorse, Benton Harbor, Pontiac, etc. The thing to remember is that in all of these places, the voice of their citizens was thrown to the wayside and the power of elected officials was stripped and replaced by the governor and his appointed EM. How is this democracy?
Later that year, Snyder helped push anti-union legislation through the state legislature and eventually signed the bill making Michigan the 24th state to become a Right To Work state. Although Snyder and his corporate donors say this law would spur growth, evidence showed that it was just another power grab to reduce the amount of money that unions were able to contribute to democrat candidates. There is certainly no evidence that RTW laws grow the incomes and benefits of the working and middle classes. The law is designed to reduce union membership, financially hamper unions, reduce the union's ability to collectively bargain, decrease regulations and red tape on businesses and increase corporate profits. All the while, the workforce does not receive any additional ability to work, no new rights that lead to employment, etc. What they do get is lower wages, lesser benefits and more unsafe working conditions. The question here is exactly who benefits from this law?
The unions, and a lot of angry citizens in Michigan filed a lawsuit to repeal the RTW law. The citizens filed a petition to recall the governor himself. Although there is still probably some pending legislation right now on the RTW law and it's unconstitutionality, it still stands. Snyder also dodged the recall effort and did not leave office.
Since his inauguration, Snyder has had a thing for the public school system in Michigan. He has gone all in on an attempt to transform Michigan’s public school system into a state full of for profit charter schools. In 2012, a Snyder appointed EM waltzed into the financially troubled Muskegon Heights school district and immediately dissolved it. Yes, dissolved it. Not only that, he laid off every school employee as well. they then brought in a New York based for-profit charter school management company named Mosaica. They were given a five year contract to take over and rebuild that struggling school district into a profit making cash register. After only two years, Mosaica packed their bags and skipped town, leaving the children of Muskegon Heights out in the cold, educationally speaking.
Fast forward to 2014, Snyder faced a weak democrat challenger and was subsequently re-elected for his second term. To him, this was further reinforcement to accelerate his takeover of Michigan. In 2015 Snyder took steps to insulate himself and his administration from the distraction of having to answer to the people. He has taken full advantage of his exemption from Michigan’s Freedom Of Information Act, which allows citizens to request records from public officials. Michigan is one of just a couple states that exempts the governor’s office from having to adhere to the FOIA law.
Most recently, Snyder and his republican legislature have gone after the citizen’s voting rights. HB 4724 was signed into law in early 2016. It eliminates straight ticket voting, which essentially is designed to increase the voter’s time in the voting booth. This will cause massive backups and lines at the polls in a state that already experiences low voter turnout due to discouraged and disenfranchised voters. This bill will also severely limit the ability to utilize the state’s absentee voting option. To top it all off, a $5 million dollar appropriation was attached to this bill thus making it repeal proof. Yes, that means the voters will never have a say on this law.
A few days later, Snyder signed PA 269 into law. This law was designed to increase the already exorbitant amount of money that flows from corporations and PACs into the campaigns of political candidates in Michigan. In fact it doubled the amount of money to $136,000. Why? don’t forget, politicians are indebted to their constituents. And in today’s modern politics, high level donors are considered the constituents. Us normal voters are just uneducated obedient workers who often end up as political collateral damage. This new law also makes it illegal for public officials to discuss, inform and educate the voters on ballot proposals during the “dead period” which starts 60 days before the scheduled vote on election day. Obviously, this is an attempt to keep the voting populace uninformed and ignorant to the issues being voted on. Just another tactic to disenfranchise and discourage the voters in Michigan.
Now on to Flint. No matter how you slice this up, the overwhelming facts point directly to the poisoning of a Michigan city by it’s governor and his administration. On November 29, 2011, Flint fell under the control of an emergency manager. In April of 2013, then EM Ed Kurtz performs his pledged duty to save the state money by foregoing renewing the contract with Detroit to continue receiving their clean drinking water. After all, how else would the state pay for the $2 Billion dollars of tax cuts and corporate welfare giveaways to Snyder’s wealthy friends and campaign donors? In making this change away from Detroit water, Flint was essentially forced to now obtain it’s drinking water from the Flint river in late April of 2014. As early as June 2014, residents of Flint begin to complain about health issues, the smell, taste and color of the water. In August of 14, the water tested positive for E-coli, as well as other harmful pathogens. In the same month, the General Motors plant stopped using the Flint river water due to extreme corrosion and mechanical problems.
Has anyone questioned yet whether any news of this oncoming water disaster has made it’s way to the Governor’s desk yet? One of the biggest questions in this whole debacle is when exactly did the governor and his administration know about this problem. Are we going to buy his “play dumb” excuses to why his response to this disaster is so slow?
In January 2015, the Michigan Department Of Environmental Quality found flint to be in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Just four days later, Flint Mayor Dayne Walling states to the public that the drinking water in Flint is safe to drink. Six days after that, the Flint city council (remember, the elected officials have zero power due to the installation of the EM) asked to be switched back to Detroit water. New EM, Darnell Earley refuses. Two days later, Earley leaves Flint to take over and destroy Detroit Public Schools. He is replaced by Jerry Ambrose. In Febuary 2015, Flint residents start to see tests of severely elevated lead levels reaching 7 times the EPA’s upper limit of acceptable lead content in drinking water. After questioning by the EPA, the state of Michigan responds that Flint is treating it’s water with it’s “optimized corrosion control plan”. However, this was a lie. Flint was not treating it’s water with any type of corrosion control chemicals which would have made the drinking water safe.
In April 2015, flint residents start to learn that their children have lead poisoning. This is in fact, irreversible. April 29, the EM was removed from Flint. In June, leaked emails and memos emerge showing that the EPA was concerned with Flints toxic levels of lead contaminated water. As residents react to this news, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality makes a public statement instructing the residents of Flint to relax.
“Anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax. It does not look like there is any broad problem with the water supply freeing up lead as it goes to homes.” ~ Brad Wurfel, Spokesman for the Michigan Department Of Environmental Quality
On August 20, the state decides a Flint city report on lead content in the drinking water in order to drop the levels below the federal action level. In September 2015, Virginia Tech University enters the picture and finds extremely elevated levels of lead in the Flint drinking water in over 300 homes. Their samples find that some homes contained lead levels 880 times the high limit according to the EPA. To put that in perspective, that is 3 times the level required to be considered hazardous waste. September 30, Snyder makes a public statement that mistakes were made in the switch to the Flint river water.
In October, the state doubles down on their claim that they properly treated the Flint river water to combat corrosion. This was found to be completely false. The state starts to provide water filters for the residents of Flint. On October 16, the decision is made to switch back to Detroit water. However, the damage has already been done. In November, the residents of Flint file a class action lawsuit against the State of Michigan. Snyder has since hired two high profile PR firms. What can a PR firm do to help the citizens of Flint obtain clean drinking water? Absolutely nothing. It’s an obvious attempt by Snyder to help him spin his way out of the bad light and into the clear for his role in the poisoning of a city. It is now February 1, 2016 and not one pipe has been replaced in the city of Flint.
Who is to blame for all of this? YOU! The voting electorate is to blame. This governor has served two terms, survived a recall election and systematically screwed the people of Michigan. Most recently, he poisoned a city of over 100,000 people. He did this on our watch. We let him do it. Why? Why is this happening all over the country? In state after state, people have cast their votes not for reasonable governing and common sense politicians, but for the people promising freedom and backhanded prosperity. People have bought in to the fear mongering in regards to their guns, gays, religion, and money. Fear mongering that always comes from the republican party and their PR machines on TV, radio and the internet. My biggest fear is, Flint, Michigan cold have been my town. It could have been my children who have irreversible lead poisoning. It could be my wife that has developed cancer due to the toxic drinking water.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t have to let it be this way. All we have to do is care a little bit, get educated on the issues, take an interest and vote. Otherwise, it may be your children who get poisoned next.
