How many times have we heard from our elected officials, that their number one priority is protecting Americans? Well, gee, call me confused, because I do not believe that what is happening in Flint, is in any way, protecting the people. Our government is failing to live up to it's basic, fundamental principle, to “provide for the general welfare of the people”. Poisoning tens of thousands of people is NOT providing for the general welfare of the people, it is down right criminal negligence.
It's been two years and the water in Flint is still not safe. The president and the governor have both declared states of emergency, free filters and bottled water are available, and the water system has been switched back to Lake Huron, but much of the damage has already been done to the people, and the water in Flint is still not safe.
While the “state” of emergency is in effect, at least until August, there has been very little done to remedy the situation, not to mention the personal and public harm that has already befallen on the residents in Flint. 11 People have died of legionaries disease and a woman, Nakiya Wakes, had a miscarriage of twins. Special assistance for children exposed to lead poisoning cuts off at six years old, she found out when her son turned seven. Her son has already been poisoned with high levels of lead, she has had a miscarriage of her twins, but no more assistance is forth coming. While testing of the water has shown improvement, high levels of lead still is leaching into residents tap water. Wakes tap water still shows high levels of lead and other contaminates.
I would speculate that until all the lead in the plumbing systems with in the city of Flint is removed and replaced, lead levels will remain high for quite some time. I'm not sure I would ever be able to trust my water again. The lead is still there in the pipes. Which means, another bad decision by another emergency manager, or some other dictate, or another person(s) falsifying test reports, could poison tens of thousands of people, all over again.
Fundamentally, as a society, we fucked up by constructing lead plumbing systems in the first place. We (humans) have known since the time of Augustus, that lead is bad for human consumption. (penelope.uchicago.edu/...) However I can only speculate as to how many in America at the time, had access to the writings of Vitruvius (www.jstor.org/...) to know and understand that it's better to avoid using lead with water systems.
We have known for a long time that lead is a poison on the human body, yet we as a society have only implemented “mitigation” plans, rather than “elimination” plans to rid our society of this toxic element that is so widely prevalent. Not only in our plumbing systems, but just as importantly, is the paint on our walls in the homes and businesses built before 1980, somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million homes.
The response from our local, state and federal government has been lackluster at best, down right criminal at worst, but more importantly, it displays a much deeper, fundamental problem within our society, and especially those that work in our government. What is the purpose and responsibility of our government?
Sure we all have ideas and opinions about what is the purpose and responsibility of our government, but what plays out in reality is usually quite different. The bankruptcy of Detroit and the poisoning of the people of Flint, are two glaring examples of a society run amok by the utter confusion of what it means “to provide for the general welfare of the people”.
Local, state and federal agencies all over the US are cutting services, yet taxes, fees and fines keep rising. We pay more but get less. Heck, Flint has the highest water rates in the nation, and have been billed for the water that poisoned them. How is that for a double whammy.
Stop for a moment and think about that, get lead poisoning and then get billed for it with the highest water rate in the nation. How would that make you feel? If that doesn't piss you off think about this, an investigation by USATODAY found that there are over 2,000 water systems across America that are reporting higher lead levels, and other contaminates in their water systems, than Flint does.
But our fellow citizens in Flint were told, specifically by their local, state and federal agencies, that there wasn't a problem with their water, even though Flint residents brought in bottles and jars full of brown, rusty, smelly water as proof, not to mention the physical rashes and abrasions on peoples bodies. You can find a good time line of significant events here: (cdn.knightlab.com/...)
Reviewing the time line makes me sick. The failure at all level of their governments and agencies is nothing short of criminal in my book.
As the Washingtonpost Reports:
“Nobody was owning the problem, not the [state Department of Environmental Quality], not the EPA, not the governor’s office,” said Kary L. Moss, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which revealed that damning passages had been removed from a government specialist’s report on Flint’s water contamination.
The debacle ranks among the worst on numbers alone, said Paul Mohai, who studies environmental-justice issues at the University of Michigan. With a community of 100,000 people, largely poor and minority, unable to drink from their taps, Flint is “one of the biggest environmental justice disasters I know” — and perhaps unprecedented, Mohai said Friday.
How can we as citizen believe our government when they routinely lie to us ,and it winds up killing people? Oh, it was a mistake to switch the water systems, we failed to follow through and falsified reports and people died and were poisoned. But only 3 low level functionaries have been charged, but no one is being held accountable for the deaths, and the long term medical costs, not to mention the infrastructure that needs immediate replacement, so as to avoid it ever happening again.
More from the Washingtonpost:
“People have realized they’ve been lied to, and EPA knew about this, and the state knew about this,” said Virginia Tech engineering professor Marc Edwards, a national authority on municipal water quality whose tests exposed the extent of Flint’s lead contamination. “What you really have as it spun out of control is a total loss of trust in government, which failed [residents] miserably. They don’t believe a word that anyone tells them.”
Do I not have a right, as a citizen, that when I ask questions of my government, be it local, state or federal level, to expect honesty? Are our government personnel allowed to lie to us? And people wonder why I'm so cynical. Gee, after the illegal invasion of Iraq, I don't understand how anyone can take our government or media seriously any more. The current occupant in the WH has lied his ass off time and time again.
The only real way we can really to insure it never happens again, is to fucking replace all the lead plumbing, period. We can no longer count on our government nor the so called business community. They only respond if it's in their best interests to do so, that is, if they can profit from it some how. Government services after all cost money and in today's government, saving a few dollars is more important that saving peoples lives.
While our governments (local, state and federal) demand personal and individual responsibility, like work requirement for receiving government benefits, but, where is the professional integrity, responsibility and accountability of the individuals that hold a government position, elected or otherwise? Citizens have to prove their personal responsibilities to our government agencies, but where is that same responsibility to the people?
What happened in Flint was a bipartisan affair, From the VoiceOfDetroit:
The mass lead poisoning of the people of Flint, Michigan, a cold-blooded act of domestic terrorism, was contrived for the profit of the Wall Street bond market, corporations and politicians by both Republicans and Democrats with their own agendas
Snip
No politician has expressed any intention of locking Snyder and cronies up for life without parole, the only sentence appropriate under Michigan law, or of providing the billions of dollars necessary to rebuild not only Flint’s water infrastructure, but the city itself, devastated for decades by its abandonment by General Motors and other corporations.
In the most cynically exploitative campaign move so far, Clinton just published the video below. It calls for donations to a Flint non-profit, rather than pledging billions from the U.S. Treasury to save Flint, just as the U.S. Treasury bailed out General Motors, which left Flint, taking with it 72,000 jobs.
General Motors got bailed out during the financial crisis. Why? Normally, when businesses makes bad decisions and it wrecks their business, do they usually go bankrupt and cease to exist? Sure GM employed tens of thousand of people and we were hemorrhaging hundreds of thousand of jobs, but fundamentally, why? Just to save jobs for business that had made bad business decisions? While the government has recouped it's “investment” in GM, jobs were still lost and new two tier wage system implemented, retirees pensions and healthcare benefits were cut, and GM moved more operations off shore or closed down plants all together.
But Flint has about 100,000 citizens and it's been poisoned by their own government officials, in order to save money building another water line that wasn't needed in the first place. WTF would happen, if a terrorist threaten to use a biological weapon and poison the water supplies of one of our cities? How many retired generals would be on TV calling for mass killings? (youtu.be/...)
Where is the call to mobilize for a mass construction project to fix the lead plumbing systems to insure the residents in Flint are never poisoned by their water system again?
Both democratic party candidates have offered little of tangible solutions and thus, in my view, put a big black eye on both of them, and the party it's self! Where are the leaders of the party? Why are they not camped out in Flint and demanding on national TV, or on every media medium available, a proper response from their governments?
This is not a problem created by the citizens of Flint, and should have to be fixed by them either. Their local, state and federal governments OWE them, BIG TIME! Top level officials all around should at least lose their jobs, if not sentenced to lengthy prison terms, and be bared (for life) from any local, state or federal government position, elected or otherwise (contractor status included).
As filthy rich as the Clinton's are, not to mention they have a charity foundation worth billions, where is their $10 million donation, not to mention the checks from the uber wealthy benefactors, contributing millions and millions to Mrs. Clinton presidential campaign?
Personally I think Senator Sander (and Mrs. Clinton) missed a historic opportunity to essentially keep their campaigns in Flint, until they generated a sufficient state and or federal response. Use their combined national voices to generate tremendous public outrage and pressure at both the state and federal levels. It would have been an opportunity to high light how Wall Street figures into Flint's water crisis, by issuing the bonds and interest rate swaps and other “complex” financial instruments, that generate huge management fee, large penalties and are essentially designed to fail, to insure Wall Street banks make money no matter what.
From the VoiceOfDetroit:
“Entering a market where local governments across Michigan faced heightened penalties, the authorities sold the bonds to more than 30 investors and achieved borrowing costs below projections,” the narrator said. “The deal paves the way for the County to trade in annual rate increases of about 11.5 percent for ones closer to five.”
The presentation recalled a similar Bond Buyer award given to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his then-CFO Sean Werdlow in 2004, for the disastrous sale of $1.5 billion in “Certificates of Participation,” or “Pension Obligation Bonds,” an amount that ballooned to $2.8 billion with default penalties and interest swaps. Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr cited the deal as one reason for his improperly authorized 2013 Detroit Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing, but never followed through on a lawsuit he filed calling it “void ab initio, illegal and unenforceable.”
Gee, Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison for corruption and other charges. The crisis our country faces is a crisis of integrity that has decimated by big money's influence on our elected and appointed officials. No longer is “providing for the general welfare of the people” the purpose of government, but the path of self enrichment, no matter the impact on the people.
Bond sales by municipalities is big business, and Wall Street, and others, are front and center of this highly lucrative revenue stream. They do this in several ways. Campaign contributions, both to individuals and campaign SuperPACS, leadership committees and a myriad of campaign financing “vehicles”. From another angle lobbyist work on specific legislation desired by the banks (less taxes, less regulation), targeting important committees, legislators and federal regulators.
Then there's the financial products themselves, for municipalities pension funds, healthcare funds, bond for infrastructure financing, and when tax revenues fall short, debt financing of essential services. What ever money a city may have, I'm sure Wall Street has an investment vehicle (interest rate swaps) to suck it dry.
Once the bonds sales occur, campaign contributors are rewarded with lucrative contracts the eat up the money from the bond sales, just as in the case of Flint.
From VoiceOfDetroit:
The Carlyle Group’s board has included politicians from around the world, including former U.S. Presidents George H. W Bush and George W. Bush, and their former cabinet members U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, also former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Arthur Levitt, who served under Pres. Bill Clinton. It is connected to the Bin Laden family and to former Phillippines dictator Fidel Ramos, among numerous others. Synagro went bankrupt in 2013 and was sold.
The KWA’s current major contractors include the omnipresent L D’Agostini & Sons, based in Macomb, at a starting cost $24.6 million for the pipeline and $11.06 million for the intake station on Lake Huron. D’Agostini earlier sued the DWSD because it was barred from further contracting with the department after its involvement in the RICO indictment of Kilpatrick et. al. was exposed. D’Agostini previously did 70 percent of its business with the Department.
The Alabama-based American Cast Iron Pipe Company, which operates one of the largest ductile iron pipe casting plants in the world, has a contract with a starting cost of $84.1 million, while the Flint-based E & L Construction’s contract for the Imlay City pump station has a starting cost of $11.78 million. All this work duplicates DWSD pipelines and intake and pumping stations already servicing the area.
Flint already had a stable water supply, but neither Flint nor other surrounding cities notified their resident about the wholesale fee these cities tacked on, that drove up the price of their already treated water. Also the Detroit Water system has been driven into the ground by the massive amount of debt it was forced onto it, by corrupted city officials, like Kwame Kilpatric and many others, thru bond sales, lead by, none other than CitiGroup.
From the RooseveltInstitute:
The financialization of the United States economy has distorted our social, economic, and political priorities. Cities and states across the country are forced to cut essential community services because they are trapped in predatory municipal finance deals that cost them millions of dollars every year. Wall Street and other big corporations engaged in a systematic effort to suppress taxes, making it difficult for cities and states to advance progressive revenue solutions to properly fund public services. Banks take advantage of this crisis that they helped create by targeting state and local governments with predatory municipal finance deals, just like they targeted cash-strapped homeowners with predatory mortgages during the housing boom. Predatory financing deals prey upon the weaknesses of borrowers, are characterized by high costs and high risks, are typically overly complex, and are often designed to fail.
Predatory municipal finance has a real human cost. Every dollar that cities and states send to Wall Street does not go towards essential community services. Across the country, cuts to public services and other austerity measures have a disparate impact on the working class communities of color that were also targeted for predatory mortgages and payday loans, further exacerbating their suffering.
Snip
Financialization has had a profound effect on all aspects of the American economy. Mike Konczal, who runs the Financialization Project at the Roosevelt Institute, defines financialization as the “increase in the size, scope, and power of the financial sector – the people and firms that manage money and underwrite stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other securities – relative to the rest of the economy.”
Through financialization, Wall Street has made the rest of our economy subservient to the financial sector. One of the ways this has happened is through a strategic shift in the banking business model. Whereas the core business of banking used to be based on interest income, or the money that banks earn from interest on loans they make, bank earnings are now driven by fees. Big banks no longer hold on to most of the loans they make, so they do not actually collect the interest on those loans. Instead, they securitize the loans and sell them off to investors in the secondary market. They make their money based on the fees they charge to make the loan, securitize it, sell it off to investors, and then service it. In fact, a report by the Service Employees International Union found that noninterest income accounted for approximately 70 percent of earnings at the nation’s top three banks in 2009, up from less than 45 percent in 1995.
The fee-based business model allows Wall Street banks to make a profit regardless of the financial health of their customers. Banks make their money based on the quantity of loans they make, not the quality of those loans. In fact, clients in poor financial health that constantly need to take out more loans, refinance their loans, or enter into more complex financing structures that entail multiple transactions are more profitable to Wall Street than financially stable customers with plain vanilla loans who can pay their bills on time. This is true for banking customers of all stripes – individual consumers, corporate clients, and municipal borrowers. This encourages banks to pursue predatory lending practices, like steering customers towards financial products that are more expensive, more complex, and contain hidden risks. Unfortunately, working families, small business owners, and state and local governments in particular are easy prey.
Deeper beneath what seems to be a failure of government is more insidious, the profit motive, campaign contributions and of course Wall Street. Capitalism it's self is indicted by this epic failure. And the neoliberal economic ideology we operate under today is effectively destroying, not only our country, but the planet to a larger extent, and is directly threatening humanity's survival.
Profit before People – The Corporate Culture of Profit Maximization
Capitalism does not find an equilibrium. It can't because of the “human” element, that is influenced by big profits, and no concern for the impact of chasing such big profits. Can anyone say financial crash?
This “confusion” has been the result of the direct efforts of the corporate class. The siren's call to the corporate community, the Powell memo reclaimdemocracy.org/..., written Lewis Powell, 2 months before his confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1971;
was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.
The expansion of government power, through new regulations and federal agencies created in the 60's, and the rise in activists voices like Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, William Kunstler and many others, not just civil rights activists, but consumer rights activists, best known probably being Ralph Nader, was one of the main sources of Powell's fear that corporate American, the free enterprise system, was under direct attack. From Powell’s memo;
No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack. This varies in scope, intensity, in the techniques employed, and in the level of visibility.
There always have been some who opposed the American system, and preferred socialism or some form of statism (communism or fascism). Also, there always have been critics of the system, whose criticism has been wholesome and constructive so long as the objective was to improve rather than to subvert or destroy.
But what now concerns us is quite new in the history of America. We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts.
While Powell considered activists as an attack on the American enterprise system, he never acknowledged that lack of “integrity” exhibited by big business, where people like Ralph Nader were specifically calling out this kind of “corporate behavior”. Powell thought Ralph Nader was corporate enemy number one.
Perhaps the single most effective antagonist of American business is Ralph Nader, who — thanks largely to the media — has become a legend in his own time and an idol of millions of Americans. A recent article in Fortune speaks of Nader as follows:
“The passion that rules in him — and he is a passionate man — is aimed at smashing utterly the target of his hatred, which is corporate power. He thinks, and says quite bluntly, that a great many corporate executives belong in prison — for defrauding the consumer with shoddy merchandise, poisoning the food supply with chemical additives, and willfully manufacturing unsafe products that will maim or kill the buyer. He emphasizes that he is not talking just about ‘fly-by-night hucksters’ but the top management of blue chip business.”
Ralph Nader, a favorite of democrats today to lament as the reason for the rise of George Bush presidency, which is completely bogus, is also highly instructive as how viewing government by our society has changed. Every democrat should champion Ralph Nader for his activism, despite what you may think about the 2000 election.
You can thank Ralph Nader that you car is relatively safe piece of machinery. His seminal book, Unsafe at Any Speed, published in 1965, while polemic in nature, provided a substantial amount of industry data and science that backed up his accusations against the leading car manufacturers resistance to install safety equipment, like seat belts and other known design flaws, like the rear-engine Chevrolet Corvair, which as a result of it's rear axle designed, (swing-axel suspension) which left off a critical “front stabilizer bar” and thus relied on tire pressures out side the manufacturers recommendations, creating an unsafe driving condition.
The design of the swing-axel suspension system, which left off a critical element, the front stabilizing bar, was a cost saving measure to increase profits, not to enhance their product or provide any real value to the consumer, but exactly the opposite by creating an unsafe product that could, and did, kill many people.
The culture or our corporations today could best be described as Profit Before People.
While you and I as individuals would never dream of introducing a dangerous product to our fellow citizens, businesses have no compunction to have any concerns about public safety other than PR and profit motives. That is to say, if they can get away with cutting corners on safety, or if it's cheaper to pay law suits rather than fix a design flaw, corporation always go the path of less resistance, and most especially the least costly. The “bottom line” is all that matter's to corporations. Profits matter more than people's lives or safety.
How many times do we have to witness this before we start to understand, this fundamental corporatist ideology is hurting our society on many levels. At the corporate level, the indifference to human impact has lost any sense of import. It's become simply a cost benefit analysis, with human toll not even entering the equation. The cost of law suits vs the cost to fix. Law suits have been historically less expensive, especially when much of the fines can be written off on a corporations taxes.
This “indifference” within corporate culture has developed over generations, requiring an inquiry into the history of “corporations” within the United States, which ironically, at our founding where regarded with contempt. Not only did our colonist revolt against rule by a monarchy half a world away, but also against the English corporations of the day, like the East India Trading Company, which was a quasi extension of the British Crown.
From Reclaimdemocracy.rog
reclaimdemocracy.org/...
When American colonists declared independence from England in 1776, they also freed themselves from control by English corporations that extracted their wealth and dominated trade. After fighting a revolution to end this exploitation, our country’s founders retained a healthy fear of corporate power and wisely limited corporations exclusively to a business role. Corporations were forbidden from attempting to influence elections, public policy, and other realms of civic society.
Initially, the privilege of incorporation was granted selectively to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads or canals. Enabling shareholders to profit was seen as a means to that end. The states also imposed conditions (some of which remain on the books, though unused) like these*:
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Corporate charters (licenses to exist) were granted for a limited time and could be revoked promptly for violating laws.
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Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose.
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Corporations could not own stock in other corporations nor own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.
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Corporations were often terminated if they exceeded their authority or caused public harm.
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Owners and managers were responsible for criminal acts committed on the job.
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Corporations could not make any political or charitable contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.
For 100 years after the American Revolution, legislators maintained tight control of the corporate chartering process. Because of widespread public opposition, early legislators granted very few corporate charters, and only after debate. Citizens governed corporations by detailing operating conditions not just in charters but also in state constitutions and state laws. Incorporated businesses were prohibited from taking any action that legislators did not specifically allow.
Industry after industry, and corporation after corporation, have all lied to us about the unsafe products they make and the people they kill with those unsafe products. It's only after many people die does it seem like action is ever on the table. The complete deference to corporations is literally killing our population.
We know now that Exxon and other industry players has known since the late 70's the negative impacts on climate change their products are having on our planet. But they “chose” to concealed this knowledge from the public and our government for decades, against the best interests of the people of this country, and to a larger extent, our planet, thus endangering ALL LIFE on this planet. (insideclimatenews.org/...)
From InsideClimateNews.Org
At a meeting in Exxon Corporation's headquarters, a senior company scientist named James F. Black addressed an audience of powerful oilmen. Speaking without a text as he flipped through detailed slides, Black delivered a sobering message: carbon dioxide from the world's use of fossil fuels would warm the planet and could eventually endanger humanity.
From another article at InsideClimateNews.Org
Exxon documents show that top corporate managers were aware of their scientists' early conclusions about carbon dioxide's impact on the climate. They reveal that scientists warned management that policy changes to address climate change might affect profitability. After a decade of frank internal discussions on global warming and conducting unbiased studies on it, Exxon changed direction in 1989 and spent more than 20 years discrediting the research its own scientists had once confirmed.
The irony is that Exxon in the late 70's and early 80's were actually at the leading edge of climate science, Exxon's extensive research was driven by the threat accumulating CO2 posed to the company's core business, according to participants and documents.
"My guess is they were looking for what might happen if we keep burning fossil fuels; what that would mean to them," said Taro Takahashi, an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Takahashi, who spent his career studying climate change, collaborated on a research project with Exxon in the late 1970s to early 80s and used data from the research in several studies he later published in peer-reviewed journals.
The project he worked on—outfitting an ocean tanker to measure the ocean's absorption of carbon dioxide—was a crown jewel in Exxon's research program.
Another example is Big Tobacco . We now know that nicotine is harmful and highly addictive, even more so than cocaine, but big tobacco knew this and kept this information from the public and the government. (www.who.int/...)
Thousands of internal tobacco industry documents released through litigation and whistleblowers reveal the most astonishing systematic corporate deceit of all time.
Lead has the same way. Heck it was Clair Patterson, a geochemist who pinpointed Earth's age for the first time and yet uncovered a secret: that lead contamination is a major and potentially deadly problem. He was also one of the first persons to build an scientific cleanroom so he could measure the amount of lead naturally occurring in our environment. All through his research industry was hounding him, other scientists were deriding him as a crack pot, zealot and other nasty names, all the protect their profits or positions, never to protect the public.
It was largely from his research, and most importantly his integrity and perseverance that help our country institute rules and regulations of lead.
From the National Academies Press:
Clair Patterson was an energetic, innovative, determined scientist whose pioneering work stretched across an unusual number of sub-disciplines, including archeology, meteorology, oceanography, and environmental science—besides chemistry and geology. He is best known for his determination of the age of the Earth. That was possible only after he had spent some five years establishing methods for the separation and isotopic analysis of lead at microgram and sub-microgram levels. His techniques opened a new field in lead isotope geochemistry for terrestrial as well as for planetary studies. Whereas terrestrial lead isotope data had been based entirely on galena ore samples, isotopes could finally be measured on ordinary igneous rocks and sediments, greatly expanding the utility of the technique.
While subsequently applying the methodology to ocean sediments, he came to the conclusion that the input of lead into the oceans was much greater than the removal of lead to sediments, because human activities were polluting the environment with unprecedented, possibly dangerous, levels of lead. Then followed years of study and debate involving him and other investigators and politicians over control of lead in the environment. In the end, his basic views prevailed, resulting in drastic reductions in the amount of lead entering the environment. Thus, in addition to measuring the age of the Earth and significantly expanding the field of lead isotope geochemistry, Patterson applied his scientific expertise to create a healthier environment for society.
The people of Flint have been poison with lead in their drinking water because some bureaucrat decided that making money and helping campaign contributors was the “right” thing to do, supposedly to save the people in Flint money on their water. But gee, they were, and are paying the highest water rates in the nation. They paid to be poisoned. Their government failed them because money was more important than the people.
Where is the response from our wonderful business community, our so-called job creators, the hedge fund managers? Where are all the Christian millionaires and billionaires? Where the FUCK is Goldman Sachs? God dammit, they just got fined 5 BILLION for their criminal wrong doing in the financial crisis, they can dam sure afford to pitch in a Billion to help fix Flint. What has any Wall Street bank done? Not a god damn thing. Shit, a billion dollars spread out across the top 10 banks would be pocket change to them.
They won't help the people of Flint, because there's not a profit in it.
This is the society that we have created for ourselves. This is the status quo. Decisions in local government are made on a cost benefit analysis, not to mention to avoid any responsibility, not whether it might harm our population. People are secondary to the costs. While our elected officials make grand standing statements, quibble over amendments, point fingers and blame everyone, but the elephant in the room, themselves.
The destruction of our cities services is a direct assault on the American people and to a larger extent the American government, but it is largely a bipartisan affair, with both political parties playing a central role in the privatization of government services, where the banks providing the financing with predatory financial products to our local, state and federal agencies, just like they did with consumers with subprime mortgages.
There are a boat load of citizens helping the residents in Flint and they are doing outstanding work. But they are donating their time, effort and energy, because our government has failed. Our business leaders have failed. Our 1% has failed. The indifference to the human suffering across all spectrum of our society should be a real wake up call.
This is neoliberal economics in action, right in our own country. We are turning one of the riches nations in the world, into a 3rd world country for the economic hit men, to make us an offer we can't refuse.
What is Neoliberal Economics? There is five distinct features to Neoliberal Economics,
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Rule of the Market
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Cutting Social Services
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Deregulation
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Privatization
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Eliminating the “concept” of Public Good / Community.
From CorpWatch.Org:
"Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.
"Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism.
"Neo" means we are talking about a new kind of liberalism. So what was the old kind? The liberal school of economics became famous in Europe when Adam Smith, an Scottish economist, published a book in 1776 called THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. He and others advocated the abolition of government intervention in economic matters. No restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, no tariffs, he said; free trade was the best way for a nation's economy to develop. Such ideas were "liberal" in the sense of no controls. This application of individualism encouraged "free" enterprise," "free" competition -- which came to mean, free for the capitalists to make huge profits as they wished.
This is our future is we don't do something about it. More and more of our government service are being privatized, financed by Wall Street using predatory financial products designed to fail and create favorably conditions for a private take over, that increases cost and reduces services for the people. Both parties have embraced the Neoliberal economic model and it is destroying our planet.
GM got bailed out, but the people of Flint got poisoned by their government. This is our future if we don’t do anything about it.
PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT!