Bottom Line

[TBF]

There can be no greater indictment of a system and a government devoted to exalting the market as the highest virtue, and to treating citizens as nothing more than abstractions on a balance sheet. Detroit and Flint, taken together, lay bare a brutal fact — Michigan no longer seems to have any need for a large proportion of its children.

Flint’s Bottom Line

The Flint water crisis shows the human toll of running government like a business.
by John Patrick Leary 1-27-16

Of all the horrors that have emerged from the Flint lead-poisoning scandal — and they have only begun to unfold — January 12’s “Lead Testing and Family Fun Night” at Flint’s Freeman Elementary was comparatively minor. The perversely breezy advertising for the event promised a balloon artist, raffles, face painting, and blood tests for the kids. Tellingly, the Facebook event page was filled with anxious posts from parents worried about how much the lead test part of the festivities would cost.

The lead test was free, but the parents’ concern is easy to understand. Flint is one of the poorest cities in Michigan — a state run by Rick Snyder, a former computer executive turned politician. Snyder’s mission is to “reinvent Michigan” in the image of corporate America — a mission that often entails distributing public services to the wealthy on the backs of the poor.

For well over a year, the people of Flint — who pay some of the nation’s highest water rates (water bills rival the cost of rent) — drank and bathed in water that, officials now admit, was contaminated with lead and other toxic chemicals. Snyder has offered apologies but has been quick to blame the Flint water crisis on a failure of infrastructure — “government failed you,” he said, deftly pointing the finger at the same bureaucracies he has always campaigned against.

But the disaster in Flint isn’t a result of bureaucracy. It’s the deadly consequence of treating public goods as private commodities — an increasingly dominant feature of municipal life in America today ...

Much more here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/flint-lead-water-crisis-michigan-snyder-emergency-contamination/

[randys1]

1. And it has only just begun. State after state run by righty is looking at the intentional

destruction of democracy in MI and will follow suit.

Remember what they want, ALL land owned by THEM.

Waikiki Beach? Fuck you, you will NEVER step foot on it, it is now a private beach for the Koch Family.

Yellowstone Natl Park? Fuck you again, either you will pay $100 a day to see it or the Koch family will rape it for
OUR natural resources that are there.

I can go on.

When people finally figure out that allowing ANY human to own ANY piece of land is LUDICROUS , we will be on our way.

[TBF]

2. This right here:

When people finally figure out that allowing ANY human to own ANY piece of land is LUDICROUS , we will be on our way.

An excellent thought. Not only the land, they want all the water. They literally want to own all of the resources - completely control and profit over every element they can get their greedy little hands on.

I will say one thing about Donald Trump - at least he is honest. The rest of them on his side are just as bad and look down on him like he's some kind of anomaly. He is no different from the rest of them.

[randys1]

3. Yes, they want the resources, natural and otherwise. If you dont allow land ownership

this cant happen.

We are so used to owning the land under our homes that we think my idea is crazy.

But it is crazy not to abolish land ownership.

The ONLY thing between us and "Yellowstone Koch Inc" is a law, that law WILL be changed the INSTANT the teaparty or GOP gains full control of the government.