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Flint's Legionnaires' Outbreak May Be Tied To Its Contaminated Water
When will Flint catch a break?
01/19/2016 08:35 am ET
Erin Schumaker
Healthy Living Editor, The Huffington Post
BILL PUGLIANO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Justin Roberson (L), age 6, of Flint, Michigan and Mychal Adams, age 1, of Flint wait on a stack of bottled water at a rally where the Rev. Jesse Jackson was speaking about about the Flint's water crises.
Flint, Michigan, isn't just dealing with tap water contaminated by lead. A Flint Journal-MLive Freedom of Information Act request revealed Saturday that 87 people were diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease as the city's toxic drinking water flowed into homes for some 18 months. Ten of those who were sickened died.
Although state officials say they can't pinpoint the source of the outbreak, Legionnaire's infections spiked sharply in Genesee County when Flint tried to save money by changing its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014. Two months later, there were six cases of Legionnaires' reported in Genesee County, and the number of cases remained elevated until the Flint switched its water source back to Lake Huron in the fall of 2015.
"That just added to the disaster we were already facing," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said in a press conference last week, referring to the known lead problem. "But from a scientific or medical point of view, I don't believe that [a link between Legionnaires' and city water] can be made today."
See the spike in Legionnaires' cases in Genesee County, below:
Between 8,000 and 18,000 people in the United States are hospitalized each year with Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of pneumonia, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most people contract the noncontagious disease by breathing air contaminated with Legionella bacteria, which grows in moist environments such as water towers, swimming pools and water systems. Symptoms of the disease include high fever, trouble breathing and muscle aches; people with weakened immune systems, those older than age 50 and smokers are all at a higher risk for contracting Legionnaires'.
While Legionnaires' disease drummed up considerable media attention when an outbreak in the Bronx killed 12 and sickened 120 in September 2015, it's not unusual for sporadic outbreaks to crop up around the country each year.
Flint's 'astonishing and unacceptable' water problem
Should Flint's Legionnaires' outbreak prove to be connected to the city's water, it would be the latest in a series of public health catastrophes connected to the 2014 drinking water switch. So far, public health officials have identified E.coli bacteria, trihalomethanes (a chemical byproduct of water disinfectants) and most notably, lead, in Flint's drinking water.
Lead, which leached into the municipal drinking supply when the Flint River's corrosive water interacted with the city's old piping, can cause irreversible long-term cognitive impairment and is especially dangerous to young children, whose brains are still developing, and the unborn children of pregnant mothers.
Although the water source was changed back in fall 2015 after lead was discovered, the damage was done. The number of children with elevated blood-lead levels (≥5 micrograms per deciliter) nearly doubled in Flint after the water switch, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the director of the pediatric residency program at Flint's Hurley Medical Center, pointed out in September.
While the government's threshold for lead poisoning is 10 micrograms per deciliter of lead in blood, experts increasingly agree that there is no safe level when it comes to health risk. And lead poisoning is often silent, meaning lead-poisoned children might not show any signs of damage until years or even decades later. That damage can include anemia, kidney dysfunction and high blood pressure, as well as increased aggression and problems with the criminal justice system.
"Your development is progressing so rapidly at those early ages," Hanna-Attisha previously told HuffPost. "You’re going to be carrying that exposure forever."
Here are the contaminates associated and believed to be associated with Flint's water:
Even today, Flint's water isn't safe to drink because compromised supply pipes haven't been replaced. The National Guard is distributing bottled water and water filters to residents and officials are unable to say when the water will be potable again.
President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint on January 16, ordering disaster relief efforts to Genesee County following plea for federal assistance from Snyder and a letter from the Congressional Black Caucus.
"The timeline for the water issues, which have led to a state of emergency being called for the City of Flint, are astonishing and unacceptable," the caucus members wrote. "The lack of proper oversight and action has led to tens of thousands of citizens being exposed to toxic levels of lead in their drinking water and demands a thorough federal response."
What is being done about Legionnaires'?
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is currently investigating the 2014-2015 Legionnaires' outbreak in Genesee County.
"The State of Michigan is treating this situation with the same urgency and transparency as the lead response in the city of Flint," according to a statement published on the department's website.
Michael Moore: 10 People in Flint Have Now Been Killed by These Premeditated Actions of the Governor of Michigan
Michael Moore | January 19, 2016 8:53 am
Dear President Obama,
I am writing this to you from the place where I was born—Flint, Michigan. Please consider this personal appeal from me and the 102,000 citizens of the city of Flint who have been poisoned—not by a mistake, not by a natural disaster, but by a governor and his administration who, to “cut costs,” took over the city of Flint from its duly elected leaders, unhooked the city from its fresh water supply of Lake Huron and then made the people drink the toxic water from the Flint River. This was nearly two years ago.
All fingers from the doctors and scientists point to the filthy, toxic Flint River as the cause of this Legionnaires Disease outbreak. Photo credit: Ryan Garza / Detroit Free Press
This week it was revealed that at least 10 people in Flint have now been killed by these premeditated actions of the Governor of Michigan. This governor, Rick Snyder, nullified the democratic election of this mostly African-American city—where 41 percent of the people live below the “official” poverty line—and replaced the elected Mayor and city council with a crony who was instructed to take all his orders from the governor’s office.
One of those orders from the state of Michigan was this: “It costs too much money to supply Flint with clean drinking water from Lake Huron (the 3rd largest body of fresh water in the world). We can save a lot of money doing this differently. So unhook the city from that source and let them drink the water known as ‘General Motors’ Sewer’—the Flint River.”
And, lo and behold, the Governor was right. It was a lot cheaper! Fifteen million dollars cheaper! And for saving all that money, it is now estimated that to repair the damaged water system in Flint, it will cost at least $1.5 billion. Someone had suggested to the governor, before he did this, that the river contained many toxins. He ignored that. One of his own people said maybe they should add a safe-to-drink “corrosive protector” to the water so that the toxins in said water wouldn’t leach the lead off the aging water pipe infrastructure and into the drinking water. “How much will that cost?” asked the governor’s office.
“Just $100 a day for only 3 months,” the governor was told. Oh, $100 a day?! That’s too much!, came the reply from the governor. Don’t worry about the lead. “Lead is a seasonal thing,” he would later explain to the public. “Heck, there’s lead in everything!” Just let them drink the river water.
This is a city full of poor black people, a city where half the population (including myself) found a way to escape the misery and the madness (the crime rate is so bad, we’ve lead the country in murders for most years—and just to get an idea of what that means, if New York City had the same murder rate as Flint last year, more than 4,000 New Yorkers would have been killed, instead of the 340 who actually were).
“Mr. President, we need your help—today. 100,000 people have no water to drink, to cook with or to bathe in.”
My city has been pummeled by General Motors, Wall Street and the state and federal governments. It’s no surprise that the Republicans who control our State Capitol in Michigan didn’t have to worry about any push-back from the residents of Flint because, to them, that’s just a bunch of eviscerated black people who have absolutely no power, “don’t vote for us any way” and have no means to fight back.
And now, after every single child in Flint has been poisoned with lead-filled water that the state knew a year ago was in that water, we learn that the governor’s office sought to cover it up, hiding it not just from the defenseless African Americans they secretly fear and despise, but also hiding it from you and the federal government! (Link)
And, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the news of 87 people with Legionnaires Disease happened this week. Ten Flint residents have been killed by this disease which is caused by tainted water. Not by gun violence, not in Afghanistan, but by an act of racism and violence perpetrated by the—I’m sorry to say—white, Republican governor of Michigan who knew months ago the water was toxic.
All fingers from the doctors and scientists point to the filthy, toxic Flint River as the cause of this Legionnaires Disease outbreak. Ten human souls deceased. In an average year, Flint already had an astounding eight cases (and rarely a death) of people contracting Legionnaires Disease. Since the citizens of Flint were forced to use the water from the Flint River, 87 cases of Legionnaires Disease have happened! And 10 deaths! And the number is expected to rise.
President Obama—the people of Flint are crying out to you for help. Our Congressman, Dan Kildee, has called the federal government for assistance. But he’s been told that it’s a “state issue” and that “the state of Michigan has to be the one asking the feds for the help.”
No! The state is the one who caused this! That’s like asking the fox if he could repair the chicken coop. No, Mr. President, we need your help—today. One hundred thousand people have no water to drink, to cook with or to bathe in.
This week, you are coming to Michigan to attend the Detroit Auto Show. We implore you to come to Flint, less than an hour’s drive north of Detroit. Do not ignore this tragedy taking place every day. This may be Gov. Snyder’s Katrina, but it will become your Bush-Flying-Over-New Orleans Moment if you come to Michigan and then just fly away. I know you don’t want that image of flying over us as you “fake-sad” look down on Flint just as Bush did in that never-to-be-forgotten photo-op over New Orleans. I know you are going to come to the rescue here in Flint. I can’t imagine any other scenario.
We need:
1. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here at once to truly assess all of the disease and damage that has been forced upon the people of Flint.
2. Federal Emergency Management Agency has to supply large water containers in every home in Flint—and they must be filled by water trucks until the new infrastructure is resolved.
3. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must take over matters from the state (can the governor be removed and replaced like he did to the mayor of Flint?). Immediately.
4. You must send in the Army Corps of Engineers to build that new water infrastructure. Otherwise, you might as well just evacuate all the people from Flint and move them to a white city that has clean drinking water—and where this would never happen.
President Obama, I’m counting on you to give us a response. Can we expect to see you, in Flint, in the next few days?
Yours,
Michael Moore
Filmmaker
Flint native
http://somcsprod2govm001.usgovcloudapp.net/files/snyder%20emails.pdfLee Ann Walters contacted DHHS nurse Karen Lishinski to discuss her child's high lead level. The response: "He is barely lead poisoned. If CDC had not changed their lead poisoning standard f rom 10 down to 5, we would not be having this conversation ... I am working with kids in their 40's and 50's. It is just a few IQ points ... it is not the end of the world."
Flint
By Howard Zinn
In 1934 and 1935, hundreds of thousands of workers, left out of the tightly controlled, exclusive unions of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), began organizing in the new mass production industries—auto, rubber, packinghouse. The AFL could not ignore them, so it set up a Committee for Industrial Organization to organize these workers outside of craft lines, by industry, all workers in a plant belonging to one union. This Committee, headed by John Lewis, then broke away and became the CIO—the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
But it was rank-and-file strikes and insurgencies that pushed the union leadership, AFL and CIO, into action. Jeremy Brecher tells the story in his book Strike! A new kind of tactic began among rubber workers in Akron, Ohio, in the early thirties—the sit-down strike. The workers stayed in the plant instead of walking out, and this had clear advantages: they were directly blocking the use of strikebreakers; they did not have to act through union officials but were in direct control of the situation themselves; they did not have to walk outside in the cold and rain, but had shelter; they were not isolated, as in their work, or on the picket line; they were thousands under one roof, free to talk to one another and to form a community of struggle. Louis Adamica, a labor writer, describes one of the early sit-downs:
“Sitting by their machines, cauldrons, boilers and work benches, they talked. Some realized for the first time how important they were in the process of rubber production. Twelve men had practically stopped the works! . . . Superintendents, foremen, and straw bosses were dashing about....In less than an hour the dispute was settled, full victory for the men.”
In early 1936, at the Firestone rubber plant in Akron, makers of truck tires, their wages already too low to pay for food and rent, were faced with a wage cut. When several union men were fired, others began to stop work, to sit down on the job. In one day the whole of plant No. 1 was sitting down. In two days, plant No. 2 was sitting down and management gave in. In the next 10 days there was a sit-down at Goodyear. A court issued an injunction against mass picketing. It was ignored, and 150 deputies were sworn in. But they soon faced ten thousand workers from all over Akron. In a month, the strike was won.
The idea spread through 1936. In December of that year began the longest sit-down strike of all, at Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Michigan. It started when two brothers were fired, and it lasted until February 1937. For 40 days there was a community of two thousand strikers. “It was like war,” one said. “The guys with me became my buddies.” Sidney Fine in Sit-Down describes what happened. Committees organized recreation, information, classes, a postal service, sanitation. Courts were set up to deal with those who didn’t take their turn washing dishes or who threw rubbish or smoked where it was prohibited or brought in liquor. The “punishment” consisted of extra duties; the ultimate punishment was expulsion from the plant. A restaurant owner across the street prepared three meals a day for two thousand strikers. There were classes in parliamentary procedure, public speaking, history of the labor movement. Graduate students at the University of Michigan gave courses in journalism and creative writing.
There were injunctions, but a procession of five thousand armed workers encircled the plant and there was no attempt to enforce the injunction. Police attacked with tear gas and the workers fought back with firehoses. Thirteen strikers were wounded by gunfire, but the police were driven back. The governor called out the National Guard. By this time the strike had spread to other General Motors plants. Finally, there was a settlement, a six-month contract, leaving many questions unsettled but recognizing that from now on, the company would have to deal not with individuals but with a union.
In 1936 there were 48 sitdown strikes. In 1937 there were 477: electrical workers in St. Louis; shirt workers in Pulaski, Tennessee; broom workers in Pueblo, Colorado; trash collectors in Bridgeport, Connecticut; gravediggers in New Jersey; 17 blind workers at the New York Guild for the Jewish Blind; prisoners in an Illinois penitentiary; and even 30 members of a National Guard Company who had served in the Fisher Body sit-down, and now sat down themselves because they had not been paid.
The Wagner Act and the New Deal: Bailout for Business?
It was to stabilize the system in the face of labor unrest that the Wagner Act of 1935, setting up a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), had been passed. The wave of strikes in 1936, 1937, 1938, made the need even more pressing. In Chicago, on Memorial Day, 1937, a strike at Republic Steel brought the police out, firing at a mass picket line of strikers, killing 10 of them. Autopsies showed the bullets had hit the workers in the back as they were running away: this was the Memorial Day Massacre. But Republic Steel was organized, and so was Ford Motor Company, and the other huge plants in steel, auto, rubber, meat packing, and the electrical industry.
The Wagner Act was challenged by a steel corporation in the courts, but the Supreme Court found it constitutional—that the government could regulate interstate commerce, and that strikes hurt interstate commerce. From the trade unions’ point of view, the new law was an aid to union organizing. From the government’s point of view, it was an aid to the stability of commerce. Unions were not wanted by employers, but they were more controllable, more stabilizing for the system than the wildcat strikes, the factory occupations of the rank and file. In the spring of 1937, a New York Times article carried the headline “Unauthorized Sit-Downs Fought by CIO Unions.” The story read: “Strict orders have been issued to all organizers and representatives that they will be dismissed if they authorize any stoppages of work without the consent of the international officers....” The Times quoted John L. Lewis, dynamic leader of the CIO: “A CIO contract is adequate protection against sit-downs, lie-downs, or any other kind of strike.” The Communist party, some of whose members played critical roles in organizing CIO unions, seemed to take the same position. One Communist leader in Akron was reported to have said at a party strategy meeting after the sit-downs: “Now we must work for regular relations between the union and the employers, and strict observance of union procedure on the part of the workers.” Thus, two sophisticated ways of controlling direct labor action developed in the mid-thirties. First, the NLRB would give unions legal status, listen to them, settling certain of their grievances. Thus it could moderate labor rebellion by channeling energy into elections, just as the constitutional system channeled possibly troublesome energy into voting. The NLRB would set limits in economic conflict as voting did in political conflict. And second, the workers’ organization itself, the union, even a militant and aggressive union like the CIO, would channel the workers’ insurrectionary energy into contracts, negotiations, union meetings, and try to minimize strikes, in order to build large, influential, even respectable organizations.
The history of those years seems to support the argument of Richard Cloward and Frances Piven, in their book Poor People’s Movements, that labor won most during its spontaneous uprisings, before the unions were recognized or well organized: “Factory workers had their greatest influence, and were able to exact their most substantial concessions from government, during the Great Depression, in the years before they were organized into unions. Their power during the Depression was not rooted in organization, but in disruption.”
Piven and Cloward point out that union membership rose enormously in the forties, during the Second World War (the CIO and AFL had over six million members each by 1945), but its power was less than before—its gains from the use of strikes kept getting whittled down. The members appointed to the NLRB were less sympathetic to labor, the Supreme Court declared sit-downs to be illegal, and state governments were passing laws to hamper strikes, picketing, boycotts.
For Black people, the New Deal was psychologically encouraging (Mrs. Roosevelt was sympathetic; some Blacks got posts in the administration), but most Blacks were ignored by the New Deal programs. As tenant farmers, as farm laborers, as migrants, as domestic workers, they didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance, minimum wages, social security, or farm subsidies. Roosevelt, careful not to offend southern white politicians whose political support he needed, did not push a bill against lynching. Blacks and whites were segregated in the armed forces. And Black workers were discriminated against in getting jobs. They were the last hired, the first fired. Only when A. Philip Randolph, head of the Sleeping-Car Porters Union, threatened a massive march on Washington in 1941, would Roosevelt agree to sign an executive order establishing a Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC). But the FEPC had no enforcement powers and changed little.
The coming of World War II weakened the old labor militancy of the thirties because the war economy created millions of new jobs at higher wages. The New Deal had succeeded only in reducing unemployment from 13 million to nine million. It was the war that put almost everyone to work, and the war did something else: patriotism, the push for unity of all classes against enemies overseas, made it harder to mobilize anger against the corporations. During the war, the CIO and AFL pledged to call no strikes.
Still, the grievances of workers were such—wartime “controls” meant their wages were being controlled better than prices—that they felt impelled to engage in many wildcat strikes: there were more strikes in 1944 than in any previous year in American history, says Jeremy Brecher.
The thirties and forties showed more clearly than before the dilemma of working people in the United States. The system responded to workers’ rebellions by finding new forms of control—internal control by their own organizations, as well as outside control by law and force. But along with the new controls came new concessions. These concessions didn’t solve basic problems; for many people they solved nothing. But they helped enough people to create an atmosphere of progress and improvement, to restore some faith in the system.
The minimum wage of 1938, which established the forty-hour week and outlawed child labor, left many people out of its provisions and set very low minimum wages (25 cents an hour the first year). But it was enough to dull the edge of resentment. Housing was built for only a small percentage of the people who needed it. “A modest, even parsimonious, beginning,” Paul Conkin says (F.D.R. and the Origins of the Welfare State), but the sight of federally subsidized housing projects, playgrounds, vermin-free apartments, replacing dilapidated tenements, was refreshing. The Tennessee Valley Authority suggested exciting possibilities for regional planning to give jobs, improve areas, and provide cheap power, with local, instead of national control. The Social Security Act gave retirement benefits and unemployment insurance, and matched state funds for mothers and dependent children—but it excluded farmers, domestic workers, and old people, and offered no health insurance. As Conkin says: “The meager benefits of Social Security were insignificant in comparison to the building of security for large, established businesses."
Anonymous Just Declared War on Flint's Water Crisis
The hacktivist collective known as Anonymous responded to the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan, on Wednesday, calling for a criminal investigation into the role of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.
In a statement released by an Anonymous-affiliated account, the group blamed Snyder and the media for ignoring the public health issue for over a year. A person who claims to be a representative of Anonymous outlined the group's concerns in a video uploaded to YouTube.
RELATED: YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FLINT, MICHIGAN'S WATER PROBLEM
"For over a year now the citizens of Flint, Michigan have been subjected to drinking tap water filled with lead and other poisons," the statement read. "Over 3,000 children residing in Flint have been diagnosed with lead poisoning and other contaminated water illnesses. This issue went unreported by the mainstream media for entirely too long."
ATTN: was unable to independently verify the number of children poisoned by the contaminated water supply. However, Michigan’s chief medical executive, Eden Wells, said that more than 8,600 children who drank the city’s water have been exposed to lead. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver declared a state of emergency in the city in light to the public health crisis, warning that lead poisoning could cause "irreversible" damage to children in Flint.
Anonymous conceded that it, too, was late in starting #OpFlint (Operation Flint), but emphasized that it would help amplify the voices of Flint residents and continue to raise attention to the issue. In the video, the Anonymous member stated that Snyder and other city officials would be held accountable for alleged criminal offenses. It did not offer specific details about the group's plan of attack, however.
RELATED: THIS IS WHAT THE WATER IN FLINT, MICHIGAN LOOKS LIKE
"We feel that there currently exists enough evidence to arrest Governor Snyder for either voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, and that a full scale investigation into the Flint Water crisis and a criminal trial will yield the information that will send governor Snyder to prison," the statement continued. "We encourage the city of Flint to be vocal and demand that Governor Snyder face criminal charges. Anonymous will stand beside you."
Anonymous Activates #OpFlint…And Yes It’s About Time!
January 20, 2016 Intel Group#Anonymous#IntelGroup0 Comment
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Greetings Citizens of the world,
We are Anonymous.
For over a year now the citizens of Flint, Michigan have been subjected to drinking tap water filled with lead and other poisons.
Over 3000 children residing in flint have been diagnosed with lead poisoning andother contaminated water illnesses.
This issue went unreported by the mainstream media for entirely too long.
A resident of Flint, Michigan and activist by the name of “@C1tyOfFl1nt” has worked for countless hours, weeks and years to bring awareness to the water crises in flint.
And now that OpFlint is in the media and people are aware, we must remind the city officials of flint that we do not forget and we do not forgive.
The crimes committed by Governor Snyder as well as other city officials will not go unpunished.
The city of Flint deserved to be informed and made aware of the problem with the town drinking water.
The fact that Governor Snyder stayed silent while the children of flint were poisoned says a lot about his character.
It is safe to assume that children may already be doomed to die due to this. It says a lot about how Snyder and those who answered to him on this matter feel about the citizens of Flint.
It’s clear to us that Governor Snyder needs to be reminded that he is a servant for the very same people he has poisoned and made sick. Or perhaps he never forgot. Perhaps corruption is at play here. In that case, he is now going to simply be shown the error of his evil ways.
We feel that there currently exists enough evidence to arrest Governor Snyder for either voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, and that a full scale investigation into the Flint Water crisis and a criminal trial will yield the information that will send governor Snyder to prison.
We encourage the city of Flint to be vocal and demand that Governor Snyder face criminal charges. Anonymous will stand beside you.
We will amplify your voice where the mainstream media will surely fail you, as it has in the past.
We will also join you in calling bullshit on any spin that the corporate media is prepared to put on this, as they have on other past crises that affect the welfare of the common people in this country-most notably the poor and people of color.
Governor Snyder and his cronies have brought pain, suffering, and possible death to the people of Flint.
They have also clearly displayed contempt for the children of flint. Certainly they have displayed no remorse or guilt.
But it all stops now.
Because what Governor Snyder will soon learn is that we do not forgive. We do not forget. The people responsible for this crises will be held accountable. Every wrong doing will be rectified.
The city of Flint deserved better, governor. Instead they got a murderer.
One again justice will arrive in the form of a pale mask.
We are Legion.
We are the citizens of #OpFlint.
Governor Snyder, did you really not expect us?
Politics | Thu Jan 21, 2016 5:11pm EST
Michigan governor will be called to congressional hearing on Flint water crisis
CHICAGO | BY FIONA ORTIZ
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and other officials will be called to testify next month to a congressional panel about the crisis over lead-contaminated water in the city of Flint, a congressional office said on Thursday.
U.S. Representative Brenda Lawrence, a Democrat, requested the Feb. 3 hearing of the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week, said her communications director, Tracy Manzer. The invitation will be specifically for the governor and he cannot send a representative on his behalf, Manzer said.
Susan Hedman, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 5 office in Chicago, and Dan Wyant, former director of Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality, are among the other invitees. Wyant resigned in December over the growing crisis in Flint.
Flint, a financially strapped city north of Detroit, switched water supplies in 2014 to save money. Complaints about the water began within a month of the change, but officials did not take steps to remedy the situation until October 2015 after tests showed elevated levels of lead in some tap water in the city and in some children.
"The purpose of the hearing is to identify precisely what went wrong in the process and to ensure that those who were responsible are to be held accountable and that this never happens again," Manzer said.
Snyder, a Republican, has rejected calls from critics for his resignation over the crisis. He asked the Michigan state legislature this week to approve $28 million to assist Flint and said there would be additional funding requests. The Michigan House approved the funding unanimously on Wednesday and the bill was in the Senate on Thursday.
The U.S. House committee can subpoena people to appear before it if they do not respond to invitations.
Karmamatterz » Fri Jan 22, 2016 2:14 am wrote:Anybody grow up in Michigan or spend time in Flint? I did, it's an armpit. Am not surprised by what happened at all. If one can set aside the alleged deaths there is a bright side to this. Flint and the county may get a new water system or at least new pipes. Let's be honest, without the disaster nothing substantial would have ever been done to fix the problem.
A lot of people in Michigan look at Flint as a place to stay away from as it's depressing and run down. Bad water has brought light on an area that most could care less about around there. Sometimes things have to UTTERLY fail before they get attention.
Hey SLAD, your sig about domestic terrorism plays nicely into using the psyops lingo perpetuated by the Feds. Nice work there buddy keeping the words domestic terrorists ever present, shows the op was successful. Whoever the clever fucker was that came up with the campaign ought to be pleased.
The poisoning of Flint is domestic terrorism*
By RichardWexler
Wednesday Jan 20, 2016 5:01 PM CST
*-OR MAYBE JUST CALLOUS INDIFFERENCE, NEGLECT AND RACISM
One of the nightmare scenarios often discussed in stories about domestic terrorism is the one in which a terrorist poisons the water supply for an entire city. Untold numbers suffer from the poisoning and, of course, no one can drink the water.
If a terrorist actually did such a thing it would be front page news immediately. There would be round-the-clock television news coverage not seen since 9/11. And Republican presidential candidates would be rushing to outdo each other in demands to bomb something.
And yet, when it actually happened the response was very different.
When the State of Michigan wound up poisoning the water supply in Flint, the response by much of the mainstream media was almost as slow as the response from government.
At first, there were only 30-second “tell” stories on the evening news, and those stories repeatedly referred to a decision by “the city” or “city officials” to stop paying for water from Detroit and start using water from the Flint river. That water corroded lead pipes, the lead got into the water and poisoned children.
Even when media started looking at the culpability of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, they focused on his failure to respond to the poisoning, not his role in the poisoning of the water in the first place.
Michigan Public Radio reporter Rick Pluta set the record straight in an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep:
PLUTA: Flint is a Michigan community that was placed under what's called emergency management. A state-appointed manager was in charge when the decision was made that Flint was going to stop using water from the city of Detroit system, where it was buying it and it was considered too expensive, and start drawing water from the Flint River at least on an interim basis. …
INSKEEP: And you're giving us an idea here why it is that people would blame the governor - because the state was in charge of the city, because it faced a fiscal crisis, as some cities in Michigan have, and it was seen as a money-saving measure that the water supply was shifted.
PLUTA: Exactly. The complaint is that it was putting bean counting ahead of the public health, while the city of Flint was, basically, under state control.
INSKEEP: And so what specific criticisms of Snyder's role are there?
PLUTA: Well, there're two. One is the one that it happened in the first place. And then as it turned out, state environmental regulators didn't make sure that the proper protections were in place - that the water was treated properly once they started drawing it from the city of Flint and then denied that there was a problem. And this went on for months and months and months before anyone at the state level acknowledged that it was real. In the meantime, local activists, a pediatrician in Flint and some researchers from out-of-state came in and kept saying, look there's a problem, and finally the state had to acknowledge that it was true.
Now, finally, Gov. Snyder says “I’m sorry, and I will fix it,” adding:
To the families in Flint, it is my responsibility, my commitment to deliver. I give you my commitment that Michigan will not let you down.
But of course, the governor - not all of Michigan, but the governor and his appointees - already let Flint down. And part of the tragedy of lead poisoning in children is, once it happens, it can’t be “fixed.” But he’s right about the fact that it’s his responsibility. That’s why, for starters, he needs to resign. Starting at five minutes into this video, Michael Moore suggests the next logical step.
Meanwhile, most of the Republican presidential candidates have suddenly lost their voices. (The one tiny silver lining to this horror: If you want Donald Trump to shut up, ask him about Flint.)
Did Rick Snyder want the children of Flint to be poisoned by lead-contaminated water? Of course not. But does anybody seriously believe that the state of Michigan ever would have done this in, say, Bloomfield Hills – or any other very, very rich very, very white suburb?
This is one more example of just how little Black lives matter. And the poisoning of Flint is domestic terrorism.*
Wednesday, Jan 20, 2016 · 5:46:23 PM CST · RichardWexler
UPDATE: CBS, for one STILL doesn’t get it. On the CBS Evening News tonight, Scott Pelley just said the crisis began when Flint changed water sources. No, Scott. Flint didn’t make that decision, the state forced it on Flint.
Then Pelley interviewed Snyder, pressing him only on whether the water is safe now, and letting him blame his environmental protection agency for everything that went wrong. Pelley did not ask a single question about Snyder’s responsibility for bringing on this crisis in the first place.
And to top it off, when asked about another state takeover that’s failed, in Detroit Schools, prompting a sickout by teachers to protest the horrible conditions in school buildings, Snyder said he hoped the teachers “would stop hurting the kids.”
Rick Snyder may not be the very last person in America in a position to tell anyone else to stop hurting kids, but he’s on the short list.
Michael Moore Just Nailed What No One Is Willing to Say About Flint's Water Crisis
Mic By Jamilah King
January 19, 2016 12:39 PM
3 Things You Need to Know about the Flint Water Crisis from Erin Brockovich
Michael Moore is known for tackling tough subjects, which is especially true when it comes to his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Now, in the midst of a declared state of emergency over the city's man-made water crisis, the award-winning filmmaker is calling out what few others have: that the catastrophe has everything to do with race.
Back in December, before the crisis became big national news, Moore tweeted:
This is a racial killing. Flint MI is 60% black. When u knowingly poison a black city, u r committing a version of genocide #ArrestGovSnyder
This month, with investigations brewing and more outraged calls for accountability, Moore reiterated his point:
If this were elsewhere, & the white leader blocked a black city's clean water supply &made them drink poison, we'd call it ethnic cleansing.
First, some context: Moore rose to prominence in 1989 with his documentary film Roger & Me, in which he chronicled what happened to Flint's once-prosperous economy after the auto industry left. Those who had the means fled the city. Black autoworkers, who'd migrated from the South well through the 1970s, became a majority in the city. Today, more than half of the city's 99,000 residents are black, according to census data. The median household income is only $24,834 — roughly half of the average household income in the state of Michigan.
View photo
.Michael Moore Just Nailed What No One Is Willing to Say About Flint's Water Crisis
Children in Flint, Michigan, stock up on bottled water amid the city's lead poisoning crisis. Source: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
It's sometimes said that demographics are not destiny, but in Flint, that's not quite the case. In a city whose infrastructure was failing long before this latest catastrophe, black children already had an increased risk of being exposed to environmental toxins like lead.
Lead is a toxin that, when found in excessive levels in children, can lead to long-term neurological damage. In the 1970s, it was bannedin food cans, gasoline and other household products. In 1988, Congress passed the Lead Contamination Control Act, which successfully reduced overall lead poisoning cases in the United States. Still, by 2005, African-American children ages one to five were twice as likely to suffer lead poisoning than their white peers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ten years later, in 2015, a HuffPost analysis found a correlation between cities with high populations of black residents and elevated lead poisoning rates. In fact, Detroit, the city from which Flint had originally piped in its water before opting for a cheaper — and ultimately more deadly — option had high rates of lead poisoning.
According to the National Center for Healthy Housing, "Minority and low-income families are more likely to live in substandard housing and polluted communities, increasing their risk of childhood lead poisoning, asthma, cancer and other environmentally related diseases." What's more: "In addition to being disproportionately affected by disease, minorities often lack adequate insurance and access to health care due to financial and cultural barriers."
New York City, which has a sizable black population, has also struggled in recent years to combat lead exposure in children. According to an analysis by the New York Daily News, in 2012, more than 900 children had tested positive for lead poisoning. Of those, more than 300 showed levels so high that city health inspectors were immediately dispatched to their homes. And of those, most were children of color: 23% were black, 31% were Latino and 26% were Asian.
Matthew J. Chachère, a staff attorney at the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, told the Huffington Post in 2015 about the terrifying long-term aspects of lead poisoning: The damage is "irreversible."
"It could have ended a long time ago," Chachère said. "We don't know how to cure cancer. We don't know how to get rid of asthma. We do know how to cure lead poisoning, which is you get rid of the lead in kids' environment. It's not that complicated."
Unless, of course, you are decision-makers in Flint, Michigan.
Governor Rick Snyder @onetoughnerd Jan 19
You can find the full Flint water timeline at http://1.usa.gov/1ZzWdFF #MISOTS16
VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought Local, national and world news from a people's perspective
JAIL SNYDER, CRONIES FOR FLINT LEAD POISONING, DOMESTIC TERRORISM, RACISM
Posted on 01/20/2016 by Diane Bukowski
Highest lead level in Flint: 13,000 parts per billion; most water nothing but “toxic waste”—Virginia Tech
Snyder: “I take full responsibility to fix the problem so it will never happen again.”
Snyder’s Public Act 436 coup d’etat led to Flint catastrophe; Pres. Obama refused to fight predecessor PA4 under Voting Rights Act
Detroit bankruptcy, impoverishment of Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Highland Park, other cities resulted from bipartisan-approved bankster takeovers
Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks in Flint, Lansing; ignores Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s’ most effective campaign—the Montgomery bus boycott
By Diane Bukowski
January 20, 2016
DeMario Stewart of Flint said feeds his son Damonei Stewart during his two month checkup at Hurley Childrens Center. USA Today
DeMario Stewart of Flint said feeds his son Damonei Stewart during his two month checkup at Hurley Childrens Center. USA Today
DETROIT – The deliberate lead poisoning of the people of Flint, especially its children, babies and those still in their mothers’ wombs, likely ranks among the greatest genocidal crimes in the U.S. in the 21st century, an act of domestic terrorism comparable only to the thousands of murders of unarmed Blacks, Latinos and poor people by law enforcement since 2000.
No matter what promises Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder made in his State of the State address last night, no matter how many planeloads and truckloads of bottled water are brought into the city now, no matter how much is spent to restructure water systems, no matter how many speeches are given, rallies held, and class action lawsuits filed, the damage done is “irreversible,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Lead has . . .serious consequences for the health of children,” WHO says. “At high levels of exposure, lead attacks the brain and central nervous system to cause coma, convulsions and even death. Children who survive severe lead poisoning may be left with mental retardation and behavioral disruption. . . .In particular lead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.”
Some of damaging effects of lead exposure
Adults are affected as well, as the graphic at right shows.
Every child and adult in Flint who drank Flint’s water since April, 2014 has been exposed to lead, according to studies done so far. That includes 8,657 children under the age of six, who are most severely affected. Ten adults have died so far from Legionnaire’s Disease, also a result of the lead contamination.
EPA guidelines for lead contamination of water indicate that action needs to be taken at 5-15 parts per billion (ppb) of lead, but that NO level is “safe.”
But in Virginia Tech’s study of 257 Flint households, according to the Washington Post, “The lowest reading they obtained was around 200 ppb, already ridiculously high. But more than half of the readings came in at more than 1,000 ppb. Some came in above 5,000 — the level at which EPA considers the water to be ‘toxic waste.’ The highest reading registered at an astounding 13,000 ppb.”
Detroit city retirees blast Snyder during protest against phony bankruptcy Oct. 2013.
Detroit city retirees blast Snyder during protest against phony bankruptcy that left most impoverished, in Oct. 2013.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the director of pediatric residency at Hurley Children’s Hospital who first exposed the severity of the crisis, told the AP, “It has such damning, lifelong and generational consequences.”
What punishment is sufficient for those who are responsible? What must be done to forever change the nature of the system that preordained this would happen?
“I know apologies won’t make up for mistakes that were made,” Snyder said at his State of the State address yesterday. “I take full responsibility to fix the problem so it will never happen again. We will be doing whatever we must until the crisis is resolved.”
He even hypocritically had Dr. Hanna-Attisha stand for a round of applause, mispronouncing her last name and saying he calls her “Dr. Mona.”
While admitting some responsibility, Snyder laid most of the blame on officials from the Michigan Departments of Environmental Quality and Health and Human Services, whose leaders answered directly to him. He announced he had fired several top MDEQ executives.
He repeated the lie that the DWSD terminated its service to Flint. He also blamed the Mayor and City Council of Flint, who voted in 2013 to connect with the private Karegnondi Pipeline, although they did not vote to disconnect from DWSD immediately or use Flint River water.
Map shows proposed Karegnondi pipeline in red, opposed to DWSD water lines in blue. Karegnondi will not build individual community treatment plants.
Map shows proposed Karegnondi pipeline in red, opposed to DWSD water lines in blue. Karegnondi will not build individual community treatment plants.
The Karegnondi Pipeline itself represents more dangers. The mainstream media has held it up as the ultimate answer to Flint’s problems, providing “clean” water from Lake Huron. However, they fail to mention that is ALL Karegnondi will do. The individual communities serviced by it must build their OWN treatment facilities.
An initial assessment from the U.S. Environmental Task Force’s newly created Flint Drinking Water Task Force warns, “There are many other communities scheduled to transition from their current water sources to the KWA pipeline. Although the source water will be the same for the City of Flint and all communities transitioning to the KWA pipeline source, the intended treatment planned for these communities may differ and the studies undertaken for the City of Flint may or may not be suitable for use by the other communities.”
Snyder also blamed the EPA. The EPA said in a statement, “Our first priority is to make sure the water in Flint is safe, but we also must look at what the agency could have done differently,” with a spokeswoman confirming the agency did not act fast enough to address the problem
The EPA statement also said that “while EPA worked within the framework of the law to repeatedly and urgently communicate the steps the state needed to take to properly treat its water, those necessary (EPA) actions were not taken as quickly as they should have been.”
It cited “failures and resistance at the state and local levels to work with us in a forthright, transparent and proactive manner.”
Flint’s Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft exposed Snyder.
But it was Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder who directly ordered Flint’s then-Emergency Manager Darnell Earley to disconnect Flint’s water system from the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department and use the Flint River water and city facilities, with no lead protections in place, in April 2014. That set the poisoning of Flint in motion, according to an article published by Curt Guyette in the Michigan Democracy Watch Blog.
In a recent interview with the ACLU of Michigan, Flint Public Works Director Howard Croft . . . pointed the finger of blame at the state, saying the decision to switch came from the governor’s office,” Guyette wrote. See the ACLU documentary he sponsored in video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4n9ZeDuhdU
Earley, at Snyder’s behest, is now wreaking havoc in the Detroit Public Schools. As of today, 88 Detroit schools have been ordered shutdown due to walkouts by teachers over conditions in the schools and Snyder’s role in dismantling DPS. (See upcoming VOD article.)
U.S. Democratic Presidential hopeful Hilary Clinton took cynical advantage of the situation during the presidential debates, opining that the lead poisoning would not have happened in affluent white cities. However, she did not say that if elected, she would have the U.S. Department of Justice criminally indict Snyder or any other operatives in the disaster.
Hilary Clinton
Clinton likewise neglected to address the millions of deaths and destruction of world-class water system and other infrastructures resulting from the genocidal global wars she and President Obama continue to conduct against Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and throughout Africa and Latin America.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow: PUSH spoke last week in Flint about the lead crisis, and then stuck around for celebrations of the national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday holiday Jan. 18. He was also present outside the Governor’s address.
“We should have .. tape around the city because Flint is a crime scene.” he said. “The people of Flint have been betrayed.”
But only two days after the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Jackson did not propose using the strategy that resulted in one of Dr. King’s major successes–the Montgomery bus boycott, which brought the city to its knees economically and led eventually to passage of national civil rights legislation.
Carpool during historic Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Carpool during historic Montgomery Bus Boycott.
VOD proposes once again A NATIONAL BOYCOTT OF MICHIGAN’S MAJOR BUSINESSES!
Why? As Dr. King proved, the only way to affect the slaughter of poor and working people by corporate interests is to hit the banksters in the pocket.
During a Michigan Welfare Rights march against the cut-offs of 12,600 Michigan families from public benefits on Sept. 29, 2011, VOD asked Jackson and U.S Representative John Conyers if they would call for a boycott of Michigan businesses in response to what the protesters said amounted to “murder.”
Both Jackson and Conyers reacted with a horrified, resounding “NO.” They said an “economic recovery” was underway in Michigan, despite evidence to the contrary all around them in the neighborhoods of Detroit.
Protest at Detroits
Michigan Welfare Rights’ protest Sept. 29, 2011 against public aid cut-offs to families. Rev. Jesse Jackson refused to call a boycott of Michigan for this draconian measure. The late, renowned General Baker carries the “Tax the Rich” sign.
Jackson went on to attend Rainbow PUSH’s Global Automotive and Energy Summit at MGM Grand Casino the following week, hobnobbing with corporate executives who sit on Rainbow PUSH’s board.
In fact, it was Hilary Clinton’s husband Bill Clinton who signed the legislation which permanently cut-off of federal benefits to the poor after four years, if each state opted in. Just before she left office, Michigan’s Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm gave state approval, although she had vowed not to do so, leaving it to Snyder to drop the ax.
Today, Michigan’s majority-Black cities are suffering far worse than even in 2011.
Detroit children wait for free coats given away by the Moorish Science Temple of America.
Detroit children wait for free coats given away by the Moorish Science Temple of America.
In Detroit, with at least an 83 percent Black population, 59 percent of the city’s children live in poverty, with rates of unemployment, home mortgage and tax foreclosures and evictions, and public school shutdowns skyrocketing.
Under the Bankruptcy Confirmation Plan of 2014, Detroit has effectively lost the revenue of all its major assets, including the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Belle Isle, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, where billions of dollars worth of art owned by the city was lost to a “trust.” The Flint debacle results directly from the state-sponsored dismantling of the country’s third largest public water and sewerage facility.
VOD recently reported that there are hardly any workers left at the city’s Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), the largest in the U.S. and the third largest in the world. As raw sewage flows into the Detroit River and downriver to southeast Michigan and Toledo, Ohio, due to increasing disfunction there, countless more Flints can be expected.
The late, beloved Detroit retiree Belinda Myers-Florence, who fought Detroit bankruptcy with all her might.
The late, beloved Detroit retiree Belinda Myers-Florence, who fought Detroit bankruptcy with all her might as an officer of DAREA.
Like the WWTP workers, City of Detroit workers everywhere have faced massive lay-offs and privatization. Retirees are rapidly sinking below the poverty level, having lost huge chunks of their pensions, annuity savings, and medical benefits.
Some, such as Belinda Myers-Florence, officer of the Detroit Active and Retired Employees Association (DAREA), which has now appealed the bankruptcy plan to the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, have lost their lives due to the stress of this vicious attack.
Highland Park’s population of 10,000 is 93.5 percent Black, and 51 percent of its people live below the poverty level. Pontiac, 52 percent Black, has a 36.6 percent poverty rate. Flint, 56.6 percent Black, has a 41 percent poverty level.
Benton Harbor, nearly 90 percent Black, had 42.6 percent of its people living below the poverty level in 2013.
Why a boycott of major Michigan businesses? As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. proved, the only way to affect the slaughter of poor and working people by corporate interests is to hit the banksters in the pocket.
Kevin Matthews, murdered by Dearborn cop.
Kevin Matthews
Rev. Edward Pinkney
Rev. Edward Pinkney
General Motors first abandoned and impoverished Flint, Pontiac and Detroit, shutting down most of its auto plants in those cities.
Ford Motor Company, whose pro-fascist founder Henry Ford created the white city of Dearborn, has done nothing to stop the ongoing racist murders of Blacks who venture into that city, including the execution-style slaying of Kevin Matthews by a white Dearborn cop Dec. 23, 2015.
Chrysler abandoned Highland Park to its fate, leaving its public school system, libraries, and housing stock in shambles.
Among other Michigan-based companies, Whirlpool abandoned the 99 percent Black city of Benton Harbor, pulling its plants out, taking over public land, and sanctioning racist police murders there as well. With Whirlpool’s support, the activist Rev. Edward Pinkney is now languishing in a Michigan prison, falsely charged with changing dates on an election recall petition aimed at Whirlpool endorsed Mayor name.
What is the common denominator for these cities, and many more like them, including even working-class majority white cities in Michigan? After all, over the last 10 years, the state has cut $7.2 BILLION in revenue-sharing to its cities.
It was the coup d’etat pulled off by Snyder and his legislative and corporate allies, in the secrecy of night in Dec. 2012. They created the second Emergency Manager Act, P.A. 436, after the residents of 84 out of 86 counties had voted down its virtually identical predecessor, P.A. 4, in a referendum vote.
Pres. Barack Obama, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Pres. Barack Obama, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
Despite pleas by Michigan’s Black population, 51 percent of which was disenfranchised under the Emergency Manager acts, the country’s first Black President, Barack Obama, and his Black attorney general Eric Holder, refused to open a Voting Rights Act investigation of the legislation, requested by U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit).
Hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S. fought in the streets, in the fields, in the cities of the south and north, and many lost their lives, to establish the Voting Rights Act. The failure of a Democratic, Black administration to fight the attack on it in Michigan was a historic betrayal that can never be forgiven or forgotten.
Like the youth of Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago and elsewhere, who have spent the last two years fighting in the streets for their very lives against police assassinations, the people of Flint and of Michigan must not be hoodwinked by the election hi-jinks being played out now.
DIRECT ACTION BY THE PEOPLE, INCLUDING BOYCOTTS, UPRISINGS, STRIKES LIKE THE CURRENT MASS WALKOUTS BY DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS, AND OTHER MILITANT RESPONSES CAN BE THE ONLY APPROPRIATE RESPONSE TO THE HORRENDOUS CRIME WHICH HAS BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF FLINT.
Coard: Michigan has a terrorist in plain view
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s lead-infested water conspiracy affects 102,000 residents of Flint, 60 percent of whom are Black. -AP Photo/Al Goldis
Posted: Friday, January 22, 2016 12:00 am
Michael Coard |
Federal law, specifically 18 U.S.C. 2331(5)(A), (B), and (C), defines domestic terrorism as “activities that involve … acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of … any state (and) appear to be intended to intimidate … a civilian population and that occur … within the … jurisdiction of the United States.”
Well, I guess that answers the question about Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder regarding the lead-infested water conspiracy affecting 102,000 citizens of Flint, 60 percent of whom are Black, 90 percent of whom are Democrats who voted against the conservative Republican governor, and 87 of whom contracted the lethal Legionnaires’ disease — at least 10 of whom are dead.
As governor, Synder engaged in politically racist payback and intimidation in April 2014 by slashing funds to that predominantly Black Democratic city by transferring its water supply from clean Lake Huron to the poisonous Flint River. Sounds a lot like terrorism to me.
Flint River’s brown, smelly and repulsive-tasting water is so corrosive that it scraped the lead off decayed pipes going into the city. Although Flint switched back to its original Huron supply in October 2015, lead continues to seep into the residents’ faucets.
Lead is no joke. In fact, it’s deadly serious as a neurotoxin in a medical and social way. Medically, it kills by damaging the brain and ravaging the kidneys. It also causes anemia, produces scaly itchy rashes and lowers IQ. Socially, it triggers behavioral and emotional dysfunction.
Researchers discovered that Flint’s water had lead levels that were 397 parts per billion. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says anything more than 15 ppb can cause irreversible brain damage in children.
That’s 27 times higher than what Black children in Flint have been exposed to. By the way, there are twice as many Black children than white in Flint.
In connection with the social effects, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, pediatric residency program director at Hurley Children’s Hospital at Michigan State University, said: “A child with lead … poisoning … [is] completely asymptomatic. But in five years, there’s an increased likelihood that the kid’s going to need special-education services. In 10 years, there’s an increased likelihood that the kid’s going to have ADHD … [and] mental health issues. And in 20 years, it’s going to be a problem with the criminal justice system.”
And I say, “If you don’t think this is all part of a nationwide racist conspiracy to channel Black children from schools to youth delinquency centers to adult prisons, you must be lead-brained crazy.”
In response to the governor’s late request, President Barack Obama on Jan. 16 declared a “state of emergency” so federal funds can be released to help pay the $1.5 billion in repair costs. But if Synder had addressed the obvious warning signs early on by adding a “safe-to-drink corrosive protector,” it would have cost Michigan only $100 a day for a mere three months.
Although state and federal agencies are supposedly trying to assist the residents of Flint, the majority of whom are Black, let’s not rely on slow-moving bureaucracies. Let’s follow the advice of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and “Do for self” by helping a Black Christian church that’s leading the call for safe water in Flint.
Therefore, send bottled water — or checks — to Triumph Church, 1657 Broadway Boulevard, Flint, Mich., 48506. For more info, call (313) 386-8044.
The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan announced on Jan. 8 that agents were investigating the matter. And the state’s Attorney General, after repeatedly ignoring the plight of Flint’s citizens, finally on Jan. 15 began a criminal investigation.
If a brown Muslim political extremist had done to a municipal water supply exactly what this white Christian politician did, he would have been arrested, charged with terrorism and murder and tried. He would likely be found guilty and sentenced to death or life imprisonment.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. So let’s get the criminal justice system ball rolling by calling for the arrest of Gov. Snyder. And you can do that by simply logging on to michaelmoore.com/ArrestGovSnyder and signing the petition.
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