Photo Credit: Joe Brusky Flicker
UPDATE
As of November 17, 2016 Flint residences still do not have clean drinking water. The public has been distracted by the 2016 elections and the post-election protests while communities feeling the full weight of the collapsing internal structures of the American empire have taken to social media to keep their story and struggle on the minds of the world. The Flint water crisis, now having lingered for over two years, may not be considered a newsworthy story anymore for the dead corporate mainstream media, however the hearts and minds of America will not allow the willful public neglect and purposeful injury continuing in Flint to be forgotten. The Metro Times reported on November 10, 2016 the following:
"Federal judge David M. Lawson ordered the state of Michigan and the city of Flint to ensure that every Flint household has safe drinking water. That means homes must receive bottled water deliver unless the government verifies, on a regular basis, that the home has a properly installed and maintained faucet filter, or the home declines delivery."
However, days after the state filed in federal court announcing their plans to appeal.
"The required injunction far exceeds what is necessary to ensure Flint residents have access to safe drinking water," attorneys for Michigan state wrote in a filing asking that the deliveries should be paused pending their appeal.
As of November 17, 2016 Flint residences still do not have clean drinking water. The public has been distracted by the 2016 elections and the post-election protests while communities feeling the full weight of the collapsing internal structures of the American empire have taken to social media to keep their story and struggle on the minds of the world. The Flint water crisis, now having lingered for over two years, may not be considered a newsworthy story anymore for the dead corporate mainstream media, however the hearts and minds of America will not allow the willful public neglect and purposeful injury continuing in Flint to be forgotten. The Metro Times reported on November 10, 2016 the following:
"Federal judge David M. Lawson ordered the state of Michigan and the city of Flint to ensure that every Flint household has safe drinking water. That means homes must receive bottled water deliver unless the government verifies, on a regular basis, that the home has a properly installed and maintained faucet filter, or the home declines delivery."
However, days after the state filed in federal court announcing their plans to appeal.
"The required injunction far exceeds what is necessary to ensure Flint residents have access to safe drinking water," attorneys for Michigan state wrote in a filing asking that the deliveries should be paused pending their appeal.
FLINT, MI.- Objective journalism has no place in these deep trenches of political corruption and human damage. The fruits of multilevel corruption generationally layered upon innocent people is now clear. The regulatory agencies in America tasked with protecting the people from greed, enforcing regulation and testing for contaminants have willfully neglected their duties. While people trust presidents, cast votes and blindly go about their lives, oversight agencies coldly calculate life on a crooked scale broken years ago. The facade has been over for sometime now in Flint and the world is left to stare in amazement at the depths greed and corruption can go while disguised as trusted authority.
“What is in the mind of someone who knowingly poisons children and impairs their lives?…What does it say about a society that is ruled by, and refuses to punish, those who willfully destroy the lives of children?" -Chris Hedges ‘Flint Crisis is About More Than Just Water’
While news stories and congressional hearings are busy playing pass the buck, the parents of Flint children have geared up to medically and emotionally cope with the symptoms and results of lead poisoning. Pipes carrying the city's drinking water have been leaching lead since April 2014. While still drinking from Ice Mountain water bottles being shipped in daily, Flint residents are left with a deep, scarring understanding of the saying it’s just business. In a sad twist of irony, Ice Mountain brand water is owned by Nestle who has been extracting fresh water from Michigan aquifers at a rate of 218 gallons per minute at near zero prices for years to ship around the world. Nestle’s former CEO and now chairman Peter Brabeck recently made the sociopath’s hall of fame by publicly stating that "water is not a human right." American Author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote in his classic The Slaughterhouse-Five "How nice — to feel nothing and still get credit for being alive."
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
—Winston Churchill
Freshly off the hot seat testifying in front of a House Oversight and Oxymoronic Government Reform Committee is arrogantly self-proclaimed ‘One Tough Nerd’ Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. With 614,000 signatures garnered calling for his immediate arrest, the sincerity of Snyder's apologies were as insulting as his refusal to acknowledge the full extent of the truth. Snyder, still drawing a paycheck and hiring lawyers at the taxpayer's expense, sat and took his punishment like a good little boy (without lead poisoning). The vestigial congressional proceedings toothlessly asking Snyder to step down were as insulting as the chain of corruption and apathy from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and up to Snyder’s leaderless leadership.
“What is in the mind of someone who knowingly poisons children and impairs their lives?…What does it say about a society that is ruled by, and refuses to punish, those who willfully destroy the lives of children?" -Chris Hedges ‘Flint Crisis is About More Than Just Water’
While news stories and congressional hearings are busy playing pass the buck, the parents of Flint children have geared up to medically and emotionally cope with the symptoms and results of lead poisoning. Pipes carrying the city's drinking water have been leaching lead since April 2014. While still drinking from Ice Mountain water bottles being shipped in daily, Flint residents are left with a deep, scarring understanding of the saying it’s just business. In a sad twist of irony, Ice Mountain brand water is owned by Nestle who has been extracting fresh water from Michigan aquifers at a rate of 218 gallons per minute at near zero prices for years to ship around the world. Nestle’s former CEO and now chairman Peter Brabeck recently made the sociopath’s hall of fame by publicly stating that "water is not a human right." American Author Kurt Vonnegut once wrote in his classic The Slaughterhouse-Five "How nice — to feel nothing and still get credit for being alive."
“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
—Winston Churchill
Freshly off the hot seat testifying in front of a House Oversight and Oxymoronic Government Reform Committee is arrogantly self-proclaimed ‘One Tough Nerd’ Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. With 614,000 signatures garnered calling for his immediate arrest, the sincerity of Snyder's apologies were as insulting as his refusal to acknowledge the full extent of the truth. Snyder, still drawing a paycheck and hiring lawyers at the taxpayer's expense, sat and took his punishment like a good little boy (without lead poisoning). The vestigial congressional proceedings toothlessly asking Snyder to step down were as insulting as the chain of corruption and apathy from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and up to Snyder’s leaderless leadership.
| Also appearing recently to testify in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was former EPA Regional Administrator Susan Hedman — who resigned in January over the Flint water crisis. Hedman had the task of explaining away her agency’s internal email greatest hits such as "not so sure Flint is the community we want to go out on a limb for” and "This situation has the opportunity to get very big very quickly.” | |
Refusing to formally punish Michigan environmental officials for failing to require corrosion controls at Flint's water treatment plant, Hedman’s EPA doubted whether pushing Michigan to direct more federal dollars to Flint was worth the political fight. Other emails indicated that an EPA scientist who first raised alarms about lead levels in Flint felt retaliated against over the move.
Photo Credit: Joe Brusky DSC03001 Flicker
Speaking with NPR in March 2016 about the historic, merry-go-round lead crises in the US were
David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz — authors of the 2013 book Lead Wars. Their book is an incisive examination of lead poisoning during the past half century which reveals one of the most contentious and bitter battles in the history of public health. When asked by NPR host Terry Gross if poor people and people in older housing have been disproportionately affected by lead poisoning, Rosner states:
"Absolutely — I think lead poisoning in children is one of the most important environmental justice issues we have in the United States today."
Markowitz then chimes in adding:
"One of the interesting, terrifying and horrifying things about this whole story is the use of race as a means of, in some sense, ignoring what was known for close to a century. In the 1950's, we found these documents and letters between people in the lead industry association and even the federal government that basically say that the problem of lead poisoning will exist until we can get rid of all our old housing and that will never happen. And the second point that they make is that it's only...and this is their quote so please understand that, it's only a problem among negro and Puerto Rican families and that it's probably due to the ignorance of those families that there is a problem with lead poisoning."
Rosner adds to his co-authors points by stating:
"They actually call the parents "ineducable parents" and they are blaming the children and their parents for the lead poisoning that is caused by the lead that they have pushed..."
Giving more background on lead poisoning in American, Markowitz then adds:
"In the 1960's, community groups picked up on the fact that African-American and Hispanic children were at high risk and they actually turned their [lead industry/government] argument on its head. They [community groups] said this is a paradigmatic disease, this is a model disease for racism, poverty and for the existence of poverty in America. So we begin to see an awakening of interest in this issue mainly because of the social movements of the 60's and early 70's."
David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz — authors of the 2013 book Lead Wars. Their book is an incisive examination of lead poisoning during the past half century which reveals one of the most contentious and bitter battles in the history of public health. When asked by NPR host Terry Gross if poor people and people in older housing have been disproportionately affected by lead poisoning, Rosner states:
"Absolutely — I think lead poisoning in children is one of the most important environmental justice issues we have in the United States today."
Markowitz then chimes in adding:
"One of the interesting, terrifying and horrifying things about this whole story is the use of race as a means of, in some sense, ignoring what was known for close to a century. In the 1950's, we found these documents and letters between people in the lead industry association and even the federal government that basically say that the problem of lead poisoning will exist until we can get rid of all our old housing and that will never happen. And the second point that they make is that it's only...and this is their quote so please understand that, it's only a problem among negro and Puerto Rican families and that it's probably due to the ignorance of those families that there is a problem with lead poisoning."
Rosner adds to his co-authors points by stating:
"They actually call the parents "ineducable parents" and they are blaming the children and their parents for the lead poisoning that is caused by the lead that they have pushed..."
Giving more background on lead poisoning in American, Markowitz then adds:
"In the 1960's, community groups picked up on the fact that African-American and Hispanic children were at high risk and they actually turned their [lead industry/government] argument on its head. They [community groups] said this is a paradigmatic disease, this is a model disease for racism, poverty and for the existence of poverty in America. So we begin to see an awakening of interest in this issue mainly because of the social movements of the 60's and early 70's."
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