Want a "Formula" for creating Terrorists? It's easy. Just poison the
drinking water of a Working Class Town. One of my relentless lectures
to my children was on Trust. "Once broken", I would say, "Trust is
very, very hard to get back".
When a government turns on it' people in order to cream off a few
extra dollars, and then repeatedly lies about it, how long is it going
to take for those People to trust that government again? The answer
should be obvious. Never! That government has abused it's privilege
to represent the People. If we are going to avoid creating Terrorists
within our own People, a new government must be put in place of that
corrupt one.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/1/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8005/800504.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 5 February 8, 2016
(front page)
Poisoning of water in Flint reflects
capitalists’ disdain for working class
Water You Fighting For
Demonstration in Flint, Michigan, March 17, 2015. Only after workers
protested and organized their own investigations did government
officials admit water was contaminated.
BY SETH GALINSKY
“We knew something was wrong from the minute they pushed the button,”
said Claire McClinton, a resident of Flint, Michigan, in a phone
interview. The retired General Motors worker and longtime union member
was referring to April 25, 2014, when Democratic Mayor Dayne Walling
switched the city’s water supply to the Flint River.
“The water coming out of our faucets was discolored, it either smelled
like a swimming pool with so much chlorine or like sewage,” she said.
Residents of this working-class city started bringing bottles of the
water to City Council meetings. “It looked like English tea,” McClinton
said, “and all the while they’re telling us it’s safe to drink.”
The story of how the water was poisoned is an indictment of capitalism
and ruling-class scorn toward the residents of this working-class city.
Every level of government — from the city to the governor to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency — was complicit. It made no difference
whether the officials were Democrats or Republicans, Black or Caucasian.
But it’s also the story of working people who refused to accept the
lies. “We were being dismissed and ridiculed and called names,” LeeAnne
Walters said by phone Jan. 24. “We had no choice but to fight.” Walters,
a housewife and former medical assistant, was one of the first to learn
there were high levels of lead in her home’s water. One of her children
was diagnosed with lead poisoning.
Flint residents jammed City Council meetings, organized their own
community forums and held street protests.
“That’s the best part of what happened,” Walters said. “It brought the
community together, we put aside our differences and we joined forces.”
Flint has the highest official poverty rate of any city in Michigan. Its
population is 55 percent African-American and 35 percent Caucasian.
The crisis stems from the decision by Flint Emergency Manager Darnell
Earley — appointed by Republican Michigan Gov. Richard Snyder in 2013 to
take over all financial powers of the local government — to switch to
Flint River water.
“He had the idea it would be cheaper than the pretreated water we had
been getting from Detroit for 40 plus years,” Rev. Alfred Harris,
president of Concerned Pastors for Social Action, told the Militant.
In October 2014, less than six months after the switch, General Motors
said it would no longer use Flint water at its engine plant because it
was causing corrosion. “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know
if it’s not safe for engine parts, then it sure as hell isn’t safe for
human beings,” McClinton said.
In January 2015 the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality found
high levels of a carcinogenic byproduct of chlorine used to disinfect
the water. That same month the first tests showing dangerous levels of
lead in the water became public.
Yet three months later Mayor Walling was still tweeting, “[My] family
and I drink and use the Flint water everyday, at home, work, and schools.”
Researchers from Virginia Tech University — spurred by a call from
Walters — tested water from 300 Flint homes. They announced the results
in September: high lead levels in more than 25 percent of homes, as much
as 13,200 parts per billion. According to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention anything above 15 parts per billion is a danger,
especially to children and pregnant women.
That same month, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician with Hurley
Children’s Hospital, said tests had found that 4 percent of Flint
children had dangerous levels of blood lead, double the numbers before
the water switch and in some places triple.
Some government officials still denied there was any danger. Michigan
Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson Brad Wurfel told the
Flint Journal that those publicizing the problem were fostering
“near-hysteria.”
Federal EPA officials said the lead was within safe levels. An internal
EPA memo in June 2015 warned that high lead was a “serious concern” but
the agency did nothing to alert the public.
But the truth began to win out. Flint River water is 19 times more
corrosive than Detroit’s Lake Huron treated water, yet Flint authorities
did not add a simple corrosion inhibitor to the water. This would have
prevented lead from leaching from decades-old pipes, for only $100 a
day. The damage now is probably irreversible. The cost of replacing
pipes could reach $1.5 billion.
On Oct. 1, officials of Genesee County, where Flint is located, declared
a public health emergency and urged residents to stop drinking the
water, something many, if not most, had already done.
In January this year, President Barack Obama declared a federal
emergency in Flint but refused to make a “disaster” declaration, which
would have meant more funds for the city. He has authorized $5 million
for buying bottled water and lead filters and additional loans.
The aid offered so far “it’s not even a drop in the bucket,” said Rev.
Harris. “It’s a Band-Aid that’s all it is.”
Flint residents are still forced to use bottled water and install lead
filters. The city has jacked up water rates, some people are paying $150
a month or more “for water they can’t even use,” Harris notes.
“We have won some victories,” said McClinton. “The latest is getting
national attention. We were able to get them to go back to using Detroit
water. But we need structural repairs. We need the Army Corp of
Engineers. We need a special health facility to monitor, especially for
our children because lead damage is irreversible.”
“This fight is far from over,” said Walters.
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