title:  Ten Lessons We Should Learn From The Flint Water Crisis (VIDEO)
text: On January 16, President Obama declared a federal emergency in the city of Flint, Michigan. The president s declaration was issued even as evidence mounted that officials in the state s government had willfully and knowingly allowed tens of thousands of Flint residents to consume poisoned water for more than a year.As a result of decisions made by Michigan governor Rick Snyder, 200 children under the age of six have been confirmed to have irreversible lead poisoning. As testing continues, another 9,000 children are likely to be diagnosed with elevated levels of lead in their blood.Emails and leaked documents from the Snyder administration show that the governor and his appointed emergency managers were aware of the problem with the city s water for more than a year.As Addicting Info reported here, an in-depth report by the ACLU of Michigan shows that state officials falsified documents and rigged tests, to purposely mislead the EPA regarding the amount of lead in Flint s water.In addition to poisoning thousands of people with lead, Michigan officials, including the governor and his hand-picked emergency managers, not only ignored a massive spike in cases of Legionnaires disease, but blocked attempts by health officials to determine the cause or take appropriate steps to protect public health.Ten people died from exposure to the waterborne Legionella bacteria.In spite of the fact that state officials knew that the water was likely contaminated with this deadly bacteria and poisoned with lead, they repeatedly assured Flint residents that it was safe to drink.While it is tempting to believe that what happened in Flint can t happen to any of us, the reality is that unless we learn from this unprecedented disaster, it not only can happen to us, it likely will.Here are the ten most important things that Americans must learn from the Flint water crisis.Michigan s emergency manager law, passed by the state s republican/Tea Party legislature and signed by Governor Rick Snyder, provides for the establishment of a puppet government across the state. The law gives Governor Snyder the legal authority to remove elected officials (democrats) and replace them with a single, unelected  manager. Every emergency manager in the state is hand-picked by the governor.The state s emergency managers are bestowed with unlimited power to make decisions on behalf of the local government. In the meantime, the people elected by the citizens are stripped of power, and their voices are silenced. In Flint, Detroit, Pontiac, Benton Harbor and elsewhere across the state of Michigan, local residents have been shut out of the decision-making process entirely.Make no mistake, the state s emergency manager law not only allowed the citizens of Flint to be poisoned, it allowed Snyder officials to cover up the contaminated water for more than a year.As republican governor Chris Christie advances a Michigan-style emergency manager law in New Jersey, it s vital that residents of Atlantic City understand how this law set the stage for the Flint water crisis.Flint is a horrifying example of what happens when right-wing extremists are allowed to make decisions that impact the lives of thousands of citizens.The decision to use the Flint river as a water source for the city was made by Snyder s appointed emergency manager in Flint, Ed Kurtz. There s also evidence that this decision came down directly from the governor s office.The story of how 100,000 people were poisoned by their own government is best understood in terms of right-wing ideology. The people who were charged with making decisions for Flint can be described as typical right-wing extremists. They are EPA-haters, regulation-opposers and Science deniers.These underlying beliefs allowed them to justify their illegal actions, both to each other and to themselves. To them, rigging tests, falsifying documents and flat-out lying to the environmental protection agency was just a way to get around the  evil EPA  with all its  oppressive, costly and unnecessary regulations. Did they believe that their actions would cause harm to tens of thousands of people? It s possible they did. But it s more likely that their underlying anti-federal government, anti-regulation ideology allowed them to convince themselves that their actions would not really harm anyone. These are people who really believed that  evil government regulations  only exist to oppress the free market, not protect the public.Those beliefs are exactly why politicians who subscribe to right-wing ideology can never, ever be trusted to make decisions that could potentially impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.A long list of people, all appointed by Michigan governor Rick Snyder, played a role in the Flint water crisis. All of them were uneducated, inexperienced and unqualified for the positions they were appointed to. Not a single person who played a role in the switch of the city s water source to the Flint river had any knowledge or experience in this area.Nowhere is that more evident in the fact that emergency manager Ed Kurtz eliminated the use of corrosion control, to save roughly $80.00 a day.That single uneducated decision virtually destroyed the city s infrastructure, and created the lead contamination Flint residents are facing today.To understand the level of ineptitude this plummets to, bear in mind that Flint is the only city in the United States that had no plan for corrosion control whatsoever.Corrosion control for all municipal water supplies is mandatory under the Safe Drinking Water Act.In order to cover-up for the fact that corrosion control was eliminated by Snyder appointed officials, state officials lied to the EPA.As reported by Dr. Marc Edwards of the Flint Water Study program here,On February 27th, 2015, MDEQ s Stephen Busch unequivocally and falsely responded to EPA that: The City of Flint Has an Optimized Corrosion Control Program <and> Conducts quarterly Water Quality Parameter monitoring at 25 sites and has not had any unusual results. This was a flat-out lie.It wasn t until much later that the EPA learned that Michigan officials had been deceiving the agency about the use of corrosion control in Flint.As MLive reported nearly a year later, EPA officials were stunned when they discovered the truth. I was stunned when I found out they did not have corrosion control in place,  Miguel A. Del Toral, regulations manager in the EPA s ground water and drinking water branch, said in an interview with The Flint Journal-MLive today, Jan. 21. In my head, I didn t believe that. I thought: That can t be true that s so basic. That s not possible. Unfortunately, it was possible.It was also the direct result of Governor Snyder appointing a list of unqualified, uneducated and inexperienced businessmen to be in charge of the city s water supply.A close examination of Michigan government shows what can happen when a single political party seizes control of all branches of government.The two-party system of government is essential to a healthy democracy. Not only is the system meant to safeguard against the kind of dictatorship being imposed in Michigan, but a second party with at least some amount of political power is necessary to keep government in check.In Michigan, the right wing has virtually succeeded in suppressing any voice that is not its own.Michigan s single party rule has eliminated from government anyone that could reasonably be expected to investigate corruption or hold state officials accountable for their actions.Michigan has a right-wing Attorney General, Secretary of State and Governor, along with a legislature that is entirely controlled by Tea Party and republican representatives. There is virtually no  other party  with any power in Michigan. Because of that, there is no-one to act as a watchdog for state government and there is no-one to hold state officials accountable.When Attorney General Bill Schuette finally announced an investigation into the Flint water crisis, Michigan residents laughed. No-one was surprised when Scheutte chose a private lawyer, who is not accountable to the public, to conduct the investigation. Nor was anyone surprised when it was revealed that the recently hired investigator is a republican party donor, who helped elect Rick Snyder.As Democracy Web explains it:There are ideological movements that reject the central tenets of multiparty electoral democracy but exploit the system s freedoms and processes to seek power. These include fascism, communism, and some forms of religious fundamentalism and ethnic or racial nationalism. Generally, parties with such ideologies use a utopian vision for the future to justify the imposition of a dictatorship once they reach government. While other parties are sometimes allowed to exist under their rule, real political power is exercised solely by the governing party. In these single-party systems, the ruling party is also a source of patronage, the main vehicle for personal advancement in politics and society, and a mechanism for strictly enforcing conformity to the dominant ideology. Underground parties or movements often organize against such regimes, but these are subject to severe repression.The Flint water crisis could not have happened without this total imbalance of power in the state s government.Michigan citizens apparently voted for Rick Snyder because of his  business experience.  That was their first mistake.Snyder s experience as a venture capitalist and corporate CEO did not make him more qualified to govern a state. If anything, it made him less qualified.Throughout his career, Snyder has been driven by the corporate doctrine of shareholder profit above all else. The only thing considered  unethical  in the corporate world is losing money.We got a first-hand glimpse into the corporate decision making process in 1968. That year leaked documents showed that the Ford Motor Company had compared the cost of recalling the company s Pinto to the cost of letting people die when the car s engine exploded. The company s analysis showed that it would be cheaper to let people die than to recall the car. So they did.Corporate ethics revolve around doing whatever you can get away with to protect or increase shareholder profits. This is the world that CEO s like Governor Rick Snyder live in.In relation to Flint, the media narrative has been that the source of Flint s drinking water was switched to the Flint river to  save the city money.  This narrative is simply not true.A feasibility study ordered by former Michigan State Treasurer Andy Dillon showed that switching the source of Flint s water would cost the city more. That report was thrown out by state officials.Emails released earlier this month, however, verify that it would have saved Flint hundreds of thousands dollars to stay with the Detroit Water and Sewer, even in the best case scenario.After the switch, Flint residents experienced a massive hike in their water rates. The increase in cost left many citizens unable to afford to keep water on in their homes. But those citizens who lost access to Flint s poisoned water may have been the lucky ones.If Snyder considered the citizens of Michigan his  shareholders  than none of these decisions make sense. He wasn t saving the city money as he repeatedly claimed. He wasn t doing the citizens of Flint any favors, either.But Snyder s decisions were never based on what was best for the city of Flint, nor the residents of that city.There s a whole different set of  shareholders  whose identities are not yet known.These are the people who Michigan s emergency manager law was set up to benefit.The law is formally known as Public Act 436. Embedded in the text of this law is the provision for state emergency managers to receive unlimited amounts of private cash.Section 141.1549 (f) reads:In addition to the salary provided to an emergency manager in a contract approved by the state treasurer under subdivision (e), this state may receive and distribute private funds to an emergency manager. As used in this subdivision,  private funds  means any money the state receives for the purpose of allocating additional salary to an emergency manager.Snyder set up a fund for these secret private donors, which he originally called the NERD fund. Cash was transferred through this fund directly into the pockets of Snyder s emergency managers.After a public outcry over the NERD fund, Snyder told the citizens of Michigan that it had been eliminated. That was another lie.Snyder simply changed the name of the slush fund from the NERD fund to the Moving Michigan Forward Fund.The same unnamed donors who have been lining the pockets of Michigan emergency managers for several years, are now footing the bill for Snyder s recently hired PR firms.Watch this video from WXYZ.The FBI and the Department of Justice criminal division are now investigating the Flint water crisis. Let s be clear, without the hope of an independent, outside investigation by federal authorities, Michigan citizens would be left without recourse.Michigan is one of two states in the country which exempts the governor and all state lawmakers from Freedom of Information requests.Any government that goes to these lengths to hide what it is doing from the public is a government that cannot and should not be trusted.Right wing lawmakers have no desire to make government work. They work to make government fail. Nowhere is that clearer than in the state of Michigan, where Snyder s appointed officials repeatedly broke federal laws, with devastating consequences. It s no surprise that republicans are now trying to use the Flint water crisis as proof that  government doesn t work. There s nothing more dangerous to a corrupt government than an informed and involved citizenry.Being informed doesn t mean getting your news and information from the same source or sources all of the time, either.Sometimes being informed just means talking to other people, reaching across the aisles and stepping outside of your usual comfort zone.The people of Flint tried for more than a year to get the public s attention. We should ask ourselves why we didn t listen sooner.If we are to make sure that what happened in Flint never happens anywhere again, then we have to decide that we will not let factors like income or race or political affiliation determine whether or not we are willing to listen to our fellow citizens.If we can learn anything from the Flint water crisis, it s how important it is for each and every one of us to use our voting rights now. If we don t, we can (and almost surely will) lose them later.Right-wing politicians like Rick Snyder do not believe in democracy. They do not support your right to vote, nor your right to participate in government.Make no mistake, the only rights the people of Michigan have left are those which are protected by the federal government. At the state level, the right-wing legislature has removed the people s ability to participate in local government. These same lawmakers virtually eliminated the citizen s ability to recall their elected officials. They have also made it impossible for the voters to repeal legislation.This is what the far-right has accomplished in Michigan in just a few short years.Imagine what they will do if they gain complete control of the federal government These are certainly not the only lessons we should learn from the Flint water crisis. But if we all just learn these ten, and we truly take them to heart, our society will be so much better off going into the 2016 election. Image credit from Michigan Municipal League, via Flckr, cc 2.0