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Typical of a leftist to not blame the people actually responsible for all of this. The city council. You won't ever blame them because they are mostly black and Leftists don't think black Democrat politicians are responsible for anything. Hell blacks in general for that matter, it's always the white Republicans fault or just whites in general. Grow up already.
Wow. But totally not racist, right?
Would you care to explain how the local leadership switched the water supply to a caustic source as a money saving measure, declined to spend an extra $100 a month on an additive that would have reduced the leaching of lead from the pipes and then sat on information that the entire town was suffering from lead poisoning for months? That wasn't the elected officials because they had been replaced by the state.
Flint has been an economic mess since the auto industry abandoned it in the 70's. So while there may be some local blame for fiscal irresponsibility that doesn't mean that the state should upend democracy, install what is effectively a dictatorship and deny people access to safe drinking water.
He should be ashamed, and he should resign. So should all his cronies involved in this despicable mess.
There seems to be an eagerness to pin this on just a few select individuals when in reality this mess is attributable across a wide range of political levels and parties.
Not to mention the attempts to make it racial.
Seems to me that there seems to be a pro-active attempt of local officials and others to heap all the blame on political rivals to save their own skins.
Would you care to explain how the local leadership switched the water supply to a caustic source as a money saving measure, declined to spend an extra $100 a month on an additive that would have reduced the leaching of lead from the pipes and then sat on information that the entire town was suffering from lead poisoning for months? That wasn't the elected officials because they had been replaced by the state.
Flint has been an economic mess since the auto industry abandoned it in the 70's. So while there may be some local blame for fiscal irresponsibility that doesn't mean that the state should upend democracy, install what is effectively a dictatorship and deny people access to safe drinking water.
Upend democracy?
The state and federal government have always had the ability to "upend democracy" when a part of a state had spiraled out of control either with riots or failure to follow laws or act fairly to all it's citizens or govern itself.
For example, they had to "upend democracy" during desegregation and Jim Crow now didn't they? I think we can both agree that was a good thing.
Don't want people in your business? Then don't go bankrupt.
The state and federal government have always had the ability to "upend democracy" when a part of a state had spiraled out of control either with riots or failure to follow laws or act fairly to all it's citizens or govern itself.
For example, they had to "upend democracy" during desegregation and Jim Crow now didn't they? I think we can both agree that was a good thing.
Don't want people in your business? Then don't go bankrupt.
Technically, Flint didn't go bankrupt. They probably would have been spared this mess if they had.
Other states are dealing with broke municipalities through oversight boards and restructuring and haven't gone to the extremes of taking direct dictatorial control. There was apparently zero oversight of the "Emergency Manager" beyond the governor's office so decisions were made to fit an ideological and political agenda regardless of their impacts on the populous.
When you run government like a business the people are reduced to inventory.
It was the 95% black city council that spent them into oblivion. Put the blame where it belongs. I brought up race because you felt it necessary to point out that the residents are mostly black. So is the city council.
I feel that in first world nations, you don't let a city go without clean drinking water for 2 years to punish them because the "spent into oblivion." And I even disagree with you on "spent into oblivion." The economic issues in Flint are much more complex than you're trying to make them.
The "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" is an intellectually lazy and insensitive instruction on how poorer people can improve their lot.
Sure, some good personal choices would help, but the quality of schooling and living make improving quality of life so very difficult, along w/ the accompanying influences of an unhealthy social environment (gangs, etc).
This type of "help yourself because they're your problems"--at least the ones you have little power to change--reminds me of the social Darwinism we learned about in history class.
It just goes to show, politics represents the rich person--they forget about the poor, the children, the elderly because they want "their money" and power.
They pander to special interest groups and try to divide us w/ their rhetoric, when really we're all suffering together.
There are rights we have, to make our modern society function today: access to quality education, health care, maintained infrastructure, and a cleaner environment. To do w/out any of these today will result in the stagnation of our country, at the least. These services should be granted to everyone respectively today, this is what we require today to be healthy physically and economically. These what I call "rights" should be primarily served to us by the government, not private enterprise.
By replacing the City Council the Emergency Manager could implement money saving measures that included eliminating school nurses and, among other things replacing the water source. the point of these reductions was to PREVENT Flint from going bankrupt and damaging its creditors including the big bankers and other financiers. This dictatorship was set up to protect the financially connected plutocrats not matter what it did to 100,000 poor black people.
EF - You have the basic policy the rulers of this country have imposed to protect the plutocrats from any responsibility for the harm they are doing to everyone else.
The advice to "pull yourself up with your own bootstraps" does not work very well for people that have neither boots or bootstraps to pull upon.
I never said everything in life needs to be handed out, but we need the basics to be covered so everyone has a fair shot.
We are not purely animals. Remember, Darwin was talking about evolution. As humans we will never evolve if we can't move beyond our animal brain.
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Racial and Economic realities in this country
