The conspiratorial capitalism thrust upon us today has morphed into a destructive force entity beyond the poisoning of our economic system, destroying the lives of most Americans, but has literally poisoned the lives of thousands of children in Flint Michigan. Governor Rick Snyder, playing “luau limbo” with the Michigan economy, has sunk to new lows never imagined from not only a political leader but from humanity!
Former Gov. Rick Snyder is now charged with a misdemeanor for the Flint Water Crisis.
We have Reagonomics on steroids with Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, Michigan’s Republican-controlled Legislature, the corporate press, right-wing judges, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) composed of 100-percent Republicans, all in collusion in this “grand rip-off.” Snyder appointed his emergency manager to Flint Michigan using the same bill authorizing the use of an emergency financial manager which the voters rejected in 2011.
A little more than a month after voters repealed Public Act 4 (PA 4) on Nov. 6, Snyder signed into law Public Act 436 (PA 436), with the help of the Republican legislature.
Here was Gov Snyder’s game plan: give $1.8 billion in tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations at the expense of Michigan cities’ budgets, then ask the individual cities to make up the difference.
Knowing that this shorting the cities of expected revenue sharing, many cities would have hardships and struggles to make up the difference, especially cities with large black populations like Benton Harbor, who lost a children's lakeside park to a rich private golf park, given in perpetuity by the Klock Family in memory of their lost child to the children of Benton Harbor.
When the individual cities fell behind in their fiscal obligations, Rick Snyder sent in his appointed Czar, an Emergency Manager to sell off the city’s assets, in other words a transfer of wealth upwards.
The Emergency Manger of Flint, Darnell Earley, colluded with the Emergency Manager of Detroit, Keven Orr, to switch the source of Flint’s water supply from Detroit to the Flint River, thus making the Detroit Water Department more profitable and more lucrative for privatizing.
With the closing of General Motor’s plants and shipping those jobs to China, the resultant hardship placed many Flint residents in default on their water bills, among other bills, leaving the Detroit Water Department to absorb some of Flint’s problems. The solution according to the two Emergency Managers was to let Flint get its water from the Flint River and pay for their own problem.
The switching to the Flint River was a disaster because the poorly treated Flint River water is unsafe and too acid thus corroding and destroying the hundred year old underground pipe infrastructure and allowing the lead seals to leach into the water reaching the residents’ tap.
Among all of the government agencies condemning the Flint River water, GM on October 13, 2014 announced that it will stop using Flint water because it was too corrosive for building its precision engines. This switch from the Detroit Water Department occurred in April 2014 and switched back in October 2015.
It comes down to the proverbial question: “what did he know and when did he know it?” It’s obvious that Gov Snyder has his foot prints on this disaster from start to finish! But it’s not over yet; at the heart of this problem is payment, both monetarily and criminally.
The heart breaking fact is the poor children of Flint who will grow up with lead poisoning, an irreversible tragedy.
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