Can you even imagine how bad social democratic government must be?!?
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When I was a kid, my benchmark for the corrupt, dystopian, privatized future was RoboCop. Now I know that this was childish fiction; but only in the sense that the real thing is even more creative, sordid, and downright petty about its malice.
I. Just. Donât. Even.
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Rust is pretty much always a bad sign(best case, some specific iron pipes have blown way past their life expectancy and are giving up; worst case somebody changed the pH and the water is now merrily dissolving bits of whatever pipes it runs through, some of which are probably not healthful and salubrious additions to the water supply); but it only suggests lead if there are lead pipes to leach lead out of; copper if there are copper ones, and so on. In the case of Flint, oh yeah, there were plenty of lead pipes; but in a hypothetical iron-piped system you could get truly ghastly looking rust-water without lead or copper concerns(though with a massive maintenance bill once the pipes start failing).
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Quick Boingboing website request: When reposting poor quality images like these, please google for less degraded ones.
Example of a better version found after a 2second search: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cbw3fa9WwAAFl-Y.jpg
The one you posted is rendered near-illegible from the jpeg artefacts layered over themselves repeatedly. A good example of online image degradation.
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Why the past tense?
Robocop (1987) remains the gold standard for privatized dystopian satire in my world.
While we are sharing deep feelings, letâs admit that ED-209 was the coolest robot of its day, and remains a formidable tribute to stop-motion animation:
UPDATE: watch this clip of Paul Weller reflecting on the significance of Robocop â he calls it âanthropologicalâ â âyou can watch this movie in a hundred yearsâ and learn about social and political issues of the era.
,
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Iâm having a slightly hard time putting my finger on it precisely; but I think that what makes me use the past tense is that(like so many sci-fi films and books) RoboCop definitely captures the essence; but does not(probably cannot, given space constraints) capture the real worldâs combination of dysfunctional-organization-drift-by-accretion and sheer petty sordidness.
I agree that Robocop remains the gold standard among privatized dystopian satire films; but compared to something like the Flint debacle it is almost naive in that its villains (while abundantly evil and clearly willing to squish and brutalize right left and center) are more sensible, reasonable, and coherent/competent than the worldâs.
The idea that Omni Consumer Products would elect to save $140/day on corrosion control additives and risk destroying a lot of expensive infrastructure, say, doesnât seem like them. They are utterly ruthless in pursuing their financial interests; but that also places certain limits on their ability to engage in sheer malice, since spite doesnât have a good ROI.
Itâs sort of the difference between a mercenary and a fanatic: OCP is going to privatize Detroit and build Delta city because that is where the money is. If it were somewhere else, theyâd do that instead. The Flint âcity managerâ and the governor who appointed him donât even seem to have that basic level of neutral-evil rationality in place. They were going to slash everything to the bone Because Austerity, as an end in itself; and going to govern the place into a smoking crater because itâs an article of faith that Government Does Not Work.
Back in Robocop, OCP had to actively hatch various schemes to undermine the city and contribute to its disorder and collapse in order to finalize their takeover; and were opposed by the basically decent if largely hapless local apparatus. In Flint, the people in charge of the state turned it on itself more or less as a sacrifice to the notion that government cannot work with a side bonus of screwing over some unworthy poor people.
Itâs that edge of zealous destruction that isnât quite there in Robocop. OCP is a pathogen; the Flint City Manager is a cancer.
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Absolutely. And Iâm getting frightened by how itâs happening in so many ways. Right-wing, privatizing, âAnything connected to government is BAD!â ideology is so pervasive now, and so much is falling apart in the process, and at the same time, getting more expensive for ordinary people. Weâre paying more and more for crappier and crappier services.
Is this shift, or maybe drift, toward privatization, and demonization of government, ever going to slow down? Is there a pendulum thatâs eventually going to swing back the other way? Iâm getting pretty cynical about life in the western world, let alone the rest of it.
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Iâd buy that for a dollar.
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Sorry, but I have to call B.S. on these numbers. Water customers in California pay near or over the Flint pricing these days. By these standards of 5,000 gallons per month, my own water agency charges $64.38 a month/$711.96 annually. SECOND HIGHEST IN THE NATION!!! Iâd love to be paying the supposed ânational averageâ of $26 a month.
That said, I am thankful that I get untainted water, and that they are using the proceeds for water purchases and delivery/storage infrastructure, not for general operations.
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Are you sure your bill doesnât also include sewer charges? At first I had the same reaction, and my water rate is on that table. Then I remembered that my actual water charges are a lot lower than my total bill because of the sewer charges and the rather large surcharge on my bill thatâs still paying for the ânewâ water mains they installed in my neighborhood more than 10 years ago.
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I do have a separate wastewater charge, but I just quoted the bare minimum cost to buy 5,000 gallons per month of waterâthe water service charge and the usage charge (this is the criteria they supposedly used to come up with their national average in the graph). A monthly single family utility bill in my jurisdiction:
$34.08 - Water service charge
$25.25 - 5,000 gallons water consumption (Tier 1, $5.05 per KGAL) - This goes up dramatically at Tier 2 and Tier 3
$37.47 - Wastewater service charge
$18.71 - Trash and Recycling
$115.51 per month/$1,386.12 annually
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I have commented on this many times in many places so I made this to sum it up:
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Meanwhile, down the road a little ways in Ann Arbor, the city council is trying to balance the books on the backs of the water users by shifting all sorts of funds to the Water and Sewer fund, including Forestry and a public art skim. In the above chart we are #400, but that is just water charges. We also pay ever-growing (4%increase /year for last 3 years) sanitary sewer and storm water fees. What is shown as an average annual bill of $238 is really closer to $600.
The city continues to refuse to take direct action on our own toxic mess, the Gelman Plume of 1,4 dioxane that has been creeping towards the river for 30 years. We have already closed source wells and private wells in the prohibition zone. Our most recent âleadershipâ on the issue has been for city council to âurgeâ by resolution the MDEQ to look into the issue, and lower the allowable amount of dioxane from 85 ppb to 3.5 ppb. When it does reach the river, the plan is to connect to Detroit Water so we too can pay more.
For an excellent example of data imagining by a concerned citizen check out this site: Scio Residents for Safe Water, headed by local hero Roger Rayle. To give you an idea of the size of both the fresh water flowing in our region, and the poisons it contains, under MDEQ oversight Gelman/Pall are extracting and treating at a rate of 500 gals/minute and predict it will take several hundred years to finish. So, risk-management is the MDEQ word of the day. There is no intention to clean it, at all.
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<a href=âhttp://www.a2gov.org/departments/finance-admin-services/accounting/Documents/Adopted%20Budget%20Book-FY16.pdf"target=â_blank">Ann Arbor fiscal year 2016 budget. If it upsets you that thereâs a positive fund balance, vote against any millages and vote for different elected leadership on upcoming ballots. Assuming you live in the city, of course.
Gelman isnât located in the city, itâs in Scio Township, so what is the âdirect actionâ you think Ann Arbor should take that it has authority to? They already sued Gelman, thus, the only reason Gelman is even making their token efforts at cleaning up their contamination.
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Oh come on! Its the free market asserting itself. 
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