I mean, I get the point, butā¦
Estimated number of posts until āBut Michael Moore is rich so he shouldnāt talkā, maybe 10 if weāre lucky.
Here in Canada we had a tainted water scandal about 15 years ago. The water āengineersā knew there was E. Coli in the water and didnāt act - mostly out of ignorance of the consequences (they continued to drink it themselves !eleventy!). It was a national scandal, and I think at least one of them did time.
But of course if I was to get all snooty about that happening in Canada and justice being done differently up here, Iād remember that there are FN Reserves whoāve had tainted water for decades and nothing has been done and nobody is even remotely likely to be arrested. So basically we are all assholes.
But it looks like this is a particularly egregious case. Holy crap how are there not riots and pitchforks over this?
Iāve been enjoying the Michigan Militia coming to terms with being on the same side as Michael on this.
Last month I posted a meme of me
Thatās not how memes work.
I think the idea is that sending bottled water isnāt really an effective or efficient way for individuals to help the situation. Unless maybe youāve got millions of dollars on hand and can afford to send in water via tanker truck (and even then itās just a stopgap measure).
Mainly, if the math is right, because sending water bottles will only make you feel you are helping, while not making any real dent on the problem.
Holy shit! That is some weird political convergence there!
But itās got āmeā in there! Twice!
[quote=ādoctorow, post:1, topic:72912ā]
It will take much more than bottled water to help Flint. With 102,000 residents and an average US consumption of 50 gallons of water/day, the city requires 20.4 million 16 oz bottles of water every day to live the normal lives that virtually every other American expects.
[/quote]Not all 102,000 are affected, but the most destitute are definately affected the most.
I lived in Flint for several years in the early 80s. At the time, it was rough in some areas but not too bad. Now all I can say is WTF happened?!?
The same thing thatās happening in a lot of other Republican-ruled states. Bizarrely, voters chose people to run their governments who ran on the claim that government is evil. And who actually see public funds as ripe for the taking by those willing, able (that is, wealthy), and heartless enough to do so.
At least with a case like E Coli itās not a poison building up in your system thatās going to cause you problems for the rest of your life. Bacteria and the like are awful, and can possibly cause death (likely in fact, when youāre hitting that many people) but itās going to get caught a lot sooner because youāre going to notice people getting sickā¦ rather than just having people build up lead in their system until one day it comes to light. Both cases are obviously awfulā¦ but this case is definitely way worse 
So sad and I hope that governor ends up in jail and rots there for the rest of his life.
Itās possible, more so than I think a lot of people imagine. Weāve gotten so used to white-collar crime going unpunished, so cynical about the possibility of the wealthy perpetrators of such heinous crimes ever facing justice, that we forget things like this:
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican who preaches relentless positive action, spoke out Wednesday against recent comments by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.āTheyāre absolutely inappropriate,ā Snyder told reporters after an event in Lansing. āThey donāt represent the spirit of America.ā
Snyderā¦HFSā¦preaching relentless positive action (as the saying goes, āgag me with a fucken spoonā), rejects Dickwad Trumpās call to reject Muslims seeking to relocate in America. And Michigan has, apparently, a high number of Muslim immigrants. Maybe Snyder thought that it would pay better to have them come here, buy lots of stuff to live, and then be killed by tainted water, and estate taxes would kick back all that money to Michigan?
Relentless positive action. Wow. More like Relentless Failure to Govern.
Good for them. We need to treat people more evenly. Destroying the lives of more than 100 thousand people to make yours more comfortable is just completely unconscionable >.<
Iām glad to see some corrupt assholes ending up in jail. We just need to make it a more common thing so that there are repercussions for being a rich corrupt jerk. Then maybe weād have less of themā¦ Or at least theyād try harder to suppress their corrupt jerk tendenciesā¦
It seems like the high-level oligarchs that wield the Republican party have a salvager mentality. Extract every bit of value from the United States, then abandon the smoking husk. North Carolina is experiencing similar problems. Our Republican governor and administration are cutting funding for education and public health at every turn, while giving industry a blank pass to destroy our environment and behave unsustainably. Very few citizens benefit on any level from these policies. Yet somehow Republican voters think theyāre doing Godās work. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear can tell you that everything is going to shit. I donāt get it.
You just missed it, Flint tanked in the late 80s as famously depicted in Rodger & Me and never got its head above water. By the 2000s it was the most dangerous city in the US, and when I lived there you could find great islands surrounded by a sea of areas you just didnāt go to. Iāve got some pretty crazy examples of things that happened, and as I think back and I canāt believe the stuff I just got used to seeing while I lived there.
Whatās worse is that it was a wasteland when I was there, but there was a huge resurgence of conservatism that was basically pre-Tea-Party shouting going on in the area just before I left. Racial issues got worse with a lot of white people in the surrounding area pointing to black gangs in the city as the problem. Needless to say, the rise of conservatism made things much worse across the board.
I never fit in great with Michigan, but that rise of the worst kind of conservative thought and the deep racial divides really made me glad to leave Michigan for Texas. Mind you, I only really liked living in the city here, but w/e.
Not sure what Moore is thinking here, other than, āSomeone (heh-heh, you know who) must be punished.ā For sure heās not considering how to best solve the problemā¦ Replacing distribution and service lines will take years; twin 55-gallon drums, filled daily from a truck, is a very short-term bandaid, albeit good for drama.
Every residence, business, public accommodation, and plumbed agricultural site affected by this needs to have āwhole-houseā water filtration installed, asap. Cap that with non-partisan oversight on health remediation, and youāve bought enough breathing room to efficiently plan water line replacement.
Thereās money for it right now, if only legislators (and concerned citizens like MM) would take a break from sniffing for blood in the water and focus on the people of Flint.
(And Iām knocking on wood like mad these daysā¦I was out of state during the whole PBB fiasco, and on the west side of the state drinking from a well during this shit storm; whew. Snyder and his admin need to be held responsible for this, but letās not forget Engler, who set the stage by spending Michiganās $4 billion rainy-day fund as a sop to ātax-weary votersā [aka out-state GOP whites] and turned situation-specific Public Act 101 into the one-size-fits-all Public Act 72.)
Engler has much to answer for, but Snyder is currently the DEQās boss. In the best possible light, Snyder is grossly incompetent for not knowing for just about 2 years about the leaching lead. In the worst possible light, heās responsible for intentionally inflicting harm on a whole lot of children. Somewhere in the middle is a conspiracy to cover up environmental crimes. As much as Iād like to see Snyder rot behind bars, I suspect heāll get away with the label of incompetent instead of convicted felon. The former head of DEQ, OTOH, will probably do time with the office staff that kept the Governerd from knowing about the disaster earlier.
