The truth about Flint: Kids drank poisoned water because of the GOP’s radical, anti-democratic “refo

The truth about Flint: Kids drank poisoned water because of the GOP’s radical, anti-democratic “reforms”

by Paul Rosenberg at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/23/the_truth_about_flint_kids_drank_poisoned_water_because_of_the_gops_radical_anti_democratic_reforms/

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But behind the upfront horror and outrage being felt, behind all the tragedy and drama now unfolding in Flint, what’s happening now is rooted in a state-level attack on democracy. Indeed Rachel Maddow—who first brought the story to national attention—made this very point herself, calling the law that made it all possible “the single most radical policy” in recent American history—an “emergency manager” law that essentially invalidates local self-governance.

The common theme of attacks on democracy in Wisconsin and Michigan is not an accident. The two stories are connected by virtue of being parts of a broader process—the aforementioned Dixiefication of the Midwest, without which neither of them can be fully understood, or responded to. Dixiefication is a process that’s economically regressive, culturally anti-modernist, and politically authoritarian/anti-democratic, and in that first story, I traced how Walker’s early aggressive pushing of Dixiefied anti-union agenda eventually led to a wide-ranging dismantling of the state’s good government framework of laws and regulations.

However, the Dixiefication of the Midwest itself is taking place in the context of two much wider processes—the Dixiefication of the nation as a whole, and global process of neoliberalizing economies in various different ways across very different societies. All three of these large-scale processes have been shaping regional politics as well as everyday life in the Midwest with increased ferocity since the the beginning of the Great Recession. What’s striking about the lead poising of Flint is not just how morally outrageous the story itself is, but also how it can serve to illuminate the much wider framework of corrosive harm these three social processes have produced.

Lead Poisoning Flint’s Kids

The story itself wasn’t new. On Sept. 2, researchers from Virginia Tech University led by Marc Edwards reported that Flint’s water was “very corrosive” and “causing lead contamination in homes,” but commensurate attention and action have yet to come. So, on Dec. 14, Flint’s newly elected mayor, Karen Weaver, fought back. She declared a state of emergency regarding the citywide lead poisoning that resulted from a change in the source of city drinking water, a “cost-saving” move ordered by the city’s appointed emergency manager. Water from the Flint river corroded Flint’s water pipes, leaching lead into the water even after Flint switched back to getting its water from Detroit in October.





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