February, 12 2016, 12:15pm EDT
Media Misses the Mark, Vote Theft at Core of Flint's Problems
An open letter from Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management
DETROIT, Michigan
Three significant mainstream media outlets recently published editorials that acknowledge that emergency managers appointed by Governor Snyder clearly made the ill-fated decisions that resulted in the poisoning of Flint's water supply and yet argue that the law that gave the appointees unprecedented power is somehow not a problem. This is despite the fact that Michigan voters thoroughly rejected the law and despite the fact that it gave the emergency managers power to utterly ignore the outrage of Flint families who were forced to use foul smelling, rash inducing, lead poisoned water for a year and a half. What's really going on here?
The New York Times, which has previously called out Snyder's "depraved indifference" toward Flint, editorialized on the role of emergency management in poisoning Flint's water on February 4. "The lesson from Michigan is that emergency managers succeed only if they work with the communities they serve."
On the same day, Bridge Magazine, in conjunction with an impressive time line of the Flint disaster, editorialized: "The suggestion that the state's emergency financial management law itself led directly to lead poisoning in Flint children, is not supported by the public record."
The next day in the News, Dan Calabrese, echoing the Times, gushes with premature praise for the supposed benefits to Detroit of emergency management via Kevyn Orr's work.
The Times has the facts wrong. The emergency management statute itself (PA 436) prevents the EM from "work(ing) with" the communities they serve. Appointed by the governor with unrestricted power and no accountability, they are incapable of "serving" communities beyond Wall Street. Indeed, Flint's serial EMs "work(ed) with" the opportunistic local elite leaders of the Karegnondi Water Authority to poison Flint by using the Flint River as a water source! The drain commissioner of Genesee County was and still is the CEO of the Karegnondi Water Authority.
Bridge Magazine also gets the facts wrong. Emergency management removes all local control and places all authority in the hands of an appointed person accountable only to the governor. The EM and the governor knew for a year that Flint water was not being properly treated. State office workers stationed in Flint had bottled water trucked in for their buildings. Because of the structural features of emergency management, the authorities did not care and did nothing for Flint until their own misconduct blew up in their faces, after independent activists, journalists and scientists decisively exposed their lies and abuse. Emergency management enabled both this unaccountable decision-making and unconscionable delay.
Mr. Calabrese also gets the facts wrong. At best, the jury is still out on his Orr/Jones Day miracle of Detroit. His emphasis on "the revival of Midtown", "people brokering downtown real estate", and characterizing Detroit-without-emergency management as "a hopeless disaster" reveal his bias. As eminent historian Thomas Sugrue and virtually every other credible observer has repeatedly stated, the current downtown investment bubble will not by itself generate a broad, equitable or sustainable recovery for Detroit as a whole and our people. Detroiters still face horrifying crises of public education, water shut offs, housing foreclosures, inequitable community economic development and democracy-destroyed-by-corporate-finance.
With regard to Detroit's water, Orr and his investment banker partner Miller-Buckfire wanted to sell Detroit's water department to Veolia, the largest private owner of water systems in the world. Intervention of public authorities across southeast Michigan prevented that sale, and, under pressure from federal bankruptcy court, created instead the Great Lakes Water Authority as a preferred mode of exercising corporate, white supremacist power over this crucial infrastructure and resource.
The EM law in Michigan has been used primarily to disenfranchise African American voters. With the majority of African Americans in our state under city emergency managers, Michigan citizens in a 2012 recalled the first EM statute referendum vote, with nearly every county in the state overwhelmingly rejecting it. A new EM law was passed again, this time by a lame duck legislature under dubious circumstances, with the addition of a small amount of money which rendered it immune from democratic accountability via another recall.
In a list of financially troubled communities published in 2009, there were white communities with more severe financial problems which were never placed under emergency management. The list of EM cities is overwhelmingly African-American majorities -- Highland Park, Saginaw, Pontiac, and Benton Harbor as well as Flint and Detroit.
In 2013, Michigan's Department of Education published a list of 55 financially troubled school districts that are overwhelmingly white; none had an EM appointed over them. In almost every situation, a string of EMs has worsened the situation of the city or school district under their control. The Detroit Public School System, overwhelmingly African-American, was originally taken over by the state when it had a budget surplus, and now has an insurmountable deficit. Emergency management has been applied to undermine the democratic and human rights of African-Americans, with no benefit to those communities; the benefactors are private companies acting parasitically on these communities.
The law supports and reinforces the institutional racism inherent in Michigan's public institutions. Eliminating democracy and checks and balances is bad policy. The EM law is a bad law.
In light of the true facts and a realistic analysis of the power dynamics at work, the conclusion is clear: Emergency management caused the Flint River catastrophe, and one of the responses must be repeal of Snyder's emergency management statute.
Signed:
Detroiters Resisting Emergency Management
Michigan Welfare Rights Organization
The People's Water Board Coalition
William M. Davis, President of Detroit Active & Retired Employees Association
Ann Rall
Thomas Stephens
Fred Vitale, Communications Manager, Green Party of Michigan
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"It is a day of resistance and demand," said trade groups that organized the action "in defense of democracy, labor rights, and the living wage."
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Argentina's primary trade union federation on Thursday held another nationwide general strike, the second called since President Javier Milei, a far-right economist, took office in December and began pursuing sweeping austerity and deregulation.
The South American nation's unions organized the strike "in defense of democracy, labor rights, and the living wage," according to a statement from the General Confederation of Labor (CGT), the Argentine Workers' Central Union (CTA), and the Autonomous CTA.
"It is a day of resistance and demand," the groups said, blasting the Milei government's "brutal" attacks on labor rights, social security, public health, education, science, and "our cultural identity." The policies of austerity, say opponents, have disproportionately impacted working people and retirees.
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CGT celebrated the 24-hour strike's success on Friday, declaring that "Argentina stopped," and sharing photos of sparsely populated roads, transit hubs, and other public spaces.
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In the nation's capital, streets were mostly empty, with very little public transport. Many schools and banks closed their doors while most shops were shuttered. Garbage was left uncollected.
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As the action wound down Thursday, Yasky described it as a "display of dignity of the Argentine people" that sent "a strong message" to Milei's government as well as the International Monetary Fund "that intends to govern us" and the country's senators.
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Rubén Sobrero, general secretary of the Railway Union, signaled that more strikes could come if lawmakers continue to advance the president's policies, tellingThe Associated Press that "if there is no response within these 24 hours, we'll do another 36."
From Europe to North America, trade groups around the world expressed solidarity with Thursday's strike.
"Milei's policies have not tackled the decadence of the elites that he decries, instead he has delivered daily misery for millions of working people. Plummeting living standards, contracting production, and the collapse of purchasing power means some people cannot even afford to eat," said International Trade Union Confederation general secretary Luc Triangle in a statement.
Triangle noted that "the government is targeting the rights of the most vulnerable sectors of the population and key trade union rights, such as collective bargaining, that support greater fairness and equality in society, while threatening those who protest with police repression and criminalization."
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"You are shredding the U.N. Charter with your own hands," Erdan said as he fed a small copy of the document through a miniature paper shredder. "Shame on you."
Watch:
Watch: Israeli ambassador to the UN @giladerdan1 used a paper shredder to shred the UN charter on the podium of the UN general assembly ahead of a vote that will give new privileges to the Palestinians at the UN pic.twitter.com/mWQ85c8uwK
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 10, 2024
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The General Assembly voted by a margin of 143 to 9—with 25 abstentions—in support of the resolution. The nine countries that voted no were the United States, Israel, Argentina, Czechia, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, and Papua New Guinea.
In addition to backing its bid for full U.N. membership, the resolution gives Palestine "the right to introduce and co-sponsor proposals as well as amendments within the assembly," The Guardianreported.
Riyad Mansour, Palestine's permanent observer at the U.N., said ahead of Friday's vote that support for the resolution "is a vote for Palestinian existence."
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In anticipation of Friday's vote, a group of Republican U.S. senators led by Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced legislation that would halt U.S. funding for any entity—including the U.N.—that gives Palestine "any status, rights, or privileges beyond observer status."
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"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," said Bill McKibben. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
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"I'd make this the lead story in every paper and newscast on the planet," author and long-time climate activist Bill McKibbenwrote on social media in response to the news. "If we don't understand the depth of the climate crisis, we will not act in time."
"Human activity has caused CO2 to rocket upwards. It makes me sad more than anything. It's sad what we are doing."
Scientists have been tracking rising CO2 concentrations from Mauna Loa since 1958, and their upward trajectory has come to be known as the "Keeling Curve," named for Charles Keeling, who began the measurements. The curve has become an important symbol of the climate crisis—making visible how the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of vegetation has released more and more CO2 into the atmosphere, where it traps heat from escaping into space and raises global temperatures.
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