There's a Poison In Michigan And It's Not Just In The Water

You've probably heard that the water supply in Flint, Michigan is loaded with lead and has been poisoning the city's children, along with everyone else.  So far, there are 200 confirmed cases of lead poisoning among children under six, with some 9000 more believed to be at risk.  That's just the kids.

The water crisis began way back in April of 2014, when Flint's governor-appointed emergency manager (The sole dictator of municipal affairs after removing all duly elected officials from their bounden duties.) fired their water supplier, the city of Detroit, for charging too much.  He then decreed, despite numerous warnings from experts, that the water in the Flint River was good enough, and ordered the water department to begin running it through the old, lead-lined pipes.

It turned out that those old pipes were okay when Detroit water flowed through them but once the more corrosive Flint River water began running, it ate into the lead and leached it into the water supply going to the city's poorest neighborhoods.  (Something the folks at Flint's General Motors plant warned them would happen, since they had long ago discovered how hard that water was on their equipment and stopped using it.)

The water was murky and smelled bad but the water department assured the residents it was okay to bathe in, and, more importantly, to drink.  So the residents bathed in it and cooked with it and drank it, wanting to believe their government officials wouldn't be allowing them to use that nasty water if it wasn't safe.

Photo source:  Sam Owens/AP

But it wasn't safe.  It isn't safe. Not by a long shot. So after almost two years of going back and forth about this awful water and the dangers it held, Governor Rick Snyder was real sorry for how it turned out, and said so publicly.  "I apologize for the state's part in this," he said.  And says.  And no doubt will go on saying.  Because, words, you know, mean something.

To his credit, he shut down the Emergency Manager operation in Flint (that same emergency manager he put in place even after Michigan voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum against emergency managers) and he fired a few people in high offices.  So now--now something would be done!  Well, okay, not now as in NOW.  It's more like "Now that national attention is on us, we're going to be thinking seriously about doing something about this!"

You would think, after all the hoo-haw, the governor would at last have put in that all-important call to the Feds--to FEMA--asking for an issuance of a Federal state of emergency.  You would think.

Well, he's getting to it.  It's not time yet, he says.  First he had to put out a state state of emergency, the necessary precursor to getting the Feds involved, not to mention an almost magical procrastination tool for someone who wants desperately to go on believing there's no way, no how he'll EVER need the services of those folks in Washington.

To Snyder's mind, just issuing the SOM is going above and beyond the call of gubernatorial duty.  He held a press conference the other day to brag about this big step he took, seeming not to recognize, until members of the press started asking him about it, that the next step, calling the Federal Emergency Management Agency (which, for some, might have been the first step), would be a good thing, too.  His solution, instead, was to ask churches and charities to dig in and deliver truckloads of little water bottles.  (Please!  Don't make me go to them! Give!  Give!)

Update:  Gov. Snyder, in order to stall the Feds, is bringing in the National Guard.  They'll be delivering cases of little water bottles, filters, and testing kits.  State troopers will be delivering water door-to-door where needed.  No mention of the water buffaloes, the big military tank trucks carrying potable water, even though Rachel Maddow suggested it the other night.  Too bad they don't watch her.  It's hard to rinse shampooed hair with little water bottles, not to mention cleansing tushies.)

You might wonder how all of this could happen, given the government resources available to the Snyder administration, just in our state alone. You, my friends, are not alone.  But let me remind you that Michigan has been under a supreme, GOP-enforced dictatorship since New Year's Day, 2011.  There is a long, dirty laundry list of the slow takeover of an entire state, much of it outlined in this June, 2015 Mother Jones article.  Rachel Maddow has been resolute in her reporting of Michigan's plight since the early days of the takeover, when Chris Savage at Eclectablog, Michigan's foremost progressive blog, brought it to her attention.  It's not as if this is anything different from business as usual.  Except now people are being physically injured instead of just losing jobs or homes or going broke or hungry.

This is not a takeover in the truest sense, since two elections had to take place in order to get Snyder and his GOP-majority cohorts where they are today.  That means there were enough people willing to allow this to happen without regard to the rest of us--or even to themselves.  These "leaders" were elected mainly on the strength of their anti-Fed, pro-state's-rights promises.  Their campaigns were built on hatred, fear and mistrust of anyone in Washington or beyond.  Now they're in a fix:  How do they ask for federal assistance without looking like they actually (Oh, ew, gross!) need it?

So here might be a good place to remind voters that when a candidate for a publicly held taxpayer-paid office says he or she is "anti-government" what they really mean is they're anti-any-other-government-except-their-very-own.

Let Michigan be a lesson for you.

(One more thing in the "Adding Insult to Injury, Michigan Style" department:  Those people who were fooled into believing their poisoned water was safe?  They're still getting water bills.  No.  I'm not kidding.)



 For more on the water poisoning in Flint, see The Atlantic's What Did the Governor Know About Flint's Water and When Did He Know It?

For Michigan progressive resources, see my Michigan Under Siege page.

(Also posted at Dagblog and Crooks and Liars)

Puppy Training for Politicians. Or, How we got RTW in Michigan

So it has happened.  Remember the other day when I wrote that Michigan had become a Right-to-Work state? It's not that I'm prescient or anything, announcing a done deal on Saturday when it didn't actually become law until yesterday (Tuesday), when Govnerd Ricky signed the two "Hasta la Vista, Union" bills hustled through the Republican-led legislature in a dazzling demonstration of warp speed.  No, it's just that I've come to know those guys.  No amount of talking, cajoling, coercing or begging was going to change the course of that bloody action, no matter what. Not from us, anyway.

Know why?  Because it wasn't them, it was them:

The ubiquitous Koch brothers, heirs-apparent to the throne once America says "Okay, OKAY! I give up!"

  Nobody wants to believe the obvious--that these two rather dorky brothers are up to their eyeballs in evil wherever it lurks these days--but there it is.  If money really talks, when it belongs to the Brothers Koch it says, "Stick'em up and don't turn around.  I've got a friggin' humungous bunch of greenbacks and I know how to use them!"

Evidence abounds that those cunning Kochs look on American unions as icky Red maggots and have finally figured out a way to bust the guts out of them.  They do it by joining up with other gajillionaires (like Dick deVos, notorious member of the Michigan hoi polloi, given to hating the masses), by funding Tea Party think tanks such as Michigan's own Mackinac Center for (cough, cough, privatizing) Public Policy, and by buying legislators, congresspeople, and even governors for the Republicans.

It's a marvel to watch. If I weren't always on edge, scouting out good locations to run to, I might be standing in awe, pondering how, in a matter of mere months, two seemingly puny persons came out of nowhere to become our first and only potentates. (Eat your hearts out, Grover and Newt.  It is what it is. And it is money.)

But enough about them.  Or not.  How about that ALEC? (The American Legislative Exchange (cough, cough, exchange for what?) Council)  From the Center for Media and Democracy's special report on ALEC's funding and spending:

Almost 98% of ALEC's funding comes from corporations like Exxon Mobil, corporate "foundations" like the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, or trade associations like the pharmaceutical industry's PhRMA and sources other than "legislative dues." Those funds help subsidize legislators' trips to ALEC meetings, where they are wined, dined, and handed "model" legislation to make law in their state. Through ALEC, corporations vote on "model" legislation with politicians behind closed doors.

 Sometimes what goes on behind closed doors gets out here in what we still laughingly call the "public."  It turns out the wording of those hallowed right-to-work bills bringing so much entertainment to Michigan Republican lawmakers were word-for-word the creations of the Koch-fueled ALEC bunch.

Honestly.

Both HB 4003, which affects public sector unions, and HB 4054 / SB 116 affecting private sector unions, undermine collective bargaining by allowing workers to opt-out of paying the costs of union representation. As the Center for Media and Democracy's Executive Director Lisa Graves reported today, the move is calculated political payback attacking unions for supporting Democrats. Wages are lower for both union and non-union workers in Right to Work states, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
The legislation is straight out of the Koch-funded ALEC playbook. Compare the language in HB 4003 and HB 4054 with the ALEC "model" Right to Work Act:

Stunning, isn't it?  But--are you still with me?--here comes the fun part.  A 2010 article from The Mackinac Center's news service, CAPCON, called "Politician Puppy Training, What the Tea Parties can Learn from the Dogs" has surfaced.  I'm not kidding.  And neither are they.  I thought they were. I thought they were making a funny, Onion-style.  But, no.

Look:

Almost everyone loves puppies, at least until they start making messes on the carpet.  With every puppy comes the responsibility of training it to become “man's best friend.” The same can be said about legislators.  While they are, of course, not dogs, they do need to be trained in order to be turned in to a voter's best friend. While most go to Lansing or Washington to do the right thing, many will end up making messes that result in less liberty.

Training legislators, as with training puppies, must be done with care and common sense. An external system of rewards and punishments is used to guide the puppy toward doing the right thing.
There’s a lesson in this for tea party groups who seek to communicate their concerns to politicians. You don’t need to explain the principles or speak their language to get your point across. Indeed, this is often the last thing that will work. 

But, wait. . .

Like the trained puppy, your lawmakers will follow the training that has been driven into them beforehand. Trying to teach these at the last minute is ineffective.  Representative democracy, like puppy training, means you teach the big idea well in advance and then trust the politician or the puppy to do the right thing with the specific details when the big moment arrives.

Counter-intuitively, this means that you can often make the biggest difference well after the vote is over. Afterward, you can find out what your lawmaker knew at the time, and judge whether they made the right decision or not. If they barked smartly and did their business outside where it belongs, a tea party group can send a big important message by effusively praising them for it. But if they chewed your slippers, they should face swift consequences.
 
With this past experience in mind, a politician will learn what is expected of them the NEXT time an important vote comes up. Whether the issue is taxes, spending, regulations or what not, a message has been sent to the politician regarding the type of conduct is acceptable – and what is not. Either way, they learn that praise or punishment from a tea party is a real consequence of their future actions.

...We try and give you the information that the politician had at the time of the vote, so you can make a fair decision about whether that vote reflected the metaphorical distinction between your puppy going on the rug or barking at the door.

And that’s when it is most effective for you to decide whether to scratch behind their ears or smack them on the nose. Either way, they’ll remember the next time.

There's more, and, as hilarious as this is, remember, this wild primer on housebreaking is a legitimate plan. There are lessons to be learned here, and if we don't pay attention, we'll go on losing until all is lost 

In a chilling article in New York Magazine called "In Michigan, the Republican Will to Power", Jonathan Chait writes: 

Last year, the Michigan director of Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing activist group, explained, “We fight these battles on taxes and regulation but really what we would like to see is to take the unions out at the knees so they don’t have the resources to fight these battles.” Republicans understand full well that Michigan leans Democratic, and the GOP has total power at the moment, so its best use of that power is to crush one of the largest bastions of support for the opposing party.

In the coming days we need to keep talking about the impact right-to-work has on our nation's workers. We need to stress the need for the strong organized workplace oversight only labor unions can provide.

We need to explain and offset the thundering opposition to a prosperous working class.  We need to expose the lies.  Our voices will be drowned out by those who have a vested interest in keeping the RTW momentum going, but we're not puppies and they're not our trainers.  They'll have no real power over us unless we give it to them by lying down and rolling over.


(Addendum:  More from Harold Meyerson at WaPo and Chris Savage at Eclectablog)


(Addendum II:  Selected for Mike's Blog Round-up at Crooks and Liars.  Thank you!)

(And, of course, cross-posted at dagblog)

"Right to Work" comes to Michigan, the State the Unions Built

Last week Michigan's Republican-majority legislature, with no committee meetings, no floor debate, in a rush to get this done before January when their control lessens, voted to add my beautiful state to a growing number of states--23 of them so far--that have been downgraded to what some have been led to believe is an assurance of a "Right-to-Work".

http://wearethepeoplemichigan.com/

Anyone coming from another country would think, reading that, that it could only be a good thing.  Everybody should have the right to work, after all, and what kind of crazy country needs to legislate that?
But, as usual, the proponents have chosen a reasonable-sounding misnomer in order to cover the cruelty behind their crass actions.

What it really means is that everybody in my state will, in fact, have the right to work (as does everyone of working age on the planet), but any other right--even those that others before them have fought long and hard for--equitable wages, benefits, pensions, work-place safety, grievance representation--will be left outside the door.  Those rights will no longer be rights unless the employer says they are.

State Right-to-Work laws (known as "right-to-work-for-less laws" in our circles) give approval to open shops, where union participation and the collection of union dues is voluntary, not compulsory--a simple step geared to defund and thus defang union activity.

To workers who have been convinced that the company will take care of them, who see progress in not having to pay union dues, who encourage Right-to-Work laws because it's not fair that union members make more money than they do, what is happening in Michigan and the 23 other states is a liberation of sorts.  To others (like me) it's more like tumbling downhill after years of working our way up the mountain.

The people proposing Michigan's move to Right-to-Work understand that money is power--and why wouldn't they?  Millions of Big Money dollars went into the campaign to make this happen. There's a reason these people hate unions.  Unions attempt to give a portion of power to the working class by way of equitable wages and fairness in the workplace.  All of that, of course, costs employers more money, which, if you follow their logic, is a really mean thing for their ungrateful worker-bees to try to do.

The truth is, few businesses are one-person operations.  Employers need employees, and employees have a right to expect to be paid well for their efforts.  The truth is, wages and benefits have stagnated in this country since the 1970s, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would argue that it coincided with the drastic drop in union activity.

The truth is, workers need representation and the ability to collectively bargain for wages, benefits and workplace rights.

The truth is, we are stronger as a country when workplaces are seen as a shared venture, with everyone profiting.  (Sometimes, it's true, the ones at the top have to be dragged into that argument, but the end result is always the same:  When everybody profits, the country profits.)

So let's look at what others are saying about this:

Media Matters looks at the myths the Wall Street Journal is pushing about Right-to-Work.

Chris Savage at Eclectablog, the go-to blog for understanding Michigan political shenanigans, guest-posts about RTW on the AFL-CIO website

Stephen Henderson,  Detroit Free Press Editorial Page editor, says, "Do the Math". it never works.

Rep. Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) speaks out against the RTW bill, calling it "the freedom to freeload"   (FYI: Grand Rapids is the grand bastion of conservatism in our state.  We like it when Dems are represented there.)

Union activist Jamie Sanderson, from Georgetown, SC, looks at Michigan's RTW battle through other eyes.

Andy Kroll at Mother Jones weighs in, calling it a "Scott Walker showdown", after the Wisconsin governor's efforts to kill public unions in that state.

And finally, Kenneth Quinnell over at the AFL-CIO blog exposes the Koch Brothers connection with the flurry of the "right to work for less" laws in Michigan and other Republican-led states. 

This battle isn't over.   

I know.  We say that all the time. Well, here it is again.

As long as there are people left to fight, battles are never over, and this one, the battle for worker rights in Michigan, the birthplace of the modern union movement, is a landmark battle worth fighting.  Big money is prepared to fight us to the end.  They want to win.  They think they will win.  But they've underestimated us before, and the truth is, it didn't hurt them in the least when workers won.

We didn't become a great country by caving to big interests.  We became a great country by working together to build a strong and expanding middle class.  And we did it because we recognized the value and worth of laborers.

And when we didn't any longer, the truth is, our great country declined.

(Cross-posted at dagblog)

Will Michigan be the first to privatize public education?

Ever since Rick Snyder soft-talked his way into the governorship in Michigan, throwing the doors wide open for his biggest donors, the Mackinac Center, ALEC and the Koch Brothers (All for One and One for All against the Rest of Us), I've grown used to reading the craziest stuff imaginable about my beautiful state.

I mean, it's been special.

That bunch almost got away with the wholesale takeover of entire communities, using the ruse of a revised, blatantly unconstitutional Emergency Manager law, but--many, many thanks to the voters (and, of course, to the efforts of Chris Savage at Eclectablog and his direct line to the great Rachel Maddow)--it looks like at least this one attack on our democracy may be defeated.  And at the polls, yet.  Woo Hoo! (Okay, it's not over yet.  They're fighting it, because, you know, screw the constitution.)

But, true to form, Snyder, the Republican majority legislature, and the Tyrannical Triad (All for One and One for All. . .) have already turned their misguided attentions to the other Big Thing on their agenda:  public education.  They want it gone.  For good.  Not just relegated to second banana in favor of schools-for-nothing-but-profit, but out of there.

They're meeting today to discuss the pros and pros of doing away with our educational system, and it's not likely any of us who are horrified at the thought of privatizing our venerable, free, fair system of ensuring an adequate education for every breathing kid in America will have any impact, no matter what we say or do. 

The superintendent of Bloomfield Hills Schools, Rob Glass, grew alarmed enough at this latest assault to send a letter home to the parents, advising them of the proposed takeover attempt.  Bloomfield Hills houses a fair share of one-to-ten-percenters and is the home town of one Mitt Romney.  Cranbrook Academy, the tony private prep school where Mitt and Anne Romney met as students, is in Bloomfield Hills.  But the school superintendent is, thankfully, a public school advocate--a hero for all children--who may just have put his job on the line by exposing the upcoming actions of the governor and his cohorts. 

Read his entire letter to the parents here.  He says, in part (my highlights):

I’ve never considered myself a conspiracy theorist—until now. This package of bills is the latest in a yearlong barrage of ideologically-driven bills designed to weaken and defund locally-controlled public education, handing scarce taxpayer dollars over to for-profit entities operating under a different set of rules. I believe this is fundamentally wrong. State School Superintendent Mike Flanagan and State Board of Education President John Austin and others have also expressed various concerns, as has the Detroit Free Press.
We embrace change, innovation and personalization.We’re passionate about providing choices and options for students. We compete strongly in the educational marketplace. We must never stop improving. This is not a laissez faire plea to defend the status quo. This is about making sure this tidal wave of untested legislation does not sweep away the valued programs our local community has proudly built into its cherished school system.

Chris Savage at Eclectablog, who cadged quotes (he readily admits) from Brainwrap at Daily Kos, who also published Rob Glass's letter, has more on this. Click here, please, and give it the attention it deserves.  Even if you're not from Michigan.  This is a battle we'll all have to fight before it's over.

 Hard core privateers from the far right have taken over the Republican party and Michigan is Ground Zero for their operations. They won't let up until they've taken it all.  Hundreds of thousands of voters across our beautiful state hit the Republican button and cast their votes for them.  They won and are cruising along on what they see as a mandate because their voters either didn't know or didn't care.  Either excuse is irresponsible and reprehensible.

Trying to do away with public education is nothing new.  It's been going on since public education became the right thing to do in a democracy, but this is the first time in my memory that an end to all that looks possible.

I didn't vote for greedy private interests but my grandchildren and their grandchildren and every other kid depending on free public education will have to pay the price, all because those who did vote for them gave no more thought to it than they would a vote for an "American Idol".  That's not just crazy, it's insane.

Addendum:  Please click onto and sign this petition: (Stop the Takeover of Education in Michigan)