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It took a genuine catastrophe in Flint for people to notice, but what’s going on in Michigan should be a screeching alarm to America of the dangers of right-wing governance.
Rick Snyder’s soggy demeanor and business connections bless him with the shiny veneer of being a “moderate.” Few people understood the radicalism his complete lack of charisma hid.
Elected in a Tea Party wave, Snyder narrowly won re-election, mostly due to the strength of Barack Obama’s accomplishments, the Michael Bloomberg-backed saturation of the TV airwaves, and an establishment-endorsed sense of competence.
Even as the Flint water crisis had become impossible to ignore in December of last year, the dean of bland DC centrism praised Snyder’s “refreshing approach to politics in Michigan.”
It’s about as refreshing a glass of lead-poisoned water.
The Flint Water Crisis is the culmination of six years of governance by corporatism gone wild. The belief that the powerful need a break and the poor need to pay is the only through-line of this administration. And much of America is finally getting that. It just took every child in Flint under the age of 6 — all 8,657 of them — being poisoned by lead to make them see it
If you live in Michigan, you know this first hand. If you read Eclectablog, you’ve been hearing the alarm bell ringing for half a decade.
Our fearless publisher Chris Savage has been tearing the hair out of his head to get people to understand what is being done to this state that has been just about entirely under Republican control on the state level since 2010. Just look at his head now:
Beyond the Flint Water Crisis, here are some examples of the essential work he does:
- He’s chronicled Snyder’s fixation on the undemocratic abominations known as Emergency Managers.
- He’s documented the failures of the governor’s failed educational experiments, which are tearing the few roots left in our most struggling communities.
- He’s shown us how the costs of the governor’s gifts to the rich and corporations have been paid almost entirely by the poor.
- And recently he’s documented how Republicans backed by Rick Snyder want to seal the damage they’ve done by tilting campaigns toward toward corporate interests and making it even harder to vote.
He’s also built a great team that support and expand on his effort.
Your generous donations support Chris’ work and keep Eclectablog alive.
Donating to this kind of effort is the kind of involvement in politics we need to have any hope of providing accountability in this era when true journalism is increasingly unsustainable.
Being a part of a public service like Eclectablog should make you feel better and it will. Don’t believe me? Try it! Please donate now.
For those groups and individuals who find what we do here at Eclectablog worthy of supporting with a direct financial contribution, there are three ways to help.
First, you can make your donation using this PayPal form:
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You can choose which level of support you wish to give us from the dropdown box or choose a different level if you wish by using the “Other amount” box. The default is $60 which is basically $1 per week after the fees are taken out, a pretty good value.
Or you can wait until the TinyPass pop-up pops up (every tenth click on the site) and donate that way. If you do that, the popups will go away as long as you have cookies enabled. Like with the Paypal form, the default amounts for annual or monthly donations can be adjusted to whatever you wish them to be. They are currently set to be around $1 per week. Again, it’s a great value.
Finally, if you would prefer to send a check, send Chris an email and he’ll give you the address. This is the most beneficial way for us because it avoids the Paypal and Tinypass fees that are taken from contributions to the site.
If you work for an organization that would like to support our efforts by placing an ad, click HERE for our ad rates and more information.
By the way, you don’t have to be an organization to run an ad. Maybe you’d like to surprise your favorite progressive with a birthday message on Eclectablog or help promote your favorite group. Again, click HERE for more info.
If you cannot afford to support us financially, there are other ways that you can still help.
For instance, please share our content on your Facebook page or other social media like Twitter, Reddit, etc. Put a “Like” on our Facebook page and click the “Invite friends” button and encourage your friends to like us, too.
Thanks so much for your continued support,
LOLGOP, Chris, Anne, Amy, Tony, Emma, John, Judy, and Sommer
[Caricature by DonkeyHotey from photos by Anne C. Savage for Eclectablog]
