The Flint water crisis was declared a state of emergency by Mayor Karen Weaver this week — something we’ve known for months. But much of the nation still has no idea what has been perpetrated against the people of this battered city.
One person is trying to change that.
“Governor, the water of the city of Flint, Michigan has been poisoned,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow explained on Friday night in an 18-minute segment that connects the crime that has been committed against the people of Flint to the undemocratic hijacking of local governments through the Emergency Manager law(s), which she calls “truly unbelievable, reckless radicalism,” and the gross incompetence of both the emergency managers and the man who appointed them — Governor Rick Snyder.
In trying to explain the reluctance of the national media to cover the lead poisoning of Flint, Maddow made analogy to personal health. People want to see lead as long-term infrastructure problem, like the inevitable result of a bad diet and exercise when what’s really happened is much more brutal and inexcusable.
“This is the personal health equivalent of having been shot,” Maddow said. “This is not something that went bad over a long period of time. This is… they flipped a switch to turn off one spigot last April and turn on a different spigot. And the spigot they turned on poisoned the kids. The kids of Flint, Michigan have been poisoned by a policy decision. All at once, the town has been poisoned, under your watch, Governor through the actions and in-actions of people who report to you and the people you appointed.”
If you read Eclectablog regularly, you likely have been following the slow-motion disaster in Flint. But Rachel Maddow has finally put it together in a way that the nation needs to see now. Please share this video.
