Against Our Will
It should be obvious to everyone that those in control of the State of Michigan oppose democracy, distrust the wisdom of people, and are determined to strangle cities and municipalities that are the home of our most progressive thinking.
Governor Snyder has persisted with his decision, and his alone, to stop free bottled water distribution in Flint. Both the citizens and their elected Mayor have asked the Governor to continue making free water available until all lead pipes are replaced throughout the city.
The Governor refuses. He bases his decision on tests that show Flint water is “safe” to drink. The last time Flint residents heard that pronouncement, they were poisoned. Snyder has done nothing to earn the trust of the people of Flint, or the rest of the State.
Snyder continues to talk about the problems of Flint in terms of the money the state needs to save. He has yet to understand the magnitude of the atrocity that he has committed because of his decisions and those of the Emergency Managers he appointed.
Further, the Great Lakes Water Authority, itself a creation of decisions by Emergency Managers, continues to evade the question of water shut-offs in Flint as well as in Detroit. For years now, the people of Flint were charged for water they could not drink. Many have bills that are impossible to pay. The water assistance programs of the GLWA are not capable of responding to the magnitude of need, nor do they take into account the extraordinary conditions of daily life created by the poisoning of Flint waters. In addition to the damage to children, public health, the mechanisms of daily life, and the struggle to ensure clean water for people, basic economic life has been devastated.
The State of Michigan has a moral responsibility to provide free water to Flint. It has a responsibility to replace all lead pipes destroyed by the decisions of state agents. It has a responsibility to follow the will of the citizens of Flint, not impose financial decisions based on some mythical criteria of when it has spent “enough.”
Moreover, the State of Michigan has a responsibility to repeal the Emergency Management legislation that leads to this crisis in the first place. The key role of unelected, unaccountable, governor-appointed local dictators in the Flint water crisis has been acknowledged by the Governor’s own commission reviewing the crises. Yet the Governor has done absolutely nothing to review this legislation. Instead, he turns his attention to bottled water distribution, saying, “Enough.”
What we have had enough of is the disdain of people’s judgment about their own lives and the values we want to see enacted in our public life. The vast majority of the citizens of the State of Michigan voted against emergency management. It was the Governor and the legislature that subverted our will. The vast majority of the citizens in Michigan oppose the expansion of bottled water plants in Michigan. It was the Governor and his staff that subverted our will. Local city governments have inventive, imaginative ways to ensure water is a human right and a public trust. It is the Governor and the legislature that subvert our will.
The Governor and State Legislature make it clear that we the people need to take much more forceful action to ensure our waters, our people, and basic democracy are protected.