Quigley's front page column in the Journal this morning laments the lost of luster in the pursuit of pure science. It is a thoughtful piece. Meanwhile, his newspaper's editor banished the new science facts on global warming to the third page. This new report from world scientists is ominous, but true to the fossil fuel boys the Journal, unlike just about every other daily newspaper, thinks that it doesn't deserve above the fold front page position.
It is pretty evident that the powers at be at the Journal fall into the group of American corporate leaders that think science is only good when it supports profits.
The continuing saga of the lead poisoned water in Flynt, Michigan is a perfect example of corporate funded pols, like the Governor there, denying science in the favor of saving tax dollars. And now, all Americans have to pick up the tab for this SOB's corporate thinking. They should take money from him personally until he is digging ditches.
It is pretty evident that the powers at be at the Journal fall into the group of American corporate leaders that think science is only good when it supports profits.
The continuing saga of the lead poisoned water in Flynt, Michigan is a perfect example of corporate funded pols, like the Governor there, denying science in the favor of saving tax dollars. And now, all Americans have to pick up the tab for this SOB's corporate thinking. They should take money from him personally until he is digging ditches.
3 comments:
Flint's problems go back to the 80's when GM pulled out. At one point there were 85,000 GM jobs at Chevrolet and Buick. Now there are probably 8,500. Ok, you can blame corporate greed for that. Due to incompetent and corrupt local politicians the State appointed a "Financial Manager" with the authority to make the necessary cuts to prevent bankruptcy. To save money the decision was made to use water from the Flint river (who would think that this was a good idea) until a pipeline was completed from Lake Huron. The Governor has no criminal intent and is sincere at taking responsibility for incompetent State officials that ignored the problem. The older rust belt cities will all have a problem with aging infrastructure and not enough funding to replace century old pipes made of wood and lead. Michigan's legislature is dominated by republicans who are engaged in a race to the bottom with Mississippi.
Also, Flint, Detroit and Benton Harbor, Michigan are being used as laboratories by the Capitalist class for Neoliberal privatization schemes, just as happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That town is 2/3 its former population. There are no public schools any more. It's all charter schools now. Most properties damaged by the hurricane have simply been demolished and the land is being divvied up. The former residents live in Houston and other towns.
As was New Orleans before the hurricane, the three Michigan cities that have been taken over by the governor and are being systematically dismantled are majority Black. The real estate moguls who control New Orleans, and Michigan's Republican governor, a former venture Capitalist worth $200 million, found it easier to experiment in majority Black cities because those states' White residents looked the other way. There's extreme gentrification going on in all those cities. In Michigan, choice downtown property is being handed out to the governor's cronies for pittances. The towns are literally being stolen from their residents.
Those towns represent the end goal of the Neoliberal economic model. Don't think they don't have the same designs on your living standard, your schools, your retirement accounts. It's simply the logic of Capitalism. Absent the strong Labor Movement and political Left that forced reforms to gilded age Capitalism, and with a Democratic Party that occupies the space the Republican Party used to occupy, we're simply headed back to the era when workers slept by their machines and you retired into poverty if you lived that long.
If you don't believe me, just read the economic plan of New Mexico's legislative Democrats. It's Reaganomics. Tax cuts and job training. Nothing on the demand side at all. Nothing that puts more money in workers' pockets or even pretends to. A meaningless minimum wage hike, spread out over many years, that affects only a few people.
http://www.nmsenate.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Sen-Dem-Ready-to-Work-Legislative-Package.pdf
anonymous, I am puzzled at the peculiar support of a Governor who let his own administration blow this so badly. If there was no intent on his part, then pure incompetence is the culprit and he should resign.
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