Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis 

 

What has happened in Flint, Michigan, should make all Americans angry. In short, Republican Governor Rick Snyder removed democracy from Flint by eliminating all power of their elected leaders and putting that power in the hands of people he personally appointed. Those people decided to cut costs regardless of what effect that might have on citizens. One of those cuts was to change where Flint's water came from, even though they knew there was danger in doing that.

The danger was that water would now come to homes in lead pipes that were corroded, meaning lead would be in the water and that has been proven to irreversible destroy the brains of people, especially children. That is just what happened and was proven, yet Governor Snyder and his appointees for many months told the people to keep drinking the poisoned water and that is was safe, even when they knew that it would only cost about $100 a day to make the water safe. The only place where the danger was made clear was on the Rachel Maddow Show.

Now, many months after the harm has been done Governor Snyder and his people finally acted, but in very flimsy ways. Some of the people responsible for poisoning people resigned. Then the Governor said he would get the National Guard to distribute bottled water, but only 20 of the Guard actually did that. And Gov. Snyder continued to fail to request help from the federal government until Hillary Clinton made this a national news story again.

What will happen now? Thousands of young children in Flint are harmed for life beyond repair. They will need care for their whole lives. Even adults are at risk, and the bad water has caused an outbreak of Legionnaires Disease too, which has already killed people. This is a disaster, and one caused by one man, Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan.

Some have called for him to resign, some for him to be impeached, some for him to be arrested and jailed. Just under the surface in all of this is that the population of Flint is mostly poor and black, so people are wondering if the Governor would have acted differently if they were white and had money. That is a good question.

This proves that the United States still has awful people in key governmental positions, people who will harm citizens to save a small amount of money and not care. Something should be done to leaders who act that way.