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Flint

Newsletter: Global Solidarity Is Rising

February 7, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. A key ingredient of previous successful campaigns to stop 'free trade' agreements is cross-border solidarity. Uniting struggles globally, as well as locally, is critical for other issues as well. Via Campesina, a movement started by peasants in 1993, has grown to become a global movement that recognizes the intersectionality between food security, land rights, the climate crisis and transnational corporate power. They work together to both resist harmful policies and to create necessary alternatives by organizing seed exchanges and impacting public policy. Similarly, global solidarity is increasing around the climate crisis.

Contaminated Water Requires National Public Health Action

February 7, 2016 Drs. Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers, www.truthout.org , , , , , , ,
By Drs. Jill Stein and Margaret Flowers for TruthOut. Most people in the United States know about the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in March 1979. Although the official reports stated that an "insignificant" amount of radiation was released (this understatement has since been refuted), it is called "America's worst nuclear accident." Very few people know about the actual worst nuclear accident in the United States, which happened three months later in Church Rock, New Mexico. Perhaps this is because it mostly impacted people of the Navajo (Diné) Nation. On July 16, 1979, the wall of a tailings pond for a uranium mill broke open and released 93 million gallons of radioactive waste into the Arroyo Pipeline, a tributary to the Puerco River. The waste traveled 80 miles down the Puerco River into Arizona. Not only is it amazing that this spill was not reported in the media, but it is also remarkable that the governor of New Mexico refused to issue a state of emergency.

Flint Residents FINALLY Suing Government For Poisoning Them

February 3, 2016 Reagan Ali, www.countercurrentnews.com , , , ,
By Reagan Ali for Counter Current News - It’s not generally very easy to sue the government. But now a well known Baltimore attorney, William H. “Billy” Murphy Jr. — who recently won a $6.4 million settlement for the family of Freddie Gray — has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against state and local government officials in Flint, Michigan over the poisoning of the city’s drinking water. The city first monopolized the water – not allowing residents any choice in where they obtained their water services from – then they cut corners, and knowingly poisoned the city’s water supply, even while government officials had clean water shipped in for them.

FBI Joins Flint Drinking Water Investigation

February 3, 2016 Paul Egan, www.freep.com , , , ,
By Paul Egan for Detroit Free Press - The FBI is now investigating the contamination of Flint’s drinking water, a man-made public health catastrophe, which has left an unknown number of Flint children and other residents poisoned by lead and resulted in state and federal emergency declarations. Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit, told the Free Press Monday that federal prosecutors are “working with a multi-agency investigation team on the Flint water contamination matter, including the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, EPA's office of inspector general, and EPA's criminal investigation division."

10 Things They Won’t Tell You About Flint Water Tragedy

February 1, 2016 Michael Moore, www.ecowatch.com , , ,
By Michael Moore for Eco Watch - When the governor’s office discovered just how toxic the water was, they decided to keep quiet about it and covered up the extent of the damage being done to Flint’s residents, most notably the lead affecting the children, causing irreversible and permanent brain damage. Citizen activists uncovered these actions, and the governor now faces growing cries to resign or be arrested. Here are 10 things that you probably don’t know about this crisis because the media, having come to the story so late, can only process so much. But if you live in Flint or the State of Michigan as I do, you know all to well that what the greater public has been told only scratches the surface.

Newsletter: Defeating The Oligarchs

January 30, 2016 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , , , , , , ,
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. People in the US are taught that the way to create change is through voting. But in reality, voting in the US is very limited and ineffective. In an article, “Don’t Count on Elections: Organize or Die” the authors examine the myriad of ways that elections fail to create change; how they are designed to place a middleman, your representative, between you and the change you want and how elections tend to reinforce the status quo rather than change it. They point to South Carolina where there have been numerous attempts to rid the state of the Confederate Flag, but it was not until an activist climbed up a flag pole and took it down, that the government finally acted. Direct action, at the right moment, was more powerful than elections.

People Of Flint Call For Pro-Democracy Revolt To Save Poisoned City

January 28, 2016 Lauren McCauley, www.counterpunch.org , , , ,
By Lauren McCauley for Common Dreams - Fed up with an administration whose policies caused the devastating water crisis and subsequent health epidemic, advocacy organizations and community members are calling for nothing less than a complete overhaul of the way government works in Michigan. On Tuesday, Flint residents met with leaders of the national NAACP to draw up a "15-point priority plan" for addressing the lead-tainted water crisis. Chief among their demands is the repeal of Michigan's contentious emergency manager law, which was enacted in 2011 under Gov. Rick Snyder.

EPA’s Lack Of Integrity Costing Children Of Flint Dearly

January 23, 2016 Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends, www.theguardian.com , , ,
By Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Kevin Berends for The Guardian - Is it extreme to posit that local and state officials and the Environmental Protection Agency knowingly allowed the poisoning of tens of thousands of Flint residents? Perhaps. But it is irrefutable that they knew that residents – primarily African Americans and the working class – were drinking, bathing and cooking with poisonous water for six months before authorities warned them of risks. This story will not end well – lead poisoning is irreversible. There is little hope for Flint’s predominantly black children who have ingested, drunk or absorbed dangerous levels of lead.

Facing Calls To Resign & Pile Of Lawsuits, Snyder To Address Flint Crisis

January 21, 2016 Deirdre Fulton, www.commondreams.org , , ,
By Deirdre Fulton for Common Dreams - Amid mounting calls for his resignation and arrest—and in the face of a growing collection of class action lawsuits in which he is named—Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to address the Flint water crisis in his State of the State address on Tuesday evening. In the third protest in as many days, approximately 60 demonstrators gathered outside Snyder's apartment in downtown Ann Arbor on Monday, chanting, "Justice for Flint! Arrest Rick Snyder!" A group of protesters is expected to return to the residence for a picket during Tuesday evening's speech, scheduled to take place at 7 pm.

Detroit Activists Provide Flint Residents Water In Contamination Crisis

January 20, 2016 Cassius Methyl, www.eraofwisdom.org , , ,
By Cassius Methyl for Era of Wisdom - Activist group New Era Detroit took thousands of bottles of water to Flint, Michigan on Sunday, successfully providing residents with clean drinking water in the face of an unprecedented water contamination disaster. Flint residents have been afflicted with the choices of drinking highly toxic water, not drinking water, or seeking water elsewhere as the people who created the problem have yet to offer an effective solution. Toxic lead was found in residents’ blood a month ago.

Flint Residents Get Poisoned Water And Shutoff Notices

January 14, 2016 Dylan Hocks, www.usuncut.com , ,
By Dylan Hocks for U.S. Uncut - While Michigan’s Republican governor Rick Snyder and his administration may have poisoned the entire city of Flint’s water supply by electing to draw from the heavily polluted Flint River, thereby dosing residents all over the city with toxic lead at 900 times the EPA limit, none of that seems to matter at the moment as the city prepares to send out shutoff notices to some 1,800 residents for overdue payments. The shutoff notices will be the first sent out since they were halted by ajudge’s decision last August.

DOJ Investigate Flint Water Poisoning

January 8, 2016 Arthur Delaney, www.huffingtonpost.com , , ,
By Arthur Delaney for The Huffington Post - Days after Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) apologized for toxic tap water in the city of Flint and accepted the resignations of multiple state officials, the U.S. Justice Department said it has opened an investigation into what went wrong. "In an effort to address the concerns of Flint residents, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District is working closely with the EPA on the investigation into the contamination of the city of Flint's water supply," Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan, told HuffPost on Tuesday.
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