gracchusdixit

On the eve of the French Revolution, as the people of France grappled with social unrest, economic collapse, and widespread famine, their Austrian-born Queen, Marie Antoinette, infamously quipped:  “Let them eat cake.”  Except that she didn’t.  We shall never know who actually uttered those words, if anyone ever did.   What we do know is that Marie, whatever her failings, was not the heartless, remote, and empty-headed puppet she has been made out to be.  On the contrary, she seems to have been an intelligent person, who empathized with her people, understood their plight, and, if she had had the political power that her era denied to all but a handful of women, probably would have done something about it.

The same cannot be said for the Republicans who run the state of Michigan, whose indifference to the plight of their poorest citizens makes the ancien régime of pre-revolutionary France seem positively benign.

Five years ago, Michigan’s legislature passed a law empowering its governor, Rick Snyder, to appoint “emergency managers” for towns or cities in financial trouble, suspending democratic government for as long as he decreed to be necessary.  This was not the first such law in Michigan, but it was, by far, the most sweeping.  If the citizens in those municipalities chose to object, they were given a mere seven days to file an appeal—and then, not to a disinterested third party, but to the very governor who appointed the emergency managers in the first place.

The purpose of this law, let it be said, was not to revitalize these troubled communities by investing in infrastructure, creating jobs, or improving the local economy.  The purpose was—and is—to cut costs, balance the books, and, above all else, pay off creditors.  Along the way, contracts with public service unions can be revoked, pensions can be denied, public services can be eliminated or privatized, and community assets can be sold.  Perhaps the most infamous example of the last occurred in Detroit a couple of years ago, when Snyder’s emergency manager came very close to auctioning off the masterworks of the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the most splendid museums in the world.  Fortunately, national outrage was so great that even Governor Snyder’s absolute financial monarch had to back down.

Since the emergency manager law was passed, almost a dozen Michigan towns or cities—in every case but one, with overwhelmingly African-American populations—have been turned over to the tender mercies of Snyder’s proconsuls.  Their performance to date has been abysmal, even by their own criteria.  When emergency management began in the aforementioned city of Detroit, the pubic schools were running a surplus of more than $100 million.  Three years later, they were $35 million in the red.  Detroit is not alone.  Few of the municipalities subjected to the ministrations of Snyder’s dictators have emerged in sound, or even remotely better, financial shape.   The emergency management system has been a disaster.

By far the worst of its disastrous consequences has been the poisoning of the public water supply of Flint, about an hour’s drive north of Detroit.

By almost every measure, Flint is a sad and depressing place.  But it wasn’t always so.  Well into the 1970s, Flint exemplified the American Dream.  It was in Flint that the UAW waged and won a history-making strike against General Motors, transforming the lives of Flint’s auto workers as well as millions of other working Americans.  The tide turned, however, when Ronald Reagan became President.  GM, despite record profits, laid off thousands of workers in Flint and moved most of its production to Mexico.  A generation later, after a relentless drumbeat of union-bashing, trickle-down economics, and redistributive taxes favoring corporations and their investors, Flint went bust and is now one of the poorest cities in the country.

About two years ago, one of Michigan’s emergency managers took charge.  His mission was to pay off Flint’s creditors by cutting costs.  One of the cost-cutting measures was to switch the source of the city’s water supply from Lake Huron sixty miles away to the Flint River.  Being closer to home, river water was cheaper.  It was also filthy, with a totally different chemistry from that of one of the largest glacial lakes in the world.

The corrosive muck of the Flint River quickly degraded the city’s decrepit pipes and cisterns, releasing a variety of dangerous contaminants.  The worst was lead, which is toxic and particularly damaging to the nervous system.  In a matter of months, the entire population, including 8,000 children, had been exposed.  The worst exposure occurred in the poorest part of the city, which is farthest from the river, giving the stagnant water in the pipes more time to do its dirty work.

When the nervous systems of young children are exposed to lead, one of the inevitable consequences is mental impairment.  Their ability to learn will be stunted; their cognitive faculties will be diminished; their opportunities in a world that relies increasingly on knowledge and the ability to process information will be limited permanently.  The damage can be mitigated, with enough medical help and educational investment, but it cannot be reversed.  There is no remedy that will ever cure it entirely.

The first signs of lead poisoning in Flint emerged quickly, yet they were ignored—and even worse, denied—not only by the city’s emergency manager but also by Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality, both of whom reported directly to the governor.   It was only when the evidence became overwhelming, leading to an avalanche of criticism, that Governor Snyder began to respond.  Even now, when it is indisputable that incompetence or indifference at the highest levels of his administration led to the poisoning of  100,000 people, the governor’s response has been to make excuses, point fingers, and drag his feet.  It would appear that paying off creditors is the only emergency he can bring himself to manage.

Poor Marie Antoinette, who never actually said “let them eat cake” to the French people, was hauled through the streets of Paris in an open tumbrel, her hands tied behind her back and jeered at by the crowd, until she reached what is today called the Place de la Concorde, where she ascended the steps of a scaffold and lost her head.  It is doubtful that the governor  and legislators of Michigan, who said “let them drink lead” to the people of Flint, will lose their heads, their jobs, or even a night’s sleep.  Where is Madame la Guillotine when we need her?