RSN Fundraising Banner
FB Share
Email This Page
add comment
Print

Ash writes: "Watched your broadcast from the Factory Two community empowerment center in Flint, Michigan, the other evening with a mixture of fascination and apprehension."

A quote and a central message in the French docudrama, Un village français. (image: Un village français)
A quote and a central message in the French docudrama, Un village français. (image: Un village français)


Dear Michael Moore, Chris Hayes and Residents of Flint

By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News

14 September 18

 

atched your broadcast from the Factory Two community empowerment center in Flint, Michigan, the other evening with a mixture of fascination and apprehension. Particularly the segment featuring the four residents who either did not vote for a president on Election Day 2016 or did not vote at all.

Should we view these people as specimens to be studied scientifically, victims for whom we should have empathy and solidarity, or citizens who, in abdicating their right to choose who the next president would be, opened the door through their indifference to fascism in the White House? Or perhaps all three?

As a matter of political science, we need to understand what happened in Flint during the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. What the citizens of Flint said was, “We were abandoned and literally left to die by the country and the Democratic party.” Presumably they held the Democrats more to blame than the Republicans because Flint is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, and so they expected more, perhaps.

A badly polluted Flint River and rotting water pipes poisoned the water of Flint residents. People died. Children’s health will be, in some cases, affected for the remainder of their lives. The problem occurred because of neglect. The problem grew worse because of continued neglect. More people were harmed. Public officials whose responsibility it was to address the problems and ensure safe, potable water have been found criminally culpable, as well they should have been. If it can happen in Flint, it can happen anywhere. Americans who do not stand in solidarity with Flint are whistling past their graveyard. We heard you then and we hear you now. However, unsurprisingly, the problems are bigger than Flint.

If you look beyond Flint, you can see the consequences of your inaction. Norman Solomon recently interviewed scriptwriter Frédéric Krivine, who was a driving force behind the French docudrama Un village français (A French Village). The story revolves around the Nazi occupation of France from 1940 to 1944 and more importantly on its effects on the French people, the German occupiers, and the choices all were forced to make. A central premise of the work’s narrative is “To live is to choose.” You chose not to choose.

The consequences of your inaction and those like you in towns across America, and there were many, now affect us in ways too profound and long-lasting to be fully understood in the moment. What began as a simple electoral protest has now become an opportunity for a campaign of fascist criminal conduct imbued with the vast powers of the American presidency. Try if you can to understand the pain and suffering of the men, women, and children interred in the Trump regime’s punishment camps near the US-Mexican government border. These are full Nazi tactics being unleashed on human beings on American soil in the year 2018.

Puerto Rico is ostensibly a US territory and its people US citizens. In the aftermath of the devastation of Hurricane Maria, they have been left to die. The federal resources Donald Trump controls, resources that could have saved thousands of Puerto Ricans, were not brought to bear. What would Hillary Clinton have done? The list of harm being done to the lives and wellbeing of innocent people by Trump and those who do his bidding goes on and on.

So it was interesting to meet the people of Flint, to listen to your story, and try to feel your pain. While it’s good to see work on your water infrastructure underway, it’s important to remember that a failure to act when given the chance can have long-lasting consequences.

A chance comes again on November 6th of this year. To live is to choose. We are there now.

Email This Page


Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page

 

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.

RSNRSN