PHOTO/RANDOLPH BELL
OAKLAND, CA — Community College teachers and students, leaders in the fight for housing, as well as community leaders in the fight for healthcare, recovery, prison rights and the fight against police killing were among the many participants in a Bay Area Teach-in Series held in Oakland and San Francisco May of this year. The subject that brought everyone together was the shocking poisoning of thousands of small children with lead and other toxins, including water borne E Coli and carcinogens, resulting from the switch in Flint’s water supply to the polluted Flint River. Community leaders in and around Oakland and the Bay Area wanted to know not only how the crisis in Flint happened, but what does it mean for our communities, for our society and for the political life of our country? As we go into the heat of the 2016 elections, the lessons from this tour and Flint itself are critical.
Teach-in student participants told stories of living “rough” or commuting after being displaced from Bay Area communities; ex-prison inmates told stories of prisoners having to drink tainted water or face heat-stoke during California’s drought. Urban working-class Oaklanders to rural “Valley” residents told of local fights for access to education, water, healthcare, and jobs; all responded to the story of Flint. They understood how Flint’s “asset grab” policies mirror the struggle over Wall Street loans bankrupting our cities. Most of all, they began to see the significance of the emergency manager system in the bankrupted cities of Michigan. As more and more of us lose our jobs to robots, and as every aspect of the public’s control over our government comes under attack, local government is a first line of political defense. Californians are familiar with the use of the emergency managers—as State appointed corporate “shills”—in replacing school boards in particular. The emergency manger system in Michigan is “toxic politics on steroids.” It aims to make any local political recourse impossible.
Speakers noted that as presidential candidates debate what some politicians have called, “the right-wing takeover of local government,” nothing has been done to end corporate rule in Flint. Those poisoned by what even President Obama admits is a “preventable disaster” still don’t have the right to healthcare regardless of their ability to pay. The corroded pipes to Flint’s water system, and indeed water systems throughout the US have not been replaced. Calls for Michigan’s Governor to step down, and for the jailing of the emergency manager culprits are being ignored.
The message came out loud and clear. The destruction of America’s water and public health infrastructure are the “canaries in the mine” for destruction of America’s democracy. The immediate need is for government to guarantee that all public assets, both water and healthcare be nationalized in the interests of the public’s health—for everyone. The reinstitution and expansion of democracy is the only way to guarantee it. The 2016 elections are about nothing if they are not about this.
