Michael Moore: How can you help flint? Do not send bottled water. Instead, join us in a revolt.

[kpete]

Many of you have contacted me wanting to know how you can help the people of Flint with the two-year long tragedy of drinking water contaminated by the radical decisions made by the Governor of Michigan. The offer is much appreciated by those who are suffering through this and who have not drank a glass of unpoisoned water since April of 2014.

Unfortunately, the honest answer to your offer of help is, sadly, you can’t.


You can't help.

The reason you can’t help is that you cannot reverse the irreversible brain damage that has been inflicted upon every single child in Flint. The damage is permanent. There is no medicine you can send, no doctor or scientist who has any way to undo the harm done to thousands of babies, toddlers and children (not to mention their parents). They are ruined for life, and someone needs to tell you the truth about that. They will, forever, suffer from various neurological impediments, their IQs will be lowered by at least 20 points, they will not do as well in school and, by the time they reach adolescence, they will exhibit various behavioral problems that will land a number of them in trouble, and some of them in jail.

That is what we know about the history of lead poisoning when you inflict it upon a child. It is a life sentence. In Flint, they’ve already ingested it for these two years, and the toll has already been taken on their developing brains. No check you write, no truckloads of Fiji Water or Poland Spring, will bring their innocence or their health back to normal. It’s done. And it was done knowingly, enacted by a political decision from a Governor and a political party charged by the majority of Michigan’s citizens who elected them to cut taxes for the rich, take over majority-black cities by replacing the elected mayors and city councils, cut costs, cut services, cut more taxes for the rich, increase taxes on retired teachers and public employees and, ultimately, try to decimate their one line of defense against all this, this thing we used to call a union.

The amount of generosity since the national media finally started to cover this story has been tremendous. Pearl Jam sent 100,000 bottles of water. The next day the Detroit Lions showed up with a truck and 100,000 bottles of water. Yesterday, Puff Daddy and Mark Wahlberg donated 1,000,000 bottles of water! Unbelievably amazing. They acknowledged it’s a very short-term fix, and that it is. Flint has 102,000 residents, each in need of an average of 50 gallons of water a day for cooking, bathing, washing clothes, doing the dishes, and drinking (I’m not counting toilet flushes, watering plants or washing the car). But 100,000 bottles of water is enough for just one bottle per person – in other words, just enough to cover brushing one’s teeth for one day. You would have to send 200 bottles a day, per person, to cover what the average American (we are Americans in Flint) needs each day. That’s 102,000 citizens times 200 bottles of water – which equals 20.4 million 16oz. bottles of water per day, every day, for the next year or two until this problem is fixed (oh, and we’ll need to find a landfill in Flint big enough for all those hundreds of millions of plastic water bottles, thus degrading the local environment even further). Anybody want to pony up for that? Because THAT is the reality.

This is a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions. There is not a terrorist organization on Earth that has yet to figure out how to poison 100,000 people every day for two years – and get away with it. That took a Governor who subscribes to an American political ideology hell-bent on widening the income inequality gap and conducting various versions of voter and electoral suppression against people of color and the poor. It was those actions that led Michigan’s Republican Governor to try out his economic and racial experiment in Flint (and please don’t tell me this has nothing to do with race or class; he has removed the mayors of a number of black cities. This, and the water crisis in Flint, never would have been visited upon the residents of Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Pointe -- and everyone here knows that). We have now seen the ultimate disastrous consequences of late-20th century, neo-conservative, trickle down public policy. That word “trickle,” a water-based metaphor, was used to justify this economic theory -- well, it’s no longer a metaphor, is it? Because now we’re talking about how actual water has been used to institute these twisted economic beliefs in destroying the lives of the black and the poor in Flint, Michigan.

So, do you still want to help? Really help? Because what we need in Flint – and across the country – right now, tonight, is a nonviolent army of people who are willing to stand up for this nation, and go to bat for the forgotten of Flint.

Here’s what you and I need to do:



THE REST!!!
http://michaelmoore.com/DontSendBottledWater

[Nite Owl]

1. Put Snyder and his crew

in jail and only give them the bad water.

[KamaAina]

2. "and we’ll need to find a landfill in Flint big enough for all those... plastic bottles"

I do not understand why these people are not donating large jugs instead.

[Travis_0004]

4. One would assume you could buy a few refillable 5 gallon jugs.

[KamaAina]

5. Refillable with what?

Tanker trucks full of safe water, like you see in other disaster areas, would be one answer.

[Travis_0004]

6. Water

Go to Lowes, Home depot, or call up a water delivery place. They all have 5 gallon refillable containers. You buy them full, and when you turn them in empty, they wash them and refill them. The infrastructure is in place, and I'm sure a national company has increased deliveries to Flint, because its more profit for them.

[KamaAina]

7. As long as it's not Flint water

[kentauros]

10. Or distillation and filtration units.

Then people can refill those jugs, as well as tanker trucks to better distribute it.

[MariaThinks]

3. flint is another reminder that conservatives and republican policies don't work

they simply do not.

[elehhhhna]

8. Every document must be subpoenaed and everyone involved in this travesty

Should be ordered to vacate their jobs immediately. Also Hitler Pol Pot and the rest of the genocidal maniac crowd in hell are in awe of the poisoning of Flint. That is some epic shit.

[daleanime]

12. +1

[dembotoz]

9. as usual mm speaks the truth

understand he is not popular here with many of you but he is correct way more often than not

[Skittles]

11. awesome

Michael Moore, he just keeps on fighting the good fight

[JDPriestly]

13. If he wants a political revolution, he needs to back Sanders.

I heard that he is backing Hillary. Big mistake. She will not rock the boat enough to help Flint or much of any other town in America.

[Leith]

14. As I Write This

It is less than an hour to Rachel's special on Snyder's debacle. I will be watching and glued to every word.

This situation has hit me hard because I was born and raised in Flint. I live out west now because there were no jobs there. But the past couple of weeks has been like a dark cloud hanging over me. So many times there is a news story about something happening someplace that I read, mourn, and move on with my day. Not this time. I have family in the area, though they assure me that they are not affected.

It is outrageous that Republicans are waging all-out war against minorities and the poor - and blaming them for being victims. There is no explanation, no excuse for any of it. The bastards need jail time.

[Dont call me Shirley]

15. Signed! My alec city council has done a similar thing, jacked up our water rates to $140 a month.

Fucking assholes should be indicted on Rico laws, they are fucking criminals!

[Hekate]

16. I'm glad MM pulls no punches about the long term consequences for children. It's dire.

Where the HELL are the TANKER TRUCKS of water? 16 ounce bottles are tragically ludicrous.

ALEC

[niyad]

17. heartsick k and r for flint--and, ultimately, for all of us.