And government is not particularly interested in responding to those needs if they feel there will be little or no consequences for that neglect.

The cycle feeds on itself. Apathy in the general electorate disproportionally benefits prosperous, powerful and active minorities, even if they are single-issue constituencies. They, in turn, feels this morally justifies their exaggerated influence in the political process. This is particularly the case for those who are organized and directed by powerful industry lobbies, like the NRA.

But, thanks to progressive media and online social networks, the situation is rapidly changing…

http://d39ya49a1fwv14.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/black-lives-matter-lol1.jpg

Real democracy doesn’t just work for the comfortably well-off. And it isn’t always pretty. I predict that if wealth inequality isn’t addressed soon, the union movement will come back–with a vengeance. Economic conditions are rapidly approaching late 19th century ones, pretty much where they were the last time that happened.

“If you can only convince everyone they’re a rugged individualist, they’ll never organize against you.”

Amid denials, state workers in Flint got clean water

In January of 2015, when state officials were telling worried Flint residents their water was safe to drink, they also were arranging for coolers of purified water in Flint’s State Office Building so employees wouldn’t have to drink from the taps, according to state government e-mails released Thursday by the liberal group Progress Michigan.

I got turned on to this story on the Rachel Maddow show tonight. She showed video of a town meeting on 1/15/15 where the officials were telling furious citizens waving jugs of brown water that their tap water was fit to drink, and to just “hang in there”.

That wascally Wachel!

But cutting corners, saving a buck, at the expensive of the innocent, in property or lives, kinda pisses me off. By any party.

When the EPA subcontractor breached the Gold King Mine, polluting a river, what got me mad was the fact that they were warned that this might happen. A fifty foot drill hole could have told them of the hydrologic situation in the adit. That’d cost money, and the locals opposed declaring this a super-fund site, cause that’d cost money. But the resulting spill cost more than any of the proposed remediation’s budget.

Remember that old commercial for oil filters? “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later?” That a five dollar filter every now and again would keep you from having to re-build your engine for thousands of dollars, was the moral of the 30 second spot.

It’s like that.

Could we spend the extra 30K to treat the new water properly?

And worse, could we listen to the doctors and scientists that are telling us that something is wrong? Could we listen to the people who say there is something wrong by shaking a bottle full of brown tap water at a politician? And then call them alarmists. That things are so much better now, you don’t mind slipping back a bit, do ya?

We are better than this. Our innovative and modern infrastructure (substantially government funded) is what made this country the economic powerhouse that it is. Not maintaining it, not improving it, is not buying an oil filter for your car. We will pay for it later.

Ooops. Am I getting partisan?