August 11, 2022
The latest attempt to get justice for Flint fails again due to people not taking their job very seriously.
The court in a trial against a few of the engineering companies responsible for the Flint Water Crisis has declared a mistrial. This makes me mad for several reasons. Of course, the whole damn deal makes me pissed off. What was especially galling about this incident, is that no matter how hard they try, it seems like the elite conspiracy responsible for harm against millions, and the biggest public health tragedy in the United States, possibly ever, not related to disease, but rather directly related to public administration, will never be brought to justice. It's not like this was a harmless mistake. There had to be some sort of profit making scheme behind it in order for it to make sense, to even try, to drink dirty water out of a river long known to be polluted. It's not like the technological response to the incident was especially lackluster, but whatever technological guidance the public administration management class got justifying giving the city a dirty supply of drinking water was definitely suspect. But the experts brought in after the crisis broke did as fine a job as it's possible to do given the outrageous circumstances and unexplainable delay in responding to the crisis. The process story is secondary to the story about placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of those responsible for the outrage. To again cut through the noise on what exactly happened, the river water was dirty, it never should've been used as a drinking water source, it had elevated levels of bacteria, the standard cleaning solutions had to be used in such large amounts that they degraded the pipes themselves which were made of lead, and that caused the lead crisis. Dwelling on the details is a job for public administration officials in the future. In terms of the direct legal response that is needed to rectify the wrongs done to the people of Flint, the only thing that will and should satisfy anyone is directly fingering those whose actions justified the decision by the emergency manager at the time, Kurtz, to sign off on the switch to the Flint River water as a drinking source. There may be other accomplices surrounding him, but as his name is on the document authorizing the switch, the buck stops with him. I do not care how sick or old he is, he bears responsibility for the crisis. If he had no reason to be knowledgeable about anything regarding city management, that is the fault of Public Act IV, and cannot be used as an excuse to get him out of trouble, seeing as he signed on to be part of the program administering the actuation of Public Act IV. That is as far as the legal story about this should care about the ensuing details - with the singular exception of extending understanding and providing support for citizens of Flint that may or may not have done desperate things in a desperate situation. The situation was not of their causing, and they should be given amnesty for whatever nonpayment or other small actions of resistance taken in this crisis, which, it cannot be said enough, was man-made. And, those who made the crisis happen are represented and exemplified by Kurtz, the Emergency Manager who had sole responsibility for all decisions done in the city of Flint under the auspices of Public Act IV, including switching the source of drinking water to the polluted Flint River, which set in motion the chain of events that led to the Flint Water Crisis. Its causality can easily be proved by the publicly available ensuing facts on the ground. This does not mean we should stop at small potatoes when addressing the fallout from this crisis. The citizens of Flint deserve better and democracy deserves better than some piddling attempt to make some minor officials take the fall for Kurtz, the Emergency Manager system, and Public Act IV, which were the actual cause of this crisis - and especially Kurtz, no matter his political connections, is the guilty man, because his name is on the damn document. I do not care that he signed the document in the middle of his transition out of office. This is not relevant, because his was the authorizing signature on the document. Supporters of Public Act IV cannot parade this hypocrisy before us of extending to these unaccountable Emergency Managers both authority and an excuse not to be held accountable for their actions. I spoke to the lawyer that I believe is prosecuting this case, and noted to him that as Ed Kurtz's name is on the authorizing document, he should be held responsible for the tragedy, or should we say the atrocity, of authorizing blatant negligence that caused uncountable harm. His inability to get some of the guys that contributed to this fiasco is his problem. To be totally clear, the engineers are not mine. There's snake oil salesmen that are always gonna be around. It's way more important in my mind to get the guys who had the gall to hire the snake oil salesmen on behalf of the people. I'm sticking to my guns that the problem started at the very top, with the Emergency Manager system, Public Act IV, and Ed Kurtz, who can and should in the minds of public opinion exemplify the abject failures of Public Act IV. Anybody who sees this case otherwise, I believe, has not done the research, has completely misread the information, or is logically incapable of understanding what's going on. This is assuming that all looking on upon this disaster are acting in good faith. Those who look upon this crisis as a fatted cow, or a trough to try to digest the slops of Public Act IV, are so reprehensible in their own way, because they will distort through their exaggerated emphasis on the importance of whatever detail in the process story they deem relevant, that if this continues, their combined actions will only end up distorting the facts about what happened, and rebound to the support of Public Act IV, which is their nominal enemy. They will end up justifying exactly that which they pretend to oppose. The press has this story right. Or they did. The unions had this story right. They had it right when they protested against the passage of Public Act IV, long before the outbreak of the crisis. The doctors and ambulance chasers that are prosecuting this story right now, have no connection to the causes and reasons that led to this crisis. All I see in this arena right now are people trying to make a profit on one side or the other, and there's a complete lack of principled opposition to the abject mismanagement of public administration that is the cause of this crisis, and can be attributable to certain particular nameable people. I don't care how old or sick they are, it's time for them to face the music. It's time for Ed Kurtz in particular, to face the firing squad. I wasn't the first one to this story, but I had it long before these bumblers got their paws on it. The weak and wishy-washy response to this crisis in the courts has me enraged. Look, if you're fighting a monster, and you are in this case, don't be a fool, and aim for the jugular. Otherwise, you're just out for a piece.
---
I've known about this story for so long that all this just rolled off my tongue directly into the dictation on my computer. Take it in that spirit. But it's not the form, but the facts that matter, and this is exactly my point regarding the lawyers in these cases prosecuting process story after process story and ignoring the actual causes and perpetrators of this crisis. If I had written it with a pen it would've been the same words, more or less, probably. I've sat on my hands for so long about this, that it just came out.
Here’s the document that I’m talking about. I’m reasonably sure that it’s authentic. The lawyer that I talked to you that was prosecuting this case that I’m talking about now, said that he used this document in the case, which for whatever reason didn’t target Kurtz for taking this exact action outlined in the document, as I mentioned above.
I cannot tell you how sick I am of continuing to talk about this case. But the bumbling response not just to the crisis and to correctly assigning blame for it, and delivering justice for the victims, not to mention rebuilding the city infrastructure, has been so lackluster that I have to keep referring to the same facts that I’ve been talking about for years. I blame this all squarely on Public Act IV, which is rightfully the cause of this atrocity.
The latest attempt to get justice for Flint fails again due to people not taking their job very seriously.
The court in a trial against a few of the engineering companies responsible for the Flint Water Crisis has declared a mistrial. This makes me mad for several reasons. Of course, the whole damn deal makes me pissed off. What was especially galling about this incident, is that no matter how hard they try, it seems like the elite conspiracy responsible for harm against millions, and the biggest public health tragedy in the United States, possibly ever, not related to disease, but rather directly related to public administration, will never be brought to justice. It's not like this was a harmless mistake. There had to be some sort of profit making scheme behind it in order for it to make sense, to even try, to drink dirty water out of a river long known to be polluted. It's not like the technological response to the incident was especially lackluster, but whatever technological guidance the public administration management class got justifying giving the city a dirty supply of drinking water was definitely suspect. But the experts brought in after the crisis broke did as fine a job as it's possible to do given the outrageous circumstances and unexplainable delay in responding to the crisis. The process story is secondary to the story about placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of those responsible for the outrage. To again cut through the noise on what exactly happened, the river water was dirty, it never should've been used as a drinking water source, it had elevated levels of bacteria, the standard cleaning solutions had to be used in such large amounts that they degraded the pipes themselves which were made of lead, and that caused the lead crisis. Dwelling on the details is a job for public administration officials in the future. In terms of the direct legal response that is needed to rectify the wrongs done to the people of Flint, the only thing that will and should satisfy anyone is directly fingering those whose actions justified the decision by the emergency manager at the time, Kurtz, to sign off on the switch to the Flint River water as a drinking source. There may be other accomplices surrounding him, but as his name is on the document authorizing the switch, the buck stops with him. I do not care how sick or old he is, he bears responsibility for the crisis. If he had no reason to be knowledgeable about anything regarding city management, that is the fault of Public Act IV, and cannot be used as an excuse to get him out of trouble, seeing as he signed on to be part of the program administering the actuation of Public Act IV. That is as far as the legal story about this should care about the ensuing details - with the singular exception of extending understanding and providing support for citizens of Flint that may or may not have done desperate things in a desperate situation. The situation was not of their causing, and they should be given amnesty for whatever nonpayment or other small actions of resistance taken in this crisis, which, it cannot be said enough, was man-made. And, those who made the crisis happen are represented and exemplified by Kurtz, the Emergency Manager who had sole responsibility for all decisions done in the city of Flint under the auspices of Public Act IV, including switching the source of drinking water to the polluted Flint River, which set in motion the chain of events that led to the Flint Water Crisis. Its causality can easily be proved by the publicly available ensuing facts on the ground. This does not mean we should stop at small potatoes when addressing the fallout from this crisis. The citizens of Flint deserve better and democracy deserves better than some piddling attempt to make some minor officials take the fall for Kurtz, the Emergency Manager system, and Public Act IV, which were the actual cause of this crisis - and especially Kurtz, no matter his political connections, is the guilty man, because his name is on the damn document. I do not care that he signed the document in the middle of his transition out of office. This is not relevant, because his was the authorizing signature on the document. Supporters of Public Act IV cannot parade this hypocrisy before us of extending to these unaccountable Emergency Managers both authority and an excuse not to be held accountable for their actions. I spoke to the lawyer that I believe is prosecuting this case, and noted to him that as Ed Kurtz's name is on the authorizing document, he should be held responsible for the tragedy, or should we say the atrocity, of authorizing blatant negligence that caused uncountable harm. His inability to get some of the guys that contributed to this fiasco is his problem. To be totally clear, the engineers are not mine. There's snake oil salesmen that are always gonna be around. It's way more important in my mind to get the guys who had the gall to hire the snake oil salesmen on behalf of the people. I'm sticking to my guns that the problem started at the very top, with the Emergency Manager system, Public Act IV, and Ed Kurtz, who can and should in the minds of public opinion exemplify the abject failures of Public Act IV. Anybody who sees this case otherwise, I believe, has not done the research, has completely misread the information, or is logically incapable of understanding what's going on. This is assuming that all looking on upon this disaster are acting in good faith. Those who look upon this crisis as a fatted cow, or a trough to try to digest the slops of Public Act IV, are so reprehensible in their own way, because they will distort through their exaggerated emphasis on the importance of whatever detail in the process story they deem relevant, that if this continues, their combined actions will only end up distorting the facts about what happened, and rebound to the support of Public Act IV, which is their nominal enemy. They will end up justifying exactly that which they pretend to oppose. The press has this story right. Or they did. The unions had this story right. They had it right when they protested against the passage of Public Act IV, long before the outbreak of the crisis. The doctors and ambulance chasers that are prosecuting this story right now, have no connection to the causes and reasons that led to this crisis. All I see in this arena right now are people trying to make a profit on one side or the other, and there's a complete lack of principled opposition to the abject mismanagement of public administration that is the cause of this crisis, and can be attributable to certain particular nameable people. I don't care how old or sick they are, it's time for them to face the music. It's time for Ed Kurtz in particular, to face the firing squad. I wasn't the first one to this story, but I had it long before these bumblers got their paws on it. The weak and wishy-washy response to this crisis in the courts has me enraged. Look, if you're fighting a monster, and you are in this case, don't be a fool, and aim for the jugular. Otherwise, you're just out for a piece.
---
I've known about this story for so long that all this just rolled off my tongue directly into the dictation on my computer. Take it in that spirit. But it's not the form, but the facts that matter, and this is exactly my point regarding the lawyers in these cases prosecuting process story after process story and ignoring the actual causes and perpetrators of this crisis. If I had written it with a pen it would've been the same words, more or less, probably. I've sat on my hands for so long about this, that it just came out.
Here’s the document that I’m talking about. I’m reasonably sure that it’s authentic. The lawyer that I talked to you that was prosecuting this case that I’m talking about now, said that he used this document in the case, which for whatever reason didn’t target Kurtz for taking this exact action outlined in the document, as I mentioned above.
I cannot tell you how sick I am of continuing to talk about this case. But the bumbling response not just to the crisis and to correctly assigning blame for it, and delivering justice for the victims, not to mention rebuilding the city infrastructure, has been so lackluster that I have to keep referring to the same facts that I’ve been talking about for years. I blame this all squarely on Public Act IV, which is rightfully the cause of this atrocity.
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