Janet Phelan – If you wonder how the US could be supporting Turkey that is waging a veritable war on its civil Kurdish population, maybe you should take a look at the way people are being treated in America first. Back in the mid-twentieth century, the city of Flint, Michigan was a bustling industrial town. Home to General Motors car manufacturing plants, Flintonians enjoyed union wages with an average annual income higher than San Franciscans or Chicagoans.
When the General Motors plants began to close in the 1980s, a blue collar work force was left without the blue collar jobs. Unemployment soared. The plant jobs had attracted a largely black population and Flint, once a boom town, became a bust town. In 2011 a state of financial emergency was declared by Governor Rick Snyder. Out of 80,000 industrial jobs, Flint was reportedly left with only 8,000.
Lesson 1: Government disinterested and negligent
It was only after Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, an Iraqi immigrant and director of pediatric residency at a local hospital, made public her findings that the children of Flint were being poisoned with lead from drinking water that the government was forced to act. The results of her lead screening documented the profound level of lead in Flint children’s systems and made Dr. Attisha an overnight global hero. Said Dr. Attisha in a recent interview, “….when we shared our results at our press conference we were attacked. They were like ‘No, this is wrong, you are an unfortunate researcher, you’re causing near hysteria, our numbers are not consistent with your numbers.’”