Flint was poisoned by a Republican Governor’s “caretaker.”

Marx would have said, it’s all determined by economic relations between classes, the wealthy, the middle class and the vast poor, who do all the work.

Krugman said, it’s not partisan, it’s ideological. (NYT 01/25/16)

It all depends on where you stand.

A billionaire at Davos said he was “mystified” as to why people are so angry. He doesn’t see anything wrong. After all, he’s doing fine!

Face it, Republicans like Governor Snyder, like Speaker Ryan, like Trump and Cruz are all bound by an ideological construct that denies government can ever do anything positive for its citizens; it can only get out of the way. Then, if business can profit from it, it will work.

Why is this a class issue? Flint is mostly poor and non-white, therefore ‘those people’ can’t afford good services; nonpayments prove it. If government is going to act at all (provide water services), it should provide terrible service, because you can’t waste money on something worthless like poor people’s water! Now, water for Grosse Point, that’s another issue: their citizens work hard (look at their average income), and they’ll be willing to pay for better service.

Republican “conservatives” (the label is misleading), are ever wary of spending public money, because they’re positively averse to raising taxes (even a tiny move, towards rates where they were in the booming Eisenhower years: 91% top rate, vs 39+% now.).

Why tax averse? Because the wealthy (who fund them) already think they pay too much: in fact, as a portion of their overall income they pay much less than everyone else.

So, all kinds of infrastructure, a public good, are not replaced, maintained, or upgraded. That’s why even China has better rail systems than we do. That’s why our bridges collapse, or are condemned, why children are taught in shabby, overcrowded schools.

Some even putatively liberal politicians appear to prefer private and “charter” schools to public ones, because you know what kinds of children are left in the public ones. And the charters and private schools are largely non-union. The charter movement has subtracted from the resources that public schools need to serve those who need it most: the poor.

Who loses when a public road becomes a private toll road? Easy, the people who can’t afford the extra money it will cost them: the poor.

As Elizabeth Warren has pointed out for several years, the system is rigged against the vast majority of people, so that large corporations, especially financial institutions, can siphon off the value created by everyone’s hard work: well over 90% of all new wealth created since the Great Recession in 2008 turns up in the accounts of the top 1%, and even more, the top 0.1% of income earners. No wonder, most peoples’ incomes are stagnant or declining in buying power.

No wonder people are angry.

How does this work?

Wages are kept low through monetary and fiscal policy: trillions to resuscitate the banks, while money for programs to help ordinary people are cut in the name of fiscal austerity.

Taxes: while Obama raised the marginal income tax slightly for top income earners (from 33% to 39+% for those with incomes over $ 411,000), Republican local and state governments have slashed taxes on the wealthy, and cut expenditures for everyone else. They propose to do the same at the Federal level in the name of austerity, even though budget deficits have been very low, and borrowing costs have been lower still.

So, government programs are not available to boost employment, and a large army of the long-term unemployed remains (Marx described this as a reserve army of the poor). The effect of this reserve army is to keep wages low. “Free” trade treaties maintain downward pressure on wages, as well, and encourage corporations to profit from expanding world markets, since American consumption lags with low incomes.

Anti-union policies add to the downward spiral of wages: workers lose their bargaining power to raise them and their political power to represent themselves.

With wages low, corporations can raise profits, and stockholders can “earn” higher dividends, while executives are paid ridiculously high salaries and bonuses. Ergo, inequality becomes more and more extreme.

It’s in this context that Bernie Sanders proposes free college, single payer health care, break-up of the big banks and financial institutions and higher taxes for the wealthy to pay for these programs.

Critics have pointed out, however, that these institutions: finance, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, doctors, large corporations, generally, will martial their huge resources to oppose any threat to their earning power. Obamacare was constructed to work with these institutional heavy-weights, which is why drug prices, insurance premiums and doctors’ salaries have risen as Obamacare is implemented.

This is also why Bernie’s proposals have no possibility of realization, unless there is a thorough-going political revolution (which he advocates). What would be needed, at minimum, would be large congressional majorities (a mandate) in favor of his programs, and a replication of these majorities in the states.

The GOP and the Supreme Court have conspired to make this kind of political revolution close to impossible: voting restrictions and partisan gerrymanders after 2010, have made it highly unlikely that any popular movement could overthrow the Republican majority in the House, or in the states.

Ironically, Clinton and now Obama, through their trade deals, have made it more likely that corporations will have virtual veto power against any radical change that will adversely impact their profits, or their CEO’s salaries.

But, there is enormous hunger out here (in the world, right now in the US) for the kind of Revolution Bernie talks about.

If it happens, we’ll be spared the bloody mess of a violent revolution. If radical reform doesn’t happen, an explosion will. Not now, but soon. Or, an alternative: a fascist totalitarianism to hold down the lid; it would make Stalin and Hitler look like pikers.

Icelandic Style Revolution

Iceland's revolution should be old news--if our media actually covered important international stories not involving violence and war. Iceland, in 2008-2009 went through the most dramatic financial collapse of the sub-prime induced banking crisis. Its bankers had speculated many times the value of Iceland's GDP, and their ventures crashed, bankrupting the nation.

Maybe, we didn't hear much because of the smallness and remoteness of Iceland, although Mali is as remote and in population almost as small (Iceland's population: 319,000; Mali's 14.5 million).

Furthermore, Iceland is a positive story compared to Mali, where the former colonial power was welcomed enthusiastically because the Malian state is near collapse and vulnerable to Muslim extremists.

Iceland's banks collapsed in 2008-2009 and Icelanders threw out the conservative government through popular outrage and clanging kitchen pots, not gales of machine gun bullets.

Not only did a new, leftist government take office but a popularly elected body of non-politician citizen members, randomly selected, is helping to write a new constitution.

Further, the collapsed banks were nationalized, and although the left-wing government intended to pay back the banks' private, international debts through taxation--as per IMF instructions--the people again rebelled, and defeated the proposal by 93%.

Yet, Iceland is not an international pariah, despite refusing to pay international speculator debts, and despite bringing criminal charges against a whole raft of bankers and speculators.

The IMF noted that Iceland is experiencing positive growth (ca 2.5%), better than the US, much better than the recession-bound EC, yet it chose not to follow IMF policy. It inflated its currency, launched an aggressive home mortgage relief program, and, instead of austerity, has embarked on development-led growth.

Granted, Iceland is small, homogenous and the first democracy (founded 930), but it offers a model for recovery from the debt crisis that is completely the opposite of Europe's failed austerity policies, or Republican/Tea Party proposals. Furthermore, it appears to be successful. The Icelandic model demonstrates just how far the Obama administration has departed from what the US really needs: real homeowner relief, real control (or nationalization?) of the financial sector, criminal indictments, not just slaps on the wrists of banker-speculators and demand-led growth promoted by government.

The instigator of the popular (kitchenware) rebellion in Iceland has authored a Youtube piece with Greek subtitles: his message? Greece would be better off renouncing its debts and going on its own, like Iceland.

Why haven't we heard more of this? The story is complicated (I've oversimplified hugely), and it's counter to the narrative the powers-that-be, our contemporary Roman Senators, want us to hear. They are afraid they won't be paid, or might actually go to jail. Instead, they can flood the airwaves with the Super-bowl, stories of stars, international disasters like Mali and Greece and their own demands for austerity. Why? They'd rather avoid taxes just like their Roman forebears--which is why Rome "fell."