Charles Koch's public persona is that of a businessman who has only recently been forced into a political role by an out-of-control government. A new book by investigative reporter Jane Mayer blows the lid off that claim, as Politico Magazinereports. It turns out Koch has been constructing his political movement for four decades, drawing from some of the most extreme anti-government thinkers and organizations.
Mayer unearthed two previously secret documents, including a paper that Charles Koch wrote in 1976 for a conference of the new Center for Libertarian Studies, which was opened with $65,000 in seed money from—of course—Charles Koch. The second is an unpublished private history of David and Charles Koch commissioned by their other estranged brother, Bill. He hired Clayton A. Coppin, an historian at George Mason University, who had previously written a company history for Koch Industries which had given him "access to many of the family’s private letters and papers, as well as license to interview the Kochs and their intimates as few outsiders could." Between the two documents, Mayer was able to construct Charles Koch's movement away from the radical, conspiracy-theory laden John Birch Society his father helped found.
In contrast, Charles had been drawn to a radical libertarian thinker with a checkered past named Robert LeFevre, who opened what he called the Freedom School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, offering immersion courses in "the philosophy of freedom and free-enterprise." The school had numerous ties to the John Birch Society, but its preoccupations were slightly different. LeFevre, who called himself an "autarchist" because he didn’t like the label "anarchist," was almost as adamantly opposed to the modern American government as he was to communism. Charles Koch was a major funder and trustee of the school by 1966. Brian Doherty, who chronicled the rise of American libertarianism in his book Radicals for Capitalism, described the school as "a tiny world of people who thought the New Deal was a horrible mistake." The school taught a revisionist version of American history in which the robber barons were heroes, the Gilded Age actually was the country's golden age and the Civil War shouldn’t have been fought. In 1965, the New York Times described the school as so implacably opposed to the U.S. government, it was proposing that the Constitution be scrapped in favor of one that limited the government's authority to impose "compulsory taxation."
Eventually, as his fortune grew, Charles began to move beyond funding schools and other intellectual endeavors to launching a political movement. Charles' aim, according to Doherty, who interviewed Charles for his book, was to tear the government out "at the root." […]
Had Charles wanted merely to promote free-market economic theories, he could have supported several established organizations, but instead he was attracted to fringe groups that bordered on anarchism. Coppin suggests, "He was driven by some deeper urge to smash the one thing left in the world that could discipline him: the government."
Charles, Coppin suggests, had "daddy issues" and "harbored a hatred of the government so intense it could only be truly understood as an extension of his childhood conflicts with authority." By the late 1970s, though, Koch wanted not just to grow an extreme libertarian theoretical movement, but to actually get political power and create a movement which, in his own words, would "destroy the prevalent statist paradigm."
That movement would have to be secret, and to entice adherents, "they needed to organize synthetic 'grassroots' groups and issue meaningless titles to volunteers, without yielding any real control." They also needed a good marketing plan that included making use of "all modern sales and motivational techniques to raise money and attract donors … including meeting in a home or other place the prospect enjoys being." Hence their secretive, insidery "summits" at fancy resorts. Even David Koch's much-vaunted contributions to the arts and appearances in the society pages was scripted by Charles, who argued that they needed to "work with, rather than combat, the people in the media and arts."
which means that when he was choosing his super scary Dark Lord name, he just mashed up the surnames of the most positive figures in his life. poor sod can’t even evil right
literally a ‘what is your star wars name’ meme
2nd two letters of your mother’s last name Last two letters of your father’s last name
I can't even begin to describe the rage and sorrow that I went through growing up with dyslexia and dyscalculia. How many times I was told I was lazy, or not trying, or in some way deliberately working (apparently really fucking hard) to not be able to do something. And then I found out that no, I wasn't lazy because I wasn't able to memorize the multiplication tables. I just have a brain that say "Yeah, NOPE," when told to do that. And that my experience trying to learn to do something like that is thousands of times harder than it is for neurotypicals, and I still get shit for it because I can't do it as well as they can. And being told that my disorder isn't real, or I don't really have it, by people who don't live in my goddamned head is about as helpful as telling a blind person they don't need a cane or a seeing eye dog to walk around the block. And, I mean, we're talking multiple teachers, at multiple schools, and counselors and etc. etc. etc. Everyone just assumed that I thought it was easier to take their abuse than to do something I wanted to be able to do in the first place. I WOULD HAVE KILLED FOR ACCESS TO INFORMATION LIKE THIS WHEN I WAS IN HIGHSCHOOL.
Because apparently YET AGAIN some folks have it in their heads that what happens “on the Internet” or “on Tumblr” more specifically is that someone describes a symptom of mental illness and anyone who has experienced anything vaguely similar jumps on the bandwagon, leading to both of the following:
Thing One) people who do not have Real Mental Illnesses™ trying to get their “fake triggers” and otherwise lazy desires to not deal with The Real World™ accommodated.
Thing Two) people with Real Mental Illnesses™ not Seeking Professional Help™ because Tumblr has made them think that a serious mental illness symptom is just a normal thing that happens to people.
My experience has been, repeatedly, the opposite of this. Specifically, someone who has had some sort of serious mental health difficulty posts about it and someone else reads it and realizes “oh, really, that’s actually a thing that is supposed to be worthy of treatment, and not just something that my weak-willed arse needs to suck up and deal with??”
I have multiple friends whose lives were quite possibly saved by timely exposure to Allie Brosh’s brilliant “Adventures in Depression” because it was the first description of depression that they could relate to well enough as serious treatment-worthy clinical depression even though suicidal ideation was a “normal” part of their thought processes.
I have one friend who was experiencing postpartum psychosis and didn’t realize it, dismissing her symptoms as “another weird new mom thing that nobody warned me about” until someone else described HER experience with postpartum psychosis clearly enough to prompt the question of, “Wait, it isn’t normal to hear my baby crying when the baby’s at home and I’m not, or vice-versa?” (NO. EMPHATICALLY NO. IT IS NOT.)
I have friends who have gotten help for ADHD (and I have done so myself) after exposure to Sari Solden’s checklist that shows how ADHD is often different for girls and women. Other friends who have gotten help for PTSD after realizing that “trauma” includes more than war and sexual abuse.
So, um, if people could stop with the idea that there is a big contingent of mental illness “fakers” out there who are making it hard for those who are Worthy Of Diagnosis to get diagnosed, that’d be great.
“Okay, so … time to pull January out of the crapper,” the marketing angel said. “It’s turned into Hulk Smash the Arts month, and that has management very concerned.” All eyes turned to Death, who took a deep breath and shrugged. “Bowie, Rickman, Frey, and that Mott the Hoople guy … what? Are you forming a band?” the marketing angel said in response to the shrug. “And it’s not even a numbers game anymore – two at 69, two at 67; no balance, no symmetry … should 66-year-old writers and painters tremble with fear?” “I’m sorry, okay?” Death began, leaning forward. “I got a little carried away. Sometimes, the suffering gets to me and I want to just spread a little peace in my own way. All of you tossers, wafting around up here, worrying about how shiny the gold is on everyone’s halos … it’s pretty easy for you to slather on the blame when you don’t see the incredible pain and the not being able to breathe. What does management have to say about THAT?” A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. “Looks like I have another meeting,” Death said solemnly. “You guys just recline up here and work on a fluffy new campaign for eternal rest; I’ll just go back to Burundi later or a children’s hospital and make all of your dreams come true.” After he’d gone, they sat in silence. “Let’s adjourn,” the marketing angel eventually said. “And, next time, let’s talk through how we can highlight the struggles of our delivery chain.”
Let’s talk about hate for a second and what it does because I really don’t think you understand what it’s like to be on the receiving end of like. A lot of it. And your entitlement makes the situation about a thousand times worse.
When you get hate, the first thing you feel is hurt. Before you can laugh at it, before you can work out how to give the clever comeback, before you can put on your armor. Whether you’re a celebrity or a shy kid or a popular artist or whatever you are. Hate hurts. I mean it just does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Some people can move past it quickly. Some people have a harder time. But either way, while you’re hurting, whether it’s for five seconds or a day, there’s very little room for anything else. Being in pain, physically or emotionally, is super distracting.
And if hate happens to you a lot, then you’re hurting a lot, and you’re distracted a lot, and there’s no room for anything.
That’s why support doesn’t always get a response. Yes, I see your messages. Yes, I am overwhelmed with graititude. Yes, I am thankful for all of my followers and the kind things they say. All the time. I cry about it, if that helps convince you.
I mean, imagine getting a lot of hate. Imagine how much strength it takes to BELIEVE that the haters are wrong if you’re not equipped to believe things like that easily. Imagine getting a lot of support for the hate and wanting—desperately wanting—those messages of support to actually help you, yeah? Imagine wishing that people’s kindness would allow you to move on. Imagine the overwhelming shame and frustration you feel when it doesn’t. It’s like you’ve been stabbed, and people are bringing you oranges because oranges are supposed to be good for you, and wouldn’t it be great if oranges helped a stab wound? But they’re fucking oranges I mean.
Imagine how raw, brittle, and downright monstrous you feel because you’re letting people down—all of this on top of the hurt you already feel because of the shitbag who sent you the hate in the first place.
the deeper i get into fandom the weirder it is to me that Whedon-style nerdboys ever managed to convince people that the True Fans™ are the people who memorize shit and lord their knowledge over other people. like ok you know the exact dimensions of Batman’s cave penny. sure. but did you survive the HP ship wars? do you know how to customize your Ao3 search to filter out all the creepy and/or poorly tagged shit in the massive fandoms? have you ever gotten in a fight over SuperWhoLock? would you last more than ten seconds on _coal or FFA? have you felt the burning pain in your fingers as you scramble to bang out just a hundred more words before the exchange deadline comes down? can you do research to make your in-universe artifacts accurate? can you vid? can you edit .gifs? can you sew costumes and do makeup? like yeah ok you love Jace Beleren enough to know his backstory and all his stats but i’m sorry did you personally stitch what looks like over two hundred eyelets onto your stockings so you could cosplay Liliana Vess? fake geek girls my ass. get back to me when you can do something with the worlds you love other than memorize them.
But like let’s also acknowledge how much the mockery of ‘ew nerds memorizing facts about stuff & talking about it all the time’ can have ableist connotations…
In terms of it being a very common thing for autistic people to have intense special interests where we memorize a lot of information & factoids about highly specific topics. Or sometimes we can talk about it in ways that could come off as pretentious when really we’re just super duper stoked on, like, the latin names of bats or the dimensions of a secret lair, & we might not have the executive functioning skills to do some of the other things you listed here…
So yeah I totally agree on the ‘multiple forms of fannishness & geekery are valid & people navigate their passions in different ways & geek-related concerns that are more gendered as female tend to get ignored or sidelined in very specific ways’, but also let’s be careful to celebrate those things without also throwing other ppl under the bus, bcs intersectionally feminist geekery=the best geekery
hey, thank you for pointing this out! i, um, originally had zero idea anyone would even reblog this??? so i included a caveat in my tags:
(and those tags have their own problems with gender binary + gender assumptions, but i think that’s a derail to your point.)
So my original intent was to say, hey nerdboys, gatekeeping sucks! What if we gatekept you with our standards? But I didn’t mean to suggest that we should actually do that in real life, and I apologize for the ableism underpinning my assumptions there. I believe that humans should be fannish however pleases them, whether they do all or none of these things.
*thumbs up* Yeah, the major point of the post was mostly pretty solid, just wanted to point to an added layer of nuance from my own experiences, that sometimes gets missed when people talk about this kinda stuff. Intent was less of a wholesale criticism so much as a friendly ’& also bear in mind! :)’ Missed those tags though because of the cursed reblogging chain, good to hear!
my entire life i was told that boys are violent but girls are worse because we’re “catty.” i was told that a catty girl was my enemy, that they used whip tongues in place of fists to start things i couldn’t erase of out my skin. i saw this cattiness wherever i was told it would live. it was in pretty girls with nice lipstick and it was in the girls who studied too much to ever come to the parties and it was in my own group of friends. when i came home crying about something, i was often reminded that girls are catty bitches and if we were boys we’d just punch each other and be done with it.
but it was boys who first started making fun of how i looked, of what mess my face was like, of the fat on my thighs. and it was girls who showed me how to apply makeup, patiently waiting with me in the bathroom mirror to show how not to cry while i applied it to the waterline. they agreed to go on diets with me even when they hated salad. they agreed to scoop buckets of ice cream into our bellies at midnight when i was upset about something minor.
it was boys who were snippy about my grades, it was a man who first said that because i was a girl i was bad at math and i’d stay that way. it was boys who started making fun of the one time i got a 34 on a math test when my mother had been in the hospital the night before. it was girls who held my hand during this, who stayed with me through hours of library studies, who explained over and over in gel pens and pretty handwriting exactly what i was missing. it was girls who taught me to color-code and to highlight and how to stay up all night, it was girls who cheered with me when i got nothing lower than a B.
it was a boy who taught my friend that she could talk down to me like i was trash. it was a boy who started drama between us. it was a boy who wouldn’t listen or talk it out or find a solution. he’d say angry hurtful things and expect us to listen. it was girls who fixed me after this. they taught me how to make good and positive friends. how to stay away from the girls who really are toxic ones. how to be proud of others and not competitive. how to give genuine compliments, how to accept them, how to be comfortable with who i am and what has happened.
i was told all my life that there was a “type” of girl to avoid. she was probably wearing ugg boots and shorts or drinking a latte or picking out lush products or doing literally anything that girls like to do for themselves, she was catty. girls are catty. when they fight, it’s a catfight. (we were many animals besides this. vixen. pig. fox. bitch. cow. mother hen. whale. but always, for some reason: feline and both sex kitten and dangerous weapon).
girls, i find, are defensive. we wear our hands up, waiting for the hit. girls who are sick of getting hit get “bitchy.” they are fierce, they take what they want, they’ll mess you up for saying the wrong thing about their friend. and girls, who are unwilling to simply take insults without lashing back with something: they’re catty. and when boys bully others and spread nasty gossip and start drama: well, they’re just boys. they’ll fight it out, or something.
how much i regret believing that girls weren’t my safety net. how many friends i was scared to make because i was intimated by them. so many loving people. out of fear of what? of a tongue someone else has tattooed on them?
#GrowingUpUgly
When guys in middle school would get dared by their friends to ask you out and see if you say yes as a joke
How about growingupugly and then turning out sort of okay looking but you don’t know for sure because your self esteem is shot and you’re convinced you look awful?
#GrowingUpUgly Being so wholly convinced of your hideousness that as an adult you now literally cannot even imagine that someone would pay you a compliment and mean it; the only conceivable thing that could be happening is that they’re either a) taking the piss like the boys in school used to or b) so repulsed by you that they feel sorry for you and are telling you you’re pretty because they think you need to hear it.
Yeah that shit truly fucks people up. They did that to me when I was younger…
I just love this quote. It’s so easily overlooked, seen as unimportant, until you see the prequels. Because then you realize how utterly true and heartbreaking that phrase is. “He died about the same time your father did.” Meaning that Obi-Wan, that is, everything that made him who he was, his faith, his joy, his light, was murdered, killed, at the same time that Anakin was lost to the Dark Side. When Anakin became Vader, Obi-Wan became Ben. Anakin and Obi-Wan died together on that planet. Only Vader and Ben left it alive. One full of hate and darkness, the other a broken shell that was merely existing, not even really living. These two men were so deeply entwined, so bonded together in the force, that when one died, so did the other. That is the real definition of true love.
That little girl literally had the “look into the camera like Jim on The Office” reaction.
-Mod Q
I don’t know if this is a worthy addition to this post or not. But this is one of the starkest examples of white privilege that I’ve ever myself experienced.
Look at that little girl. That baby got it. Immediately. She’s so tiny but she knew her mother had just been microaggressed.
I’m officially in my thirties. I listened to this clip more than once. I had never heard this stereotype before. If I’d heard this conversation in any other context – without the comments below it, without highlighting the little girl’s reaction… I probably wouldn’t have even realized there was a “joke” being made.
I see attempts made all the time to protect ignorant white teenagers from having to learn about racism, even when they are themselves being actively racist. Even explaining to them that they’re being rude is apparently too mean. So we are allowed to become grown-ass adults who still don’t know the first thing about racism, can’t recognize it when it’s happening right in front of us unless people have gotten out their white hoods.
And while we’re bending over backwards to ensure ignorant white people like me don’t ever get our feelings hurt by learning about racism in the abstract, claiming that nineteen and twenty-year-olds are “still children” and should be treated with kid gloves, we can’t be bothered to protect the innocence of actual babies like this little girl.
She doesn’t even look ten years old, and she knows more about racism than I– I was gonna say “did”, isn’t that funny. No. She knows more about racism than I do. She knows more about racism than I ever will, even now that I’m actively seeking this stuff out, and she has learned it all the hard way.
I simply said what I wish had been said when Kevin and I got married. Then I never would have heard your hilarious “efficient officiant” quip. Hmm, you’re right. I regret nothing.
Jesus god I love how much they’re neeeeeeeeeeeerds
The domestic terrorists who seized the Malheur national wildlife refuge near Bend, OR, are operating with incredible impunity, destroying public property, breaking into federal databases and disrupting sites of archaeological and sacred indigenous interest.
Though the terrorists sometimes face criminal sanctions for theft of public property when they venture out of their armed compound, their ideological leader, Ammon Bundy, has been able to come and go freely from the site, even after reports of the destruction surfaced.
The terrorists have paved a new road through the refuge, over territory that is considered archaeologically significant; the reserve itself encompasses many Paiute burial sites that the band holds sacred.
The terrorists claim to be there on the Paiute’s behalf. Paiute band leaders do not want their help, and are outraged at the disruption of their traditional lands by a racist terror-cell.
Just remember that, with a single exception, the authorities are letting them come and go as they please, making no efforts to arrest or stop them, even when they leave the property that they are illegally occupying.
Why aren’t the police doing anything?!?!?!? when they should go in storming the place and arresting people they aren’t What the every loving five hells?! This doesn’t make any logical sense….. They are committing crime after crime and not one thing is being done. That paved road is MORE than enough to arrest them, what are the police doing? AUGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
True story: acquaintance was making comments about Carrie Fisher, and I cut him off to point out that judging women by our weight is bad. Looked him dead in the eye and asked him, "Judge me by my weight, do you?"
This is Kjell Lindgren. He’s a NASA astronaut who just got back from 5 months on the International Space Station. There are two reasons why this picture is hilarious:
His wife is flawless and makes bad space puns to make him do household chores.
I have that shirt. Thousands of people have that shirt. That shirt is available at Target. Which means actual astronaut Kjell Lindgren, with his wardrobe already full of NASA-issued and logo-emblazoned clothes, was at Target, saw a NASA shirt, and was like, “Yes, I am buying this because this is what I want to spend my actual astronaut salary on.”
someone on twitter tweeted mark hamill like “can you dm me and tell me if luke is bisexual” and he actually messaged them and told them that since luke’s sexuality is never addressed in canon, any reading of his sexuality makes sense
then someone made a tweet about how cool it’d be if luke was trans, he liked it, and sent them a message about how a True Jedi TM respects all life, even if the films don’t touch on issues like that
what a sweetheart. he’s liking all these really happy tweets from lgbtq kids saying how much it means to them to be able to see luke as gay, trans etc. it’s just… i’ve been there feeling worried the people you so admire would find you laughable or weird, and i’m super happy about this.
And I like pointing out that he’s a REALLY reckless fighter. Maybe it was just this moment because he was falling all to pieces, but I think it’s more than likely a common thing with him considering his tantrums. It’s ridiculous to turn your back on an opponent in a sword fight, yet even wounded he’s doing it here. And on a side note even wounded he decides to use a double hand strike with the momentum of the spin for extra power. In other words, that move is going to HURT. He’s already been gut shot and is visibly bleeding everywhere and he decides to use moves that are really going to linger.
I’m going to back up this already excellent post with some lore for anyone who might be interested.
Yes, lightsaber blades are weightless, but resistant to changes in motion, so the 90-degree angle of Ren’s two beams actively make them work against each other, as opposed to the only other known crossguard user Roblio Darte, whose secondary blade emitter was 45 degrees from the first, enabling him to wield it perfectly.
Double-handed strikes are the most common movement among lightsaber users because of the inertia needed to counteract the blade’s initial repelling force. Ren uses a two-handed slash despite being heavily wounded because that will make the blade cut faster and easier than a one-handed grip. That’s why Jar’Kai users (dual-wielders) have to rely on speed and agility to compensate for the lack of power in their strikes.
The combat form that Ren is using here could be Ataru, which is noted for its acrobatic twirls, but it could also be Djem So, due to the switch in grips while spinning and the finishing uppercut slash (theoretically, this move conceals your strikes and does not leave you open to attack, even though your back is turned for a moment). I favor the Djem So headcanon, because this was Anakin Skywalker’s preferred form (and we all know how much Ren idolizes his grandpa).
Alternatively, this scene (and the whole fight in general) could also reinforce my personal headcanon that Ren is a Niman user. He uses Niman stance on Takodana, and it is entirely feasible that he could be adopting it in this scene too, as Niman is a combination of the other forms, and it is also perceived by a lot of lightsaber users to be very undisciplined, since it relies heavily on improvisation. Count Dooku once criticized a Niman adherent for his sloppy form and nonexistent footwork. I believe this ties in very well with how reckless Ren is in combat.
These lightsaber fights were EXTREMELY well choreographed, and well shot. A few other things I geeked out about:
* Lightsabers aren’t actually frozen beams of light–they’re LOOPS of plasma, that come out of the handle, turn around, and flow back into the handle. They resist motion because they’re actually already IN motion. It’s less like hitting someone with a sword, and more like hitting them with a chainsaw. This explains a lot of things that happen in the duels–any time a lightsaber hits the ground or an obstacle, it skips and kicks away from the absorbed momentum.
* Because lightsabers bend in a loop, they actually have an “edge” and a “flat,” even though it’s not clearly visible–your cutting technique actually matters, A clean cut will pass right through a human body, but a sloppy cut (like the wild swings that Kylo, Finn and Rey are throwing around) is going to contact human flesh and then actually kick away. This is why when Kylo cuts Finn’s back, he leaves a long gouge rather than just cleaving him in half–it’s a sloppy cut, and he has poor control.
* This also explains why the shape of the side emitters on Kylo Ren’s lightsaber aren’t a problem–when two lightsabers connect, they lock together and stick (imagine two chainsaws locked together!). This is why Ren doesn’t have to worry about another blade sliding down his and severing the plasma vent on the side. You can see this in the way Ren manipulates Rey’s sword when they’re in the bind in the end of their duel–he knows that if he’s physically stronger he can actually yank Rey’s saber around in her hand.
* You can tell here that while all of the combatants have at least some close quarters combat training, none of them REALLY know how to use a lightsaber. You can see this especially in when Rey first attacks Kylo Ren–note that she keeps trying to stab him. It’s very rare that we see other lightsaber users attempt a stab in the heat of combat–nearly every other blow attempted is a wide, sweeping slice. Stabbing strokes like that are *quarterstaff* techniques–designed to take advantage of the extra range that comes from having an extra 2 feet of stick to put between you and your opponent. It’s obvious when she attempts these attacks that she overbalances herself (because the lightsaber is shorter than the quarterstaff she’s used to) and that Ren has never been attacked by a lightsaber this way before.
* Also, look at how janky Ren’s lightsaber blade is! The thing is so obviously a Pinto compared to the Ferrari that is Anakin’s old lightsaber, and it’s all beautifully rendered without a word just in the design of the prop and the effects.
I loved pretty much everything about these movies, but the lightsaber choreography may be my favorite part.
I'm a little disturbed that there are people who don't realize that Snyder IS a natural disaster.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder will appeal the Obama administration’s decision to not declare a disaster zone in Flint, according to The Detroit News. Flint is still reeling from a lead poisoning crisis after a switch to the Flint River for drinking water resulted in contaminated water across the city. And the city will continue to reel, since lead poisoning is permanent.
Gov. Rick Snyder intends to appeal the Obama administration’s denial of a major disaster declaration in Flint that blocked the governor’s request for $96 million in federal aid for bottled water, faucet filters and replacing lead-leaching pipes.
[...]
President Barack Obama declared a federal emergency in Flint on Saturday, but denied Snyder’s request to designate Flint a disaster zone because the city’s water contamination was a man-made calamity.
“We’re planning to appeal,” Snyder spokesman Dave Murray said Sunday. “We want to exhaust every opportunity to bring potential resources to Flint.”
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator W. Craig Fugate, in a letter to Snyder, said his request for a major disaster declaration was denied because the water contamination “does not meet the legal definition of a ‘major disaster’” under federal law.
“The incident was not the result of a natural catastrophe, nor was it created by a fire, flood or explosion,” Fugate said.
The distinction here between man-made and natural disaster, especially regarding how much money is allocated, is definitely nonsensical. But as it stands, the administration believes there is no legal basis for declaring a disaster zone. The crisis in Flint should prompt a broad re-examination of our federal response policies and the purpose of FEMA and disaster declarations in the first place, especially as more man-made and man-mediated disasters will undoubtedly happen to low-income communities like Flint.
However, the irony of Gov. Snyder essentially asking for a blank check to fix a problem caused by his administration—and government’s colossal disregard for human lives and penny-pinching tendencies—is not to be missed. Again, with any amount of money, why would people trust Snyder and his committees to fix anything after all that has happened?
