The deepening scandal and crisis in Flint, Michigan, over the contaminated water forced upon the residents of that city provides an insight into where the entire country is headed. The destruction of Flint, epitomized by th water crisis, is a direct result of what happens when democratic processes are circumvented and a city is run like a business.

The state appointed city manager, Darnell Early, a non-elected official, was brought in to run Flint like a business. Changing the city’s water source to the polluted and contaminated Flint River was done for one of two reasons, both of which are business decisions: Using water from the Detroit Water and Sewage District (DWSD) would be more expensive; or because someone stood to profit from a switch to the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA) which includes the Flint River. Although the former explanation is simpler, the latter is more probable considering the huge sums of money that are doled out to various contractors when public resources of cities are privatized, and considering that DWSD offered Flint a better deal than KWA., where it would likely In either case, the largely African American and mostly poor residents of Flint were sold down the river.

The pillaging of the public resources of allegedly dysfunctional cities already has its parallel at the federal level. Timber and drilling rights in national parks and forests are accelerating. The United States Postal Service (USPS) has been forced to sell millions of dollars in assets to meet the Congressional mandate they it funds its pension fund an insane 70 years into the future. UPS and Fedex and salivating at the chance to move in if it fails to do so. Wall Street is urging its cronies on Capital Hill to dump the cash taken from our hard-earned salaries into its leveraging casinos, where it would likely be irrecoverably lost.

To stop this looming madness, we have to move beyond the idea that immediate profits and savings are the ultimate determinants of the proper parameters of political morality. Failure to do so will see our entire nation transformed in a massive Flint, Michigan, -a cash cow for the rich and hell on earth for the poor. May we all be part of an effort to do and be better. May our politicians be more enlightened and may our businessmen stay out of politics.