Up North Progressive

This article originally appeared on Up North Progressive on December 29, 2018

On Christmas Eve Rick Snyder closed the citizen’s input hotline early to ensure Michigan taxpayers could no longer call and object to the shame duck bills he signed just in time for Gretchen Whitmer to take over on January 1, 2019. It’s the final despicable act of a terrible human being who barely worked in the office he was elected to for the past eight years. What little he did lift his finger to do caused plenty of damage to the state.

The world knows Rick “one tough nerd” Snyder for dangerous levels of lead in the city of Flint’s water supply, and many will likely think that is his legacy as he finishes his final days as Michigan’s governor. Poisoning the people of Flint then lying he knew nothing about it ranks at the top of horrible things Snyder is known for. Let’s not forget forcing Detroit into bankruptcy so capitalists could grab assets, or forcing right to work in the 2012 shame duck session so capitalists can undermine collective bargaining rights for workers. He lifted the cap on for-profit charter schools so capitalists could privatize education with public tax dollars, project “skunkworks”, the Education Achievement Authority, that turned Detroit Public Schools into two separate school districts, stripping Michigan’s public schools of funds, making it harder to petition government enshrined in Michigan’s state constitution, raising taxes on old people and poor people, cutting taxes for rich people and corporations, allowing the roads to fall apart, then raising taxes and fees to pay for fixing the roads – only to not fix the roads with the extra revenue so raid more school funds to (maybe) pay for roads instead. There are so many horrible things Rick Snyder inflicted on the people of this state, calling it ‘relentless positive action’ in that uncanny way Republicans always manage to label their agenda with words that mean the exact opposite.

But what is the one thing that Snyder needs to be remembered for? It was the thing that motivated people in the spring of 2011 to launch a recall campaign to remove him from office. It was the thing that made it possible for him to take over cities, school districts, and townships. It allowed him and his cronies to gut those communities of their valuables. It also at one point stripped over half of the black people living in Michigan of their civil rights.

That horrible thing. That thing that ultimately killed people is, of course, Michigan’s Emergency Financial Manager Law.

Picture a scene in the backyard of Rick Snyder’s luxurious mansion nestled in an exclusive gated Ann Arbor neighborhood in the late summer of 2010. Sitting at a patio table over beers and campaign strategy, the topic of how to “turn around” communities like Flint, Detroit, Pontiac, Benton Harbor comes up. Snyder has an idea: Expand the existing emergency manager law, give the emergency manager all the power, and strip the elected officials of their powers. Let the emergency manager make the business decisions needed to get these communities back on track. According to a former member of Snyder’s 2010 campaign staff, this is what happened. Unfortunately, The emergency manager law and what it turned into became the strongest example of Snyder’s optimism hitting political reality. The staffer claimed what Snyder didn’t see coming were the capitalists supporting Snyder’s expanded emergency manager law licking their chops at the prospect of raiding cities and school districts in the state to enrich themselves.

Right

Snyder, the guy who finished an MBA and law school by the age of 23 wasn’t smart enough to realize his optimistic relentless positive action would be instantly corrupted by political reality when one person had all the power to make all the decisions, and there was nothing the people of that community could do about it. This plan would never allow a gang of predatory capitalists salivating at the chance to bleed Michigan dry and get away with it.

If this were true, then in 2012 when the citizens of Michigan very loudly objected to PA 4 of 2011 at the ballot box, Snyder should have honored the will of the people to put an end to the emergency manager law. This didn’t happen. Attorney General Schuette on Duty turned into a necromancer and declared the old, repealed, PA 72 emergency manager law was back on the books until an even newer emergency manager law arrived on Snyder’s desk. All the while, Snyder promised the people of Detroit their city would never be under the dictates of an emergency manager or go bankrupt while shadow governor Richard Baird was busy vetting potential candidates to become Detroit’s emergency manager. Snyder signed PA 436 in 2013, and Detroit was next on the hit list.

For eight years, Snyder’s emergency managers moved into poor, predominantly black communities. They broke unions, unilaterally ended contracts, converted public school districts into for-profit charter schools, fired first responders, sold off anything of value and poisoned the people of Flint with while cutting off people in Detroit from water at the same time. Joe Harris, emergency manager of Benton Harbor, illegally sold off parcels of land for development that had been given to the city to replace land leased from Jean Klock Park to build a country club for the wealthy. Mosaica, the for-profit company hired by the emergency manager of Muskegon Heights Schools, Don Weatherspoon, sold the playground equipment in a yard sale. Kevyn Orr threatened Detroit with selling off artwork in the Detroit Institute of Arts. Art collectors even showed up demanding appraisals. Say the word Flint anywhere in the world; it’s now synonymous with lead poisoning. Emergency managers Darnell Earley and Gerald Ambrose face felony charges that could put them in prison for over 40 years (As of 2019, nobody has gone to prison…yet).

All of the emergency managers had to answer to one person in the state: Rick Snyder. Elected officials lost their authority under Snyder’s proxies. Business owners took advantage of the law to grab land, grab money, and grab resources from the communities and people they belonged to. Once all of the assets capitalists wanted were sold, the emergency would be declared over, and the people and their elected officials got what was left. The DIA still has all of its art. Flint still doesn’t have drinkable water.

There is no way Snyder looked at his plan for emergency managers in 2010 and not realize this law would be an excuse to grab everything he and his rich capitalist friends could get, possibly at the expense of the health and well-being of the people they robbed. It was the reason why he came up with the law and insisted on having the law again after the people struck it down. Snyder co-wrote the lexicon on how to use the right words to tell people to believe the harm you’re doing them is for their own good. Sure, the nerd is positive. Positive he and his rich friends can use the law to take the state of Michigan for everything they can grab before his second term runs out. Positive he will never answer for poisoning a city with lead. Positive raiding the school aid fund to build roads and ice hockey rinks in Detroit is a better way to spend money to educate children. Positive to let kids go hungry and raise taxes on the poor and old so capitalists can get more tax breaks.

Poisonous water in Flint wouldn’t have happened if the will of the people had been respected and upheld by Rick Snyder. That was not his plan as governor. Like the venture capitalist he is, he looked at the state and saw real wealth that could be liquidated. Business first, people last. Snyder’s legacy as governor of Michigan are the two laws that gave him and his friends the ability to raid the wealth of Michigan. Relentlessly positive action all the way to the bank.