Purity vs Pollution

Thinking Outside the Box by Nancy Ohanian

People living in Flint still don't have pure water to drink. In other words, the water is polluted. The aspiration of doing that-- making it potable and pure-- was just too costly, too idealistic... too much of that liberal purity for Michigan and Trump Regime conservatives to cope with. Is the water in your town pure? Towns with water no one should be drinking are listed below. Taking a sip won't kill you on the spot, but over time... take my word for it, get a good filtration system or buy Fiji Water if you live in any if these places:

• Modesto, CA- agricultural chemicals
• Midland, TX- 13 different contaminants
• Garland, TX- 11 contaminants
• Irving, TX- 10 contaminants
• Pasadena, CA- 14 contaminants
• Plano- TX- 11 contaminants
• Frisco, TX- 11 contaminants
• Lubbock, TX- 12 contaminants
• McAllen, TX- 12 contaminants
• Dallas, TX- 10 contaminants
• El Paso, TX- 10 contaminants
• McKinney, TX- 11 contaminants
• Brownsville, TX- 12 contaminants
• Rockford, IL- 12 contaminants
• Amarillo, TX- 11 contaminants
• Ft. Worth, TX- 10 contaminants
• Corpus Christi, TX- 11 contaminants
• Grand Prairie, TX- 9 contaminants
• Irvine, CA- 11 contaminants
• Fresno, CA- arsenic, ethylene dibromide, manganese, nitrate
• Bakersfield, CA- 6 contaminants
• Arlington, TX- 9 contaminants
• Corona, CA- 12 contaminants
• Pomona, CA- 10 contaminants
• Reno, NV- 11 contaminants

Runners-up, where the tap water is also too polluted to drink, include Pittsburgh, PA (lead), Brady, TX (radium), Omaha, NE (arsenic), Houston, TX (arsenic, lead, chloroform, benzene) and Milwaukee, WI (lead). Helping people should come before-- way before-- partisan political considerations.

Purity gets a bad rap in Democratic electoral politics. We constantly hear conservatives and their shills whining about how progressive candidates, campaigning on policies that are designed to better the lives of the working and middle class, endanger electability because "purity" is a dirty word. Kissing up to big corporations, on the other hand, which is, in one word, pollution, is not a dirty word in their mirror image world-- a mirror image world largely enforced by corporate media. In this CNBC segment from a week ago one of the odious guests is... Bloomberg's former campaign manager, former Rod Blagojevich deputy, Schumer's former communications director and the notorious fixer for early-days Uber-- Bradley Tusk, a conservative shit-head disguised as a Democrat. A multimillionaire, he's consulting Bloomberg's presidential campaign and demeaning "purity" in the linked CNBC segment and warning that unless voters settle for a Republican-lite candidate, i.e., Bloomberg, Trump will win again.

A couple days ago, Peter Daou, a really smart guy and talented writer who is also very reformed Hillary supporter, tweeted that "pandering to GOP voters and seeking 'civility' and 'bipartisanship' with extremists, brought us Bush, Trump, kids in cages, and a right-wing Supreme Court. There's a word for doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result..."

Marie Newman and Rachel Ventura are both Chicagoland progressives running for Congress against corporate conservative incumbents, respectively Dan Lipinski (Blue Dog) and Bill Foster (New Dem). "Confusing sticking-to-your values with party purity is frustrating," Marie told us. "They are not the same. I am not sure who decided they were the same. We should always stick to our values and principles. Trying to demonize folks for their values is ridiculous.”

Rachel Ventura has a similar perspective. "One of the first issues I learned about as a candidate for public office was water," she said. "One of the poorest areas of my district was struggling to produce clean water and their local government wanted to privatize their system. It would have doubled the cost for those residents. Working with the Fairmont Community, we were able to stall the township from selling off the water and get the county to invest the money to fix the system and another local government then provided the water. It was good government in action to solve a crucial problem, and just in time! The company that had wanted to buy the water system, Aqua, is now being sued by the state of IL and Will County for poisoning another community, University Park, with lead for 7 months, just like Flint Michigan! My own home town is struggling with the decision of where to get our water for the future as our aquifer is drying up. And where is my opponent in all of this? He has represented Joliet for more than 10 years and not a peep on our water crisis.

"Water purity and political purity are two places where Foster doesn't stand a chance of comparing to our platform. What we need to do is ban water privatization in the same way we need to abolish private prisons. Water is a human right and should be a public good. According to Food and Water Watch private water costs an average of 59% more than public water. Additionally, the majority of water purification problems like those in Flint Michigan or University Park happen because of private companies take shortcuts. Those shortcuts have resulted in lead poisoning of residents. And that doesn't even discuss the outrageous cost of medication to treat lead poisoning which has increased 2700% since Flint!

"On the political purity front, I want to point out that today is the day that Rosa Parks chose to sit at the front of the bus, not the middle of the bus. Meaning, one doesn't lead a movement by sitting in the middle of the bus and one doesn't pass meaningful healthcare reform by running on "Medicare for all who want it." We won't fix the climate crisis by tinkering around the edges or asking the fossil fuel industry to cut back on CO2 emissions. Rosa Parks sat at the front of the bus and we need to demand a bold, progressive agenda that creates a government and an economy that works for everyone."

Eva Putzova's opponent in an Arizona congressional race is former Republican, now Blue Dog Tom O'Halleran. Just the idea of being a Democrat at all is like a purity thing to him. Eva, a former city councilwoman in F;ahstaff, told us that she's "not aiming at 'purity' in politics by supporting Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, an overhaul of our immigration laws, an end to Wars, a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, and an end to corporate domination of our politics. These are not only popular positions but moral ones as well. My opponent, the incumbent, is the one who needs to answer for his positions or lack thereof on the important issues facing voters in AZ-01 and around the nation. Is it 'practical' and 'reasonable' to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the arms industry, banking industry, health insurance industry, private prison industry, and Walmart and then do their bidding as he does? Voters are tired of representatives from both parties who cater to the needs of corporations. They want to support candidates who put people first, and that is what my campaign is all about!"

In politics, this is the opposite of purity