Episode 291

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Published on:

24th Aug 2024

The Poisoning of America with Jordan Chariton

Let us never become immune to shock and outrage over the US government’s failure to guarantee its citizens a safe clean water supply. We must be outraged by the power that private players hold over us all with the blessings and collusion of officials whose titles suggest they should protect us.

Investigative journalist Jordan Chariton has been reporting on the Flint water crisis for nearly a decade. His newly published book, We the Poisoned, examines how systemic governmental failures, abetted by municipal, state, and federal authorities, and complicit media, combined to allow the Flint catastrophe.

Jordan talks to Steve about the devastating effects of neoliberal privatization schemes, driven by financial incentives and aided by powerful interests including Wall Street, which resulted in the use of untreated water from the polluted Flint River in a city already suffering from decades of economic decline. Privatization transformed public utilities into profit-driven entities, neglecting critical safety and quality controls. President Obama's inadequate federal response and successive Michigan administrations' culpability resulted in a combination of political negligence and deliberate actions all to avoid setting a costly precedent of government intervention.


Lest we relax into the belief that such crises are incidental and rare, be warned. Privatization is on an upward trajectory. The people’s health and safety interfere with profits and in the US, profit reigns supreme.


This episode offers a detailed portrayal of environmental racism, the perils of unchecked corporate power, and how both government and media support these atrocities.


Jordan Chariton, Status Coup CEO, is an independent progressive journalist who has worked inside and outside the belly of the corporate media beast for over a decade. He worked at Fox, MSNBC, and TYT, before starting Status Coup. He is the author of the newly published book, “We the Poisoned: Exposing the Flint Water Crisis Cover-up and the Poisoning of 100,000 Americans.”


@JordanChariton on Twitter

@StatusCoup

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Macro N Cheese
Comfort Food For Thought! #MMT
Macroeconomics has never been so ... delish! Macro and Cheese explores the progressive movement through the lens of Modern Monetary Theory, with hot and irreverent political takes, spotlights in activism, and the razor sharp musings of Real Progressives Founder and host Steve Grumbine. The cheese will flow as experts come in for a full, four course deep dive into the hot queso.

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Steven Grumbine

Steve is a lot more than just the host of Macro N Cheese, he's the founder and CEO of two nonprofits and the “less is more" project manager! He uses his extensive knowledge of project management, macroeconomics and history to help listeners gain a vision of what our future could look like.