Water: a human right? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Baraka_Guru · 07-27-2010, 06:57 AM

Quote:

UN to vote on right to water
‘Historic’ chance to ease human suffering, says Canadian activist

By Linda Diebel National Affairs Writer

A United Nations vote to recognize water as a basic human right is a “historic” chance for the global community to ease human suffering, according to a Canadian activist in the thick of a last-ditch lobbying effort.

“We’re running out of water and the crisis is getting worse,” Maude Barlow said Monday from New York, on the eve of a vote expected as early as Wednesday at the UN General Assembly.

“If we don’t make a statement that we don’t want entire populations left behind, what does it say about us? About our humanity?”

Barlow, former senior adviser on water at the UN and chair of the Council of Canadians citizens group, is optimistic the resolution will pass by majority vote.

However, it appears powerful nations — including Canada — either will not support it or will push for a version that Barlow says would continue to allow water to be bought and sold as a commodity.

“My fear is that the world is going to be divided into North and South — developed and developing nations — and that’s a disaster for the United Nations and for the world,” said Barlow. She was referring to apparent behind-the-scenes opposition by the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Britain and other European countries, as well as Canada.

At a time when 2 billion people live in water-stressed regions, the resolution declares that “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation (are) a human right.”

The lobby campaign includes a letter from Canadian social, environmental and labour organizations to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, appealing for Canada’s support at the UN for the resolution.

Barlow says no government wants to publicly support the increasing privatization of water and the concept that it can be withheld from people who can’t afford to pay. But she says support for endless studies or a guarantee only of “access” to water would essentially do just that.

The resolution is sponsored by 32 countries, with Bolivia playing a key role. A decade ago, civil unrest erupted in Bolivia’s third-largest city, Cochabamba, after the water supply was privatized and put under the control of a multinational corporation. Even the water in people’s rooftop cisterns was taxed.

Although the rioting led to control of water in that area eventually falling back in the hands of a public utility, corporate control of water is increasing around the world.

A Foreign Affairs spokesperson said in an email Tuesday that Canada already “recognizes there are linkages between access to safe drinking water and certain existing human rights obligations,” and supports further study on the issue of water as a right.

The email also said Canada asserts “its international human rights obligations in no way limit its sovereign right to manage its own resources.”

Barlow dismisses the argument that Canada’s water resources could be jeopardized by the proposed UN resolution. She says the sweeping 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn’t mean Canada has to guarantee jobs or pensions for every country.

In 2008, the Conservative government played a pivotal role in manoeuvres to block the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva from recognizing water as a right. The council is studying the issue.

Time is critical, says Barlow, because the world is facing “a double whammy”: continued lack of water through poverty and the growing physical and ecological crisis that deprives the world of clean water

UN to vote on right to water - thestar.com

This whole idea is kind of bizarre to me.

I have always lived in a region known for having the largest concentration of fresh water in the world. The Great Lakes are freshwater bodies the size of seas. We take having water whenever we want it for granted. And we use a hell of a lot.

Canadians use 1,500 cubic metres of water per person per year, which is exceeded only by the U.S. (As a comparison, the consumption in France is under 700, while the U.K. consumption rate is under 200.) So, yeah, I take having access to water for granted.

So what about those who either a) cannot afford water, or b) simply don't have access to it? (Or c) both?)

I must say that the thought of groups having little or no access to water is a terrible thing, and I know it happens. What's worse, is the thought of people not having access to water because they can't afford it.

I believe access to water should a human right, and it pains me that Canada might either vote against this or request a revision that would suggest that water as a commodity is tolerable.

Is access to water a human right?
Is it permissible to treat water as a commodity?
Should there be a global initiative to ensure everyone has an amount of water that would be considered a "survival amount"?

When we talk about inalienable rights, we may think of the freedom to do things or having freedom from things....but what about the right to access something as essential as water?

The_Dunedan · 07-27-2010, 09:01 AM

Every time a natural resource is put under the control of Government, that resource becomes a weapon. It will be withheld from those the State wishes to punish or eradicate, and awarded to those the State wishes to reward or retain. History is very clear on this point. Ask the Irish.

For this reason alone, though I have others, I cannot support the idea of access to water as a "right" administered and awarded by Government.

Seaver · 07-27-2010, 09:01 AM

I'm trying to figure out how they can put Brazil, Indonesia, SE Asia, etc. on the list of scarce water. It's not scarce, they have polluted the shit out of it.

Quote:

Every time a natural resource is put under the control of Government, that resource becomes a weapon. It will be withheld from those the State wishes to punish or eradicate, and awarded to those the State wishes to reward or retain. History is very clear on this point. Ask the Irish.

For this reason alone, though I have others, I cannot support the idea of access to water as a "right" administered and awarded by Government.

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0uu2mSZEw

Don't tell me you've never heard of the tragedy of the commons. It's where something is left effectively on the honor system of no regulations, and as that thing gets scarce people purposefully use more of it because it's getting scarce creating a worsening problem.

roachboy · 07-27-2010, 09:02 AM

you aren't trying to fob that off as a statement about history, are you dunedan?

Baraka_Guru · 07-27-2010, 09:12 AM

What is a right if it is not recognized by governments?

Oh, maybe a luxury?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

I'm trying to figure out how they can put Brazil, Indonesia, SE Asia, etc. on the list of scarce water. It's not scarce, they have polluted the shit out of it.

Well, the issue for many places is that the water they do have isn't potable. It's not that they all live in deserts.

Cimarron29414 · 07-27-2010, 09:23 AM

Water is a necessity, not a luxury.

Pearl Trade · 07-27-2010, 09:27 AM

The U.S. Declaration of Independence tells me I have an unalienable right to water.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

roachboy · 07-27-2010, 09:32 AM

if you want to think about the interactions between states and water supply, you need to consider what access to water was like before, say, the middle part of the 19th century. or what sewage disposal was like. without state action in the construction of infrastructure, not only would the lives of human beings be much shorter, but there'd be no capitalism. the construction of water and sewage systems were among the largest-scale public works projects of the period.

railways, water systems, electrification, roads/highways. none of these arrived with nature.

obviously state action was conditioned by the same kind of factors that private action are conditioned by---the class structure. so you could say that water is a weapon i suppose. but it is the case that it's far MORE of a weapon when it's privately controlled.

just look at the problems that were created by world bank/imf attempts to privatize water supplies during the (thankfully dissipating but not fast enough) neo-liberal period.

Cimarron29414 · 07-27-2010, 09:33 AM

Two guys are standing in a Circle K, both are thirsty. There's only one Deerpark left in the cooler. I say we get some lawyers and a federal judge in there to decide who gets the millions.

The_Dunedan · 07-27-2010, 10:05 AM

Quote:

you aren't trying to fob that off as a statement about history, are you dunedan?

More like a statement of fact. Whenever a resource, especially a natural resource required for life, becomes the purview of Government that resource is weaponised. As I said, ask the Irish: hell, ask the Kuban Cossacks, Terek Cossacks, and most of Ukraine. Ask anybody from southern Sudan. Ask the Dalits (untouchables) of India what happens to the water supply when some local muckety-muck with a high-Caste name and a Government job decides he'd rather they moved...somewhere else. Ditto the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. Ask the folks in Klamath Falls, OR. I have yet to hear of any case in history, modern or ancient, in which this has not eventually happened.

Baraka_Guru · 07-27-2010, 10:08 AM

What are you saying, Dunedan? Should water be privatized?

The_Dunedan · 07-27-2010, 10:13 AM

Yes. Yes, yes, and yes.

Because no matter how bad some individuals are, individuals need rest. Individuals need food. Individuals need sex, relaxation, and some level of sustainance. Governments do not. Corporations (a subsidiary of Governments) likewise do not. There is a limit on how much damage an individual person or commercial concern can do: not least because they do not enjoy a legal monopoly on socially-legitimated initiation of force. There is no such limit on Governments or their Corporate proxies. When an abusive parent withholds water from a child, we arrest them and put them in prison. When a nation-state withholds water from a targeted population, they get seats at the UN, sometimes a mild talking-to, and sometimes even a governing seat on the Council which overseas their violations. To paraphrase Mr. Stalin; one death from dehydration is a tragedy, ten thousand such deaths are population control.

An individual person or group of individuals must negotiate. They must reach an agreements beneficial to both parties, or else neither party gets what they want. Governments simply take what they want, eliminate or bulldoze those in their way, and leave the mess for the rest of us to clean up afterwards.

roachboy · 07-27-2010, 10:15 AM

like i said in the post above you, there's little doubt that states allocate resources according to the priorities that are in place at the time. in more democratic-to-democratic socialist contexts (as over against the nationalist authoritarian states that you mention for the most part, dressed up with an arbitrary reference to india) those priorities are responsive to pressure from both within (representatives) and without (organized interest groups). private systems aren't. private systems are FAR more authoritarian. there's no recourse.

but then again we're talking about public/private distinctions in the context of yet another system that would not exist had it not been for quite massive and sustained state involvements. telecommunications? computing? the internet (arpanet anyone?)...

so no, you're not making a general statement of fact: you're making a poorly constructed argument based on arbitrarily assembled information that you're trying to fob off as a general proposition about the nature of the modern state in general.
i think the general point you're trying to argue is absurd.

[[btw don't get me wrong here politically---i'm not so far from a council communist in my heart of hearts--but this is a historical matter and there's little point in allowing us to indulge the quirk of contemporary american neo-fascism of allowing one's political viewpoint to become the main empirical center of statements about the world that's outside one's head.]]

and even back in the law-of-the-jungle capitalism days of the 19th century, it was understood---including by people who were otherwise all about private profits--that water was a **public** good par excellence and that access to it was a basic human right.

Baraka_Guru · 07-27-2010, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Dunedan

Yes. Yes, yes, and yes.

So you would sooner allow a corporation the ability to withhold water than a democratically elected and publicly accountable government? I don't get it. When you privatize resources, you essentially leave it at the mercy of the market. And when the market turns for the worse, it's the poor who are left out to dry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

like i said in the post above you, there's little doubt that states allocate resources according to the priorities that are in place at the time. in more democratic-to-democratic socialist contexts (as over against the nationalist authoritarian states that you mention for the most part, dressed up with an arbitrary reference to india) those priorities are responsive to pressure from both within (representatives) and without (organized interest groups). private systems aren't. private systems are FAR more authoritarian. there's no recourse.

Yes, exactly. If you cannot afford out of pocket what corporations have to offer, you simply don't get any regardless of your need. Well, that is, at least, if there is no other outside regulatory body that would suggest or do otherwise.

I'd like my water to remain the purview of the government, thank you.

How about the privatization of the constitution? The bill of rights? There are certain things that should remain in the hands of the public.

ring · 07-27-2010, 12:19 PM

The Milagro Beanfield War: was a great film.

hunnychile · 07-27-2010, 12:27 PM

This entire thread is so distressing.

Because like good, honest real, health care, the rich will get the better water rights. Here in the USA and in all the other countries worldwide. It will happen and I hope I've left this planet before this occurs.

aceventura3 · 07-27-2010, 01:19 PM

Doing some web surfing, I came across this, and I tend to agree with the author and I have difficulty with water being a right - I see it more as a claim as described.

Quote:

A right is the sovereignty to act without the permission of others. The concept of a right carries with it an implicit, unstated footnote: you may exercise your rights as long as you do not violate the same rights of another—within this context, rights are an absolute.

A right is universal—meaning: it applies to all men, not just to a few. There is no such thing as a "right" for one man, or a group of men, that is not possessed by all. This means there are no special "rights" unique to women or men, blacks or white, the elderly or the young, homosexuals or heterosexuals, the rich or the poor, doctors or patients or any other group.

A right must be exercised through your own initiative and action. It is not a claim on others. A right is not actualized and implemented by the actions of others. This means you do not have the right to the time in another person’s life. You do not have a right to other people’s money. You do not have the right to another person’s property. If you wish to acquire some money from another person, you must earn it—then you have a right to it. If you wish to gain some benefit from the time of another person’s life, you must gain it through the voluntary cooperation of that individual—not through coercion. If you wish to possess some item of property of another individual, you must buy it on terms acceptable to the owner—not gain it through theft.

Alone in a wilderness, the concept of a right would never occur to you, even though in such isolation you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In this solitude, you would be free to take the actions needed to sustain your life: hunt for food, grow crops, build a shelter and so on. If a hundred new settlers suddenly arrive in your area and establish a community, you do not gain any additional rights by living in such a society nor do you lose any; you simply retain the same rights you possessed when you were alone.

A right defines what you may do without the permission of those other men and it erects a moral and legal barrier across which they may not cross. It is your protection against those who attempt to forcibly take some of your life’s time, your money or property.

Animals do not have rights. Rights only apply to beings capable of thought, capable of defining rights and creating an organized means—government—of protecting such rights. Thus, a fly or mosquito does not possess rights of any kind, including the right to life. You may swat a fly or mosquito, killing them both. You do not have the right to do the same to another human being, except in self-defense. You may own and raise cows, keep them in captivity and milk them for all they are worth. You do not have the right to do the same to other men, although that is what statists effectively do to you.

There is only one, fundamental right, the right to life—which is: the sovereignty to follow your own judgment, without anyone’s permission, about the actions in your life. All other rights are applications of this right to specific contexts, such as property and freedom of speech.

The right to property is the right to take the action needed to create and/or earn the material means needed for living. Once you have earned it, then that particular property is yours—which means: you have the right to control the use and disposal of that property. It may not be taken from you or used by others without your permission.

Freedom of speech is the right to say anything you wish, using any medium of communication you can afford. It is not the responsibility of others to pay for some means of expression or to provide you with a platform on which to speak. If a newspaper or television station refuses to allow you to express your views utilizing their property, your right to freedom of speech has not been violated and this is not censorship. Censorship is a concept that only applies to government action, the action of forcibly forbidding and/or punishing the expression of certain ideas.

Statists have corrupted the actual meaning of a right and have converted it, in the minds of most, into its opposite: into a claim on the life of another. With the growth of statism, over the past few decades, we have seen an explosion of these "rights"—which, in fact, have gradually eroded your actual right to your life, money and property.

Statists declare you have a "right" to housing, to a job, to health care, to an education, to a minimum wage, to preferential treatment if you are a minority and so on. These "rights" are all a claim, a lien, on your life and the lives of others. These "rights" impose a form of involuntary servitude on you and others. These "rights" force you to pay for someone’s housing, their health care, their education, for training for a job—and, it forces others to provide special treatment for certain groups and to pay higher-than-necessary wages.

Under statism, "rights" are a means of enslavement: it places a mortgage on your life—and statists are the mortgage holders, on the receiving end of unearned payments forcibly extracted from your life and your earnings. You do not have a right to your life, others do. Others do not have a right to their lives, either, but you have a "right" to theirs. Such a concept of "rights" forcibly hog-ties everyone to everyone else, making everyone a slave to everyone else—except for those masters, statist politicians, who pull the strings and crack the whips.

Actual rights—those actions to which you are entitled by your nature as man—give you clear title to your life. A right is your declaration of independence. A statist "right" is their declaration of your dependence on others and other's dependence on you. Until these bogus "rights" are repudiated, your freedom to live your life as you see fit will continue to slowly disappear.

WHAT IS A RIGHT?

roachboy · 07-27-2010, 02:39 PM

that article is idiotic, ace.
it's a second-rate rehash of the second-rate political fiction that is john locke's second treatise on government.

but despite, well, everything i kinda enjoy watching conservative reject element after element of the capitalist mode of production in the name of the capitalist mode of production process through second-rate "thinkers" like ayn rand....it's fascinating in the same way as is watching a car crash into a wall. and it'd be funny---you know, laugh out loud funny---were this kind of ultra-right lunacy not something that some (maybe) otherwise sensible people find compelling.

so if you don't think that access to safe potable water is something on the order of a basic citizenship right, why don't you stop drinking it or bathing in it or using your sewer system or flood control system until some more non-equitable rights-free form of conservative libertarian barbarism gets instituted?

once right libertarian barbarism gets into power, though, you won't have anything to say.
because you'll have no rights.
because you will have given them away.

but you can worry about that once you figure out how to survive till that glorious day without legitimating "statism" by using the water it provides.

good luck with that. keep me posted.

JumpinJesus · 07-27-2010, 02:42 PM

So, we're commoditizing an essence of life itself?

Seaver · 07-27-2010, 04:25 PM

To anyone arguing for the privatization of water, and invoke history, need to do research upon it.

Bolivia, 2000, president sold off water rights to a private company... resulting in 3x increase in cost/gal. Citizens that could no longer afford to drink, let alone bath regularly, started mass riots and protests. Said company started illegally invading properties looking for any type of water reclamation or rainfall capture devices, cutting off ALL water for those found with any device.

Ghana has a split of government and privatized water resource areas, some are government and some are privately owned. It should surprise no one that government areas are an average of $.10/cubic meter, private are an average of $1/cu m.

Hell just look at the parking meter rates in Chicago after the city government sold it off (regardless of the amount of corruption, it holds).

Come on guys... this isn't a left-right thing. ALL citizens need affordable access to clean water.

aceventura3 · 07-27-2010, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

that article is idiotic, ace.
it's a second-rate rehash of the second-rate political fiction that is john locke's second treatise on government.

First calm down, count to ten or something, whatever works for ya. My post was to set a baseline, for my purpose, to first define terms. It is a nasty habit, but it stuck from my early days when I was on my high school debate team.

If the citation provided is idiotic, perhaps you can give me the insight of your superior knowledge and define the term and concept of a right.

Quote:

but despite, well, everything i kinda enjoy watching conservative reject element after element of the capitalist mode of production in the name of the capitalist mode of production process through second-rate "thinkers" like ayn rand....it's fascinating in the same way as is watching a car crash into a wall. and it'd be funny---you know, laugh out loud funny---were this kind of ultra-right lunacy not something that some (maybe) otherwise sensible people find compelling.

so if you don't think that access to safe potable water is something on the order of a basic citizenship right, why don't you stop drinking it or bathing in it or using your sewer system or flood control system until some more non-equitable rights-free form of conservative libertarian barbarism gets instituted?

The obvious next question, which you will ignore, but is presented because I can envision steam coming out of your ears as you read what I write, (and I did think you where done wasting your time with me, no, just kidding, I never thought that even-though you wrote it), as presented in a earlier post, how do you reconcile the right to property when the right to water conflicts? If I own, develop a water source, do you have an unrestricted right to it? Or, do you not believe a person has a right to private property?

Quote:

once right libertarian barbarism gets into power, though, you won't have anything to say.
because you'll have no rights.
because you will have given them away.

Dude, let's not forget:

What are you willing to do to defend your rights?

{added} Kidding around with Roach aside, I think people in a geographic area would have a claim to water resources in the area, meaning that water resource should not be unreasonably withheld, but that compensation should be given to those who put work and effort into developing water resources.

Seaver · 07-27-2010, 06:48 PM

Quote:

{added} Kidding around with Roach aside, I think people in a geographic area would have a claim to water resources in the area, meaning that water resource should not be unreasonably withheld, but that compensation should be given to those who put work and effort into developing water resources

Read more: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/tilted-...#ixzz0uwPlF7mS

The ONLY way to do with is with strict government regulation. Ace you know I'm not a left-leaning person, but the great conservative thinkers (Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower) all believed that the only way to have an effective and un-rigged capitalist system is by strict regulation.

Water companies would have NO incentive to keep prices reasonable. They have a captive audience who can't simply reduce the amount they drink. They can't stop bathing for public heath and social acceptance reasons.

aceventura3 · 07-29-2010, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

The ONLY way to do with is with strict government regulation. Ace you know I'm not a left-leaning person, but the great conservative thinkers (Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower) all believed that the only way to have an effective and un-rigged capitalist system is by strict regulation.

Water companies would have NO incentive to keep prices reasonable. They have a captive audience who can't simply reduce the amount they drink. They can't stop bathing for public heath and social acceptance reasons.

On this topic we just touch a small part of much broader questions. I realize "reasonable" is vague, and contrary to what same may write about me, I am some what a moderate on many issues - hence I balance the morality of the question with the free market components of the question.

I think it would be immoral for a owner of a water resource to unreasonably withhold water from people who may need it - but I also believe the owner should be compensated. I would fear that short of this type of a compromise the only other resolution would be a violent one. If my family was being unreasonably deprived of water, I would not let them die without a fight.

On another level, property rights, in my view, only exist to the degree that they can be defended, either by force or rule of law. In either case a wise owner of water resources should act accordingly.

Cimarron29414 · 07-30-2010, 06:59 AM

seaver,

I don't know that I would call Teddy Roosevelt a "conservative".

Seaver · 07-30-2010, 07:03 AM

I would call him a conservative, although he would openly despise the current Republican party.

Wes Mantooth · 07-30-2010, 11:12 AM

I think so but it depends on what we mean by access. Water is both a luxury and an essential and while everybody should have a right to access to clean drinking water I don't agree that everybody should simply have a right to water just because its water. Its a resource like anything else, having it processed and brought you comes with a price and its not unreasonable to expect people to pay or find their own source. (growing up my family had a well, we didn't pay a dime for water...it was awesome, until the power went out and the pump no longer worked. 5 weeks without water during the ice storm of 98 was also awesome)

Having said that, yes people at the very least should have a right to access a daily ration of drinking/bathing water but beyond that I think you either have to pay for the luxury, find/process your own or go without.

07-27-2010, 09:02 AM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	you aren't trying to fob that off as a statement about history, are you dunedan? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-27-2010, 09:23 AM	#6 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	Water is a necessity, not a luxury. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

07-27-2010, 09:27 AM	#7 (permalink)
Pearl Trade Addict Location: Houston, Texas	The U.S. Declaration of Independence tells me I have an unalienable right to water. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" __________________ Our revenge will be the laughter of our children. Give me convenience or give me death!

07-27-2010, 09:32 AM	#8 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	if you want to think about the interactions between states and water supply, you need to consider what access to water was like before, say, the middle part of the 19th century. or what sewage disposal was like. without state action in the construction of infrastructure, not only would the lives of human beings be much shorter, but there'd be no capitalism. the construction of water and sewage systems were among the largest-scale public works projects of the period. railways, water systems, electrification, roads/highways. none of these arrived with nature. obviously state action was conditioned by the same kind of factors that private action are conditioned by---the class structure. so you could say that water is a weapon i suppose. but it is the case that it's far MORE of a weapon when it's privately controlled. just look at the problems that were created by world bank/imf attempts to privatize water supplies during the (thankfully dissipating but not fast enough) neo-liberal period. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-27-2010, 09:33 AM	#9 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	Two guys are standing in a Circle K, both are thirsty. There's only one Deerpark left in the cooler. I say we get some lawyers and a federal judge in there to decide who gets the millions. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

07-27-2010, 09:01 AM	#2 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	Every time a natural resource is put under the control of Government, that resource becomes a weapon. It will be withheld from those the State wishes to punish or eradicate, and awarded to those the State wishes to reward or retain. History is very clear on this point. Ask the Irish. For this reason alone, though I have others, I cannot support the idea of access to water as a "right" administered and awarded by Government.

07-27-2010, 10:08 AM	#11 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	What are you saying, Dunedan? Should water be privatized? __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

07-27-2010, 10:13 AM	#12 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Junkie	Yes. Yes, yes, and yes. Because no matter how bad some individuals are, individuals need rest. Individuals need food. Individuals need sex, relaxation, and some level of sustainance. Governments do not. Corporations (a subsidiary of Governments) likewise do not. There is a limit on how much damage an individual person or commercial concern can do: not least because they do not enjoy a legal monopoly on socially-legitimated initiation of force. There is no such limit on Governments or their Corporate proxies. When an abusive parent withholds water from a child, we arrest them and put them in prison. When a nation-state withholds water from a targeted population, they get seats at the UN, sometimes a mild talking-to, and sometimes even a governing seat on the Council which overseas their violations. To paraphrase Mr. Stalin; one death from dehydration is a tragedy, ten thousand such deaths are population control. An individual person or group of individuals must negotiate. They must reach an agreements beneficial to both parties, or else neither party gets what they want. Governments simply take what they want, eliminate or bulldoze those in their way, and leave the mess for the rest of us to clean up afterwards. Last edited by The_Dunedan; 07-27-2010 at 10:16 AM..

07-27-2010, 10:15 AM	#13 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	like i said in the post above you, there's little doubt that states allocate resources according to the priorities that are in place at the time. in more democratic-to-democratic socialist contexts (as over against the nationalist authoritarian states that you mention for the most part, dressed up with an arbitrary reference to india) those priorities are responsive to pressure from both within (representatives) and without (organized interest groups). private systems aren't. private systems are FAR more authoritarian. there's no recourse. but then again we're talking about public/private distinctions in the context of yet another system that would not exist had it not been for quite massive and sustained state involvements. telecommunications? computing? the internet (arpanet anyone?)... so no, you're not making a general statement of fact: you're making a poorly constructed argument based on arbitrarily assembled information that you're trying to fob off as a general proposition about the nature of the modern state in general. i think the general point you're trying to argue is absurd. [[btw don't get me wrong here politically---i'm not so far from a council communist in my heart of hearts--but this is a historical matter and there's little point in allowing us to indulge the quirk of contemporary american neo-fascism of allowing one's political viewpoint to become the main empirical center of statements about the world that's outside one's head.]] and even back in the law-of-the-jungle capitalism days of the 19th century, it was understood---including by people who were otherwise all about private profits--that water was a public good par excellence and that access to it was a basic human right. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

07-27-2010, 12:19 PM	#15 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	The Milagro Beanfield War: was a great film.

07-27-2010, 12:27 PM	#16 (permalink)
hunnychile Alien Anthropologist Location: Between Boredom and Nirvana	This entire thread is so distressing. Because like good, honest real, health care, the rich will get the better water rights. Here in the USA and in all the other countries worldwide. It will happen and I hope I've left this planet before this occurs. __________________ "I need compassion, understanding and chocolate." - NJB

07-27-2010, 02:39 PM	#18 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	that article is idiotic, ace. it's a second-rate rehash of the second-rate political fiction that is john locke's second treatise on government. but despite, well, everything i kinda enjoy watching conservative reject element after element of the capitalist mode of production in the name of the capitalist mode of production process through second-rate "thinkers" like ayn rand....it's fascinating in the same way as is watching a car crash into a wall. and it'd be funny---you know, laugh out loud funny---were this kind of ultra-right lunacy not something that some (maybe) otherwise sensible people find compelling. so if you don't think that access to safe potable water is something on the order of a basic citizenship right, why don't you stop drinking it or bathing in it or using your sewer system or flood control system until some more non-equitable rights-free form of conservative libertarian barbarism gets instituted? once right libertarian barbarism gets into power, though, you won't have anything to say. because you'll have no rights. because you will have given them away. but you can worry about that once you figure out how to survive till that glorious day without legitimating "statism" by using the water it provides. good luck with that. keep me posted. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 07-27-2010 at 02:42 PM..

07-27-2010, 02:42 PM	#19 (permalink)
JumpinJesus Junkie Location: Chicago	So, we're commoditizing an essence of life itself? __________________ "I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

07-27-2010, 04:25 PM	#20 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	To anyone arguing for the privatization of water, and invoke history, need to do research upon it. Bolivia, 2000, president sold off water rights to a private company... resulting in 3x increase in cost/gal. Citizens that could no longer afford to drink, let alone bath regularly, started mass riots and protests. Said company started illegally invading properties looking for any type of water reclamation or rainfall capture devices, cutting off ALL water for those found with any device. Ghana has a split of government and privatized water resource areas, some are government and some are privately owned. It should surprise no one that government areas are an average of $.10/cubic meter, private are an average of $1/cu m. Hell just look at the parking meter rates in Chicago after the city government sold it off (regardless of the amount of corruption, it holds). Come on guys... this isn't a left-right thing. ALL citizens need affordable access to clean water. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

07-30-2010, 06:59 AM	#24 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	seaver, I don't know that I would call Teddy Roosevelt a "conservative". __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

07-30-2010, 07:03 AM	#25 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	I would call him a conservative, although he would openly despise the current Republican party. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

07-30-2010, 11:12 AM	#26 (permalink)
Wes Mantooth Junkie Location: Tennessee	I think so but it depends on what we mean by access. Water is both a luxury and an essential and while everybody should have a right to access to clean drinking water I don't agree that everybody should simply have a right to water just because its water. Its a resource like anything else, having it processed and brought you comes with a price and its not unreasonable to expect people to pay or find their own source. (growing up my family had a well, we didn't pay a dime for water...it was awesome, until the power went out and the pump no longer worked. 5 weeks without water during the ice storm of 98 was also awesome) Having said that, yes people at the very least should have a right to access a daily ration of drinking/bathing water but beyond that I think you either have to pay for the luxury, find/process your own or go without. __________________ “My god I must have missed it...its hell down here!”