My previous blog was on air. So far the rich and powerful have not figured out a way to sell us the air we breathe. That's not to say it isn't coming. I can easily picture a future where the air is so foul and toxic, that we all are toting around behind us on little wheels, mobile tanks of breathable air, with plastic tubes running up to our nostrils. They'll probably have a Monsanto logo on them.
In that piece, I attacked the compromising and abuse of one of our most fundamental biological rights. Bush's comically-named CLEAR SKIES is a perfect example of the lords of industry writing the rules for their own advantage, condemning tens of thousands of us to die prematurely by cutting corners on our basic human right to breathe clean air.
In this posting, I want to focus strictly on how you and I are being systematically robbed of yet another thing, something so basic to life, something so pervasive and necessary, that lacking it our entire planet would look like the moon. We look at another one of those fundamental absolutes that is being stolen from us in the name of progress.
In his powerful speech "Where Do We Go From Here?" on August 16, 1967 in Atlanta, GA, Dr. Martin Luther King asked, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water?"
Damn good question.
To single out this remark is not a trivialization of this great man's vision. He was talking in general about our system of ownership, where a small elite of well-to-do capitalists wield the power to exploit everyone else.
Think about it . . .
Water.
The human organism basically is protoplasmic material floating in around 42 quarts of water held in a big sack made of skin. Water is about as basic to being human as it gets. We are 60% water.
Why should we have to pay for water?
Does asking this making me some raving pinko commie socialist?
Water has gradually become commodified. We used to just go down to the well in the center of the village. Then cities and counties provided water treatment facilities, publicly owned then later very tightly regulated by municipal governments. This held the price for access to high quality water at a bare minimum. Now it's slowly being privatized. And the quality of municipally available water is being gradually degraded so that it's no longer safe to drink. We end up going to the supermarket to buy water in large plastic jugs.
What happened to being able to turn on your tap and drink some H2O?
When did our community decide it was no longer its fundamental responsibility to provide something so basic to life as water?
And I don't mean water laced with cyanide, mercury and other heavy metals, containing sludge and industrial waste, stinking of human urine and feces, tainted with every widely distributed hormone, prescription drug, anti-depressant, steroid, antibiotic.
I mean the kind of water that our bodies have always required and contained.
The kind of water which is as basic to human survival as . . . well, water.
This attrition of the public domain __ those things which constitute the fundaments of a organized and humane society and a healthful nurturing community __ is always a very gradual step-wise process. The privatization and commodification of the basic elements due to members of a community creeps up in very small increments. Tiny decisions are made one by one, each seeming like a rational or at least more convenient way to do things. Then somewhere down the line, we look back and say, "What happened?"
When things as basic as breathable air and drinkable water are commodified, it doesn't bode well.
Many political scientists and international experts have been predicting for some time now that wars in the foreseeable future will be fought over water.
There's a method to this madness. Corporations and capitalists can sniff out opportunity anywhere and everywhere. This is what they do. It is what they are designed to do, driving the engines of the economy, revving them higher and higher, sucking in what they need and blowing $$$s out the back end.
Think about it. If corporations can completely control and charge for basic necessities, what a perfect plan! It's not like lipstick or adding cruise control to the options on a new car. You don't have to convince people of the value to drink water. If they don't they die.
There is no doubt capitalism has energized much of the world and been the major force behind development across the globe. But economic growth has never been nor is it now the only measure of progress. Not everything of worth has a bar code.
Look into the eyes of your child, your spouse, members of your family and community. Can you tell me how much a moment with someone you love is worth in dollars? What should we charge for a sunset? How much for a walk in the park?
As Oscar Wilde's character replied in Lord Darlington when asked what a cynic was: "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
So where do we draw the line?
Maybe the better question is: Since we failed decades ago to draw sensible lines which safeguard our individual participation in a society which respects each and every citizen and assures basic decency for everyone equally, what do we do now?
I'm not here to lecture you on the basics of government and citizen responsibility. Actually, if anything I'm here to lecture myself, to remind myself of some things that have been long buried by the shit storm of nonsense, diversions and distractions that is the news media today. I'm here to try to cut through the tsunami of irrelevance and ignorance that has swamped our national dialogue __ the one you and I should be having about the America we want to have and pass along to future generations __ and try to focus my own thinking.
I'm here to remind myself, and hopefully a critical mass of other concerned individuals, that many things we should be able to take for granted __ breathable air, clean drinking water, safe nutritious food (that'll be the topic of National Values 104), and some others down the line __ are rightfully ours and they have been stolen.
It's time to get them back.
It's time to put aside right, left, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Tea Party, Libertarian,
Socialist, gay, straight, black, white, yellow, brown, red and blue. Because there's a lot we agree on.
We just need to clear our minds and talk about those things.
We need to talk.
[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]
