Articles by Yesenia Barragan

Source: TeleSUR English

The ravages and riches of the global economic crisis are nowhere more manifest than in struggles over water. While the corporate signals flashing from our televisions hypnotize us with the latest versions of the iPhone and plasma flat screens, the very foundations of what was once assumed to be an “immortal” first world quality of life are evaporating before us.

Water, perhaps our most taken-for-granted substance apart from oxygen (which has also been commodified: see the international carbon market), is one of the latest targets of a global wave of austerity that has extended northward after plaguing the Global South for decades. Ireland and Detroit have emerged as the latest battlefields in this global struggle over water, where the Irish government has imposed new water taxes that will bankrupt working-class families all over the country, while Detroit city officials have shut off water access for thousands of poor residents as of this past summer. read more