Will Detroit’s Water be Privatized or Recognized as Commons?

Source: Shareable.net

When it comes to a person’s fundamental needs being met – nothing is more basic and human, than to share.  Right now the people of Detroit are being attacked by an unelected regime that represents the interests of the banks and large corporations. Their latest campaign has been to turn residents’ water off. Approximately 300,000 people shut off from water, because this makes sense in their corporate model. Detroiters sharing with neighbors hits all-time high.

Water is life.

We are all 85% water.

Water is a Human Right.

Happening right now in Detroit, next to the Great Lakes (25% of the fresh water for the world), under the guise of bankruptcy; residents are being targeted and pushed out of their homes and  subjected to unreasonable rate hikes, in a bid to ultimately privatize Detroit’s water.

“We are not saying that the services of running water should be free, we are saying it should be affordable and accessible by all, and we have put forth the Water Affordability Plan to that end, which was approved by our city council,” says Priscilla Dziubek, of the Peoples Water Board. This plan is self-funding and graduated much like the tax system where no one pays over a certain percentage of their income on water.

There is also an insidious double standard in the way that people are being treated when compared with corporations.  Corporations are not being threatened with shut off, yet many owe thousands. Families are being deprived of water for as little as $150 arrears, regardless of past payment history. This nominal amount can have dire effects.  Water shut-offs can lead to major health problems, home foreclosure, and removal of children by the state. The massive scale and rate at which these shut offs are occurring bespeaks an ulterior motive: further debilitation of the people of Detroit and an assertion that the water should be managed and controlled by a private corporation.

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