Boston: Corporation which Exploited Syria & Iraq Opposed by Black Bus Drivers' Union "Dump Veolia" campaign. Workers also helped "Free Aafia" Movement. Islam forbids Private Ownership of Natural Resources.
Islam often presents itself as the Middle Path between the two extremes of Capitalism and Communism. Islamic Law would eliminate the need for class struggle by creating a society where property owners are held accountable. Yet, no Islamic society exists in this century. What is important to understand however is that Islam considers environmental and mineral resources to belong to Allah. That means nobody can own them. An Islamic movement has to protect and utilize natural resources for the public benefit. Leftist speech refers to "The People" while Islamic speech invokes "Allah" - but essentially they are both saying the same thing: that water and other resources belong to the government and cannot be privatized.
We have been hearing the word "privatization" a lot as local governments for example Flint, Michigan take the water and sewage infrastructure out of public control and give it to a private company that then contaminates the water and destroys the pipes. The Flint move was touted as part of "austerity measures," even though the privatization actually cost the city much more. It was really about corporations lining their pockets with public money. When a government hires a "private" company to run basic civilian infrastructure, we are not talking about a small private company with scientific expertise to solve environmental or organizational problems. These "private" companies are actually huge international corporations, which are steadily consolidating their power to create what increasingly appears to be a global takeover of control that is able to overrule local governments and impose its will on the people via distribution or non-distribution of water, food, and resources. Islamic hadith prophesied the coming of such a global rule - Dajjal - that represents an evil force of oppression, which rules by controlling access to food, water, and other resources.
The poorest of the poor, from India to South America suffer from lack of access to clean water while their freedom of movement is often brutally hindered. These conditions do not arise because of the backwardness of the people but are due to deliberate maneuvers by the political elite. The poor are further degraded by unsafe working conditions and inadequate compensation from corporate bosses that prevent workers from organizing to demand improvements. The ongoing current struggle against multinational corporations is being spearheaded by labor unions and social justice groups in a wide variety of locations. Because of increasing global communication, activists involved in protests and strikes all over the world are not only able to offer solidarity but compare notes on the common global enemy and strategies for defeating it. An increasingly organized, informed and supported labor movement can only be a good thing.
The business connections between those building the wall between the US and Mexico and those building walls surrounding Palestinian areas are unsurprising, but not everyone is aware of the vast extent of the massive web of international corporate control of water, sewage, and transportation systems around the globe. A particularly evil French corporation named Veolia, which dates back to the time of Napoleon, made huge profits from French colonization of the West Indies and Algeria by building railways and water treatment plants. In 2013 the UN hired Veolia to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. Veolia thus profited off the Syrian civil war, while engaging in a political charade, as the UN continued to allow Assad to destroy infrastructure and mass murder political opponents using non-chemical weapons. Veolia is also profiting off the US occupation of Iraq, as the Iraqi Ministry has employed Veolia to build a water treatment plant.
This same company, Veolia, is currently engaged in privatizing the water and transportation systems in many cities around the US, committing fraud and embezzlement, contaminating water, reducing services to poor areas while increasing fees, and breaking union contracts.
In 2013, Veolia also took over the management of Boston Public School Bus transportation, sparking an ongoing struggle by the school bus drivers union USW Local 8751 against Veolia's unfair labor practices including payroll shortages, impossible demands on bus drivers, overcrowding of buses, failure to provide agreed upon benefits, and bad faith negotiations resulting in the attempted prosecution and termination of union organizers. Veolia's efforts to crush Boston's only black and immigrant-majority union failed due to hundreds of protesting bus drivers and incredible support from solidarity activists. This union's struggle is important on many levels because not only are they resisting a corporation that has already destroyed many other cities' water supply and workers' rights on several continents, but Boston bus drivers themselves have a decades-long history of supporting people's justice issues. They played a huge role on the front lines of desegregation, escorting black children to school through angry racist white mobs. Not only has the bus drivers' union stood against Israeli Apartheid but they did much of the organizing and provided the sound system for Boston's recent rally to support Dr. Aafia Siddique on March 8, 2016.
The Dump Veolia campaign is growing in many countries around the world from Chile to India, resulting in a surge of political and social networking. "Veolia is just one window to understand the need for joint struggle, how corporatization entangles us with past histories of oppression and present global resistances," writes Maia Brown for Stop Veolia Seattle. "When we understand the historical continuities, exemplified by Veolia, between early structures of Western Imperialism and industrialization and today's globalization and neoliberalism, we strengthen our ability to form new solidarities and communities of struggle."
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water. Show all posts
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Water in an American City Dangerously Contaminated
January 17, 2016
Flint, Michigan: Last week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency because of elevated levels of lead in the city of Flint's drinking water - 900 times the EPA limit. According to the Centers for Disease Control, lead exposure can affect the entire bodily system especially the brain. There is no safe blood level.
Now, a new deadly threat has appeared. 87 cases of Legionella or "Legionnaires' Disease" have recently occurred in the county, 10 of which were fatal. Legionella is a bacteria found naturally in untreated water. It can cause fever, headaches, shortness of breath and aching of the muscles. It is contracted by inhaling airborne water droplets, which cause a pneumonia-like infection in the lungs.
This is not Flint's first state of emergency because of water contamination. In the 1980s, water was flown in by helicopter because of a leaking gas station. This week, the National Guard was called in to distribute bottled water and water filters to people's homes. However, their efforts are too little and too late. Michigan State Police have been trudging through the snow with volunteers to distribute lead testing kits.
The radical deterioration of environmental safety standards is directly related to Flint's bankruptcy. Public Act 436, passed in 2012, allowed the governor to appoint an emergency manager over the financially distressed city. The emergency manager has broad dictatorial powers. Elected city officials have no standing against him. This unelected, governor appointed overseer can unilaterally overturn union contracts, sell off city assets, whatever it takes to make sure Bondholders are paid. Debt service to the banks has already been a strain on the city budget for decades.
"In 2014, the city of Flint, under the control of an 'emergency manager' appointed by the governor, was looking for ways to save money. To that end, the Snyder administration approved a plan in which the city would switch its water source: instead of getting water from Detroit, Flint would cut costs by drawing water directly from the Flint River... But in order to make Flint River water safe for people, it has to receive a special anti-corrosion treatment. Failing to treat the water sends corrosive river water through local pipes, it starts to eat through plumbing, and the result is lead poisoning," explains Steve Benen on MSNBC.
"The Snyder administration did not take the necessary precautions. What's more, as the community grew concerned about its water, administration officials initially told local residents not to worry and to keep drinking the water. The result, of course, is a public health crisis in which countless city residents, including many children, have been poisoned, which leads to severe and long lasting consequences. Snyder last week declared an official emergency - he also issued an apology of sorts on New Year's Eve - but the people of Flint still don't have safe, clean water."
"The decision to unhook from Detroit and get Flint's water from the highly polluted Flint River was made by Ed Kurtz, the unelected Emergency Manager of this majority African-American city. Kurtz's unelected successor, Darnell Earley, carried out the switch. After Flint emerged from emergency management, Snyder had the nerve to appoint Earley EM over Detroit Public Schools," writes Martha Grevatt in Workers World. "The pollutants in the Flint River — a result of decades of unchecked chemical dumping by General Motors and other companies — have made the river water highly corrosive. This allowed lead to leach from the aging pipes in Flint's system... Now, the corrosion of the lead pipes has destroyed the entire infrastructure. Even though the city has reconnected to the Detroit system, the water is still not safe because of the corroded pipes."
The emergency manager paid the notorious Veolia Corporation $40,000 to conduct a study which recommended reducing other unsafe pollutants with chemicals and using filters. Veolia did not address the lead pipe corrosion issue. Now that it will cost well over $1 billion to replace the corroded pipes, will Veolia emerge with an offer to rebuild the infrastructure in exchange for being allowed to privatize the water department? Unlikely.
Ignoring people reporting stomach problems, skin rashes and hair loss after the switch to the Flint River, Governor Snyder and officials in the state Department of Environmental Quality repeatedly assured Flint residents the water was safe to drink and bathe with. It took two years for the government to acknowledge the lead in the water, so that people would start drinking bottled water. Now with the outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease, it is not even safe to take a shower.
It was only because of community activists like pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, and Michigan ACLU investigative journalist Curt Guyette that a federal investigation ensued. Community members got their tap water tested and exposed the lead poisoning in the local children. University of Virginia professor and water safety specialist Marc Edwards played a leading role by filing a Freedom of Information Act request, obtaining emails between the governor and his of staff, Dennis Muchmore that clearly demonstrate their knowledge of the people's health problems and their deliberate decision to sweep them under the rug.
People are calling for Governor Snyder to go to jail. But meanwhile, many community members who refused to pay their water bills in protest, are getting shut-off notices. The United Nations has already gotten involved investigating water shut-offs in Detroit, where 10,000 people are living without running water in the city's attempt to get rid of blighted neighborhoods by making them uninhabitable. On January 15, 2016, US Congress passed a bill that blocks the EPA's clean water protection plan.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1637.htm
Flint, Michigan: Last week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency because of elevated levels of lead in the city of Flint's drinking water - 900 times the EPA limit. According to the Centers for Disease Control, lead exposure can affect the entire bodily system especially the brain. There is no safe blood level.
Now, a new deadly threat has appeared. 87 cases of Legionella or "Legionnaires' Disease" have recently occurred in the county, 10 of which were fatal. Legionella is a bacteria found naturally in untreated water. It can cause fever, headaches, shortness of breath and aching of the muscles. It is contracted by inhaling airborne water droplets, which cause a pneumonia-like infection in the lungs.
This is not Flint's first state of emergency because of water contamination. In the 1980s, water was flown in by helicopter because of a leaking gas station. This week, the National Guard was called in to distribute bottled water and water filters to people's homes. However, their efforts are too little and too late. Michigan State Police have been trudging through the snow with volunteers to distribute lead testing kits.
The radical deterioration of environmental safety standards is directly related to Flint's bankruptcy. Public Act 436, passed in 2012, allowed the governor to appoint an emergency manager over the financially distressed city. The emergency manager has broad dictatorial powers. Elected city officials have no standing against him. This unelected, governor appointed overseer can unilaterally overturn union contracts, sell off city assets, whatever it takes to make sure Bondholders are paid. Debt service to the banks has already been a strain on the city budget for decades.
"In 2014, the city of Flint, under the control of an 'emergency manager' appointed by the governor, was looking for ways to save money. To that end, the Snyder administration approved a plan in which the city would switch its water source: instead of getting water from Detroit, Flint would cut costs by drawing water directly from the Flint River... But in order to make Flint River water safe for people, it has to receive a special anti-corrosion treatment. Failing to treat the water sends corrosive river water through local pipes, it starts to eat through plumbing, and the result is lead poisoning," explains Steve Benen on MSNBC.
"The Snyder administration did not take the necessary precautions. What's more, as the community grew concerned about its water, administration officials initially told local residents not to worry and to keep drinking the water. The result, of course, is a public health crisis in which countless city residents, including many children, have been poisoned, which leads to severe and long lasting consequences. Snyder last week declared an official emergency - he also issued an apology of sorts on New Year's Eve - but the people of Flint still don't have safe, clean water."
"The decision to unhook from Detroit and get Flint's water from the highly polluted Flint River was made by Ed Kurtz, the unelected Emergency Manager of this majority African-American city. Kurtz's unelected successor, Darnell Earley, carried out the switch. After Flint emerged from emergency management, Snyder had the nerve to appoint Earley EM over Detroit Public Schools," writes Martha Grevatt in Workers World. "The pollutants in the Flint River — a result of decades of unchecked chemical dumping by General Motors and other companies — have made the river water highly corrosive. This allowed lead to leach from the aging pipes in Flint's system... Now, the corrosion of the lead pipes has destroyed the entire infrastructure. Even though the city has reconnected to the Detroit system, the water is still not safe because of the corroded pipes."
The emergency manager paid the notorious Veolia Corporation $40,000 to conduct a study which recommended reducing other unsafe pollutants with chemicals and using filters. Veolia did not address the lead pipe corrosion issue. Now that it will cost well over $1 billion to replace the corroded pipes, will Veolia emerge with an offer to rebuild the infrastructure in exchange for being allowed to privatize the water department? Unlikely.
Ignoring people reporting stomach problems, skin rashes and hair loss after the switch to the Flint River, Governor Snyder and officials in the state Department of Environmental Quality repeatedly assured Flint residents the water was safe to drink and bathe with. It took two years for the government to acknowledge the lead in the water, so that people would start drinking bottled water. Now with the outbreak of Legionnaire's Disease, it is not even safe to take a shower.
It was only because of community activists like pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, and Michigan ACLU investigative journalist Curt Guyette that a federal investigation ensued. Community members got their tap water tested and exposed the lead poisoning in the local children. University of Virginia professor and water safety specialist Marc Edwards played a leading role by filing a Freedom of Information Act request, obtaining emails between the governor and his of staff, Dennis Muchmore that clearly demonstrate their knowledge of the people's health problems and their deliberate decision to sweep them under the rug.
People are calling for Governor Snyder to go to jail. But meanwhile, many community members who refused to pay their water bills in protest, are getting shut-off notices. The United Nations has already gotten involved investigating water shut-offs in Detroit, where 10,000 people are living without running water in the city's attempt to get rid of blighted neighborhoods by making them uninhabitable. On January 15, 2016, US Congress passed a bill that blocks the EPA's clean water protection plan.
http://newtrendmag.org/ntma1637.htm
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