Theft of the Commons

[FILM] THEFTOFTHE COMMONS THIRST:FIGHTINGTHECORPORATETHEFT OFOURWATER AlanSnitowandDeborahKaufmanwithMichaelFox Jossey-Bass,2007 Review by Barbara Garson A few years ago I read that some South Africans had been arrested demonstrating against water cut-offs in the Johannesburg township of Soweto. I happen to be a shareholder in Suez, the private company that owned Johannesburg Water, so I responded by organizing a shareholder’s demonstration outside the South African consulate. I’d demonstrated so often outside the old apartheid consulate that I felt entitled to sound off againstthenewgovernment’spolicyofprivatizing water and charging everyone the fullcost. My protest was on the behalf of distant people, so poor that rate hikes led to Cholera epidemics when disconnected families took to collecting polluted water. YetIwasjoined,tomysurprise,byaffluent citizensofBergenCounty,NewJersey,who had their own grievances with my water company. Their water bills had also gone up when Suez took over. But their main complaint was that the company had sold off what they considered to be preserve land around the reservoir to real estate developers . As an investor I called Suez and learned that they ran profitable water systemsinseventeenU .S.statesandCanada. I had no idea that water privatization had gone so far in my own country. But I would have known if I’d seen the impressive documentary Thirst on PBS, for it describestheoppositiontowatertakeoversall around the United States. Now the filmmakers Deborah Kaufman and Alan Snitow have, with Michael Fox, given us a writtenversionofThirstfeaturingdetailed case studies of the successful and unsuccessful local fights that inevitably follow water privatization. It’s the book you need as soon as you hear about a privatization scheme in your region. As a matter of fact, you need it sooner than that. For if the watercompanieshavetheirway,youwon’t hear about water theft until the wells run dry. IntheUnitedStates,thosewhowantto privatize services like health, education, andtransportcancountonrallyingpeople againstbiggovernment.ButeveryWestern moviefanknowsimmediatelythattheman who wants to control the water is the villain . Water is so vital and so traditionally communalthattalkaboutsellingourwater to a private company automatically evokes anxiety. Furthermore, water privatization makes no economic sense. So corruption and concealment are often big factors in pushing the plans through. Most of the successful tactics explained in Thirst depend upon finding out early, spreading the word,anddemandingalocalvote. One lively chapter of Thirst describes how the governor of Wisconsin made a quiet agreement to allow Nestles (Perrier) to pump out huge amounts of state water for bottling. Nestle chose to start at a stream in a state park where they would, presumably,beleastnoticed.Butasithappened ,abigRepublicancontributorfished in that stream. A single letter to the governorgotthepumpingsightshiftedtoanoth er location. But a group called “Trout Unlimited”didn’tsharethealltoocommon not-in-my-trout-stream philosophy, alerting individuals in the less influential 72 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G M A R C H / A P R I L 2 0 0 8 kindofbalefulauthoritarianism,inwhich the soul and spirit are imprisoned and never allowed to take flight. Our deepest spiritual impulses are repressed and denied by secular education. As the cycle of history turns, we discover that the freedom of one era is the oppression and tyranny of another.” He cites Jacques Derrida (the founder of Deconstructionism) forhisnewinterestinspiritualitynowthat religion has been deconstructed, but says this is one strand of postmodernism that the secular university refuses to absorb. The book annoys at times, claiming to speakfor“youthspirituality”asifthatwas onething.ItisatitsbestwhenTaceyactually quotes his students. He is writing in large part to conventional church people, telling them what they are missing in the youngergeneration.WhatmanyofTacey’s students appear to want seems remarkablysimilartotheplausibleGodofSilver ’s book.Twoquotesgivethefeelofthebook: “By ‘spiritual’ we refer to an encounter with a source of mystery that transforms us as we come into contact with it.” “If we caretolistentowhatyoutharesayingthey are indicating that their spirituality is engaged spirituality, concerned with the welfare of the world and the sacredness of endangered nature,” as opposed to the escapism the older secular generation fears it is. Thisseemstomethecorechallengeof the twenty-first century: How to create spiritual movements inspired by our deepestvaluesandunderstandingofwhat is sacred, able to generate the social energy we need to transform our society along compassionate, inclusive, and ecological lines,andthatembracescienceandscholarship (and avoid cultism—but that’s a topic for another...