[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [socialistdiscussion] Detroit water shutoffs

Tue Jul 29 10:03:18 EDT 2014

45000 households is lots of folks with no water.

Far worse is threatened.  The post office was asked to deliver those
little sample boxes of Tide just to taunt them.

Seems that 50% of Detroiters are poor,
and the other half is unemployed.

I suggest they all run like hell
outa there and depart Detroit
on the last train for Clarksville or
San Antone or Funky Nassau, or anywhere.
Ma'am, gimme 2 tickets to Out-a-here.

Alternatively if they all showed up at the city hall with water pistols
and piles of dirty smelly socks it would make quite an impact.

Maybe there should be a national campaign of
"mail your dirty smelly socks to Detroit".

Mo' them smelly sox for Mo'town.

On 07/29/2014 08:51 PM, David Johnson via Peace-discuss wrote:
>
> I will be interviewing a Woman from Detroit, who has been a community 
> fightback activist against the " Shock Doctrine " tactics being used 
> against the Working people of Detroit, on the " World Labor Hour " 
> radio program this Saturday Aug. 2nd at 11:30 AM Central Time at 
> www.weft.org.
> If any of you would like to submit some questions for her, please 
> e-mail me at : davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net
>
> David Johnson
> Champaign, IL
>
>
>
> There has been little if anything on this list about the current very 
> real and very ominous situation in Detroit, where the Detroit Water 
> and Sewage Department shut off water to 45,000 homes in May and is 
> threatening far worse. This extends and deepens an assault which has 
> included, among other things, a state takeover and near-complete 
> privatization of education; shutting down or sharply cutting back 
> essential public services; cuts to city workers' pensions -- including 
> to those already being received by retirees. The unemployment rate in 
> Detroit is now about 50%, and the poverty rate is about 50% as well. 
> [For context: 50 years ago, Detroit had the highest median income and 
> the highest overall workers' living standards of all U.S. cities.]
>
> For the past few years, as they systematically run through and exhaust 
> the various austerity measures that will siphon still more into 
> private coffers at the expense of Detroit's workers and unemployed, 
> Detroit privatizers and financiers have increasingly looked to 
> privatizing Detroit's water department. And so, the Detroit-area media 
> now claims that receiving an adequate amount of water isn't a human right.
>
> The American Postal Workers Union, at its national convention, has 
> passed a resolution against these water shutoffs. The resolution 
> contains some decent descriptive information on the water shutoffs, as 
> well as language condemning it. That's a start, I guess. But it 
> doesn't really connect the water shutoffs with the vicious austerity 
> attacks across the board in Michigan, orchestrated by capital and 
> coordinated by the state. Worse, there's no attempt to organize -- or 
> even to call on labor to take the lead in organizing -- a campaign of 
> escalating action against this naked act of war.
>
> Here's the resolution as passed by the APWU convention.
>
> Jack
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> *Resolution on Detroit Water Shutoffs*
>
> **
>
> *Whereas, *the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department shut off the 
> water in 45,000 homes in May, and is continuing to shut off people’s 
> water, and
>
> *Whereas, *the DWSD has threatened to cut off water to as many as 
> 150,000 Detroit residents, and
>
> *Whereas, *the United Nations has condemned these actions as an 
> affront to human rights, and
>
> *Whereas, *Corporate entities that are way behind on their water bills 
> have not faced water shutoffs while poor and working families have 
> been hard hit, and
>
> *Whereas, *the water rate for Detroit residents is double the national 
> average, and
>
> *Whereas, *Families whose water was turned off have had their children 
> taken away as they are deemed to be “unfit parents,” and
>
> *Whereas, *a private contractor is being paid 5.6 million dollars by a 
> supposedly bankrupt city to turn off poor people’s water, and
>
> *Whereas, *The 5.6 million dollars paid to this contractor would pay 
> for a whole lot of poor people’s water bills, and
>
> *Whereas, *these actions are truly inhumane, and
>
> *Whereas, *the labor movement stands for fairness and justice 
> throughout our society, and,
>
> *Whereas, *the APWU seeks a grand alliance with the labor movement and 
> the community, therefore be it
>
> **
>
> *Resolved, *that the American Postal Workers Union joins progressive 
> organizations in calling for a moratorium on water shutoffs and the 
> restoration of water service in Detroit, and be it further
>
> *Resolved, *that copies of this resolution be sent to the AFL-CIO as 
> well as to Detroit’s Mayor, Emergency Manager, and Michigan’s Governor.
>
> __._,_.___
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Posted by: Jack Gerson <jackrgerson at gmail.com>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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