Thirst, the movie

[jaqeboy]

Wednesday, Aug. 8, at 7 pm:

Film THIRST

Countries all over the world are losing control over the essential resource of water when corporations are buying up local water, as in Northwood. This excellent film tells that global story. Part of Summer Film Series on current global and international issues sponsored by CREATE A PEACEFUL WORLD BY SUSTAINING OUR FUTURE at Dover Friends Meeting, 141 Central Ave., Dover.

For more information call Randy Kezar at 642-8265 or Phyllis Killam-Abell at 580-1934.

Location: Dover Friends Meeting House
             141 Central Avenue
             Dover, New-Hampshire

Time:     7 PM

Flyer for the film series is upcoming and includes the Money Masters and an entertainment film (details to follow).

[Insurgent]

More left-wing global warming nonsense from a parade of pinko commie idiots to scare us into giving up all our money to the UN agenda, so we can be herded into shires, and mass euthanasia of people can be justified, so we can 'save the whales!'. Nice.

[Insurgent]

Just kidding, but I couldn't resist! 

In all seriousness, this looks like a really interesting film. While the water crisis may not seem that serious in New Hampshire, it is a massive crisis in other parts of the world, and getting worse. Where will we be without drinkable water? When resources run out, the wealthy and powerful have a tendency to want to control who has access to them.

[Dreepa]

Las Vegas will be interesting.
LA soon will be interesting.

I wonder what this guy's take on have the water taken by a city.  (LA)  They 'quietly' started buying up lots of land way up in N.CA long before they needed it... smart.

Hmm next Wed.. this might be interesting.

[Rochelle]

Where will we be without drinkable water? When resources run out, the wealthy and powerful have a tendency to want to control who has access to them.

The best plan in that case is to be the wealthy and powerful

Either that or become their bitch. I guess the choice is up to you...

[EthanAllen]

In NH the groundwater and surface water (over 20 acres) is all owned in common as an individual equal access opportunity right. Just like exercising your freedom of speech rights within our common right of ways contained within the sidewalk, the role of government is to insure no one's common right is infringed upon but NOT to decide who can speak or what may be said.

[jaqeboy]

More left-wing global warming nonsense from a parade of pinko commie idiots to scare us into giving up all our money to the UN agenda, so we can be herded into shires, and mass euthanasia of people can be justified, so we can 'save the whales!'. Nice.

Well, whales need water, so we have to save the water to save the whales. Duh!

[jaqeboy]

There are major areas of intellectual/moral question here, with water and other "commons" resources, like EthanAllen mentions. Here's a few actual cases that come to my mind re water:

Item: Locally, in Northwood, a corporation wants to establish an enterprise to draw water from the ground, bottle it and sell it. Many want freedom of enterprise for the corporation to do business, many others want to be assured that the volume pumped out doesn't affect the neighboring users of the "commons" water resource. I've left out all the details, since I haven't followed this one closely.

Item: Locally, in Nashua, the privately-owned, but monopoly-privileged water supplier to the City of Nashua, Pennichuck Water Works wanted to sell out (ie, sell the shares of the company to) a Philadelphia corporation, who, in turn, was owned by a French corporation. The people of the town were so shocked by the potential that their water could be owned by a foreign corporation, that they fought back. Now the city is in a protracted legal battle to take the Pennichuck lands (containing the water) by eminent domain. I've observed that many libertarians have a knee-jerk reaction to the eminent domain taking, but no concern for the taking of part of their "commons" by a foreign corporation. This case is a whole lot more complicated than this, with land deals, a former Mayor being president of PWW and dubious payments from the City to PWW, etc, which would take volumes to recount.

Item: Cases of pollution of groundwater, underground water, rivers and streams - how to deal with properly, esp. in cases where the polluting corporation is bankrupt or has retreated overseas. Lots of cases like this in New-Hampshire, eg:

     Rail tie manufacturer, Koppers in Nashua (bought by British company) who used toxic brew to pressure treat rail ties that were then left to drip into ground, which now seeps into the Merrimack River.

     Machine tool company, OK Tool in Milford (now defunct) who dumped cutting fluids out their back door for years which seeped into  - now an EPA Superfund site.

     Paint manufacturer, Fletcher Paints in Milford (now defunct) who dumped various chemicals into their soil (through drains? or out back?) - now an EPA Superfund site.

     Not to mention that everyone used to just use the Merrimack River as a common sewer, industry and municipalities alike. Many towns could tell what color fabrics the mills were manufacturing that day by looking at the downstream water color!

Item: reports I have heard that many pharmaceuticals now are in the water supply (having passed out of the bodies of the people into the common water treatment systems and having not been removed there, proceeding into the rivers, then back into the unsuspecting people through incoming water treatment systems and not getting removed there). I don't have a source to cite here.

Item: "...report, which found more than 350 chemicals, from substances such as perfume, suntan lotion and pesticides, in breast milk samples." (cite: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/391514.stm), presumably coming in from the water supply and the food cycle (which depends on their water supplies).

Item: Bolivian Water War, pitting the people against a private London corporation IWL (jointly owned by Italian Edison and Bechtel) attempting to purchase their commons water and meter even their use of their own private wells.

So, the issue mentioned in the movie is "corporations buying up local water." So, the challenging question for libertarians on this issue is, "are you going to favor 'privatization' as a good, or are you in favor of protecting the commons from monopolization?" I have some thoughts on this, but I'll get them out later, esp. re governments being instituted to protect people, not legal fiction corporations.

And, btw, I don't necessarily think someone's a "pinko commie idiot" for being concerned about their "precious bodily fluids." 

PS: Looks like the post announcing the movie doesn't have a place listed, so I'll edit that with details.

[jaqeboy]

The film is showing at the Dover Friends Meeting House. Those folks always do interesting stuff. The group CREATE A PEACEFUL WORLD BY SUSTAINING OUR FUTURE is just a group of members, including Bill Woodward, Randy Kezar and others. Randy sent me a Word doc of their film series, which I'll send to anyone who requests it from me at nhfree@ijaq.net. Otherwise, I'll just copy and paste the list of films below:

--------paste in from their flier---------------
July  11: MONEY TALKS: PROFITS BEFORE PATIENT SAFETY
A documentary that exposes how the pharmaceutical industry's marketing tactics ultimately compromise healthcare.

July 18: SALUD
A cash-strapped country, Cuba, has what some call the best health care system in the world. This documentary describes how they do it.

July 25: AMERICA: FROM FREEDOM TO FACISM
This  latest excellent documentary by Aaron Russo  examines the systematic  erosion of civil liberties in the US..

Aug. 1: THE MONEY MASTERS, Part 1.
Another excellent film on the banking system; it  describes how the growth of  financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and a use of that power for the direct benefit  of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.

Aug. 8: THIRST
Counties all over the world are losing control over the essential resource of water when corporations are buying up local water, as in
Northwood.  This excellent film tells the global story.

Aug.15: MONEY MASTERS, PART 2.
The continuing story of how banks create the world's money.  What does this information mean for us?

Aug.22: BABETTE'S FEAST
This is the story of Babette, a mysterious refugee from the French Revolution, who arrives in a small village on the bleak coast of Denmark. Who is this stranger treats the entire village to a fabulous feast? Based on a story by Isak Dinesen, it won the best foreign language film in 1987.
-----------------end paste-----------

[jaqeboy]

Thanks, law

[error]

Water should not BE held in common. What do you think is causing all the water shortage problems?

[EthanAllen]

Water should not BE held in common. What do you think is causing all the water shortage problems?

The use of water that is held in common as an individual equal access right should be restricted to the replenishment rate.

[CNHT]

Insurgent, since I did not post that response you attributed to me on this particular thread, I fully expect you will post a disclaimer saying so.

Once again, in the spirit of non-interventionism, I could give a hoot what other countries do.

[J’raxis 270145]

Item: Locally, in Northwood, a corporation wants to establish an enterprise to draw water from the ground, bottle it and sell it. Many want freedom of enterprise for the corporation to do business, many others want to be assured that the volume pumped out doesn't affect the neighboring users of the "commons" water resource. I've left out all the details, since I haven't followed this one closely.

Let them do whatever they want with the water... under their own property. Either they can build an impermeable underground wall to prevent water from surrounding property flowing into their property as their own water is used up (obviously not a practical solution), or they can compensate surrounding property owners for the water they take.

Item: Locally, in Nashua, the privately-owned, but monopoly-privileged water supplier to the City of Nashua, Pennichuck Water Works wanted to sell out (ie, sell the shares of the company to) a Philadelphia corporation, who, in turn, was owned by a French corporation. The people of the town were so shocked by the potential that their water could be owned by a foreign corporation, that they fought back. Now the city is in a protracted legal battle to take the Pennichuck lands (containing the water) by eminent domain. I've observed that many libertarians have a knee-jerk reaction to the eminent domain taking, but no concern for the taking of part of their "commons" by a foreign corporation. This case is a whole lot more complicated than this, with land deals, a former Mayor being president of PWW and dubious payments from the City to PWW, etc, which would take volumes to recount.

Ah, yes, my favorite kind of hypocrite—the corporate apologist masquerading as a "libertarian," cherry-picking values that aid in his true cause while blithely ignoring their application to anyone or anything else. Most libertarianism among mainstream conservatives seems to be of this type; fortunately we don't seem to have too many of them among us.

There is a solution to this water issue other than an eminent domain taking, however—and it's one that would fit with libertarian ideals. The city attempts to buy the water supplier from whichever of these companies currently owns it. Once they gain ownership of it, through a normal voluntary sale, they re-privatize it—not by selling it off to an extant corporation, but by creating a new, non-profit corporation explicitly chartered to provide a service to the public, and to never allow itself to be bought by a for-profit corporation. In order to recoup the tax dollars the city spent on the purchase, the corporation could be organized for the first few years to remit some of its revenue to the city.

This kind of privatization fits nicely with the primary rationales for privatizing public resources—that government is less efficient than the free market, that the government shouldn't use tax dollars to provide services to people, &c.. What it isn't, of course, is a way of letting big business buy up valuable public resources, so I'm sure plenty of people who call themselves "libertarians" (those mainstream conservatives) will oppose it.

The best thing about this is that, for people who believe that such properties should be held "for the common good," this kind of privatization scheme is actually a significant improvement over government ownership—a private corporation is legally bound to uphold its charter, as it is a form of contract, whereas a government can at any time repeal laws passed by previous governments. We can even see this being demonstrated nowadays—all the lands that past administrations have bought up or taken, in order to preserve such land for the common good, are now being sold off by the Bush administration to private for-profit corporations, and there's no way to stop it.

[jaqeboy]

More left-wing global warming nonsense from a parade of pinko commie idiots to scare us into giving up all our money to the UN agenda, so we can be herded into shires, and mass euthanasia of people can be justified, so we can 'save the whales!'. Nice.

Any of the left-wing global warming parade of pinko commie idiots to 'save the whales!' brigade want to carpool over to Dover Friends to see this movie? Call Jack @ 233-1058, if so. We could meet up in Concord again at Keene Medical Products parking lot, or in Manchester at Murphy's.