Water shutoff in Detriot.

[The Dark Side of Will]

In fact, the first article I linked points out the millions of dollars corporations owe but haven't paid and still have running water.

That article's laughably conspiratorial.

So if we take what mrsleeve wrote at face value, that rates will go up as revenue dwindles, as more and more people can't pay their bills and have their water shut off the municipal water source will become increasingly insolvent resulting in even higher rates and even less people able to pay until the bankrupt city loses it's ability to serve the entire community.

But ignore that for a minute...it's not as if 80,000 people can go shit in the lake and bring potable water back home in buckets, either right? Your response sounds like we might be missing the forest for the trees.

The water being shut off forces the hard financial decisions we've previously discussed. It's not like the 1500-3000/week shutoffs stay shut off once the bill is paid. There aren't 80,000 people without water at the same time.

In any case, you seemed to have misunderstood what my post #28 was responding to. You made the claim that inequality had nothing to do with the situation in Detroit so I explained how someone making that argument would link the current problems to historical inequality and racism.

Aside from the claims by your article about inappropriate use of police enforcement, what laws and policies does Detroit have on the books that are racist?
I think we're all aware of how poor people remain poor, how mismanaged and ineffective governments and law enforcement are/can be.
Poor blacks in Detroit don't deserve treatment by the public utilities & government institutions that's any different than the treatment received by rich or poor whites.

The fact (if it is such) that a golf course owes money doesn't mean black people who haven't paid their bills shouldn't have their water shut off. It means that the golf course should have its water shut off too.

You want to spin a discussion about poverty into a discussion about racism.
How do you feel about the impoverished white people in Appalachia? ...who as a group are hopeless enough that alcoholism skyrockets among them compared to the population at large. There are plenty of reasons why they remain poor, but you don't have the investigation-deflecting shield of historical racism to hold in front of them.

Isn't 82% percent black "mostly" black? How is that a red herring?

It is mostly black. That's why OP's article's implication that black customers are being preferentially shut off is bogus.

I've read and seen reports of people having to drill as deep as 300 feet to get to water.

If the water table's 299 feet down, you'll naturally have to drill a 300 foot well to access it. Wells that the military drills in Afghanistan regularly exceed 800 feet.

in addition to just water use, these companies have been exempted from regulation in regards to how much they use *and* the impacts they have on the water table.

My overall point was that private corporations are sucking and fucking our nation's potable water and the issues we're seeing in detroit are going to become nationwide. over time we're going to see these kinds of issue hitting impoverished communities and communities of color harder than other communities.

Are you blaming the vast right wing corporate conspiracy?
The American Corporate Conspiratorial Council (AC3)?

The blame needs to go on spineless government and the unaccountable two party duopoly that prevents The People from electing worthwhile leaders.

likewise, it doesn't make sense to have a right to bear arms or right to freedom of speech if we don't have a right to drink water. it's hard to comprehend how one could secure a right to carry a gun and defend personal liberty if that liberty didn't include the right to do the most basic function of human life--drinking water.

If the poor people can stop paying their bills and don't have their water shut off, who's going to pay the bills at all? Not shutting water off results in the system becoming insolvent and completely shutting down more quickly. Water systems don't run on Unicorn farts.

Nothing is a right that someone else has to do for you, or that would require you to work in order to provide it for yourself.

//

I'm not sure whether to shake my head or have a good laugh at people who think that "austerity" is an "agenda" or that it is something that people have the option to choose not to do.

[The Dark Side of Will]

http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/u-n-to-in...ater-shutoffs/

Ahhh... We FINALLY get to see a number. Of 324,000 accounts and 46,000 notices, about 4,500 have had their water shut off. That's 1.4%.

ONE POINT FOUR PERCENT.

[ParsedOut]

Ahhh... We FINALLY get to see a number. Of 324,000 accounts and 46,000 notices, about 4,500 have had their water shut off. That's 1.4%.

ONE POINT FOUR PERCENT.

WND?! You call that credible source? /sarcasm

[The Dark Side of Will]

Credible or not, it's the first NUMBER I've actually seen putting a size on the "problem".

[smooth]

You want to spin a discussion about poverty into a discussion about racism.
How do you feel about the impoverished white people in Appalachia? ...who as a group are hopeless enough that alcoholism skyrockets among them compared to the population at large. There are plenty of reasons why they remain poor, but you don't have the investigation-deflecting shield of historical racism to hold in front of them.

If the water table's 299 feet down, you'll naturally have to drill a 300 foot well to access it. Wells that the military drills in Afghanistan regularly exceed 800 feet.

Are you blaming the vast right wing corporate conspiracy?
The American Corporate Conspiratorial Council (AC3)?

It's not possible to discuss poverty in this country without at least understanding it's relationship to racism. You can't simply wave 200 years of legal and informal racist laws and policies away and claim everyone is currently on equal footing.

As I mentioned in that lengthy post that you seem to have glossed over, you can find a number of the points I made regarding black poverty dovetail with policies that have worked to subordinate whites in abject poverty, as well. Not many of them operate specifically on the group you're mentioning here, but it does bear mentioning that in terms of the raw numbers, white poor outnumber blacks by a very wide margin. Even so, the rate of black poverty is significantly higher (as is the case with all minorities) so if one is a minority then his or her chances of being impoverished are much higher than a similarly situated white person.

Clearly one needs to drill water down to the depth of the water table. If you truncate one's sentences then it simply seems like you're stating a pointless truism. However, since I pointed out that those wells weren't 300 feet deep prior to corporations coming in and sucking the water barebones and *now* they need to drill deeper...because land use and property rights don't designate how far down one can go under another's "property" so they can angel their "straws" and simply cross-cut someone's else's water source. That's neither here nor there, however, this isn't a thread about fracking. My overall point is that water is a scarce resource and that impoverished populations are going to be precluded from accessing it at higher frequency as time goes on.

This is the second time I've seen you make a general point that things that others have to work for don't translate into rights. That premise of yours is factually incorrect. We recognize a number of basic human rights in this country that depend on the work of others. The one that has had you all up in arms, so to speak, for the past week is a prime example of this. Unless you guys are manufacturing your weapons in your basements your 2nd amendment right depends on the work and manufacturing of others. Likewise does the exercise of freedom of speech. Of course, one can walk around mumbling political speech to passersby on the street but it's fairly innocuous unless one has access to a printing press or the internet. Thinking about exercise of religion the entire claim hinges on one's ability to attach belief to an organized and recognized religious movement. Someone claiming religious belief on some personal basis will get zero traction in a law suit regarding the exercise of those beliefs. If you think about the right to vote and hold property, all of those rights depend on the work and functionality of others. You can't even vote, it's simply not possible, without vast organizational infrastructure that goes largely uncompensated from the individual voter. So that argument you continue to make simply falls apart with the most rudimentary level of scrutiny.

Finally, I can't really respond to your question regarding vast right wing conspiracies. For one thing, I don't even know what you're talking about. Please explain your position on that point more clearly. Secondly, I don't personally attach corporate behavior to political ideology. to my understanding, corporations are designed to generate profit. They don't subordinate that abstract goal to political action separate from whichever political party appears to maximize that goal.

Also, in case I didn't make it clear, there isn't anything like a conspiracy going on. I stated that corporations were blatantly running roughshod over private rights and that, by definition, precludes a conspiracy. Perhaps if you read what I wrote instead of thinking you have a good grasp of where I'm coming from and simply assuming things about me as a person you wouldn't continue to fall into this trap of misstating my beliefs.

[The Dark Side of Will]

I will always get behind equality of opportunity as a driving concept, but will never get behind equality of outcome as a driving concept.

Are they not equal before the law now?

Yes, historical racism affected all of these people's progenitors and some of the people themselves directly.
There's a lot more involved in why they are STILL poor, especially since the city itself was very rich, prosperous and thriving 50 years ago.

There is no argument that Detroit, being 82% black, voted into office exactly who the black community wanted in office. Detroit normally goes <5% Republican in elections, so there's no doubt they voted the party they "wanted" (if anyone actually wants either of the parties with whom we're currently yoked) into office. They were absolutely not discriminated against on an institutional basis. There is no political conspiracy. The burden of blame lies very clearly on the shoulders of the elected city governments of the last 30 years.
It's the failure of a one-party system; it's the failure of political involvement by unions; it's the failure populist policies; it's the failure of the people to maintain control of their government

[The Dark Side of Will]

Because I was curious: http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/in...n_revenue.html

[smooth]

When I'm done wrenching I'll come back and define what sociologists mean when using the term institutional racism, but it's not a noun like you're using it in that sentence which goes against how people generally think of "institutions" so it's understandable when people confuse the term.

The short version is that institutional racism is referring to when the legal racism that existed historically persisted and propagated to the point that it became woven into our social fabric. It's simply not possible to say blacks don't suffer from institutional racism without ignoring the timeline I laid out on that lengthy post. It means that people may not be or act racist now but one small part of institutional racism is that issue I was talking about how blacks were only allowed to buy homes in crappy areas of cities and their schools went underfunded for decades as a result of those lower tax revenues. So unless those inner city schools get an external infusion of funding then they can't really catch up to their wealthier suburban counterparts. That's an example of institutional racism--not that the political parties are specifically racist or that superintendents are individually racist--it's speaking to how those racist policies in our history continue to operate on everyday lives currently.

This isn't necessarily about equality of outcome. I'm speaking primarily about equality of opportunity along with you. But it's very difficult, if not impossible, to argue that urban poor blacks in Compton have the same or even remotely close to the opportunities of wealthier whites in LA suburbs. The schools alone are vastly different in their ability to serve the populations. At a minimum we'd need to infuse funding into primary education and child services from either a federal or statewide level, rather than local, just to try and ameliorate these kinds of issues I'm discussing. Then you and I can discuss whether equality of outcome is something either of us even wanted...but currently we're not even there yet.

[mrsleeve]

oh boy here we go

[anabolice30]

^^

http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/21/which-places-spent-most-per-student-on-education/

Throwing money at a problem does not make it go away.

[agent]

it doesn't make sense to have a right to bear arms or right to freedom of speech if we don't have a right to drink water. it's hard to comprehend how one could secure a right to carry a gun and defend personal liberty if that liberty didn't include the right to do the most basic function of human life--drinking water.

You're confusing personal liberties with the subsidy of them. Just because we have a right to bear arms doesn't mean government - at any level - is tasked with providing us with guns.

[Thizzelle]

but weez thursty

[ParsedOut]

You're confusing personal liberties with the subsidy of them. Just because we have a right to bear arms doesn't mean government - at any level - is tasked with providing us with guns.

Anyone with half a brain can make this most basic distinction, more bullshit spewed from the mouth of fruit smoothie. I'm sure he'll respond with another 5 paragraph diatribe on some loosely related academic study. Wait for it...

[Farbin Kaiber]

Anyone with half a brain can make this most basic distinction, more bullshit spewed from the mouth of fruit smoothie. I'm sure he'll respond with another 5 paragraph diatribe on some loosely related academic study. Wait for it...

I think, no, I know I enjoy Einhander more...

[ParsedOut]

I think, no, I know I enjoy Einhander more...

Ehh, at least smoothie tries to occasionally have a discussion as opposed to einhangler's one line troll posts, I will admit they are sometimes more entertaining.