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Cartoon: Bannon
1 hour ago
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
The Battle for Water...
It's not just Bechtel in Bolivia. The efforts to privatize everything from the media, to historic landmarks, prisons, schools, public lands and even the voting system that controls our democracy has made significant gains in the "business" of providing municipal water within the United States.
In neighboring Illinois things are getting ugly. Several towns that once thought it was smart to cut their expenses by placing the responsibility for municipal water supplies in the hands of private companies have changed their minds. Angry citizens with huge monthly bills payable to RWE, a German firm aptly named American Water has communities up in arms...
"About 15 percent of America's water business is now in private ownership," says Chicago Tribune reporter E.A. Torriero in a May 28, 2006 article. "Those ranks have tripled in the last decade as cash-strapped cities seek ways to upgrade aging water systems by turning to private firms."
But now, a half-dozen Illinois communities - Pekin, Champaign, Urbana, Homer Glen, Orland Park and Bolingbrook - are bent on forcing Illinois American to the bargaining table, joining in a battle that Peoria has been fighting for 7 years.
American Water, once an "American" company was purchased by RWE in 2001 for $7.5 billion. They now have 1,800 operations in 29 states: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia - plus three Canadian provinces, serving 18 million people and generating $2.2 billion in revenues.
In Illinois grassroots groups are forming reports Torriero, "...to exchange battle plans, hold rallies and plot strategies. Busloads of angry suburban residents descended on Springfield this spring, demanding legislative help."
"The backlash has split towns, torn apart councils and spawned court fights that landed in state supreme courts," says Torriero.
E.A. Torriero's article in the Tribune, "Pressure turned up in the war on water - Towns push to make service public again," provides a wake up call for Wisconsin communities struggling to balance their budgets.
"Water for People and Nature: The Story of Corporate Water Privatization" is a power point presentation developed by the Sierra Club's Corporate Accountability Committee as an educational tool for interested citizens and activists wishing to learn more about water privatization issues and for use by communities mobilizing to prevent corporate privatization of their water services and resources.
Wake Up Ohio warns of "...a creeping shift toward proprietary claims on our Commons. This creep has most recently manifested itself in attempts by the large telecom companies to lobby for the privatization of the Internet. The Ports uproar... Now Exxon-Mobil is using its record windfall profits to fund junk-science to smear what scientists across the globe know for certain, that the earth is warming and American fossil fuel consumption leads the sorry list of probable causes."
In neighboring Illinois things are getting ugly. Several towns that once thought it was smart to cut their expenses by placing the responsibility for municipal water supplies in the hands of private companies have changed their minds. Angry citizens with huge monthly bills payable to RWE, a German firm aptly named American Water has communities up in arms...
"About 15 percent of America's water business is now in private ownership," says Chicago Tribune reporter E.A. Torriero in a May 28, 2006 article. "Those ranks have tripled in the last decade as cash-strapped cities seek ways to upgrade aging water systems by turning to private firms."
But now, a half-dozen Illinois communities - Pekin, Champaign, Urbana, Homer Glen, Orland Park and Bolingbrook - are bent on forcing Illinois American to the bargaining table, joining in a battle that Peoria has been fighting for 7 years.
American Water, once an "American" company was purchased by RWE in 2001 for $7.5 billion. They now have 1,800 operations in 29 states: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia - plus three Canadian provinces, serving 18 million people and generating $2.2 billion in revenues.
In Illinois grassroots groups are forming reports Torriero, "...to exchange battle plans, hold rallies and plot strategies. Busloads of angry suburban residents descended on Springfield this spring, demanding legislative help."
"The backlash has split towns, torn apart councils and spawned court fights that landed in state supreme courts," says Torriero.
E.A. Torriero's article in the Tribune, "Pressure turned up in the war on water - Towns push to make service public again," provides a wake up call for Wisconsin communities struggling to balance their budgets.
"Water for People and Nature: The Story of Corporate Water Privatization" is a power point presentation developed by the Sierra Club's Corporate Accountability Committee as an educational tool for interested citizens and activists wishing to learn more about water privatization issues and for use by communities mobilizing to prevent corporate privatization of their water services and resources.
Wake Up Ohio warns of "...a creeping shift toward proprietary claims on our Commons. This creep has most recently manifested itself in attempts by the large telecom companies to lobby for the privatization of the Internet. The Ports uproar... Now Exxon-Mobil is using its record windfall profits to fund junk-science to smear what scientists across the globe know for certain, that the earth is warming and American fossil fuel consumption leads the sorry list of probable causes."
Monday, June 05, 2006
Home for Christmas...
"I just remind everybody," Feingold said in New Hampshire this weekend, "Democrats were in the majority in the United States Senate when we voted for the Iraq war and we passed the USA Patriot Act. It's not enough to be just in the majority. You have to stand for something."
The New Republic's Michael Crowley says, "Feingold may emerge as the only 2008 Democratic candidate who voted against the Iraq war: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh all supported the 2002 war resolution, while governors Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Mark Warner of Virginia are hawkish-sounding centrists."
This weekend Feingold said what so many Americans are waiting to hear... "Why are so many Democrats too timid to say what everyone in America knows? It's time to redeploy the troops. It's time to bring the troops out of Iraq. I say bring them home by the end of the year."
Crowley explains why... "Feingold has not called for the United States to get out of Iraq "right now." But he is the only major congressional Democrat to set a specific withdrawal timetable. The impetus for his proposal was a trip he took to Iraq in February with a small Senate delegation that included, of all people, Hillary Clinton. Feingold had never visited Iraq before, and he was appalled by what he saw there. "We couldn't stay overnight in Iraq," he said recently. "We couldn't drive from the airport to the Green Zone. When we went to the Green Zone, the helicopters had to go just over the palm trees so they wouldn't get shot down. We never got to go out to see the rest of Baghdad, because they couldn't take us out safely. We wore flak jackets and helmets in the Green Zone. And people are worried about chaos if we leave?"
The New Republic's Michael Crowley says, "Feingold may emerge as the only 2008 Democratic candidate who voted against the Iraq war: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh all supported the 2002 war resolution, while governors Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Mark Warner of Virginia are hawkish-sounding centrists."
This weekend Feingold said what so many Americans are waiting to hear... "Why are so many Democrats too timid to say what everyone in America knows? It's time to redeploy the troops. It's time to bring the troops out of Iraq. I say bring them home by the end of the year."
Crowley explains why... "Feingold has not called for the United States to get out of Iraq "right now." But he is the only major congressional Democrat to set a specific withdrawal timetable. The impetus for his proposal was a trip he took to Iraq in February with a small Senate delegation that included, of all people, Hillary Clinton. Feingold had never visited Iraq before, and he was appalled by what he saw there. "We couldn't stay overnight in Iraq," he said recently. "We couldn't drive from the airport to the Green Zone. When we went to the Green Zone, the helicopters had to go just over the palm trees so they wouldn't get shot down. We never got to go out to see the rest of Baghdad, because they couldn't take us out safely. We wore flak jackets and helmets in the Green Zone. And people are worried about chaos if we leave?"
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