Detroit Solidarity Demonstration July 18: WALK ON THE WATER
By Charles P. Pierce on July 18, 2014
Esquire Blog
DETROIT -- The march began at Washington and Larned, just down the block from Cobo Hall, where the Netroots Nation hootenanny was being held. There were nurses, and retired steelworkers with looted pensions, and guys dressed up like Robin Hood. They walked down Larned, chanting their slogans and singing their songs. They were protesting something that very few of them ever thought would be an actual political issue in the United States of America in the 21st Century. They were demanding water.
It is now past cliche to say that you never thought you'd have to relitigate, say, birth control, or child labor, but 30 years of conservative dominance leavened with just a touch here and there of centrist Democratic control, three decades of bad ideas prevailing even when they don't necessarily win - all of this should have taught us one thing: there was nothing that was produced by a century of progressive policy that was considered to be settled by the people trying to unravel it. (This includes Social Security, which, because of its inherent power, was able to hold off both Republican privatizers and Democratic "reformers," at least for now.)
But, seriously, water?
We are litigating whether citizens have a right to water?
Here?
Now?
The whole thing sounds preposterous. But, since last spring, some 15,000 Detroit residents, living under a special manager because Governor Rick Snyder decided that democracy was too damn expensive, have had their access to water denied. Most of them were in arrears on their water bills; the cutoff for the cutoff was two months or $150 behind, which is ridiculously low, especially in a city with 23 percent unemployment and with 38 percent of people living below the poverty line. The shutoffs are estimated to be affecting 100,000 people in one way or another.
But the special manager, a jumped-up pol named Kevyn Orr, is seen by most people here as playing a longer game than just knuckling the city's poor. With the city in bankruptcy, a lot of the people in Detroit are figuring that Orr is trying to get rid of the $5.7 billion in water department debt as a prelude to privatizing the water supply for the city. And, given our experience with private prisons, doesn't that fill you with optimism?
Still, though, water?
"It's something you never thought you'd argue about," said Michelle Conyers, a nurse from Ann Arbor who was marching with all the others. "I mean, water? What are you supposed to drink? How are you supposed to wash? How are you supposed to flush your toilets? It's almost like someone wants to push this city into being some sort of third-world nation."
The tactics used to shut off water to the citizens are beginning to trouble Judge Steven Rhodes, who is presiding over the city's bankruptcy. On Wednesday, Rhodes came down fairly hard on Orr's handling of the problem, saying that it was yet another body blow to the city's national and international reputation.
"Your residential shutoff program has caused not only a lot of anger in the city and also a lot of hardship," Rhodes told Darryl Latimer, deputy director of the water department. The other issue: "It's caused a lot of bad publicity for the city it doesn't need right now." He told water officials to be back in court Monday to update him on city initiatives to help residents in arrears keep their water on.
So they marched, because the louder they chanted, the more the rest of the world would hear, and the more Judge Rhodes might lean on the city because he didn't want the world to hear what was going on in Detroit, where people are marching.
For water.
In 2014.
 |
| National demonstration in Detroit against water shut-offs on Friday July 18, 2014. The march and rally was held in conjunction with the Net Roots Conference and the National Nurses United. |
Esquire Blog
DETROIT -- The march began at Washington and Larned, just down the block from Cobo Hall, where the Netroots Nation hootenanny was being held. There were nurses, and retired steelworkers with looted pensions, and guys dressed up like Robin Hood. They walked down Larned, chanting their slogans and singing their songs. They were protesting something that very few of them ever thought would be an actual political issue in the United States of America in the 21st Century. They were demanding water.
It is now past cliche to say that you never thought you'd have to relitigate, say, birth control, or child labor, but 30 years of conservative dominance leavened with just a touch here and there of centrist Democratic control, three decades of bad ideas prevailing even when they don't necessarily win - all of this should have taught us one thing: there was nothing that was produced by a century of progressive policy that was considered to be settled by the people trying to unravel it. (This includes Social Security, which, because of its inherent power, was able to hold off both Republican privatizers and Democratic "reformers," at least for now.)
But, seriously, water?
We are litigating whether citizens have a right to water?
Here?
Now?
The whole thing sounds preposterous. But, since last spring, some 15,000 Detroit residents, living under a special manager because Governor Rick Snyder decided that democracy was too damn expensive, have had their access to water denied. Most of them were in arrears on their water bills; the cutoff for the cutoff was two months or $150 behind, which is ridiculously low, especially in a city with 23 percent unemployment and with 38 percent of people living below the poverty line. The shutoffs are estimated to be affecting 100,000 people in one way or another.
But the special manager, a jumped-up pol named Kevyn Orr, is seen by most people here as playing a longer game than just knuckling the city's poor. With the city in bankruptcy, a lot of the people in Detroit are figuring that Orr is trying to get rid of the $5.7 billion in water department debt as a prelude to privatizing the water supply for the city. And, given our experience with private prisons, doesn't that fill you with optimism?
Still, though, water?
"It's something you never thought you'd argue about," said Michelle Conyers, a nurse from Ann Arbor who was marching with all the others. "I mean, water? What are you supposed to drink? How are you supposed to wash? How are you supposed to flush your toilets? It's almost like someone wants to push this city into being some sort of third-world nation."
The tactics used to shut off water to the citizens are beginning to trouble Judge Steven Rhodes, who is presiding over the city's bankruptcy. On Wednesday, Rhodes came down fairly hard on Orr's handling of the problem, saying that it was yet another body blow to the city's national and international reputation.
"Your residential shutoff program has caused not only a lot of anger in the city and also a lot of hardship," Rhodes told Darryl Latimer, deputy director of the water department. The other issue: "It's caused a lot of bad publicity for the city it doesn't need right now." He told water officials to be back in court Monday to update him on city initiatives to help residents in arrears keep their water on.
So they marched, because the louder they chanted, the more the rest of the world would hear, and the more Judge Rhodes might lean on the city because he didn't want the world to hear what was going on in Detroit, where people are marching.
For water.
In 2014.
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