Survivalism

Failing Water Promotion Drives Elite Insecurity

October 1, 2010

The Daily Bell - ...Here at the Bell we state unequivocally that there is a power elite. We maintain that it is interested in world government and that it does indeed use fear-based promotions to aggregate wealth and power, mostly from the middle class. We go beyond this though in arguing that the Internet itself is undermining elite promotions and that the 21st century, unlike the 20th, is basically going to be built around a conflict between the Internet and the elite ...

While we are agnostic about the outcome (in the sense that we are not going to predict winners and losers), we do believe that a struggle has begun between the Internet and the power elite and that the elite is not doing very well at the moment on numerous fronts.

The most obvious example of elite fumbling is global warming itself. Not only has the global warming promotion been exposed as essentially fraudulent, but it appears that there is significant concern among the elite (which propounded the initial promotion) that global COOLING may be on the horizon.

The UK Guardian, in a list of Bilderberg matters to be discussed in 2010 included global cooling on the agenda as follows: "Financial reforms security, cyber technology, energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, world food problem, global cooling, social networking, medical science, EU-US relations ... That list is a window into your future. Don't think for one minute that it isn't. And don't ignore it, because it isn't ignoring you."

This is perhaps the reason that the elite has been trying out so many different phrases as of late when it comes to global warming – climate change and climate disruption among them. But even without global cooling, the elite promotional program is struggling in our view. One can see it again in the article we excerpted at the beginning of this analysis. The last sentence reads as follows:

"The analysis is a global snapshot, and the research team suggests more people are likely to encounter more severe stress on their water supply in the coming decades, as the climate changes and the human population continues to grow."

You see, dear reader. There it is ... "climate change." But with global warming all-but-dead as a promotion and the elite grappling with the ramifications of global cooling, the idea that one may segue smoothly from climate disaster into water and food disasters is at least questionable. Of course this won't stop the elite from trying. They never give up.

And as regards the water-scarcity promotion, we can see once again the single-mindedness that the elite can muster in aggregate. The researchers presenting their argument in nature complied a global map of "water threats." Who in their right mind has the time or attention to do something like this? How did it occur to them? Why did they release the study now? (Inquiring minds want to know!) Of course, the conclusions (predictably) are grim. About half the human race, according to these researchers, are faced with water shortages or other kinds of water insecurity. No surprise, from our point of view.

It's easy to tell a promotion these days. One can simply Google various keywords and come up with a good sense of the kinds of promotions upon which the elite is actively embarked. Say, here's a question for you, dear reader. When was the last time, on feeling thirsty, that you expressed to someone you were feeling some "insecurity" about a drink. Never? We neither. When we speak about water, we do it terms of wanting a drink or not wanting a drink.

But Google "water insecurity" and you come up with 2.25 MILLION cites. More than two million! Where the heck did that come from? Who uses words like "water insecurity?" Did you ever hear of anyone speak about a lack of water that way? Did your neighbor ever speak of drilling a well to combat his or her "water insecurity?" Ours neither. Nonetheless, here it is – a promotion being brought massively online – one complete with the ritualistic and perfectly predictable rhetorical gobbledygook. First global warming, then "water insecurity" and finally "food insecurity" ...

Watch Out: The World Bank Is Quietly Funding a Massive Corporate Water Grab

November 2, 2010

AlterNet - Billions have been spent allowing corporations to profit from public water sources even though water privatization has been an epic failure in Latin America, Southeast Asia, North America, Africa and everywhere else it's been tried. But don't tell that to controversial loan-sharks at the World Bank. Last month, its private-sector funding arm International Finance Corporation (IFC) quietly dropped a cool 100 million euros ($139 million US) on Veolia Voda, the Eastern European subsidiary of Veolia, the world's largest private water corporation. Its latest target? Privatization of Eastern Europe's water resources.

"Veolia has made it clear that their business model is based on maximizing profits, not long-term investment," Joby Gelbspan, senior program coordinator for private-sector watchdog Corporate Accountability International, told AlterNet. "Both the World Bank and the transnational water companies like Veolia have clearly acknowledged they don't want to invest in the infrastructure necessary to improve water access in Eastern Europe. That's why this 100 million euro investment in Veolia Voda by the World Bank's private investment arm over the summer is so alarming. It's further evidence that the World Bank remains committed to water privatization, despite all evidence that this approach will not solve the world's water crisis."

All the evidence Veolia needs that water grabs are doomed exercises can be found in its birthplace of France, more popularly known as the heartland of water privatization. In June, the municipal administration of Paris reclaimed the City of Light's water services from both of its homegrown multinationals Veolia and Suez, after a torrent of controversy. That's just one of 40 re-municipilazations in France alone, which can be added to those in Africa, Asia, Latin America, North America and more in hopes of painting a not-so-pretty picture: Water privatization is ultimately both a horrific concept and a failed project.

"It's outrageous that the World Bank's IFC would continue to invest in corporate water privatizations when they are failing all over the world," Maude Barlow, chairwoman of Food and Water Watch and the author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Fight for the Right to Water, told AlterNet. "A similar IFC investment in the Philippines is an unmitigated disaster. Local communities and their governments around the world are canceling their contracts with companies like Veolia because of cost overruns, worker layoffs and substandard service."

The Philippines is an excellent example of water privatization's broken model. After passing the Water Crisis Act in 1995, the Philippines landed a $283 million privatization plan managed partially by multinational giants like Suez and Bechtel. After some success, everything fell apart after 2000, and it wasn't long before tariff prices repeatedly increased, water service and quality worsened, and public opposition skyrocketed. Today, some Filipinos still don't have water connections, tariffs have increased from 300 to 700 percent in some regions, and outbreaks of cholera and gastroenteritis have cost lives and sickened hundreds.

"The World Bank has learned nothing from these disasters and continues to be blinded by an outdated ideology that only the unregulated market will solve the world's problems," added Barlow.

But asking the World Bank to learn from disaster would be akin to annihilating its overall mission, which is to capitalize on disaster in the developing world in pursuit of profit. Its nasty history of economic and environmental shock therapy sessions have severely wounded more than one country, and has been sharply criticized by brainiacs like Joseph Stiglitz, who was once the Bank's chief economist, and Naomi Klein, whose indispensable history The Shock Doctrine is a horrorshow of privatization nightmares. From its cultural imperialism and insensitivity to regional differences to its domination by a handful of economic elites drunk on deregulation, whose utter failure needs no further example than our continuing global economic crisis, the World Bank's good intentions have been compromised by an unending string of terrible press and crappier deals ...

Click here for the rest of the story and for more news on water privatization.