“Your existence is fractionally status quo.”
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?
A mere two hours and thirty-six minutes away, approximately 169 miles driving time stands the imploding metropolis of Detroit, Michigan.
I belatedly became acutely aware of the present crisis in Detroit, Michigan regarding the shutting off of water to some of their most impovished citizens. Notably, the majority appear to be Black (cap intended).
The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, has made the immoral and inhumane move to cut off water service to thousands of homes, therefore affecting infants and children, the sick and the elderly.
I am sickened and disgusted.
Children in these situations may be removed from their families and placed in foster care because working utilities in home are a necessary requirement for care and sanitation. The emotional and psychological aftermath to these children and their families is unconscionable.
Water service for people more than two months in arrears will be/have been disconnected.
Various sources have stated that an average monthly residential water and sewage bill in Detroit, is about $75.00.
Can you imagine any city doing the same? It could happen.
How would you feed your children, prepare formula for an infant, use the toilet, clean yourself, or if you are sick, take care of basic human needs? Go to work, school, job hunting?
The City of Detroit with this ruthless and inhumane act, is setting a precedent, that other cities with poor and impoverished communities may utilize (if Detroit gets away with it) and be subject too.
How can a country, that sends billions of dollars to Israel do this to it’s own?
How can a country, that provided TARP monies (Troubled Asset Relief Program) essentially American tax dollars to banks and corporations, ignore the plight of it’s own citizens?
How can a country, that allows “The Slink Sixteen”1 comprised of: General Electric, Boeing, Exxon Mobil, Verizon, Kraft Foods, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, IBM, Chevron, FedEx, Honeywell, Apple, Pfizer, Google, and Microsoft to essentially stop paying fair taxes considering their enormous profitability?
Apple & Google use the “Double Irish” most effectively, to avoid paying a fair share of their taxes; or none. Some of the aforenamed companies have cut jobs.
I have part of the answer and it-ain’t-pretty.
A May 27, 2014, article by Canadian, Maude Barlow, who chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch states:
“It is important to acknowledge the class and race dimension of this assault. There have been no stories on the cut offs in the mainstream US media. One cannot imagine that fact if the people losing their water were middle class white people. But the feeling is that Detroit is a lost cause and the people there deserve what they are getting. The situation in Detroit is a travesty and the governments of Michigan and the United States itself must be held accountable.”3
I had a hard time sleeping last night knowing that just a short distance away, American citizens are in the throes of what could be described as … corporate fascism. I honestly am at a loss for the current state of ‘war’ enacted on middle class, poor and impoverished American citizens. It is simply un-f’n believable and unconscionable in the 21st Century!
Some will fault the citizens themselves.
Shame on you.
You would not treat a dog like this.
This is an assault on human beings!
Considering the plundered financial state of Detroit, to ask middle class, poor, perhaps jobless residents (or most likely minimum wage) to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, has to loftily assume … they have boots.
Falstaffian with demise, Detroit is desolate, godforsaken and heaving agonal breaths.
America is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet.
Yet, our richness of heart, is eroding … fast.
We, Americans appear to be willing pawns in social atrocities that will further divide and haunt us … forever.
The thing is, this is precedent setting. This is a Human Rights Issue.
If the state and federal government, corporations (who are seeking to privitize services), and We-the-People allow this atrocity to continue, we have truly lost our souls as Americans.
Adrienne Zurub
“Your existence is fractionally status quo.”
–Spoken Word Poet, Def Poetry Jam 2002
Footnotes:
2 From Investopedia, “A tax avoidance technique employed by certain large corporations, involving the use of a combination of Irish and Dutch subsidiary companies to shift profits to low or no tax jurisdictions.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-with-a-dutch-sandwich.asp