Red Pepper News: 20,000 march for water without profit

19 March 2006

20,000 march for water without profit

Joe Zacune, 16 March: Today´s demo was the largest ever mass mobilization against the privatization water. Over 20,000 people turned up to protest against the corporate takeover- including indigenous groups, urban social movements, Zapatistas, anarchists, campesinos and other grassroots organizations. The Mexican presence and organisation was amazing. They came in their masses and were dancing, shouting, singing, playing drums for this massive four-hour rally. The World Water Council must be kicking themselves- they made a big mistake when they decided to hold the Forum in Mexico.

Most of it passed off peacefully but when I was standing on a wall taking photos of a few anarchists whacking police shields with batons, the police started firing some water with pepper gas. So I looked even more bleary-eyed after these sleep-deprived days. When one police car got smashed up, the paparazzi came out of nowhere on big bikes and took endless shots- no prizes for guessing which will be the main shot in tomorrows newspapers. We´re determined not to let the cynical press use these minor incidents to overshadow this historical event. The people have spoken with a deafening roar- our water is not for sale.

I held up flyers for our upcoming Coca-Cola rally at the demonstration and people literally swarmed to get them. The response has been amazing and we haven´t even held the event yet! It was great to see Coca-Cola is under fire at other side events and in today´s main newspaper wrote about how it´s taking over water resources in Chiapas. This is one of the issues we´ll be talking about on Saturday when War on Want brings together activists from Chiapas, Colombia and the US to talk on Coca-Cola´s social and environment abuses around the world.

The earlier part of the day was less exciting as I spent five hours queuing to get my pass for the inside of the forum. This would have taken longer but I struck up a conversation with some friendly, Norwegian activist types who let me skip most of the queue. The forum accidentally gave me a 7-day pass instead of 3-days which also sweetened the frustrating wait. The whole official World Water Forum seems completely disorganised.

The word is that the Ministerial Declaration is going to most likely be rejected by certain countries. There´s speculation that this could spell the end of the World Water Forum as consensus is needed for the declaration to be binding. I´m trying to find out as much as I can and I´ll be back with more news on this.

19 March 2006 in Water | Permalink

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December 2006

Comments

The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.

The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.

Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.

When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.

There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

Emotion ends.

Man becomes machine.

A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.

FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.

SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.

A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.

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