Surviving Capitalism (Not) : As water scarcity deepens across Latin America, political instability grows

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, March 2, 2017

As water scarcity deepens across Latin America, political instability grows

Click here to access article by John Vidal from The Guardian.

Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru are experiencing a drought, but the author seems to suggest the President Morales shares some of the blame for the shortage of drinking water.

Bolivia was shaken to its roots in the spring of 2000, when tens of thousands in the city of Cochabamba protested against the privatisation of the city’s water services. One person died and scores were injured in weeks of protest, the company was ejected and the political crisis – known as the first water war of the 21st century – was a catalyst that led to the election of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president.

Morales is still president, but as the longest and deepest drought in Bolivia’s recent history continues to bite in cities across the country, he has cause to fear that water could be his government’s political undoing, too.