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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 7/23/14

Detroit's Fight for Water Rights Is Showing How to Battle (and Beat) Austerity

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Cross-posted from The Nation

Protesters rallying outside Detroit’s water department in May 2014.
Protesters rallying outside Detroit’s water department in May 2014.
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The austerity agenda as it plays out on the ground in American cities is often so relentless in demanding cuts in public services that it is easy to imagine that it cannot be upended. And that goes double for Detroit, where Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has given his appointed "emergency manager" -- rather than local elected officials -- control over critical decisions regarding city operations.

But that does not mean that austerity always wins.

Last week, protests by Detroiters and allies from across the country focused local, national and international attention on the Detroit Water and Sewage Department's program of shutting off water service for thousands of low-income families that have fallen behind in paying bills.

On Friday, religious leaders and community activists were arrested after blocking trucks operated by the private contractor that was responsible for the shutoffs. At the same time, a mass march filled the streets of downtown Detroit with protesters arguing that the most vulnerable citizens of a city hard hit by deindustrialization ought not be further harmed by the loss of a basic necessity that the United Nations deems a human right.

Members of National Nurses United and the Michigan Nurses Association declared the city to be "a public health emergency zone." And Congressman John Conyers, D-Detroit, told the crowd, "Water should be available to everybody. It shouldn't be something that only people who can afford it can get."

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John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.

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