A new round of the water wars is starting in California where, surprise! the rich demand their right to use however much water they want since they pay taxes and can pay for the water. (Diarist Walter Einenkel) The fundamental question is: when is 'your' water 'our' water? An analogy that comes to mind is not quite about rich vs. poor, but asks the same question. Property owners in a community are offered obscenely high prices--uh, payoffs--from people representing, it turns out, a company that wants to use properties for fracking (Galliardi). If you accept the buyout and I don't, 'your' water will endanger the quality and safety of 'my,' ultimately 'our' water. What can be done? When must the common good beyond the gated community impinge on the privileged? In California, the economy of scarcity comes into brutal play when there is, under current projections, literally not enough water given current usage patterns. When one entitled group uses profligately while others conserve, that bottom line limit is still there. In the case of water safety, the issues seem to be different but are really the same. When the entitled company wilfully risks water quality for everyone, whether property owners consented to it or not, the bottom line is still there. When water is undrinkable, it might as well not even be available. The overall amount of potable water is limited. What used to be unquestioned abundance Biblically granted by God for human 'domination' becomes a question of property rights vs. human rights, vs. a spiritual (!? Yes, you read that right) view of the cosmos, whether it's Coca Cola buying the rights to the water of a village in India, which then has no right to 'their' water, even for survival, or Oprah (neither mentioned in the diary) who still has a green lawn. It's not just about 'them', whether in India or California or Minnesota or Wisconsin: it's about 'us'. My 'spiritual (!?) take is beneath the mystical squiggle.
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