For those born deep into the 20th century it is embedded in our minds that public areas, parks, forests, plazas, sidewalks, streets, incorporated rights reserved for everyone, beyond citizenship even. Human rights such as free speech, can be documented and demonstrated, in what most “democratic” constitutions describe as public areas.
Near the flip of the century there seems to be a rush, mostly due to fiscal financial shortages, by local and federal/national governments to rebrand public areas as state “property”, and therefore the use of the language made it OK for states to sell,auction, even hand out “state property” and even hand out financing for developers to take over and “stimulate economic development” on public land. Taxpayers locally under the alternative to raise local taxes didn’t seem to complain. But it was everyone’s right they were handing out in exchange of keeping their local property taxes low.
Suddenly the walls of public space seems to be narrowing and closing in and it is where human rights could be expressed that can’t be defended anymore when they are squeezed more and more into private space. The defense, this is private space and we don’t have to tolerate propaganda.
Earlier confusion was also added by having private land acting as public in order to congregate more people and improve sales and therefore the value of such land. Shopping centers became more open and open, malls bigger and bigger, and they provided the illusion of public areas without being such. The evidence of private security was a sign of a false public area. Suddenly there was labor protest against merchants by employees and those protesting the merchant were kept well of the private premises, who remained publicly accessible for those “not protesting”.
There is little talk about this by any party because as political parties go all agree that the state should decide for people and it is none of their business what needs to be defended and what let go. Left, right, further right, statists are statists, and none really like human rights against governments.
Beware, the next generations may not even hear or think there is such thing as public area/land/water, if you want access you buy it in the market for the time period you can
In similar fashion no state in the globe complained about violating international water rights documented for centuries and agreed upon in the past. One excuse was terrorist trafficking of weapons, pseudo-piracy staged by oil companies to sell NATO protectionism to tankers in the red sea, then there were the riches promised to states by renting out 200mi away from their coast to oil-exploration. Suddenly you can’t sail around the globe in international waters without having to cross such jurisdictions, and they are not going to take chances with unknowns coming close to multibillion operations in deep water.
So democracy was never really needed to be overthrown by overzealous fascist capitalists, it just imploded to a degree they can control the entire globe and we need to buy or rent the area under or shoes, buy water, and next we may have to buy oxygen bottles as well.
Fair well to autonomy, long live the zapatistas who raised their voice and arms against this very junta. The only ones that effectively had a chance to do it early enough to keep it.
Any thoughts?
For those born deep into the 20th century it is embedded in our minds that public areas, parks, forests, plazas, sidewalks, streets, incorporated rights reserved for everyone, beyond citizenship even.
This is a false premise. The examples you provide are areas that are for public use, yes, but that use is often restricted. You can’t drive your car on a sidewalk, for instance. That said, while an asset is available for public use, it is your elected leaders who are charged with the stewardship of those public assets. As your representatives, these individuals guide the use of those assets for the best public good. That best good may be disposing of a public asset in exchange for another asset, cash. Which can then fund other projects. You can, and should, feel free to challenge the process of any particular acquisition or disposition but in general, good stewardship is not a human rights violation.
Except when the public property was previously private. That the state can own property is not a human rights violation in a vacuum, no. However, history, at least in the US, clearly demostrates that combined with the state’s power to seize property, it is very often a vehicle for injustice.
Take, for example, Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469 (2005).
I mean, it’s a literal genocidal crime against humanity when it happens in the US and Canada. All of that land was and continues to be violently stolen from the people who stewarded the land for thousands of years, who’s cultures have been all but eradicated, and everything about the Western project is founded on the maintenance of that genocide, even the legal fiction that those public lands are to be stewarded by the state.
