The quality of tap water is actually more stringently regulated
than bottled water in many US cities including New York and the article
though packed with facts, for example the incredible waste incurred
(more than 80% of the bottles are not recycled but end up in
landfills), it still fails to draw the right conclusions about the
direct relationship between arbitrary production and the capitalist
economic system.
Thus the articles tells us:
‘We used to
live perfectly well without either of these modern accessories [the
other being the cellphone]. Today, they are vital to our happiness …
[and] no one would suggest returning to the pre-wireless age of course.’
Of
course not! Nor, it seems, that we should return to the age of drinking
tap water! Happiness? Is the writer being sarcastic? I doubt it.
Predictably,
the article consists mostly of ‘personal stories’ of individuals caught
with the obligatory bottle of H2O as the writer wended his way through
the streets of New York.
What’s missing of course is the simple
fact that the wasteful nature of bottled water is merely the tip of a
(melted) iceberg, for what applies to bottled water can be extended to
the millions of products that like bottled water, are unnecessary and
produced merely for the sake of profit and nothing else. Like bottled
water, they do not improve our quality of life, not that this stops the
major producers from whining that:
‘ We think it’s unfortunate it’s turned into this either-or battle …. We do feel like we’re being unfairly targeted.’
Or so says
Joseph Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association
using the well-worn excuse that consumers should be given the ‘choice’.
And in a way he’s right, why single out bottled water from the millions
of useless products churned out in gay abandon, all just as damaging
and wasteful of resources?
Well bottled water is an easy target
to take on (even the major media networks have jumped on the bash
bottled water bandwagon) but that’s where it ends. The Independent
article does not draw the obvious conclusion that what applies to
bottled water also applies to millions of other products that we
neither need nor asked for and were it not for global warming, rest
assured that this article would never have seen the light of day, it
would continue to be ‘business as usual’.
Indeed, I argue that
climate change has become a replacement for challenging the
fundamentals of the capitalist economic system, firstly by making the
consumer the guilty party in the process and secondly by diverting
attention away from the economics of capitalist production, which is
why the Independent article avoids the subject like the plague.
The
god of ‘choice’ is the predictable mantra as if ‘choice’ is some kind
of gift from a capitalist heaven but ‘choice’ is one of the fundamental
propaganda weapons of capitalism regardless of the consequences, for
once the consumer makes the ‘choice’ it’s effectively out of the hands
of the producer (‘we give ‘em what they want, nobody twisted their
arm’).
That the article doesn’t actually mention economics at
all is the most revealing (and depressing) aspect of the way the
article misrepresents the facts. It’s as if by magic billions of
plastic bottles of H2O just appeared one day and suckers that we are,
we ‘decided’ to buy them.
Thus economics is reduced to a
simplistic formula whereby we are ‘free’ to ‘choose’ and yes it’s true,
we do have the power to choose, therefore, why don’t we especially when
we know the damage such arbitrary production does, let alone the
immense waste of money involved which explains why bottled water has
become a sitting target for its obvious redundancy is impossible to
ignore.
Not so obvious (because it’s never revealed in the
corporate press) is the relationship between the economics of
capitalism and the crisis we are facing. One has to ask why the writer
of the article, David Usborne, didn’t join the dots together and arrive
at the obvious conclusion? No prizes for guessing the answer.
The
author of the article has a real problem, how to square the circle? How
does one condemn the sale of tap water in plastic bottles without
calling into question the entire basis of capitalist economics? But
this is an issue that the writer dare not raise, for then he would be
entering the ‘forbidden’ area of ‘opinion’ as opposed to ‘facts’. This
is why the bulk of the article concerns itself with people caught with
bottle in hand (or bottle holster) and not with the underlying
economics. Had it done so, the connection would no doubt would have
been edited out (do a search on the Independent website and the article
is not there but the Google ads for bottled water are).
This essay is
archived here.
Writings 
I’m torn, really torn between trying to keep up with the deceptions the corporate press keep feeding us and wanting to ignore the entire sorry mess completely, but well you know how it is, almost without exception, everyday there’s a story that grabs my attention because it represents all that’s wrong with the way events and their causes are reported.
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