{"id":13220,"date":"2017-03-28T07:56:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T14:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/politicalhat.com\/?p=13220"},"modified":"2017-03-28T07:56:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T14:56:36","slug":"rivers-are-people-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2017\/03\/28\/rivers-are-people-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Rivers Are People Too"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There have been plenty of <a href=\"http:\/\/pledgeoftheearth.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">insane attempts<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2012\/10\/22\/legal-rights-granted-to-gaia\/\" target=\"_blank\">grant the Earth<\/a> legal &#8220;rights&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;New Zealand has eclipsed them all by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/mar\/16\/new-zealand-river-granted-same-legal-rights-as-human-being\" target=\"_blank\">declaring a river to have the same legal rights as a human being<\/a>. Yes, the Whanganui River is LITERALLY a person according to New Zealand.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;&#8216;The reason we have taken this approach is because we consider the river an ancestor and always have,&#8217; said Gerrard Albert, the lead negotiator for the Whanganui iwi [tribe].<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;&#8216;We have fought to find an approximation in law so that all others can understand that from our perspective treating the river as a living entity is the correct way to approach it, as in indivisible whole, instead of the traditional model for the last 100 years of treating it from a perspective of ownership and management.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The minister for the treaty of Waitangi negotiations went on to say that the agreement &#8220;responds to the view of the iwi of the Whanganui river which has long recognised Te Awa Tupua through its traditions, customs and practice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The traditions and customs of the common law and the Anglo-sphere ought to suffice. Embracing the &#8220;customs&#8221; and &#8220;traditions&#8221; at odd with reality really do need to be eschewed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10721\" style=\"width: 245px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10721\" class=\"wp-image-10721 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/prayer-mother-earth.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"235\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/prayer-mother-earth.jpg 470w, https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/prayer-mother-earth-226x300.jpg 226w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 235px) 100vw, 235px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-10721\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">&#8220;New Zealand makes me wet!&#8221; \u2014 Gaia<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lasvegasnow.com\/news\/world-news\/india-becomes-second-country-to-give-rivers-human-status\/677983121\" target=\"_blank\">up the ante<\/a>, the Indian state of Uttarakhand has declared <em>two<\/em> rivers, the Yamuna and the Ganges, to both be &#8220;living entities&#8221; with <em>de facto<\/em> human status:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;The court justified its ruling on the grounds that the rivers were &#8216;losing their very existence&#8217; and the situation required &#8216;extraordinary measures to be taken to preserve and conserve the Rivers Ganga and Yamuna,&#8217; using an alternative name for the Ganges.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;How many hippies who whine about corporations not being people are swooning over a river being declared to have &#8220;its own legal identity with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person&#8221;?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Would damming a river be considered a form of rape or a form of slavery? Would diverting a river <em>via<\/em> aqueduct be kidnapping? Would drinking from that water be cannibalism? Would using that water so that downriver becomes dry be considered murder?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This brings a whole new meaning to the sexualized term &#8220;motorboating&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A corporation is owned by human stockholders, is run by directors who are human. A river is just a ditch in the land whereover water flows. It isn&#8217;t even an actual living thing like a bird, a hobbit, or an ent!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To put it bluntly, f**k this insane worldview.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><!--more-->&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A river isn&#8217;t even an inanimate object! It is just the flow of water over some quite often shifting path of depressed ground!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If a river can be a person, why not a rock or a lightning bolt?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Why haven&#8217;t Ents been declared persons, or Entmoots recognized as legal local governments? #EntLivesMatter, after all&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The so-called secular &#8220;science based&#8221; green movement and other assorted ninnies will praise this bowing down to this nature-worshipping nonsense. The precedence has been set. It is only a matter of time until it spreads through the &#8220;secular&#8221; and &#8220;rational&#8221; Western (post-)Civilization.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;20 NZ$ to the first person who can documents themselves <em>literally<\/em> raping the Whanganui river!<\/p>\n<p><meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@PoliticHatBlog\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ThePoliticalHat\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Rivers Are People Too\"\/><meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"New Zealand has eclipsed them all by declaring a river to have the same legal rights as a human being.  Yes, the Whanganui River is LITERALLY a person according to New Zealand.\" \/><meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/prayer-mother-earth.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;There have been plenty of insane attempts to grant the Earth legal &#8220;rights&#8221;. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;New Zealand has eclipsed them all by declaring a river to have the same legal rights as a human being. Yes, the Whanganui River is LITERALLY a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/2017\/03\/28\/rivers-are-people-too\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[77,70,22,86,68],"class_list":["post-13220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-derp","tag-facepalm","tag-fail","tag-science","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13220"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13235,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13220\/revisions\/13235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/impeachreno.org\/politicalhat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}