Mar 22 2021
By signatories Indicated at the end of the text*
A story of rebelling water. A fantasy provocation in which rebelling rivers overflow to submerge finance exchange headquarters and free the water from the stock market
It is 7 a.m. on December 7, 2021.
The inhabitants of Chicago are awakened by a monstrous racket. The water of the Hudson River has risen from its banks and is flooding the streets of the city, heading towards West Jackson Boulevard where the Chicago Board Trade Building is located, the building of the Chicago Stock Exchange, the most important stock exchanges in the world for trading commodities.
In a few minutes, an immense tumultuous torrent breaks into the Boulevard and becomes a gigantic swirling wave that dismembers and engulfs the imposing building, a 184-metre high skyscraper. It is a staggering, frightening sight, which the population watches helplessly. The water then receded from the city as quickly as it had entered.
The same fate has struck the stock exchanges of the worldâs major cities simultaneously, regardless of time zones. The indignant rivers have destroyed the great speculative temples of the planet in Los Angeles, New York, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Buenos Aires, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, Moscow, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Johannesburg, IstanbulâŠ.
Fear, disarray and a feeling of the end of the world prevail. People are questioning the reasons that caused this global catastrophe: âWhy have stock exchanges everywhere been the main target of riverine forces?â The most fanciful explanations are circulating, including the inevitable one of an alien invasion of the Earth.
No government, no scientist, no one made the connection with the decision taken one year earlier on December 7, 2020, by the Chicago Stock Exchange, to âlistâ water as a commodity. Those who had heard about it, a tiny minority of people, had almost forgotten about it. Furthermore the governments themselves  had not participated in this decision, which was taken by private subjects, independently of the public authorities.
Exhausted by excessive withdrawals which, after many decades of exploitation, have devastated their regenerative capacity; massacred by the dumping of urban, agricultural and industrial waste; made ill by pollution and contamination, rivers had repeatedly tried to make humans understand that they could not take it anymore and that it was time for humans to stop destroying them⊠Alas, without much result!
For the rivers, the reduction of water to a commodity transformed into a financial asset submitted to the devastating speculative  games organised by human predators was the unacceptable forcing them to take their destiny in hand
Gathered urgently on December 5, 2021 in a World Forum of Rivers on the Security of Life on Earth, they unanimously took two fundamental and irrevocable resolutions.
The first: to make peace between them to celebrate their legitimate unity, which is indispensable for any common and concerted action, to the great displeasure of humans, who have created and maintained harmful geopolitical conflicts for thousands of years.
The second: to flood and engulf the worldâs stock markets, sending a clear message to all:
âThe Earth is the home of all living species.
Woe to those humans who have sold the Home of the Earthâs Inhabitants to money-hungry predators! â
At this time of upheaval in the riversâ insurgency, we cannot predict what will happen next. Should we fear that human folly has no limits? In this case, let us prepare for the peaceful revolt of humanity, in alliance with our brothers, The Rivers of the World.
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*Maria Palatine and Bernard Tirtiaux, authors/composers of âLâHymne de lâeauâ (2005) and of the opera âLe chant dâEosâ (2006), Pietro Pizzuti, author of the play âLâeau du loupâ (2008), Riccardo Petrella, author of âThe Water Manifestoâ (1998), Luis Infanti de la Mora (Bishop of AysĂ©n, Chile, author of an episcopal letter âGive us our daily waterâ, Marcelo Barros, Brazil (author of âO espirito vem pelas aguasâ), Martine Chatelain, Quebec (Eau Secours), Jean-Pierre Wauquier, France (HÂČ0 sans frontiĂšres), Anibal Faccendini , Argentina, promoter of the right to a public carafe introduced in the province of Santa FĂ©), Alain Adriaens, Belgium (author on drought issues), Pierre Galand, former Senator (co-promoter of the World Assembly of Elected Representatives and Citizens for Water, European Parliament, 18 March 2007). Article sent to OtherNews by Ricardo Petrella