This River Is Now A Person
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- Опубликовано: 17 мар 2017
- A river in New Zealand has just been granted personhood. Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, and Michael Tracey, the hosts of The Young Turks, tell you how a river could be a person. Tell us what you think in the comment section below. www.tytnetwork.com/go
“The Whanganui River has been given the legal status of a person under a treaty settlement bill that's just been passed by parliament.
It's believed to be a world first.
Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson says Whanganui Iwi has fought for recognition of its relationship with the river since the 1870s.
The iwi recognises the river, Te Awa Tupua, as part of the living mountains and the sea.
"Te Awa Tupua will have its own legal identity with all the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person," Mr Finlayson said.
"The approach of granting legal personality to a river is unique."
Mr Finlayson said the river would have the ability to represent itself through human representatives, one appointed by the iwi and one by the Crown.”
Read more here: www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zea...
Hosts: Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Michael Tracey
Cast: Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, Michael Tracey
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Thank you for airing this matter TYT. I'm kind of grateful the local people of the Wanganui River have had their victory.
Paul, 62 year old white guy, New Zealand.
And I'm exactly half your age..31 year old brown Indian guy..I support New Zealand all the way!
Thank you for virtue signalling Paul. Sincerely, a mixed race 27 year old guy, Australia.
Kia ora Paul
Tēnā koe mb1968nz
I am from New Zealand, and first of all, hearing your pronunciation of Maori words make me cringe XD lol, but also, we are currently fighting a bill that would make all the rivers in New Zealand swimmable, not by cleaning them up but by changing the definition of 'Swimmable' to allow twice as much pollutants as there currently are. Protecting our environment is more important to us as a people then our government thinks it is, so we do a lot of crazy stuff, like make a river a person, to protect our land.
Drake Eldridge we need to focus on 1080 too. If only every river was given the same rights here. Then the poisoning would be in breach of their rights. Kia Kaha NZ!!
The pronunciation was really cringe
poohknits05 kia kaha, stay strong...
What doesn't make people cringe seriously?... someone tell me.
+
When you are forced to speak with the disconnected language that bureaucracy and "legalities" uses, the only way to protect the resources is to use the "law" against them. If less people thought in "law" and bureaucracy we would have no problem protecting our lands from thieves, it would be "common" knowledge to protect what gives you life again. In this day people think the businesses and governments give them life hence the reason why they will protect it with their lives. Most are so far disconnected they don't have to kill an animal and butcher it for meat, find a fresh water source, grow their own food, the "civilized" human is weak.
Yes i will, the hell that is being currently created here on Earth, full of ignorant demons. :P
Who said anything about hunting and risking their life?
When we live in a time when we use bombs to hunt humans?
Livestock mainly but hunting as well, I was referring to the disconnect, if you missed that bit...
Takyr Dai hbp bilmalr
I'd recommend Star Trek Next Generation season 2 episode 9: The Measure Of A Man
it's a trial episode about weather or not Data is considered an individual or Starfleet Property. Really important socially I think.
whether
One of the better episodes.
the answer is simple
if it has a complex consiousness and intelligence comperable to what we observe with humans then it must be regarded as an individual with equal rights as human regarrdless if they are human , alien , supercomputer , etc.
He also adopted (for a while) a little boy who had lost his parents. And he has a cat.
Bernard Gilbert Had a daughter too. Died in infancy, though. 😀
well if corporations can assume legal personhood, it makes sense to declare nature herself as a legal person.
If in the US corporations can be people, what is wrong with using it to protect the environment.
still not as horrifying as corporations masquerading as ppl
I am the river, the river is with me. I am the river, the river is with me. I am the river, the river is with me. I am the river, the river is with me. I am the river, the river is with me. I am the river, the river is with me.
You keep calling the river 'water' but you forgot to say that the river includes all the animal life that depends on that river, so what we are really talking about is an ecosystem, not simply water.
Shouldn't the Mississippi be granted personhood?
Yes Gary, yes...
I wish someone would grant the Yellowstone River personhood so it could sue the pipeline companies that keep dumping oil in it like three times last year.
lasal134 My sink should be granted personhood.
"Rivers are people, my friend."
---sounds better than corporations.
Even a river has free health care.
apextroll its not free
Paul Trieglaff free hookers? Top 1% pay for that too?
haha i die
Is it being taxed?
We all have free health care in New Zealand it is paid for with our taxes, although you might have to wait a few months for a knee replacement or kidney transplant you won't have to pay. If you have cancer you will be treated straight away and wont go bankrupt.
The Earth needs to have precedence ******NOT**** effing corporations. No Earth not life.
I say why not. The corporation argument is a pretty clever tactic to employ honestly.
If corporations can be persons then a river can as well!
I'm from NZ & in NZ we have a Treaty with the Govt that covers land and resources. Right now we are combating climate change and the negative effects of intensive farming and industry on our natural resources, outside of the spiritual component to its native inhabitants, it's about future protection. We have a big problem with water pollution that will get worse, our economy relies heavily on intensive dairy and meat farming, it's our oil. That this river is now a legal entity just ensures that it has a right to health, not just for itself but for everything that depends on it.
it makes sense to me that there would be a correlation between the river and its influence on the life that it supports legally, and for the sake of court matters, sometimes in order to get a better legal defense they have to elevate it's status to the very thing that an opposition would juxtapose it against because of the effect its existence has indirectly or directly to human life.
Water doesn't have an opposable thumb but, it does have a memory.
I'm from New Zealand and your pronunciation is hilarious haha
Hey, if corporate America can make corporations "people", then I applaud the New Zealanders' efforts at making their rivers into "people" - living people - too.
if someone gets murdered by the river, Does the river go to jail for witnessing a murder and not calling authorities?
Did you guys not understand at all. The tax you charge the river IS your clean water and in order to do that it needs the maximum protection available. Otherwise it will not pay it's tax and you will have no water. Those rights are only granted to an individual.
the point made at7:30 misses the point. usupers of the land have agreed to recongize the perspective of the original people. it isn't deference, it is recognition that our way or the highway doesn't fly anymore
Civilizations have flourished around rivers for literally thousands of years. We wouldn't be as evolved as we are without them. Some cultures even praised them as gods due to this fact.
A river is not a person but it is of person-like significance to humanity.
So if some one falls in that river and drowns is that murder or manslaughter?
No, because the river didn't ask you or force you to step in it?...You're doing it voluntarily...
playandrepeat If the river floods, bursts its banks and destroyes a home.... is the river trespassing? break and enter? liable for damages? 😛
musicalaviator+ No, because the representation would argue intent. The river only floods if an outside body of water, or weather patterns, cause it to flood. The river cannot choose to flood on its own.
In New Zealand we call it an accident.
Not the first time. River Phoenix. That river even ended up looking Human..... almost.
Americans have a saying, too: I am oil. The oil is me.
Your viewpoint will change dependent on your connection to the land. Native nations will usually support the idea that the land, including rivers, have a life of their own. And that life needs to be kept safe to in turn keep the rest of the natural world safe which provides comfort to all creatures including people.
Wayne Morgan really? evidence? No hea koe?
Ate them? Lord!
Benito Mussolini it has the same legal status of a person, doesn't make it a person.
Wow, a river has better health insurance than I do.
If someone drown in the river, is the river liable for criminal charges?
We need this in our country, we need to respect our Earth. A major river might get dug-up by miners or trashed by chemicals...like many of America's.
afaik, this is not the first tine in NZ that a natural resources there has gotten person status
Just want to say a couple of things on this. First, this is part of a long process of reconciliation and compensation towards the the Maori (the Mao part is pronounced like in Mao Tse-tung) and the Crown for historic breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, regarded as New Zealand's founding document.
Second, New Zealand DOES have other ways to protect water and rivers, and has used them to protect this one. A large section of the Whanganui is a National Park. But it is considerably more difficult to "develop" a legal person than it is a mere natural resource.
This is a nice way,
Make the river person !
Protect it
Water is love. Water is life.
He who controls the spice controls the universe.
they are doing it because they want to stop pollution!! If that's the only way they can stop it, whatever works, man!! I think its brilliant!!
but, what do I know? I'm just some jackass with nothing better to do than comment under TYT videos
Michael Tracey, how silly and metaphysical is granting personhood to corporations? While they are run by people, they remain completely unaccountable for their decisions, yet retain human rights? Maybe the point is that double standard...
Michael Tracey is the best commentator you guys have ever had. IDK what you're paying him but he deserves a raise.
Because he can talk about a country, topic and legal system he has no knowledge of for a full 9 mins? AND still have an opinion on it? It is impressive, but personally I think John deserves the raise for doing some damn research.
If corporations can be people, then rivers, lakes, and oceans should be considered people too.
I think somewhere in the USA theirs a Tree that owns itself so it's protected from ever being chopped down. The Original Tree died but a nut was saved so it still lives on.
If a corporation poisons a river is that attempted murder?
wait, so what happens when somebody drowns in said river?
We should use an international court to establish Gaia as a person. That's some great groundwork for legal protection of the planet.
then well need captain planet to enforce
Is A River a person?
A river carves and shapes the land.
The river carries minerals which enrich the soils, feeding forests, vegetation, and our vegetables.
The river provides life for insects, birds, and animals.
All of the water we consume more than likely originated in a river.
Nothing can live without this water.
Sitting next to a flowing river provides for us a calming feeling. Could this be the spirit of the river having an effect on us.
To grant a river "person-hood" would be to diminish the importance of the river in many ways.
Perhaps individuals should have to earn the right to attain and be granted "river-hood".
We should treat everything in the world as if it were a part of our selfs because it is. The trees are our lungs and the air is our breath. If there was no rivers or oceans we wouldn't exist. I've tripped pretty hard trust me hahaha
An interesting comment section. Firstly, the rights of the river go as far as any company, insofar as to essentially give them the right to speak for themselves and their own self interests. Companies can't vote and, in NZ, can't be put up for manslaughter or murder, (and even if it could, you'd have a hard time proving the river did anything wrong). Any profits the river specifically gets is taxed as income, and it can defend "itself" in court, albeit represented by two human beings on behalf of the river.
All public access laws and navigation rights are unaffected by the change.
Also, aside from defamation, you can't sue in NZ.
Giving an identity to an inanimate, non living object can be fine. Take Tom Hank's character in Cast Away: He and Wilson had a bond, he needed a way to stay sane, and some people probably do that in real life due to boredom or to attach themselves to what they love. I personally wouldn't treat it as a person, and not that I would mind seeing others addressing it as one.
In New Zealand, even rivers get single payer healthcare.
I am 100% behind not polluting rivers, and I guess if this is what's got to happen then fine. It does seem pretty stupid though
Nature creates individuals, not persons. Personhood is a product of rights and duties that we give ourselves, as individual legal subjects within a defined "people". So why not give rivers, trees, or buildings that same kind of personhood? One objection may be: these kinds of things cannot claim those rights for themselves. But we have animal rights? Yet no animal has ever claimed on their account any kind of right. These are difficult questions. Indeed, one particularly troubling problem is that conferring rights upon inanimate things becomes a matter of interest, that is, a matter of power -- as is the case with corporations.
I loved this report on my homeland, New Zealand. Would have been even better if you could have checked the pronunciation of "Maori" and "Whanganui" before airing. It's difficult to teach the proper pronunciation of "Maori" in writing but "wh" in Maori is pronounced as an "f", so "Whanganui" sounds like "fung-ah-noo-ee" with the main stress on "fung" and secondary stress on "noo".
Absolutely love your show!
shhhhh. Unless you can correctly pronounce the names of the 3 hosts - in the video description - and all their relatives, and all asians, arabs, maori placenames etc etc.
Your (& others) provincialism is embarrassing to the extreme.
Hmmm, wonder if this culture was an inspiration for the Rhoynar in ASOIAF for George RR Martin... what do you think Jon?
If a corporation can be a person, why not a river?
Listening to Americans try and pronounce Maori words! that needs to be a RUclips show because it's amazing. Not even close guys!
I think the unintended consequences of granting legal personhood to the river are really interesting. This river floods residential areas mainly on its eastern bank. After its most recent flooding a couple of years ago insurance companies refused to grant coverage to homeowners and the banks of course decided it wouldn't be in their interests to offer mortgages for the purchase in the affected zones. Needless to say without the capacity to insure, or to raise mortgages these properties have lost value.
Now the intended effect of granting legal personhood to the river is that the river has new rights, such as the capacity to contract and to sue. The flip side is that the river can now also be sued. So instead of the safety of insurance coverage, homeowners who have future losses because of the river's misbehaviour can now seek a remedy in the courts.
.... Which means that everyone in the catchment area above Whanganui City can be held liable for flood damage ??? An entity (farm) not stopping erosion is damaging the river (entity) & city.
Thats going to cause huge rifts in the (human) populace.
And much of the land is held in trusts - what is not national park. Sooooo trusts (non physical entities) may be sued by a river (non sentient physical entity) while all the actual humans sit at the pub shaking their heads & the lawyers - who will not be locals ride off in their new mercedes- benz ???
Same old story really......
Corporations are people my friend.
So how do we drown it?
cant wait till japan makes this river look like a little anime girl...
Wow. This really has gone mainSTREAM.
The reason you have to make the river corporeal is political. We do have resource consents and so forth in New Zealand, but these are prone to political interference.
The region I live in, Canterbury, had disputes with big business and so central government simply disbanded the committee that handled resource consent. They put their own stooges in who then rubber stamped everything that corporations want (mainly this was over water rights, and especially whether Christchurch -- the second largest city in New Zealand -- should have more right to potable water than agribusiness).
If there's a drought does that make it endangered?
Great oversight of this issue. Kia ora. Ko te awa, ko te awa ko au. I am the river and the river is me. It's a cultural thing...
If someone drowns, the river goes to jail?
im from the river you nailed it bro
Any oil companies nearby that cannot wait to violate its rights?
I guess not.
If Kohaku River protected as a person we might never see Haku helping Chihiro.
Ol' man river, that ol' man river
He don't say nothin', but he must know somethin'
He just keeps rollin', he keeps on rollin' along
I think I'd trust this river more than Exxon Mobil.
We need to do that here in the U.S. however, since laws have been passed against individuals being able to form a class action suit, we need to grantgroups of people AND natural resources corporations..
The rainstorm and the river are my brothers...
Can we do this for standing rock
The north Dakota native should declare the river is a person also... to get oil company off their backs.
I'm way more ok with giving geographical features the same rights as people, than I am giving those rights to corporations. At least a river will never willingly try and use those rights to screw you over. ;)
Hey, Michael Tracey! Try going without water for a couple weeks and then try to repeat what you just said. Maybe you'll have a better understanding and perspective for the human connection to water and why it should be protected as such. It IS us and we ARE water. That is both metaphorical and physical at the same time. That doesn't happen very often and you just glibly poo pooed it. Plus, you made a snap judgment -without study - on a century's old case. And I believe these are people who live in both a metaphorical and physical state simultaneously, which might seem trite to you --but I believe is much more well-rounded than most westerners.
i wonder if they will allow the river to flow naturally
What? I live in NZ, why am I first hearing this from a American News network? I must of miss this story working on the night shift and sleeping during the day
If it makes you feel better, I REALLY missed this story XD, four months later...
"Rivers are people my friend" that's the one!
if a river is a person, then companies can't just destroy it for profit. awesome.
I think the concept of who wants change vs who wants to change applies to the new guy....Of course we have to broaden our concepts of reality if we want it to manifest differently.
if corporations can be people why not bodies of water
I sexually identify as the Amazon River.
At least its not saying companies are people.
So legally you can sue the river now
"Rivers are people too, my friend!"
Did anyone ask how the river felt about this?
Guys, Maw-ri, not Mary.
How is a river more of a person than a corporation? a corporation is simply an association of many individuals who come together for legal purposes, a river is.. well, water. How will you sue a corporation if you abolish corporate personhood? you'll have to sue every shareholder individually.
Well, to the Right Wing a magical sky zombie is a person, so why not a river?
The Duty of a river is to trickle and remove impurities in the water. Its called percolation possibly, ts important for life to stay healthy.Cleans the water
"Maori tribes" (0:14)" It's not pronounced "may-oree" but "mowry," rhyming with "dowry."
This is goofy, but if it protects the river from being polluted, you have to do what you have to do. I'm for all rivers being labeled as people, if it means that as a person, you can't dump toxic waste in it. We have to protect our water, which in turn protects actual people and our planet.
I named a star for my mom and always blow a kiss to my late mom and say ILOVEUUU
So theyre going to get anyone who puts waste into the water for attempted murder, battery etc?
If corporations an be people, than nature should have the same treatment.
kazemizu No because Corporations are made up of people, a river is made up of water and dirt....
A corporation is a legal concept meant to protect the wealthiest among us. A river is a real thing that protects and serves all people near it.
Adam Smith Let's go through the list:
1) Does nature produce anything? Yes, food, drinking water, and clean air to name a few.
2) Can they make campaign contribution? Yes, indirectly through lobbying and interest groups. The same way corporations donate money.
3) Are humans involved? Yes, park rangers, campers, hunters, wild life preservers, etc.
4) Does it have an identity? Yes, example, Yellow Stone Park is known as Yellow Stone Park.
It really isn't that hard to keep water clean. We are not as advanced as we like to believe, if we find it difficult.
The duty of a river is to stay clean and to drown the entities who try to prevent it to do so.
Anyone else find John to be really full of himself?
save all rivers and water ways in the whole world! we need the waterways for all living things! the waterways don't need humans to live!
Would we have DAPL if rivers in the USA were granted personhood...
If someone drowns, can the river be arrested?