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Protecting the Rights of People & Nature From the Local Up
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Since the New Year, we’ve been a beehive of activity here at
Community Rights US
.
In today's newsletter you'll find compelling news about the debut launch of our
comprehensive database of Community Rights ordinances
, an
update
from one of our
active CR groups
in northern Wisconsin, and a
tribute to Jane Anne Morris -
one of the founders of the Community Rights movement. Plus, we're
introducing a new column
featuring the voice of one of
Community Rights US'
own media team members speaking out
from the backwoods of rural America.
But first, I want to thank so many of you for responding to our end-of-year fundraising call to help us match a substantial donation we had just received. Forty-seven of our subscribers helped us to raise an additional $2,825 dollars in just 6 days. Amazing! Thank you so much!
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This month’s biggest excitement for me is that I get to announce that we have finally launched our comprehensive database of Community Rights ordinances (i.e. municipal and county laws) that have been enacted since our movement began in 1999!
Hundreds of hours of research time have gone into this monumental task - achieved entirely by two of our Community Rights US heroes - Eva Hamilton and Orenda Maitri.
You will finally be able to view more than 60 communities’ ordinances from our new
Ordinances Home Page
- in three different formats - chronologically, state by state, or via a detailed US map.
We’re still working hard to compile many more of these local ordinances, and YOU can help if you have additional information about these or others that we may have missed. This is still very much a work in progress.
More than 200 communities and counties in thirteen states have now passed these locally-enforceable challenges to unjust state and federal laws, banning a wide variety of harmful corporate and governmental activities.
View the full list of ordinance topics
HERE
.
Over the next few months, we will be adding additional ordinance lists including:
- Ordinances that passed but were later removed or defeated
- Ordinances that failed
- Currently active ordinance campaigns
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And now a news update from one of our active Community Rights groups in northern Wisconsin, from one of its core members, Curt Hubatch (who also maintains our website's NewsFeed):
The Washburn County Community Rights Alliance (WCCRA) introduced our Climate Bill of Rights to the Chicog Town Board in Northwestern Wisconsin in December. There was an hour of respectful conversation about the bill, our organization, and Community Rights in general.
In the audience was the former Corporate Counsel of our county. The Town Chairman invited him for legal clarity about the issue of passing law at the local level. There was no vote taken on the bill.
We left the meeting on two positive notes about our time on the agenda. At the beginning, the Chairman expressed he never expected to be sitting in the chair he was sitting in. He entered the political arena lobbying for local support to oppose a project to turn an abandoned gravel pit into a landfill. Then declaring he was as much an environmentalist as anyone else. And in wrapping up the discussion he said something one always likes to hear from a public servant, "I'm interested, let's keep this conversation going."
A few weeks later the attorney present gave his summary of what was proposed. The first point made in the summary was predictable: "Local governing bodies do not have the authority to make law in Wisconsin, only to administer state law."
We at The WCCRA are in talks as to what our next move will be concerning our Community Bill of Rights in the Town of Chicog.
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About 75 participants learned that there are more politically effective strategies available to us than the existing single-issue regulatory or zoning urgent-response activism in order to stop the endless proliferation of corporate factory farms, pipelines and power lines, frac sand mines, and seizure of private lands by corporations using eminent domain. Numerous local elected officials and advocacy group leaders were in attendance at my workshop and a very provocative time was had by all.
As the convention then proceeded for another two days, it was evident that the Community Rights workshop had helped to spark a different kind of conversation in the hallways of the convention.
We even managed to amend the Farmers Union’s resolution on Eminent Domain, adding the following text to their official platform:
"Additionally, be it resolved that while we wait for years for Wisconsin’s Eminent Domain statutes to be revised, that Wisconsin Farmers Union calls on Wisconsin counties and towns to explore the more immediate option of passing Community Rights ordinances that would immediately prohibit business corporations from exercising Eminent Domain authority over the property rights of private land owners."
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The Convention also saw the US premier of
Community Rights US
’
new Photography Exhibit,
“Hidden in Plain Sight: How Corporations Exercise Their Constitutional 'Rights' Under Our Very Noses“
, which garnered a lot of attention.
The captioned photo shown is one of dozens from the exhibit.
Our goal for the exhibit is that it be displayed all over the US throughout 2019 - in libraries, on college campuses and law schools, in coffeehouses and community centers - to commemorate the
200th Anniversary
(1819-2019) of business corporations gaining so-called constitutional “rights” via the US Supreme Court.
After its premier at the Farmers Union convention in Appleton WI, it is currently being exhibited at the public library in Menomonie WI, as well as briefer viewings in Decorah IA and Gays Mills WI.
It will premier soon in Eureka CA, and will open for a month-long exhibit in
Portland OR
on February 28th, and in
Madison WI
on May 3rd. The exhibit will likely also be viewable over the next few months in Vancouver WA, and Detroit MI. See a list of future events
HERE
.
Would you or your group like to host our extraordinary exhibit in YOUR community?
It’s easy and inexpensive to do so! We will send it to you, ready to hang. Please
contact me
for more details.
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And finally…. I was interviewed on Viroqua, WI’s community radio station WDRT on February 5th on the Heart of Wellness show. You can listen to it
HERE
.
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All my best,
Paul Cienfuegos
Founding Director,
P.S. With so many exciting developments unfolding at Community Rights US, would YOU like to volunteer with us?
Here are a few ways you can contribute:
- Help us locate dozens of additional communities to host our Photo Exhibit and Bicentennial Roast events over the next months, starting with YOUR community
- Review our just-released national database of CR ordinances, and suggest updates and corrections
- Are you an experienced press release writer? We've got one coming up and would love the support of your skills
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Tribute to JANE ANNE MORRIS: Corporate Anthropologist
& Co-Founder of the
Community Rights Movement
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Jane Anne Morris was one of its founders in the early 1990’s, along with Richard Grossman and others.
Jane Anne and Richard (and Peter Kellman) did most of the original research and writings which made the Community Rights movement’s ideas and strategies spring to life.
In the late 1990’s Jane Anne was instrumental in convincing Thomas Linzey, Director of
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
, to stop battling one corporate harm at a time - almost entirely through the dead-end regulatory and zoning process - and to instead focus on the work of dismantling the corporate so-called constitutional “rights” that allow corporations to harm us in the first place.
She and Richard Grossman were my primary mentors - two of the wisest people I have ever met.
I would never have become such an effective Community Rights workshop leader or public speaker or community organizer had it not been for Jane Anne and Richard.
Sadly, Jane Anne’s health is failing, so today I am celebrating her extraordinary life and work. Jane Anne Morris - corporate anthropologist - my mentor and friend.
I have spent a fair bit of time with her over the past few months, helping her to go through her extensive files, video and audio, to ensure that these materials will be properly preserved long into the future.
Community Rights US
will become the depository for these significant archives.
You can show her the respect that she so well deserves by devoting some time to reading her dozens of truly extraordinary essays from her website,
DemocracyThemePark.org
. And by sharing them widely with others.
Here’s one of my favorite essays of hers, from 1998 - as necessary for us to pay attention to today as it was 21 years ago!
I ask that you not contact Jane Anne directly, unless you already have a relationship with her. Instead, if you’d like to share your own appreciations with her, please reply via
this email
, and I will gather all of the messages in a single email for her to read. Thank you.
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Reflections on Community Rights
from Rural America
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On Becoming More Than One Person
by Curt Hubatch
[Note: We're trying out a new column by CR activist and organizer Curt Hubatch.
Curt is an unschooling father of two young children and one young adult. Currently he works as a substitute rural letter carrier for the USPS. He lives in a cordwood house that he built with his wife, family and friends in Northwestern Wisconsin. One day while delivering mail, he heard a talk by historian Richard Grossman, and ever since he’s had his hand in the effort to elevate Community Rights over corporate "rights".]
Two years ago, while driving down a country road
and listening to an interview
with Derrick Jensen by the environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore, Derrick asked her:
“What can one person do about all the atrocities, injustices, and ugliness around us?”
I skidded the mail jeep to a stop, found a safe spot on the side of the road, and wrote down her answer.
"Don't become one person", she said.
Wow! Over the last two years Moore’s compelling message has brought me to this conclusion: “Don’t become one person” is essential when it comes to becoming the change I want to see—the change WE want to see.
For me, back in February of 2017, I organized a 3-hour introductory to Community Rights talk with Paul Cienfuegos in my community.
From that evening on I became more than one person. I became three, then later five, and we now call ourselves the Washburn County Community Rights Alliance (WCCRA).
We’ve been meeting for close to two years now, had documentary showings, organized workshops and talks to educate the public. We’ve introduced a Climate Bill of Rights at the Township level. People have run for local office. Most importantly we’ve gotten to know each other quite well.
Before forming our alliance (WCCRA) I faced the atrocities, injustices, and ugliness often feeling alone… being just one person.
It’s a heavy burden to feel separated and disconnected knowing that democracy and sustainability are illegal in the place I call home.
A shared burden and commitment lighten the load when I sometimes revert back to thinking “It’s all up to me.”
I’m immediately relieved because -- thanks to my team members -- I know I'm not alone in this struggle for a sane and sustainable world that our children and grandchildren can inherit.
And thank you, Kathleen Dean Moore. You were onto something to be sure.
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Essential CR News from the Web
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Want the latest News & Analysis from and about the Community Rights Movement?
CLICK HERE
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Want to help further the work of Community Rights US?
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Please also forward this to family, friends, and colleagues who may be interested. Thanks!
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