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Protecting the Rights of People & Nature From the Local Up
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Hi,
You are one of over 4000 people who now receives our monthly newsletter. This number is growing fast, so thank you especially to those who are sharing it with others.
Two generous supporters have offered to
match donations up to $2500
made to Community Rights US
by Thursday May 9th
as we all
spring forward
with the season. As demonstrated by the lovely trillium flower, good things always seem to come in threes, so here are three ways you can direct your donation this month.
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#1: Launch online trainings
We have been handed a golden opportunity to be one of the very first pilot program online trainings on an impressive new teaching platform called
The Public Square Academy
.
We are working closely with its founder towards launching our first-ever fully interactive four-session online Introduction to Community Rights, with numerous opportunities for students to interact between the sessions. We plan to launch this course in the Fall.
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#2: Become a monthly Patreon Patron
Just this week we launched a
Patreon
page
to support me being able to continue to do this essential work. Now YOU can make
a monthly donation of ANY size
, helping me to carve out precious time for public writing amidst my very full schedule. Please consider becoming one of my first patrons, and in exchange for your support at different levels, you can receive my new book, video conference Q&A sessions, and other goodies.
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#3: Edit & publish new books
Just this week, I started to assemble a few dozen of
my favorite public writings
going way back to the 1990's, with a goal of publishing them as a book by the end of this year. Afterwards, I plan to complete a manual that will serve as
a Peoples' Guide to Dismantling Corporate Rule
, with the goal of distribution by the end of 2020. For both projects, we are looking for assistance from anyone who has
professional book editing experience
, or who can donate towards paying the wages of a good editor.
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By the time you read this, I will have landed again in the Midwest, for another two months of working with mostly
small rural communities across Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan
, where large corporations continue to foist their factory farms, fossil fuel pipelines, high voltage power lines, and frac sand mines onto communities across the landscape.
It's not too late to schedule me in YOUR Midwest community
- anytime between early May and mid-June. Our
Hidden In Plain Sight
photography exhibit will be premiering in Madison WI on May 5th at a big Art Walk Opening Event, with Raging Grannies, spoken word, a trivia contest and much more. I'll also be leading my Community Rights Intro workshop in both Spooner and Madison WI in May. (And possibly also in Sparta.) You can view our entire upcoming Calendar of Events
HERE
.
Happy Spring, everyone! Eat lots of nettles! And don't forget to
donate by May 9th
in order to maximize your contribution.
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Thank you for your support.
Paul Cienfuegos
Founding Director,
PS. And have you heard about the extraordinary Community Rights win last month in
Toledo, Ohio
, where voters approved a Community Bill of Rights that gives all of
Lake Erie
fundamental legal rights to be safe from corporate harm? The Ohio state government is freaking out, as are the corporate leaders who profit from their ongoing and entirely legal and permitted poisoning of the lake. This story has been making its way literally around the world. You can catch some of the latest news about it below, in our
"Essential CR News"
section, or go straight to the
NewsFeed
on our site.
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We recently welcomed onto our team one of the people who co-founded Community Rights US with me back in 2017 - Kelly Hogan. We're delighted to be working with her again, as she has a multitude of skills and experiences that are just exactly what we were looking for. We hope she decides to stick around for awhile. Welcome back, Kelly! We've missed you!
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Reflections on Community Rights
from Rural America
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Kids, Coral Reefs, and Community Rights
by Curt Hubatch
We're running a new CRUS 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.
I'm sitting across the kitchen table from my nine year old son. It's 11 PM and past his bedtime. He, along with his mother and six year old sister, just got done watching a David Attenborough DVD about the beauty and magnificence of the coral reefs. He also just got done listening to his mom drop the bomb.
She told him the corals are dying. He wanted to know why. She told him matter-of-factly that it was because of what civilized humans are doing to the earth. I chimed in and mentioned that carbon dioxide emissions from big factories, jets, trucks, automobiles play a big, big factor in it.
Like any child his age he was concerned. He wanted to know what we could do to stop this. I was tired and wanted to go to bed. I wanted him to go to bed. And I knew that it was too important to give him any old answer so he could go to sleep.
I started out by saying that a lot of smart and compassionate people are working to help change the things that are causing the corals to die. Then I turned to myself. Feebly I said "That's why I go to Community Rights meetings once a week. Our core group of 5 has written and introduced a Climate Bill of Rights to a local town board in our county. If passed it would protect the town from any corporate projects that pose a threat to a healthy and stable climate for future generations."
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I no sooner got the sentence out of my mouth and he asked, "Will it do anything?"
After a short pause and a deep breath I said, "I hope so. We hope it will inspire others to do the same in the places they live too." Immediately this Vaclev Havel quote about hope came to mind.
"Hope is not a feeling of certainty that everything ends well. Hope is just a feeling that life and work have a meaning. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
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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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Global corporations have been making big donations towards the rebuilding of
Notre Dame
Cathedral in Paris after the huge fire destroyed much of the building. Let's all cross our fingers that these corporate directors aren't expecting
"naming rights"
in return for their "generosity", which is one of the many constitutional rights that corporations have won through numerous US Supreme Court decisions! (Thanks to Colbert's The Late Show for this ghastly photograph!)
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Hidden in Plain Sight Exhibit in Your Town
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We have produced a captioned photography exhibit titled, “
Hidden in Plain Sight
”, exploring the myriad of ways that business corporations exercise their constitutional “rights” everywhere under our very noses.
Pictured here, a Christmas tree platform in Portland, Oregon's Pioneer Courthouse Square, "gifted by Stimson Lumber Co." Stimson's directors, acting on behalf of the corporate person, also get to define "sustainable growth" for the rest of us.
YOU could host this exhibit in your own community’s library or community center or coffeehouse or gallery or college campus.
It has already appeared in numerous communities in Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon. Find out more
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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