Corporate Control? Not in These Communities: Can local laws have a real effect on the power of giant corporations?

by Allen D. Kanner



Mt. Shasta, a small northern California town of 3,500 residents nestled in the foothills of magnificent Mount Shasta, is taking on corporate power through an unusual process—democracy.

The citizens of Mt. Shasta have developed an extraordinary ordinance, set to be voted on in the next special or general election, that would prohibit corporations such as Nestle and Coca-Cola from extracting water from the local aquifer. But this is only the beginning. The ordinance would also ban energy giant PG&E, and any other corporation, from regional cloud seeding, a process that disrupts weather patterns through the use of toxic chemicals such as silver iodide. More generally, it would refuse to recognize corporate personhood, explicitly place the rights of community and local government above the economic interests of multinational corporations, and recognize the rights of nature to exist, flourish, and evolve.

Mt. Shasta is not alone. Rather, it is part of a (so far) quiet municipal movement making its way across the United States in which communities are directly defying corporate rule and affirming the sovereignty of local government.

Since 1998, more than 125 municipalities have passed ordinances that explicitly put their citizens' rights ahead of corporate interests, despite the existence of state and federal laws to the contrary. These communities have banned corporations from dumping toxic sludge, building factory farms, mining, and extracting water for bottling. Many have explicitly refused to recognize corporate personhood. Over a dozen townships in Pennsylvania, Maine, and New Hampshire have recognized the right of nature to exist and flourish (as Ecuador just did in its new national constitution). Four municipalities, including Halifax in Virginia, and Mahoney, Shrewsbury, and Packer in Pennsylvania, have passed laws imposing penalties on corporations for chemical trespass, the involuntary introduction of toxic chemicals into the human body.

These communities are beginning to band together. When the attorney general of Pennsylvania threatened to sue Packer Township this year for banning sewage sludge within its boundaries, six other Pennsylvania towns adopted similar ordinances and twenty-three others passed resolutions in support of their neighboring community. Many people were outraged when the attorney general proclaimed, "there is no inalienable right to local self-government."

Bigger cities are joining the fray. In November, Pittsburgh's city council voted to ban corporations in the city from drilling for natural gas as a result of local concern about an environmentally devastating practice known as "fracking." As city councilman Doug Shields stated in a press release, "Many people think that this is only about gas drilling. It's not—it's about our authority as a municipal community to say 'no' to corporations that will cause damage to our community. It's about our right to community, [to] local self-government."

What has driven these communities to such radical action? The typical story involves a handful of local citizens deciding to oppose a corporate practice, such as toxic sludge dumping, which has taken a huge toll on the health, economy, and natural surroundings of their town. After years of fighting for regulatory change, these citizens discover a bitter truth: the U.S. environmental regulatory system consists of a set of interlocking state and federal laws designed by industry to serve corporate interests. With the deck utterly stacked against them, communities are powerless to prevent corporations from destroying the local environment for the sake of profit.

Enter the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit public interest law firm that champions a different approach. The firm helps communities draft local ordinances that place the rights of municipalities to govern themselves above corporate rights. Through its Democracy School, which offers seminars across the United States, it provides a detailed analysis of the history of corporate law and environmental regulation that shows a need for a complete overhaul of the system. Armed with this knowledge and with their well-crafted ordinances, citizens are able to return to their communities to begin organizing for the passage of laws such as Mt. Shasta's proposed ordinance.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is collaborating with Global Exchange, an international environmental and workers' rights organization, to help supporters of the Mt. Shasta ordinance organize. In an interview for this article, I asked Shannon Biggs, who directs Global Exchange's Community Rights Program, if she expected ordinances of this type to be upheld in court. Biggs was dubious about judges "seeing the error of their ways" and reversing a centuries-oldtrend in which courts grant corporations increased power. Rather, she sees these ordinances as powerful educational and organizing tools that can lead to the major changes necessary to reduce corporate power, put decision-making back in the hands of real people rather than corporate "persons," and open up whole new areas of rights, such as those of ecosystems and natural communities. Biggs connects the current municipal defiance of existing state and federal law to a long tradition of civil disobedience in the United States, harkening back to Susan B. Anthony illegally casting her ballot, the Underground Railroad flouting slave laws, and civil rights protesters purposely breaking segregation laws.

But the nascent municipal rights movement offers something new in the way of political action. These communities are adopting laws that, taken together, are forming an alternative structure to the global corporate economy. The principles behind these laws can be applied broadly to any area where corporate rights override local self-government or the well-being of the local ecology. The best place to start, I would suggest, is with banning corporations from making campaign contributions to local elections.

The municipal movement could provide one of the most effective routes to building nationwide support for an Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the movement is already expanding. In Pennsylvania, people are now organizing on the state level and similar stirrings have been reported in New Hampshire.

What about your community?

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Allen D. Kanner, Ph.D., is a cofounder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, co-editor ofPsychology and Consumer Culture and Ecopsychology, and a Berkeley, California child, family, and adult psychologist.

Anarchism as Spiritual Practice

by Ric Hudgens 

via: Jesus Radicals

 February 13, 2011

“Wake up to reality!”
(1 Corinthians 13:11, Phillips translation).

The fledgling democracy in Egypt may struggle to find its legs; nevertheless it is impossible for most of us to resist the joy and excitement of these events. It awakens us to how easily we succumb to the weight of “reality” where “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little closing of the hands to rest, and poverty (or tyranny) will come upon you like a bandit” (Proverbs 6:11). That “reality” that seems so fixed and unyielding in our lives may in fact be a fantasy, a projection of our own fears, our own inertia, our own lack of imagination. No matter that that “reality” is stealing our souls, deadening us to our own pain. More often than not, no theft is even necessary. We gladly sell our souls in exchange for the capitalist trinkets and electoral air-fresheners that keep us distracted from the crises and opportunities before us. Egypt woke up. Those protesting in Liberation Square during the past three weeks have shaken themselves and all of us awake again.

A struggle for power? Of course. But first of all a struggle against power: a struggle to shrug off the paternalistic grip of a dominant father, and an effort to affirm their own dignity and integrity as human beings. A political struggle? Of course. But first of all a moral struggle to affirm their agency as human beings imagining and working towards a future of their own choosing. A struggle of the spirit? I say yes. Clearly those Muslims praying in the Square saw no contradiction between their faith and their protest. Clearly those Christians who were protected by those Muslims as they prayed and worshipped saw no tension between their witness and their defiance. Even those Egyptians who prayed with neither group participated with both in occupying a public space that did not exclude any nonviolent participant who wanted to be there. It was a spiritual struggle in that it was a struggle motivated by an abiding human desire to not be dominated by political propaganda, government coercion, or institutionalized terror.

We Christian anarchists sometimes exude an unhealthy cynicism. As anarchists our cynicism is justified. But as Christians we are also creatures of hope. Living in the creative tension of those two equally legitimate dispositions shapes our political discipleship. Anarchism need not be seen as merely political. As practiced by Christians, anarchism can become an essential spiritual practice that not only directs our engagement with the world, but also powerfully forms and develops our own spiritual maturity. How is this so?

The practice of anarchism calls us to the critique of false absolutes. The first commandment is a fundamental Christian anarchist principle: no other gods. But of course other gods are always arising, always being promoted, always holding forth, always shanghaiing new slaves to injustice. We remain constantly aware that even our own Christian anarchist hearts are prone to the worship of false idols and the false worship of the one true God. Anarchism as spiritual practice keeps reminding us of our own potential for self-deception.

The practice of anarchism, more than any other political philosophy, forces us to take responsibility for our own actions. Moses declared “Choose you this day whom YOU will serve.” There is no getting around that necessity. The existential reality of choice is not reserved for a few twentieth-century French philosophers. “Repent” is a prerequisite for the “kingdom” that the Hebrew prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, and the early church preached about. It is a recognition, an invitation, and a command to keep turning and moving into the right direction – moving into the freedom of God. Because self-deception is a constant trap repentance is a constant necessity. Indeed, repentance becomes the escape hatch to renewed freedom as we leave the seeming determinism of an ill-chosen present and move into the undetermined, still open, and therefore hope-filled future of God. Anarchism as spiritual practice keeps reminding us that there is always something we can do.

The practice of anarchism is a call into recognizable communities, where alliances and coalitions are formed around shared commitments, in-depth dialogue and conversation, and corporate decision-making that keeps our ambitions and projects small, real, and therefore more effective. Anarchism has no room for personal grandiosity or totalizing metanarratives. It is if anything a politics of finitude, but not therefore a politics without vision or even (dare we say it?) ambition. Because it is the most open-ended perspective on politics it is also the most open to hope. Anarchism as spiritual practice keeps reminding us that wherever two or three are gathered God is there as well. And wherever God is there is no telling what might happen!

I will admit that I carry very little expectation that Egypt will become the embodiment of anything that we as Christian anarchists would celebrate. My guess is that the majority of those in Tahrir Square are not only wanting a democratic government, but also a share of the materialistic excess they see elsewhere. Look at India sixty-five years after the Gandhian revolution and you see how little impact Gandhi’s agrarian, anarchist vision has had in the face of global capitalism’s relentless march. Those who question the lasting significance of such a “revolution” have a point.

My point is that that is not the only point. Something else seems to be starting in the Middle East and since I am both a creature of hope and a scavenger for hope I am picking up things that may eventually be cast aside.

We simply don’t know what is possible. It is far too easy for us to adopt an easy cynicism that disparages the longing of others, or absolves us from direct action. Far too easy. It is my prayer that what is taking place in Tunisia and Egypt (and soon perhaps in Algeria and Yemen) will be used by God to stir our hearts and minds and renew our spirits. As long as there is a God there is hope, and as long as there is hope there is something for us to do.

Poet David Whyte concludes his poem “Start Close In” with these words:

Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step you don’t want to take.

Anarchism as spiritual practice calls us to see our political practice not only as the practice of our discipleship, but the avenue for God’s work in our souls. Start close in. Take a small step. Be humble and focused. Who knows what might happen?

Image by Hossam el-Hamalawy

SPLC Admits Defining ‘Hate’ Is Purely Subjective

The huxter Morris Dees and his sophists at the SPLC have not only attacked AFP and other patriot publications and groups such as WeAreChange and the John Birch Society etc. labeling them"Haters". They have also smeared the National Anarchist movement as being crypto fascists.

via: American Free Press

By Dave Gahary

In the last decade, AFP has frequently reported on well-funded U.S. and international organizations that are set up for the sole purpose of smearing decent patriotic Americans and others as “haters” and “racists,” simply because they do not agree with these groups’ liberal outlook. The danger here is that these so-called “civil right groups” often work closely with law enforcement agencies, using paid informants to infiltrate meetings and spy on people. Detailed information is collected and kept in files or turned over to police to help facilitate lawsuits and prosecutions— even prison sentences.

AFP had the chance recently to interview Mark Potok, the spokesperson for Morris Dees’s Southern Poverty Law Center, a multi-million-dollar operation that sees itself as America’s premier civil rights organization, but more broadly exists to pigeonhole Americans into subjective categories of “hate.”

Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) “Intelligence Project,” tasked with monitoring “hate groups” and “extremists,” freely admitted to AFP that the method SPLC staffers use for determining “hate” is not at all a science.

When asked if there is a definition on the SPLC’s Internet site that explains the parameters or metrics used to determine “hate,” Potok had a short reply: “Not really.” Potok was then asked if this kind of approach to classify “hate” is subjective, and he replied in the affirmative. “Yes, there’s some art as well as some science in it.”

This admission from the editor of the quarterly magazine Intelligence Report, the “nation’s preeminent periodical monitoring the radical right in the U.S.,” could be seen as alarming. A subjective, therefore inaccurate “hate” judgment from Potok and company at the SPLC could ruin someone’s life or even become a jail sentence, especially since the magazine is sent free to law enforcement agencies.

According to what Potok told AFP, the SPLC “train[s] anywhere between 2,000 and 8,000 police officers a year . . . in everything from hate crimes training to, much more typically, training in hate groups and
domestic terrorism.”

Even more alarming, someone can be classified as “hateful” even if they’ve never committed any crimes nor seem poised to do so in the future, but simply for expressing their “politically incorrect” opinion.

“The listings are not based on criminality or violence or any kind of estimate we’re making as to the potential of violence or criminal actions . . . [but] based strictly on ideology,” continued Potok.

Amazingly, Potok explained why “hate” is not defined by the SPLC.

“Part of the reason we don’t publish a definition . . . this is our opinion, this is our evaluation based, we think, on objective factors,” said Potok. He says this, even after admitting that the process is clearly subjective.

The SPLC’s Internet site comes fully equipped with a “hate map” that displays a spiffy graphic of the United States and a drop-down menu that allows users to select a state and view corresponding lists of “hate groups.”

The SPLC supposedly isn’t in the business of infiltrating such groups but instead claims on its site: “The list was compiled using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports.”

Obviously, one of the dangers in this type of approach is interpreting the authenticity and content of the source material from the individuals and groups the SPLC decides to monitor, as well as the accuracy and dependability of eyewitnesses, police and “news” reports. The fact that “history” is littered with errors seems not to bother Potok.

It’s interesting to note that the SPLC’s unscientific, subjective virtual slandering applies to the publication you’re currently reading. 

AMERICAN FREE PRESS is listed on the “hate map” under the “not easily categorized” category of “General Hate,” which has an equally
ambiguous and unsettled definition:

These groups espouse a variety of rather unique hateful doctrines and beliefs that are not easily categorized. This list includes a “Jewish” group that is rabidly anti-Arab, a “Christian” group that is anti-Catholic and a polygamous “Mormon” breakaway sect that is racist. Many of the groups are vendors that sell a miscellany of hate materials from several different sectors of the white supremacist movement.

Potok and the SPLC need to take a lesson from themselves: “hate” is certainly subjective and “not easily categorized.”

Trilateral Commission meeting in D.C. this Spring

As reported by American Free Press, the Trilateral Commission will be meeting this April 8-10 in Washington D.C. This quasi secret conference is just as or more important than the G20 or WTO meetings. NATA-NY  is calling for a coalition of truth seekers, to come to D.C. this spring to show your displeasure with the fact that this internationalist plutocratic cabal will be meeting on American soil. It has not been disclosed where the Trilats will be meeting in D.C., so we will keep you posted to any further details.