Blog Posts

Published in the Houma Today newspaper, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana on July 15, 2010

by Thomas Linzey, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

A few months ago, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF.org) launched a groundbreaking new weekly 45-minute radio show on KYRS Community Radio in Spokane, WA, which can also be heard via podcast. In CELDF's words...

My latest speech is now viewable online on YouTube, thanks to videographer extraordinaire Cheryle Easter. It's titled "Are We The People? Striving for a Future Where Our Actions Match the Crises/Opportunities We Face", and was presented at the Village Building Convergence in Portland, OR, on June 3rd, 2010.

Phoebe Anne Sorgen and Jeff Kaplan have been leaders for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area focusing their efforts on creative local activities for awakening their communities to the crisis of corporate constitutional so-called "rights". Phoebe has years of experience in Berkeley trying to get numerous resolutions passed through her city council. Here's their "Resolution to Free Democracy from Corporate Control", which was passed by the Berkeley City Council by a unanimous vote on April 27, 2010.

In the early 1900's, Richard C. Howe wrote numerous books arguing for municipal self-government, including "The City: the Hope of Democracy". In this excerpt from his book, "The Confessions of a Reformer", written in 1925, Howe contrasts the power and "freedom" of business corporations and municipal governments.....

---

What if BP, the principal corporate entity responsible for the massive oil well rupture a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, was a human being, a flesh and blood person instead of a faceless transnational corporation? Bruce A. Dixon, managing editor at Black Agenda Report, asks this intriguing question in the essay below. It's a fair and simple question, and the answers tell us a lot about the world we live in.

Below are comments made to the Cheltenham (PA) Board of Commissioners in June by 'We the People of Cheltenham' (WTPOC), announcing this season's campaign seeking a Community Bill of Rights as an amendment to the Home Rule Charter to give citizens a voice on land development by public benefit corporations, and other local issues. The group understands that this is a necessary prerequisite in order to be able to create real opportunities for democratic participation through initiative and referendum.

We have reached a very exciting moment in the growing campaign for community rights over corporate so-called "rights". For the first time ever, a community in California has decided to challenge corporate rule head-on, at the local level, via legally binding ordinance, to reign in specific corporate "rights". Here's a press release from one of the campaign organizers, in the City of Mount Shasta, CA....

Greetings to all who have signed up to receive my announcements over the past few months. I'm running about a month late in getting this going, but from now on you'll be receiving one or more brief announcements from me every week or so, linking you to essential new resources on what citizens are doing to dismantle corporate constitutional "rights". This week, I'm wanting to draw your attention to a string of two full-weekend workshops I'll be leading in Seattle and Bellingham, WA, plus four public talks/group discussions in Portland, OR. All in the next 5 weeks! I'm on a roll!

Friends,

These are the gems to give your primary attention to if you have the time. I keep all of them in stock here at 100Fires.com, or you can special order them from your local bookstore.