A new angle....

[PuraVidaDreamin]

Occupy was a massive awakening. We now know it was a massive, and at many times a violent crack down and near shutdown by
the corporate owned government. Through doing some research I have found perhaps another way to work towards a more fair and equitable future.

Building A Community Bill of Rights for your municipality. The Community Environmental League Defense Fund has drafted the strategy to implement this into your community. Check out their website celdf.org.

It was drafted because cities and towns have found it is the surest way to assert control over corporate actions of any kind. As we know Constitutional Ammendments have given corporations obscene power in local law than that of local citizens. Local communities may not want corporations to set up shop in their municipalities, municipalities must concede to state government.( because of the Dillion Rule that essentially states communities have no rights that the state does not give them and that everything a local municipality decides is subject to state control.) What chance do the people have when state governments are so intertwined with corporations?

After studying the Community Bill of Rights, The Occupy movement itself has drafted their own. Called Model Community Bill of Rights Template foe Occupy Communities. It offers a large menu in a template form so that communities can pick and choose what is most important to them, like; the right to a locally based economy, the right to affordable and safe housing, rights for nature, right to water, right to a sustainable food system, right to a citizen managed and accountable police force, free and fair elections, and a prohibition on Corporate Personhood, for starters. You can find it here, http://envisionseattle.org/2011/12/model-community-bill-of-rights-template-for-occupy-communities.html

If you are interested in learning more about the CBORights, the Community Environmental League Defense fund offers Democracy school trainings. A two day class that gives a history on how we got here from the inception of the Constitution/ Bill of Rights nearly 250 yrs ago and well before that, while offering the way toward establishing your community rights.

[Blanks]

1. This is good.

http://envisionseattle.org/files/Model-Community-Bill-of-Rights-Template.pdf

[PuraVidaDreamin]

2. Democracy School video/ CBORIGHTS movie trailer

Both these links help explain why we need a Community Bill of Rights
Through video clips.

http://www.celdf.org/democracy-school-video


http://www.celdf.org/press-room-film

[Fire Walk With Me]

3. Very interesting, thank you! n/t

[PuraVidaDreamin]

4. I will continue to add new articles to this new form of action

http://www.occupy.com/article/local-lawmaking-call-community-rights-movement


Why Liberals and Progressives Have Run Out of Gas

Cries about the corporatization of government, of course, are not new. Liberals and progressives have been screaming about it for years. They’ve never seemed, however, to invent a new kind of activism that isn’t completely dependent upon the very institutions and systems that have themselves been corporatized, to provide some kind of relief. Thus, liberal and progressive activism has been about asking regulators, politicians and judges to somehow rule against the very forces that live within those institutions.

Their tired activism remains one of pressure politics – that if you can mobilize enough people at the right time, those people can pressure the real decision makers to make different decisions.

But as communities have begun to move on their own, they’ve begun to ask some really tough questions of progressives, such as: if we really have government of, by, and for a small corporate minority, then does sending letters, filing lawsuits, or trying to elect the right people make any kind of difference at all?

It is here that these communities have departed from exhausted liberal beliefs – namely, the belief that we live in a democracy, and all we have to do is find a way to activate it so that it works in our favor. Instead, these communities – and the brave elected officials and community leaders who are now walking hand-in-hand with them – have seen this myth for what it is, and have begun to plow an entirely new path.

- See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/local-lawmaking-call-community-rights-movement#sthash.ud2VaR30.dpuf