Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 01.16.06

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R     01.16.06

1. MLK breakfast/TV     1.16 8am
2. MLK/Vietnam/ATS      1.16 1:30pm
3. WalMart/film         1.16 6:30pm
4. Spirit progress      1.16 7pm

5. Global warming       1.17 11am
6. Great River Park     1.17 6pm
7. Salon/poet/Kooser    1.17 6:30pm
8. Phil Steger          1.17 6:30pm
9. Cohousing info       1.17 7pm
10. V Vadais WalMart    1.17 7pm
11. Clean energy        1.17 7pm
12. Winter soldier/film 1.17 7pm
13. Peace standards     1.17 7:30pm
14. IRV/Hopkins action  1.17 7:30pm

15. CCHT BuildingDreams 1.18 7:30am
16. Writers 4 change    1.18 1pm
17. WI-FI/public/stolen 1.18 5pm
18. Anti-torture        1.18 7pm
19. NWMetro Green Party 1.18 7pm
20. Islamic tradition   1.18 7pm Chppewa Falls WI

21. Joshua Frank   - MoveOn.org surrenders; silence is complicity
22. Jeffrey Kaplan - The reign of corporations and the fight for democracy
23. ed             - Numbers One and two (poem)

--------1 of 23--------

From: Lee Dechert <LDechert [at] tpt.org>
Subject: MLK breakfast/TV 1.16 8am

The 16th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Breakfeast, in behalf
of the United Negro College Fund, airs live on tpt-2, 1/16 at 8am; repeats
on tpt-17, 1/16 at 7pm, and 1/22 at 6pm.  Congressman and civil rights
leader John Lewis of Georgia will be the keynote speaker. More information
at www.tpt.org/mlk/.  February is Black History Month on PBS; visit
tpt.org for the special programs and events.


--------2 of 23--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: MLK/Vietnam 1.16 1:30pm

Monday, 1/16, 1;30 pm, reading of M.L/King's famous Riverside Church speech
"Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence," outside AlliantTechsystems,
5050 Lincoln Dr, Edina.  www.alliantaction.org


--------3 of 23--------

From: wamm <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: WalMart/film 1.16 6:30pm

WAMM FREE Third Monday Movie: "Wal-Mart The High Cost of Low Price"
Discussion follows.

Monday, January 16, 6:30 p.m. St. Joan of Arc Church, Hospitality Hall,
4537 Third Avenue South, Minneapolis. Parking is close, free and easy.
Brave New Films Presents a Robert Greenwald Film. "Wal-Mart The High Cost
of Low Price" takes you behind the glitz and into the real lives of
workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an
extraordinary journey that will challenge the way you think, feel, and
shop. FFI: Call WAMM at 612-827-5364.


--------4 of 23--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Spirit progress 1.16 7pm

Monday, 1/16, 7 pm, meeting of Network of Spiritual Progressives, Betsy's
Back Porch Coffee Shop, 54th & Nicollet, Mpls.  ntorbett [at] burningmail.com


--------5 of 23--------

From: sean [at] greencorps.org
Subject: Global warming 1.17 11am

Please see below for a great opportunity to participate in some grassroots
political activism, and help stop global warming.

TELL SENATOR COLEMAN TO STOP GLOBAL WARMING

Come out and join "Clear the Air", a national environmental group, for a
press conference in front of Senator Coleman's St. Paul office next
Tuesday. We're calling on the Senator to "Resolve to Solve" global warming
in the Senate this year.  We're asking him to be a leader on global
warming, and to tell his colleagues we need Mandatory Reductions and
Enforceable Deadlines to address this critical issue.  We need as many
warm bodies as possible, so please come out and bring a friend!

Local Businesses that would be affected by global warming, Representatives
of Midwest Mountaineering, etc
Tuesday January 17, 11am
Senator Coleman's St. Paul Office: 2550 University Ave. W, St. Paul, MN

BE THERE, BRING SIGNS, AND SHOW YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Contact: Annie Weinberg, Field Organizer for Clear the Air, 651-726-7571,
annie [at] greencorps.org


--------6 of 23--------

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
From: "Tim Griffin, Design Center" <sprc [at] riverfrontcorporation.com>
Subject: Great River Park 1.17 6pm

The Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation has been collaborating with the
Saint Paul Division of Parks and Recreation and the Saint Paul Department
of Planning and Economic Development, and now Saint Paul District Councils
and neighborhood residents to lead a community effort to transform the 17
miles of Saint Paul riverfront parks, natural resources, cultural
amenities and community sites into a single National Great River Park.

The 17 mile stretch has been divided into four distinct areas
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zdvyjrbab.0.wzw6nrbab.mpi7oyn6.4038&p=http%3A%2F%2F
www.riverfrontcorporation.com%2FGRP_overview.asp> :  Gorge Reach, Flood
Plain Reach, Downtown Reach and Valley Reach.  A workshop has been
organized for each "reach" to involve and educate the communities in that
area. Help Shape the National Great River Park You'd Like to See

Fourth of Four Workshops
Valley Reach
Hillcrest Recreation Center
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zdvyjrbab.0.8zw6nrbab.mpi7oyn6.4038&p=http%3A%2F%2F
www.stpaul.gov%2Fdepts%2Fparks%2Frecprograms%2Fhillcrest.htm>
1978 Ford Pkwy
SaintPaul, MN 55116

Tuesday January 17
6:00 p.m.  Open House - History of the National Great River Park
6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.  Meeting/workshops
Learn more online:
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zdvyjrbab.0.nf798obab.mpi7oyn6.4038&p=http%3A%2F%2F
www.greatriverpark.com>

Please RSVP to sprc [at] riverfrontcorporation.com.

For more information contact the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation at
651.293.6860.
email: sprc [at] riverfrontcorporation.com
phone: 651.293.6860
web: http://www.greatriverpark.com
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=zdvyjrbab.0.nf798obab.mpi7oyn6.4038&p=http%3A%2F%2F
www.greatriverpark.com>


--------7 of 23--------

From: Patty Guerrero <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Salon/poet/Kooser 1.17 6:30pm

This Tuesday, Jan. 17, the topic will be poetry.  We will read the poetry
of US poet laureate, Ted Kooser.  Please bring any of his poems to read or
just come and listen.

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon )
are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------8 of 23--------

From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Phil Steger 1.17 6:30pm

Tuesday, 1/17, 6:30 to 8:30 pm, FNVW's Phil Steger gives informational
briefing on Peace in the Precinct's Peace Now! strategy, Friends for a
Nonviolent World office, 1050 Selby, St. Paul.  RSVP at info [at] fnvw.org


--------9 of 23--------

From: Sagesusan71 [at] aol.com
Subject: Cohousing info 1.17 7pm

Cohousing informational meeting January 17th, Tuesday at 7pm.  St. Anthony
Park Library (lower conference room). Free


--------10 of 23--------

From: Wyn Douglas <wyn_douglas [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: V Vadais WalMart 1.17 7pm

I am writing this on the behalf of Bob Rudie who lives in Vadnais Heights
and is a fellow coworker at the University of St. Thomas.

We invite anyone who is interested in joining us at a public hearing at
the Vadnais heights City Hall on January 17th at 7pm to make a strong
showing against Wal-Mart's proposal to enlarge their store to a
superstore.  Questions about the meeting itself can be directed to
Planning Director Donn Wiski, 651-204-6027 or e-mail
dwiski [at] cityvadnaisheights.com

Questions about the activism against this expansion may be directed
to Bob Rudie, 651-962-6543 or e-mail rjrudie [at] stthomas.edu
Thank you for any support of this activism you are able to give.

Bob Douglas University of St. Thomas 2115 Summit Ave St. Paul, MN
55105-1096 website: http://www.stthomas.edu/recycle
<http://www.stthomas.edu/ recycle>


--------11 of 23--------

From: Elizabeth Dickinson <eadickinson [at] mindspring.com>
From: "Saint Paul Environmental Roundtable" <roundtable [at] eurekarecycling.org>
Subject: Clean energy 1.17 7pm

Saint Paul residents are coming together to create a vision for a
healthier, cleaner, more livable Saint Paul. You can help!

The Saint Paul Environmental Roundtable is a series of meetings designed
to identify the pressing issues regarding Saint Paul's environment,
especially those issues where local action can make a positive impact.
Join us for the next topic presentation and community discussion!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006, 7-9p.m.
Riverview Library 1 George Street E.
Map and Directions
http://www.stpaul.lib.mn.us/locations/riverview.html

Volunteer Roundtable members will present draft recommendations about
smarter, cleaner energy in Saint Paul based on feedback and ideas
collected at the first community meeting in November.

Energy use and choices can have enormous environmental impacts. Saint
Paul, like the rest of Minnesota, relies overwhelmingly on dirty sources
of energy. As every one who pays a gas bill knows, energy is becoming
increasingly expensive. Help us support Saint Paul's commitment to
fighting global warming, and get cleaner air and water, by improving Saint
Paul's support for smarter, cleaner energy.

Come to the meetings and tell us what you think!

To be updated about Saint Paul Environmental Roundtable community
meetings, please send your contact information to
<mailto:roundtable [at] eurekarecycling.org> roundtable [at] eurekarecycling.org .

Roundtable Topics and Schedule:

Smarter, Cleaner Energy
Tuesday, January 17, 7-9 p.m., Riverview Library, 1 George Street E

Greening the Built Environment
Thursday January 19, 7-9 p.m., Selby Community Room  (above
Mississippi Market), 622 Selby Ave

Thursday Feb 16, 7-9 p.m., Saint Anthony Park Library, 2245 Como Avenue
Improving the Quality and Quantity of Green Space

Wednesday, February 22, 7-9 p.m., Battle Creek Rec Center, 75 S. Winthrop
St

Wednesday, March 15, 7-9 p.m., Hamline Law Grad Room 106, 1492 Hewitt Ave

Clean Water Stewardship
Tuesday, March 7, 7-9 p.m., Linwood Recreation Center, 860 Saint Clair Ave

Tuesday, April 4, 7-9 p.m., MN Humanities Commission, 987 East Ivy Ave

For more information: Call (651) 222-7678 or visit
www.eurekarecycling.org/environmentalroundtable

The Saint Paul Environmental Roundtable, a collaboration of individuals
from neighborhoods, organizations, and businesses throughout the city, was
convened by Eureka Recycling. The Roundtable provides citizens with the
opportunity to be more informed about what Saint Paul is already doing to
protect Saint Paul's quality of life and to identity and recommend viable
actions that can be taken by the city, citizens and organization to
further protect and improve Saint Paul's environment.

If you wish to be removed from or added to our list to receive e-mail
notices about future Environmental Roundtable events, please e-mail us at
roundtable [at] eurekarecycling.org or call (651) 222-7678.


--------12 of 23--------

From: Rob Nelson <rnelson [at] citypages.com>
Subject: Winter soldier/film 1.17 7pm

"WINTER SOLDIER"
Tuesday, January 17 at 7:00 p.m.
BRYANT-LAKE BOWL
810 W. LAKE STREET
MINNEAPOLIS

$4.00 to $10.00 (Pay what you can)

Don't miss this rare opportunity to see WINTER SOLDIER, screening at the
Bryant-Lake Bowl as part of the monthly Get Real: City Pages Documentary
Film Series.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War was the first veterans organization in
the U.S. to actively oppose the war they fought in. In February 1971, they
held the Winter Soldier Investigation at a Detroit hotel. They exposed war
crimes, atrocities and the truth of the American invasion.

Today, VVAW is actively working to bring the troops home and support them
as they return.

The landmark documentary "Winter Soldier" will be screened at the
Bryant-Lake Bowl theater, 810 W. Lake Street, Minneapolis, on Tuesday,
January 17 at 7:00 p.m. (Doors open at 6 p.m.)

Joseph Johnson of Veterans for Peace will introduce the film along with
Rob Nelson, film editor at City Pages and curator of Get Real: City Pages
Documentary Film Series.

After the screening, VVAW contact person and Minnesota artist Billy X.
Curmano, who has been involved with VVAW since 1969 and has participated
in numerous actions, will perform "Wagin' War" and will be available for
discussion.

---
From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com>

Reports of American soldiers abusing Iraqui prisoners in Abu Graibe, use
of napalm in Faluga and murders of journalists shock the country. These
current events echo a 'people's tribunal"  held almost 35 years ago and
documented in the film "Winter Soldier". Called by Vietnam Veterans
Against The War, more than 125 men testified to war crimes they witnessed
and/or participated in--including a 27 year old John Kerry, who would
later also testify before the U.S. Senate. As powerful now as it was then,
"Winter Soldier" honors the redemptive power of truth-telling and a
pivotal moment in opposition to war that still inspires. Part of
documentary film series curated by City Pages' Rob Nelson. Tues. Jan.17,
7pm, $4-10 (Pay What You Can), Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 West Lake St.,
Minneapolis www.bryantlakebowl.com (612)825-3737 (Lydia Howell)


--------13 of 23--------

From: "Murphy, Cathy" <CMurphy [at] analysts.com>
Subject: Peace standards 1.17 7:30pm

Tuesday, 1/17, 7:30pm, Mobilization meeting to craft "peace standards"
for upcoming precinct caucuses for Peace First!, the 2006 version of Peace
in the Precincts, 399 Macalester, St. Paul, 55105. Contact: Sharon Sudman,
651-699-7132. www.peaceintheprecincts.org or 651-917-0383.


--------14 of 23--------

From: Will Donovan III <manisape [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: IRV/Hopkins action 1.17 7:30pm

Please take the time to read this and think about attending the public
hearing on instituting IRV in Hopkins. This could be the ground-breaking
that IRV needs in Minnesota!!

At one time or another, each of you has expressed to me an interest in
keeping informed on the progress of Alternative Voting Methods in Hopkins,
an effort that actually started in 2003.  Here's the update and an
invitation:

On December 20 during the meeting of the Hopkins City Council (and I quote
from the minutes) "Council member Brausen moved and Council Member Rowan
seconded a motion to approve Resolution 2005-094, accepting Ordinance
2005-958, ordering its publication and setting a public hearing for
January 17, 2006.  A poll of the vote was as follows:  Council Member
Brausen, aye; Council Member Thompson, aye; Council Member Rowan; aye;
Mayor Maxwell, aye.  The motion carried unanimously."  This is the
ordinance that would amend the Hopkins City Charter changing the way votes
are cast in City elections from the standard method of voting for one
candidate to ranking the candidates in the order of choice.

IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT THOSE OF YOU WHO CARE ABOUT THIS ISSUE COME
TO THE COUNCIL MEETING THAT EVENING (TUESDAY, JANUARY 17) AND SPEAK UP
DURING THE PUBLIC HEARING IN SUPPORT OF PASSING THIS ORDINANCE. And wear
something red in case you don't speak, we'll make sure the council knows
that those in red are supporters.

Although the issue passed unanimously, it was simply moved forward for
public hearing.  Since that night, there two council members have been
replaced as a result of the election.

We have reason to be very optimistic, however, that the Mayor and Council
members are relying on the input from the public hearing on January 17 to
inform their final decision on this issue.  I believe hearings are
generally towards the front end of the agenda and Council Meetings start
at 7:30pm, so it should be safe to assume that the hearing will take place
shortly after 7:30pm.

Hopefully, we will have a good number of supporters to say a few words
that evening.

Let me know if you need directions to Hopkins City Hall. Please let me
know your plans and/or if you would like me to say something on your
behalf. -Fran


--------15 of 23--------

From: Philip Schaffner <PSchaffner [at] ccht.org>
Subject: CCHT Building Dreams 1.18 7:30am

You're invited to a free, one-hour information session provided by Central
Community Housing Trust. "Building Dreams" is on hour of inspiration and
information about the Twin Cities affordable housing crisis and the
mission of Central Community Housing Trust. You'll learn how affordable
housing is defined; how hard it is for a family to get by in the Twin
Cities on a low income; and how CCHT's high-quality, long-term approach to
housing helps solve the Twin Cities' housing crisis. We've limited each
session in size so you can meet and talk with CCHT leadership and get to
know other community members who care about housing.

Wednesday, January 18, 7:30-8:30am, The Renaissance Box, 509 Sibley St.
First Floor, St. Paul.  For more information, visit: www.ccht.org/bd

Philip Schaffner Fund Development Manager Central Community Housing Trust
612-341-3148 x237 pschaffner [at] ccht.org


--------16 of 23--------

From: Jennifer Nemo <jennifer_nemo [at] hotmail.com>
Subject: Writers 4 change 1.18 1pm

Wednesday, January 18 Writers 4 Change presents, Writers 4 Change a new
organization active in social change 1pm on the third Wednesday of the
month at the Resource Center of the Americas 3019 Minnehaha Avenue South
in Minneapolis.


--------17 of 23--------

From: Chip Peterson <c-pete [at] umn.edu>
From: 	  global-cafe [at] lists.iatp.org
Subject: WI-FI/public/stolen 1.18 5pm

Global Café <global-cafe [at] lists.iatp.org> -- posted by dwiehoff [at] iatp.org
The Minnesota Global Forum at Acadia Café

WI-FI in Minneapolis: Public Ownership, or Private?
January 18, 5-7 pm

The City of Minneapolis plans to allow a single, private company to own
and operate a citywide wireless information network. Hundreds of other
cities around the U.S. -- Saint Louis Park, Minnesota to Corpus Christi,
Texas -- have chosen public ownership, and have been overwhelmingly
satisfied with the choice.

Join us at the Minnesota Global Forum to learn why publicly owned
infrastructure is vital to Minnesota's information future.

Speaker: Becca Vargo Daggett, Research Associate at the Institute for
Local Self-Reliance and co-author of Who Will Own Minnesota's Information
Highways?

Acadia Cafe, 1931 Nicollet (Nicollet & East Franklin)
Wednesday, January 18th, 5-7 p.m.
(Free and open to the public. Arrive in time to get refreshments!)

Sponsored by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy & the
Minnesota International Directory (an IATP project)

For more information, call Katie Fournier, 612/331-5615 or
kfournier1 [at] mn.rr.com <mailto:kfournier1 [at] mn.rr.com>

Read an op-ed from the Star and Tribune by Becca Vargo from January
8, 2006

http://www.tradeobservatory.org/headlines.cfm?refid=78249 <http://
www.tradeobservatory.org/headlines.cfm?refid=78249>  <http://
www.startribune.com/146/story/165713.html>

View the ARCHIVES of this list at:
http://lists.iatp.org/listarchive/

For help with listserv SUBSCRIPTIONS visit:
http://lists.iatp.org/listarchive/subscriptions.cfm

Questions, comments, concerns? Email us: support [at] iatp.org

[Stop this huge theft by the ruling class parasites. They get rich by
stealing the our commons. We need democratic communication, not more
yachts for useless plutocrats. Time to tell the rich to go somewhere far
away to steal. Eat the rich. ed is fed up. -ed]


--------18 of 23--------

From: Dave Bicking  <dave [at] colorstudy.com>
Subject: Anti-torture 1.18  7pm

This Wednesday 1/11, and every Wednesday, meeting of the anti- torture
group, T3: Tackling Torture at the Top (a sub-group of WAMM).  Note new
location:  Center School, 2421 Bloomington Ave. S., Mpls.

We have also added a new feature:  we will have an "educate ourselves"
session before each meeting, starting at 6:30, for anyone who is
interested in learning more about the issues we are working on.  We will
share info and stay current about torture in the news.


---------19 of 23-------

From: PSariego [at] aol.com
Subject: NWMetro Green Party 1.18 7pm

Wed Jan 18, 2006 @ 7 PM @ Crystal City Hall, the NWMetro GP & the St. Louis
Park GP will meet.

Becky Kopp, Chair North West Metro Green Party 763-540-9918


--------20 of 23-------

From: Mike Miles and Barb Kass <anathoth [at] lakeland.ws>
Subject: Islamic tradition 1.18 7pm Chppewa Falls WI

Wednesday, January 18--Chippewa Falls, WI

7-9pm.  In a world that can fill us with fear of the other, let us
discover that we are more alike than different.  What do Christians have
in common with Muslims, and how does the heart of Islam connect with the
heart of Christianity?

Join us for an evening with Dr. Mahmoud Taman to learn about the Islamic
tradition.  In expanding our vision, we take a step toward greater
understanding.

St. Charles Borromeo Parish 810 Pearl Street. Contact Connie Sprague
<mailto:wissotaj [at] charter.net>wissotaj [at] charter.net


--------21 of 23--------

MoveOn.org Surrenders
Silence Is Complicity
by Joshua Frank
January 10, 2006

It's a good thing for MoveOn.org that George W. Bush was reelected. If he
hadn't been, the liberal troupe would have nothing to contest. Even if the
bloody occupation had continued under a John Kerry presidency (it most
certainly would have), the cowering office-chair activists would have
ducked behind their computer screens awaiting the return of another brutal
Republican administration. Activism should never be partisan, but
MoveOn.org isn't about to hold the Democrats' accountable for supporting
Bush's war agenda.

I'm not even all that sure MoveOn opposes the Iraq war. Sure, they rallied
opposition during the lead-up to the invasion a few years back, but since
then they've done little if anything that should garner the respect of the
antiwar movement. Despite Kerry's grotesque position on the Iraq war in
2004, MoveOn implored their members to donate cash to his campaign, but
said nary a word about his pro-war posturing. You can't support a
candidate without putting demands on their candidacy, and MoveOn's
breakdown has made them all but irrelevant as an antiwar club.

Case in point. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York has continued to support
Bush's war in Iraq as well as his greater war on terror, yet MoveOn
refuses to voice frustration. Instead, they support the war-hungry senator
and admit they won't stand up to her during an election year.

"The case I would make is that 2006 needs to be a year of reckoning for
Republicans on Iraq," Tom Matzzie, the Washington director for MoveOn
recently told the New York Times. "If the antiwar candidate is creamed by
Hillary Clinton, it's a distraction."

A distraction from what? If I remember correctly, it wasn't just the
Republican Party that got us into this dreadful mess. The Democrats voted
for it, helped sell the damn thing, and even bombed the hell out of Iraq
during the 1990s, all the while supporting deadly UN sanctions. And as
Americans begin to turn on this war, including prominent elected officials
from both parties, Hillary still won't retract her defense of the war, let
alone meet with genuine antiwar activists here in New York.

All of this, and the feckless MoveOn.org still won't call Hillary out for
her warmongering.

MoveOn is nothing more than a cover for the Democratic Party. Issues are
no matter. Partisan politics are. We've got a war going on, and advocacy
groups who allegedly oppose it should stand up to it, not pander to those
who do.  The best way to force the New York senator to change her position
on the war is to run an antiwar campaign against her during 2006 from
outside of the Democratic Party.

Running a campaign against Hillary within the Democratic Party, as a
couple antiwar activists are doing (one a former Green, Steve Greenfield),
is hopeless - for their challenges will end after the primaries. If the
antiwar movement really wants to take on Hillary in the electoral arena,
she has to be confronted from outside the Democratic Party right up to
Election Day and beyond.

That is exactly what MoveOn should advocate, but never will.

No, MoveOn.org is nothing more than a roadblock for an antiwar movement
that is finally gaining speed after a bout of silence. If we want to end
this war, we've got to oppose all who support it - the bigger the name,
the better.  That puts Hillary Clinton at the top of the list.

[I eliminated MoveOn from the Progressive Calendar some time ago; it is a
false friend of progress. A vote for Hillary is a vote to do nothing to
stop American fascism.

The Dem hacks come up with a new false friend of progress after each
presidential election, as the previous one is revealed as a fraud. The
name of the game is to keep progressive Dems from straying over into, say,
the hated Green Party. It sounds pretty good, until after the Dem
convention ratifies the latest corporate stooge, and then all the good
little members are supposed to hold their noses and vote for the rotten
choice that had been planned 4 years before. Fool us once... -ed]


--------22 of 23--------

CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED
The reign of corporations and the fight for democracy
By Jeffrey Kaplan
From: Orion Magazine, Mar. 10, 2003

The autonomy of state and local governments continues to wane as
corporations grow larger and gain more extensive rights under the U.S.
Constitution.

An increasing number of Americans have begun to consider a whole range of
single-issue cases as examples of "corporate rule," with government merely
enforcing rules defined by corporations for profit.

But in communities across the country a revolt is underfoot that has
corporations reeling.

By Jeffrey Kaplan

Describing the United States of the 1830s in his now-famous work,
Democracy in America, the young French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville
depicted a country passionate about self-governance. In the fifty years
since sovereignty had passed from the crown to the people, citizens of the
new republic had seized upon every opportunity "to take a hand in the
government of society and to talk about it.... If an American should be
reduced to occupying himself with his own affairs," wrote de Tocqueville,
"half his existence would be snatched from him; he would feel it as a vast
void in his life."

At the center of this vibrant society was the town or county government.
"Without local institutions," de Tocqueville believed, "a nation has not
got the spirit of liberty," and might easily fall victim to "despotic
tendencies."

In the era's burgeoning textile and nascent railroad industries, and in
its rising commercial class, de Tocqueville had already detected a threat
to the "equality of conditions" he so admired in America. "The friends of
democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed," he warned, on an
"industrial aristocracy.... For if ever again permanent inequality of
conditions and aristocracy make their way into the world it will have been
by that door that they entered." Under those conditions, he thought, life
might very well be worse than it had been under the old regimes of Europe.
The old land-based aristocracy of Europe at least felt obliged "to come to
the help of its servants and relieve their distress. But the industrial
aristocracy... when it has impoverished and brutalized the men it uses,
abandons them in a time of crisis."

As de Tocqueville predicted, the industrial aristocrats have prevailed in
America. They have garnered enormous power over the past 150 years through
the inexorable development of the modern corporation. Having achieved
extensive control over so many facets of our lives - from food and
clothing production to information, transportation, and other necessities
- corporate institutions have become more powerful than the sovereign
people who originally granted them existence.

As late as 1840, state legislators closely supervised the operation of
corporations, allowing them to be created only for very specific public
benefits, such as the building of a highway or a canal. Corporations were
subject to a variety of limitations: a finite period of existence, limits
to the amount of property they could own, and prohibitions against one
corporation owning another. After a period of time deemed sufficient for
investors to recoup a fair profit, the assets of a business would often
revert to public ownership. In some states, it was even a felony for a
corporation to donate to a political campaign.

But in the headlong rush into the Industrial Age, legislators and the
courts stripped away almost all of those limitations. By the 1860s, most
states had granted owners limited liability, waiving virtually all
personal accountability for an institution's cumulative actions. In 1886,
without comment, the United States Supreme Court ruled for corporate
owners in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, allowing
corporations to be considered "persons," thereby opening the door to free
speech and other civil rights under the Bill of Rights; and by the early
1890s, states had largely eliminated restrictions on corporations owning
each other. By 1904, 318 corporations owned forty percent of all
manufacturing assets. Corporate owners were replacing de Tocqueville's
"equality of conditions" with what one writer of the time, W. J. Ghent,
called "the new feudalism... characterized by a class dependence rather
than by a personal dependence."

Throughout the twentieth century, federal courts have granted U.S.
corporations additional rights that once applied only to human beings -
including those of "due process" and "equal protection." Corporations, in
turn, have used those rights to thwart democratic efforts to check their
growth and influence.

Corporate power, largely unimpeded by democratic processes, today affects
municipalities across the country. But in the conservative farming
communities of western Pennsylvania, where agribusiness corporations have
obstructed local efforts to ban noxious corporate farming practices, the
commercial feudalism de Tocqueville warned against has evoked a response
that echoes the defiant spirit of the Declaration of Independence.

In late 2002 and early 2003, two of the county's townships did something
that no municipal government had ever dared: They decreed that a
corporation's rights do not apply within their jurisdictions.

The author of the ordinances, Thomas Linzey, an Alabama-born lawyer who
attended law school in nearby Harrisburg, did not start out trying to
convince the citizens of the heavily Republican county to attack the legal
framework of corporate power. But over the past five years, Linzey has
seen township supervisors begin to take a stand against expanding
corporate influence - and not just in Clarion County. Throughout rural
Pennsylvania, supervisors have held at bay some of the most well-connected
agribusiness executives in the state, along with their lawyers, lobbyists,
and representatives in the Pennsylvania legislature.

Linzey anticipated none of this when he cofounded the Community
Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), a grassroots legal support
group, in 1995. Initially, CELDF worked with activists according to a
conventional formula. "We were launched to provide free legal services to
community groups, specifically grassroots community environmental
organizations," Linzey says. "That involved us in permit appeals and other
typical regulatory stuff." But all that soon changed.

In 1997, the state of Pennsylvania began enforcing a weak waste-disposal
law, passed at the urging of agribusiness lobbyists several years earlier,
which explicitly barred townships from passing any more stringent law. It
had the effect of repealing the waste-disposal regulations of more than
one hundred townships, regulations that had prevented corporations from
establishing factory farms in their communities. The supervisors, who had
seen massive hog farms despoil the ecosystems and destroy the social and
economic fabric of communities in nearby states, were desperate to find a
way to protect their townships. Within a year, CELDF "started getting
calls from municipal governments in Pennsylvania, as many as sixty to
seventy a week," Linzey says. "Of 1,400 rural governments in the state we
were interacting with perhaps ten percent of them. We still are."

But factory hog farms weren't the only threat introduced by the state's
industry-backed regulation. The law also served to preempt local control
over the spreading of municipal sewage sludge on rural farmland. In
Pittsburgh and other large cities, powerful municipal treatment agencies,
seeking to avoid costly payments to landfills, began contracting with
corporate sewage haulers. Haulers, in turn, relied on rural farmers
willing to use the sludge as fertilizer - a practice deemed "safe" by
corporate-friendly government environmental agencies.

Pennsylvania required the sewage sludge leaving treatment plants, which
contains numerous dangerous microorganisms, to be tested only at
three-month intervals, and only for E. coli and heavy metals. Most
individual batches arriving at farms were not tested at all. It was clear,
from the local vantage, that the state Department of Environmental
Protection had failed to protect the townships, turning many rural
communities into toxic dumping grounds - with fatal results. In 1995, two
local youths, Tony Behun and Danny Pennock, died after being exposed to
the material - Behun while riding an all-terrain vehicle, Pennock while
hunting.

"People are up in arms all over the place," said Russell Pennock, Danny's
father, a millwright from Centre County. "They're considering this a
normal agricultural operation. I'll tell you something right now: If
anyone would have seen the way my son suffered and died, they would not
even get near this stuff." After a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
scientist linked the two deaths to a pathogen in the sludge, county
supervisors tried to pass ordinances to stop the practice, but found that
the state had preempted such local control with its less restrictive law.

The state's apparent complicity with the corporations outraged local
elected officials. People began to understand, Linzey recalls, "that the
state was being used by corporations to strip away democratic authority
from local governments."

Many small farmers in rural Pennsylvania were already feeling the
devastating effects of increasing corporate control over the market. They
often had no choice but to sign contracts with large agribusiness
corporations - resulting in a modern form of peonage. By the corporate
formula, a farmer must agree to raise hogs exclusively for the
corporation, and to borrow $250,000 or more to build specialized
factory-farm barns. Yet the corporation could cancel the contract at any
time. The farmer doesn't even own the animals - except the dead ones,
which pile up in mortality bins as infectious diseases ravage the crowded
pens. The agribusiness company takes the lion's share of the profits while
externalizing the costs and liabilities; the farmer left financially and
legally responsible for all environmental harms, including groundwater
contamination from manure lagoons.

Even if farmers could find a way to market their hogs on their own, loan
officers often deny applications from farmers unless they are locked into
a corporate livestock contract. "The once-proud occupation of 'independent
family farmer' has become a black mark on loan papers," Linzey writes on
the CELDF website.

A bespectacled thirty-four-year-old, Linzey speaks with a tinge of
southern drawl. Under the tutelage of historian Richard Grossman of the
Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy, he has become an eloquent
speaker on organizing tactics, constitutional theory, and the history of
corporations in this country. But he is also an excellent listener. He
heard the indignation as incredulous supervisors came to understand their
lack of authority in the regulatory arena. The rights and privileges that
corporations were able to assert seemed incomprehensible to them. "There's
disbelief," he says. "Then the clients attack you, and then you have to
explain it to them, giving prior examples of how this works."

Township supervisors were quick to see that the problem was not simply
factory farms or sludge, "but the corporations that were pushing them,"
Linzey says. Enormously wealthy corporations were able to secure rulings
that channeled citizen energies into futile battles. The supervisors
started to realize, according to Linzey, "that the only thing
environmental law regulates is environmentalists."

By 1999, with CELDF's help, five townships in two counties had adopted a
straightforward ordinance that challenged state law by prohibiting
corporations from farming or owning farmland. Five more townships in three
more counties followed suit. Also in 1999, Rush Township of Centre County
became the first in the nation to pass an ordinance to control sludge
spreading. Haulers who wanted to apply sewage sludge to farmland would
have to test every load at their own expense - and for a wider array of
toxic substances than required by the weaker state law. Three dozen
townships in seven counties have unanimously passed similar sludge
ordinances to date. Citing a township's mandate to protect its citizens,
Licking Township Supervisor Mik Robertson declares, "If the state isn't
going to do the job, we'll do it for them."

So far, the spate of unanimous votes at the municipal level has halted
both new hog farms and the spreading of additional sludge in these
townships.

In De Tocqueville's time, local communities like those in Clarion County
had enormous strength and autonomy. The large corporation was nonexistent,
and the federal government had little say over local affairs. Americans by
and large reserved patriotic feelings for their state. People, at least
those of European descent, played a more active role in local governance
than they do today. Their only direct experience with the federal
government was through the post office. As de Tocqueville pointed out,
"real political life" was not concentrated in what was called "the Union,"
itself a telling term; before the Civil War the "United States" was a
plural noun, as in, "The United States are a large country."

Since the consolidation of the Union and throughout the twentieth century,
the autonomy of state and local governments has continued to wane as
corporations have grown larger and gained more extensive rights under the
U.S. Constitution. In two decisions in the mid-1970s, the Supreme Court
affirmed a corporation's right to make contributions to political
campaigns, considering money to be a form of "free speech." And over the
past few decades, corporations have won increasingly generous
interpretations of the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Originally intended to prevent individual states from obstructing the flow
of goods and people across their borders, the clause has been used by
corporations to challenge almost any state law that might affect activity
across state lines. In 2002, for example, the federal courts ruled that a
Virginia law prohibiting the dumping of trash from other states violated a
waste hauler's rights. In early 2003, Smithfield Foods, one of the
nation's largest factory-farm conglomerates, sued on similar grounds to
overturn Iowa's citizen initiative banning meatpacking companies from
owning livestock, a practice the citizens believed undercut family farms.

Elsewhere, corporate rights have posed increasingly absurd threats to
sovereignty. In 1994, for example, Vermont passed a law requiring the
labeling of milk from cows that had received a bioengineered bovine growth
hormone; in 1996 the federal courts overthrew that law, saying that the
mandated disclosure violated a corporation's First Amendment right "not to
speak." Four years later, a Pennsylvania township tried to use zoning laws
to control the placement of a cell-phone tower; the telecommunications
company sued the township and won, citing a nineteenth-century civil
rights law designed to protect newly freed slaves.

Until recently, these incidents might have been seen simply as aberrations
or "corporate abuse." But an increasing number of Americans have begun to
consider a whole range of single-issue cases as examples of "corporate
rule." The role that government has played, in their view, is merely that
of a referee who enforces the rules defined by corporations for their own
benefit rather than the public's.

It was this perception that motivated the townships to take their
revolutionary stand. But their successes in halting factory farming and
sludge applications within their borders didn't prohibit corporations from
attempting to press their case in the courtroom.

In 2000, the transnational hauler Synagro-WWT, Inc. sued Rush Township,
claiming its antisludge ordinance illegally preempted the weaker state law
and violated the company's constitutional right of due process. It also
sued each supervisor personally for one million dollars. In response,
Linzey recalls, one township supervisor asked, "What the hell are the
constitutional rights of corporations?" A year later, PennAg Industries
Association, a statewide agribusiness trade group, funded its own suit
against the factory farm ordinance in Fulton County's Belfast Township on
similar constitutional grounds. Rulings on both suits are expected as
early as mid-2004.

It was only after those suits had been filed that the two Clarion County
townships, Licking and Porter, took the historic step of passing
ordinances to decree that within their townships, "Corporations shall not
be considered to be 'persons' protected by the Constitution of the United
States," a measure that effectively declared their independence from
corporate rule. For Mik Robertson, the issue is simple: "Those rights are
meant for individuals." He and his two fellow supervisors later revised
their ordinance to also deny corporations the right to invoke the
Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause; Porter Township is considering
a similar amendment. Several other townships are preparing their own
versions of the corporate rights ordinance, according to Linzey.

Now, when a corporation claims that an antisludge ordinance violates its
rights, the townships can simply say those rights don't apply here. The
corporation would then be forced to defend corporate personhood in a legal
battle. That hasn't happened yet, but Linzey and his allies have energized
a statewide coalition that has vowed to fight the issue all the way to the
Supreme Court, raising awareness along the way about a basic question of
sovereignty: By what authority can a conglomeration of capital and
property, whose existence is granted by the public, deny the right of a
sovereign people to govern itself democratically? Linzey predicts that
such a suit could happen within a decade. That battle, he says, could
ignite populist sentiment across the country - even around the world.

Growing support for these issues was put to the test in 2002, when
agribusiness interests, displeased by the spread of ordinances prohibiting
factory farming, began prodding the Pennsylvania state legislature to pass
an even more severe bill than the 1997 directive. This time there was no
disguising it as waste-disposal regulation. The 2002 bill had one
explicitly stated purpose: To strip away a township's right to control
agriculture - including sludge applications - within its borders. When it
stalled in a senate committee, the Pennsylvania legislators renumbered the
bill and rammed it through before their constituents noticed. By the time
CELDF found out about the bill, it was up for a vote in the house.

"We ignited opposition almost overnight," Linzey recalls. "We were working
with 100-plus townships already. All we had to do was notify them."

Within two weeks, the coalition included four hundred local townships,
five countywide associations of township officials, the Sierra Club, two
small-farmers groups, the citizens' rights group Common Cause - even the
United Mine Workers (whose members had been sickened by sewage sludge
applied on mine reclamation sites), which invited in the formidable
AFL-CIO.

"It was like Sam Adams in 1766, when the Townsend Acts were passed," says
Linzey. "He had already built the mob, the rabble, and just had to alert
the people that this was happening as an act of oppression."

Because the issue had been defined as protection of a community's right to
self-determination, the bill became unpopular and was tabled indefinitely.
On Thanksgiving Eve 2002, it met its end when a mandated voting period
elapsed. Astonishingly, the coalition had won.

In so defining the issue, the deliberations in Clarion County resonate far
beyond its borders. In recent years, judges, mayors, and a host of local
and state legislators nationwide, whose authority as democratically
elected representatives is similarly threatened by the increasing legal
dominance of corporations, have begun to take action:

* In Minnesota, State Representative Bill Hilty has introduced a state
constitutional amendment eliminating corporate personhood.

* The Arizona Green Party is campaigning for the passage of a similar
amendment in their state.

* In the northern California town of Point Arena, legislators passed
nonbinding resolutions in opposition to corporate personhood.

* Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota,
South Dakota, and Wisconsin have all passed laws outlawing corporate
ownership of farms.

But in the age of globalization, questions of sovereignty can no longer be
addressed strictly within U.S. borders. Clarion County's townships may
pass an ordinance saying that a sludge hauler's constitutional rights
don't apply. "But if there is foreign participation, say if they are
partially German-owned or Canadian," says Victor Menotti of the
International Forum on Globalization, "you run up against another set of
corporate rights under [international] trade agreements."

It was this other set of rights, the understanding of global "corporate
rule," that brought many of the forty thousand demonstrators to the
streets of Seattle in December 1999 to shut down the meeting of the World
Trade Organization (WTO). It is also what incited subsequent
demonstrations at the meeting of the World Bank in Prague in 2000, the
meeting of the G-8 (the eight most economically powerful countries) in
Genoa in 2001, the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting in Quebec in
2001, and most recently, the WTO meeting in Cancun. Through it all,
protesters have held fast to one principle: the right of a people to
govern themselves, through their representatives, without obstruction by
corporations.

One of the increasing number of public officials in the U.S. who face
challenges to their sovereignty similar to those faced by their
counterparts in the Pennsylvania townships is Velma Veloria, chair of the
Washington State legislature's Joint Committee on Trade Policy. For
fifty-three-year-old Veloria, the 1999 Seattle demonstration against the
WTO was a defining event. Veloria realized that behind the tumult in the
streets, "there was a whole movement that was asking for accountability
and transparency." She imagined what might happen if a tanker that was not
double-hulled spilled oil in Puget Sound. She and her colleagues could
pass a law requiring double hulls in Seattle harbor, but under the
emerging rules of the WTO, such a law could meet the same fate as a
Clarion County antisludge ordinance: It could be attacked as interfering
with the rights of corporations, as a barrier to trade. "It opened a whole
new field for me about the sovereignty of the state," Veloria says.

California State Senator Liz Figueroa, chair of the Senate Select
Committee on International Trade Policy and State Legislation, has faced
similar quandaries. In 2000, Figueroa authored a bill that made it illegal
for the state to do business with companies that employed slave or forced
labor. Figueroa explained to the city councils and constituents in her
district that foreign trade imports produced by slave labor could undercut
the local economy. But as pragmatic and ethically incontestable as the
bill sounds, it could potentially be challenged under the WTO's rules.

"Our job is monumental," she says, referring to her efforts to explain how
trade agreements can usurp democracy. "We have to make sure our own
legislative offices even know of the conflict... we have to explain the
reality of the situation."

Figueroa and Veloria are not alone. International trade agreements such as
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the WTO's General
Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and the pending Free Trade Area of
the Americas (FTAA) threaten the jurisdiction of any elected or appointed
representative of a sovereign people at any level of government. A
National League of Cities resolution declared that the trade agreements
could "undermine the scope of local governmental authority under the
Constitution." Last year, the Conference of Chief Justices, consisting of
the top judges from each state, wrote a letter to the U.S. Senate stating
that the proposed FTAA "does not protect adequately the traditional values
of constitutional federalism" and "threatens the integrity of the courts
of this country." In California, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington,
Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, state legislatures have expressed
concern over trade agreements, as has the National Council of State
Legislators. Their statements, however more discreet, nonetheless echo the
chants from the streets of Seattle: "This isn't about trade, this isn't
about business; this is about democracy."

Despite their enormous ramifications, most international trade agreements
remain a mystery to the average American. At the core, they are simple.

GATT and NAFTA cover the trade of physical goods between countries. They
can be used to override any country's protection of the environment, for
example, or of workers' rights, by defining relevant laws and regulations
as illegal "barriers to trade." They provide for a "dispute resolution"
process, but the process routinely determines such laws to be in violation
of the agreements.

In the case of GATT, a WTO member country can sue another member country
on behalf of one of its corporations, on the grounds that a country's law
has violated GATT trade rules. The case is heard by a secret tribunal
appointed by the WTO. State and local officials are denied legal
representation. If the tribunal finds that a law or regulation of a
country - or state or township - is a "barrier to trade," the offending
country must either rescind that law or pay the accusing country whatever
amount the WTO decides the company had to forgo because of the barrier, a
sum that can amount to billions of dollars. In short, practitioners of
democracy at any level can be penalized for interfering with international
profit-making.

Through this process, WTO tribunals have overturned such U.S. laws as EPA
standards for clean-burning gasoline and regulations banning fish caught
by methods that endanger dolphins and sea turtles. The WTO has also
effectively undermined the use of the precautionary principle, by which
practices can be banned until proven safe - in one recent instance
superseding European laws forbidding the use of growth hormones in beef
cattle. A WTO tribunal dismissed laboratory evidence that such hormones
may cause cancer because it lacked "scientific certainty." On similar
grounds, the U.S., on behalf of Monsanto and other American agribusiness
giants, recently initiated an action under GATT challenging the European
Union's ban on genetically modified food.

Under NAFTA, which covers Canada, Mexico, and the U.S., a corporation can
sue a government directly. The case would also be heard by a secret
tribunal, such as when Vancouver-based Methanex sued the U.S. over
California's ban on a cancer-causing gas additive, MTBE. The company,
which manufactures the additive's key ingredient, claimed that the ban
failed to consider its financial interests. Since July 2001, three men -
one former U.S. official and two corporate lawyers - have held closed
hearings on the thirteenth floor of World Bank headquarters in Washington,
D.C., to decide whether, in this instance, a democratically elected
governor's executive order to protect the public should cost the U.S. $970
million in fines. The FTAA, recently fast-tracked for negotiations to put
it into effect by 2005, would extend NAFTA's provisions to all of Latin
America.

GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services, a recent trade agreement
under the WTO, takes the usurpation of democracy one step further. While
GATT deals with the exchange of goods across international borders, GATS
establishes certain privileges for transnational companies operating
within a country. It covers "services," meaning almost anything from
telecommunications to construction to mining to supplying drinking water.
It even includes functions that traditionally have been carried out or
closely controlled by government, like postal services and social services
such as welfare - even libraries. Activists point out that the primary
focus of the GATS is to limit government involvement, "whether in the form
of a law, regulation, rule, procedure, decision, administrative action or
any other form," to quote the treaty itself. Public Citizen's Lori Wallach
has called GATS a "massive attack on the most basic functions of local and
state government."

Under GATS, any activity the federal government agrees to declare a
"service" would be thrown open to privatization. The supply and treatment
of water is a timely example, since the European Union is currently
pressing the United States to make water among the first of the services
it places under GATS. If clean drinking water is so declared, no
government body in the U.S. could insist that it remain publicly managed.
If any government wanted to create a publicly owned water district,
foreign corporate "competitors" would have the right to underbid the
government for control of the service. Just as important, a transnational
company could challenge any rules - including environmental and health
regulations - that would hamper its ability to profit from a business that
is related to a service under GATS.

On March 28, 2003, twenty-nine California state legislators signed a
letter of concern to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick about the
provisions contained in GATS. The letter states that GATS could usurp any
government regulation, including nurse-to-patient staffing levels, laws
against racial discrimination, worker health and safety laws, regulatory
limits to oil drilling, and standards for everything from waste
incineration to trace toxins in drinking water. As a result, the letter
states, GATS would "jeopardize the public welfare and pose grave
consequences for democratic governance throughout the world."

Veloria and Figueroa both believe that if state legislators are to
challenge this "power grab," in Veloria's words, they will have to
organize among themselves. "One state cannot do it alone. We need to do it
on a national scale." Otherwise U.S. citizens may find themselves under
the thumb of NAFTA and WTO trade tribunals, "unelected bodies that have no
accountability to the people." At that point, Veloria asks, "Why have
state legislators, why have elected officials?"

In his work with the rural Pennsylvania supervisors, Thomas Linzey's
approach to domestic corporate rights may well illuminate how individuals,
states, and nations can deal with international trade treaties.

"Clarion County is one of many emerging examples of local communities
reasserting their own authority to define how they want land managed and
what sort of protections they want for their community," says
antiglobalization organizer Victor Menotti. "It's when things like this
come to light that people question what the hell we've gotten ourselves
into. These local communities stand up, and others say, 'if they can do
that, we can do that.""

On many issues of local governance, Linzey believes, a state or local
legislature "could declare null and void the federal government's
signature on GATT." To him it would be the "ultimate act of insurrection:
saying governments have no constitutional authority to give away sovereign
and democratic rights to international trade tribunals that operate in
secrecy."

For now, Velma Veloria is still working through traditional channels. In
an attempt to remove the antidemocratic provisions of the trade treaties,
her committee will take up the issue with the state's delegation to
Congress. But she is well aware that her colleagues, and the people of
Washington State, may find that traditional route closed to them, as the
Pennsylvania townships did in 1997.

If that happens, the practice of democracy at the local level would
require legislators to defy the trade agreements. "At some point we might
get to where the people working with Linzey are," she says. "We may end up
saying we don't recognize parts of the international trade agreements that
impact us. But that depends on the grassroots, on people demanding it."

There, too, the Pennsylvania coalition may offer some inspiration. "When
the agribusiness folks filed suit over our anti-corporate farming laws,"
Linzey recalls, "page one of the lawsuit said 'we the corporations are
people and this ordinance violates our personhood rights." When we
photocopied that, people immediately understood how they're ruled by these
constitutional rights and privileges. It sparks a conversation."

The Pennsylvania township supervisors are backed by a determined
grassroots movement, with a constituency "ready to go to the mat for their
binding law to establish a sustainable vision that doesn't include
corporate rights and privileges," says Linzey. "The product is not the
ordinance," he adds. "The product is the people."

The Pennsylvania ordinances express the will of a sovereign people who are
exercising their right to create institutions that support their vision of
how they wish to live. And, as one would expect in a democratic society,
the people of Pennsylvania wish to be the ones who define the rules under
which those institutions may operate, be they governments or corporations.

History repeats itself. In the course of asserting their sovereign rights,
the citizens of rural Pennsylvania have undergone a profound change in
personal identity and political consciousness not unlike that of their
forebears. As historian Lawrence Henry Gipson noted, "The period from 1760
to 1775 is really the history of the transformation of the attitude of the
great body of colonials from acquiescence in the traditional order of
things to a demand for a new order." People who for generations had
considered themselves loyal Englishmen suddenly declared themselves to be
citizens of a new nation, one based on the sovereignty of its citizens.

Veloria believes we are at a similar juncture today. "I have faith that
the American people will stand up for themselves and for democracy. They
can only be pushed so far."

Jeffrey Kaplan's essays and articles have appeared in many regional and
national newspapers and periodicals. He lives and works in Berkeley,
California.

Copyright 2003 The Orion Society

[Time to revolt. -ed]


--------23 of 23--------

 Friends say Bush, Number
 One, is made from number two.
 Want proof? Scratch and sniff.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   - David Shove             shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu
   rhymes with clove         Progressive Calendar
                     over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02
              please send all messages in plain text no attachments