Protecting the Rights of
People & Nature From
the Local Up
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Thoughts on Community Rights
Greetings to our beloved supporters!
After many years of writing essays and speeches about building authentic democratic culture, from the local up, I have finally written a book that collects some of the very best of my writings over these past few decades. The vision is bold and assertive and ultimately hopeful. Yes, indeed, if We the People can recognize the power and authority that we do have to define our future together in the US of A, we could move mountains! (Okay, let’s leave those beautiful mountains where they are! Humans have been exercising the wrong kind of power for far too long, but you know what I mean.)
My book is titled, How Dare We? Courageous Practices to Reclaim Our Power as Citizens*, and contains dozens of essays with titles, such as….
- Thoughts About Breathing and Not Breathing During This Time of Escalating Emergencies Facing the Entire Planet, and Where Our Energies Can Best be Focused
- The Right of Local Self-Government: This is What Democracy (Actually) Looks Like
- Taking Our Language Back from Corporate Culture
- We the People Standing Together to Protect Our Climate: Lessons from the Community Rights Movement
- Imagining a City Where Renters & Property Owners Enjoy Fully Equal Rights Under Law
- Enough Already! — Proposal for an International Campaign to End US Assaults on The World’s People & Nature
- Since Everyone Lives Somewhere, There’s No Better Place to Begin to Challenge Corporate Media Than In One’s Own Community
- “Learning to See Each Other As We the People” — A Guided Visualization
It will be published as both a printed book and an e-book sometime in late November, but you, dear readers, can act TODAY by making a tax-deductible one-time donation to Community Rights US of $50 or more, or a recurring monthly donation of $5 or more for at least 10 monthts, and in exchange, we will mail you my book! All you have to do is click on our Donation page, and we’ll take it from there!
Next month I’ll share details about how to pre-order the book, whether you want just one for yourself, or multiple copies shipped to many of your friends or family members or to your public library. But for now, below is an excerpt from my book to whet your appetite for more!
*The title of the book was updated in this web version of the newsletter.
Paul Cienfuegos
Founding Director
Community Rights US
An excerpt from Paul’s new book
“This nation was founded in revolution. Virtually all of the revolutionary language that originated at that time has been stripped from our laws and constitutional structures. There are a few exceptions. One of these exceptions is the opening paragraph of each of our state constitutions. Very few Americans know anything about that paragraph, and that’s a real shame.
“Our Oregon State Constitution was approved by a vote of the people in 1857. Here’s how it starts:
“Natural rights inherent in people. We declare that all men, when they form a social compact are equal in right: that all power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness; and they have at all times a right to alter, reform, or abolish the government in such manner as they may think proper.
“Them’s fightin’ words!
“What would change in our country if We the People started acting again as if we believed those words to be true—that all power is inherent in the people, that all free governments are founded on our authority, and that we have, at all times, a right to alter, reform, or abolish our government when we deem it necessary.
“Those words pretty much sum up what real democracy would look like and feel like. The word democracy itself has a very powerful definition. It comes from two Latin words, demos and cratia, which literally means ‘rule by the people,’ and, if you think about it, matches the opening paragraph of our state constitution.
“Now I want to ask you a question: When is the last time you reflected on what it might look like if you yourself participated in your community, not as a single-issue activist and not as a consumer who votes with your dollars, but as a member of the collective body known as We the People, who together have the authority to govern ourselves?
“Democracy: rule by the people. Most Americans have become so profoundly cynical about our country’s so-called democracy that they have almost entirely tuned out and turned off. I don’t call this apathy. In fact, I think it’s a quite rational response to a system that was in fact designed to appear as if it was a functioning democratic republic, when it was actually designed to serve the wealthy elite, which it does quite well.
“Real democracy, unlike the “democracy theme park” (coined by Jane Anne Morris) we now inhabit, would engage all of us. We would know it was the real thing because of how we would feel participating in it. My work in the community rights movement is all about engaging the citizenry to start acting again as if we really do have the authority to govern ourselves, because in fact we do, if we think and act like we do. To get there requires real effort, not just pushing keys on our keyboard to support the latest online petition to some power-holder somewhere.”
-Excerpt from, “All Power is Inherent in the People – But Only If We Act As If We Believe It,” one of the essays in the book We the People Are More Powerful Than We Dare to Believe
Photo credit: “Powerful Stance” by Tomathom is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Essential CR News from the Web
Community Rights US celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day!
5th Annual Int’l Rights of Nature Tribunal-November 3 and 4
River as a living entity (an article from India)
Original photo credit: “Blue Mountains, Australia” by GothPhil is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Want to help further the work of Community Rights US?
You can donate via our PayPal or through our Action Network fundraiser! Through this link, you can sign up for one-time or monthly recurring donations quickly and easily. Check it out and consider supporting Community Rights US, so together we can take our country back from corporate rule, and reclaim our rightful authority to govern ourselves (from the local up).Photo credit: “Banyan Tree Roots” by moonjazz