Protecting the Rights of
People & Nature From
the Local Up
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It’s Giving Tuesday!
(Note: this newsletter was published by CRUS on November 30, 2021)
Your donations will help us educate people who simply want things like clean air and clean water. All people should know that the polluting corporation in their region (because, let’s face it, there’s probably at least one) is like a toaster. We the People deserve clean air and clean water and a livable planet. Any structure, legal or otherwise, that would override our rights in favor of a toaster, should be replaced.
Please consider a one-time or recurring donation–all donations are tax deductible.
And between now and the end of the year, make a tax-deductible one-time donation to Community Rights US of $50 or more, or set up a recurring monthly donation of $5 or more, 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! And if you’re already a monthly donor, we’ll be sending you a book to thank you for your support too!
Thoughts on the Utter Ineffectiveness of the Glasgow Climate Summit Activism & Why We Continue to Urge a Community Rights Strategy
Some of the key big differences between Community Rights US and the other 99.9% of existing advocacy groups out there is that virtually all of them are utterly stuck, seemingly permanently, in a deep rut of tactics and strategies that cannot possibly achieve authentic wins against the corporations they are endlessly battling. Why? Because…
- They’re all single-issue emergency response campaigns focused on just the latest corporation’s outrageous and destructive project plan.
- They’re all focused on using the state and/or federal regulatory agency structure of law, when these agencies were explicitly designed way back in the 1800’s to severely limit the power of the people to oppose corporate projects.
- They’re all focused on a wide variety of tactics that, by definition, keep We the People outside of real decision-making power and authority: rallies, petitions, lawsuits, voluntary codes of corporate conduct, boycotts, etc etc.
As long as this 99.9% of our nation’s activist groups are committed to trying the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, we are screwed! The ultimate result: ecologically barren landscapes and communities destroyed from within. Just look around you. This is what continues to unfold across the country and around the world.
Whereas the Community Rights movement has sustained (since 1999) a laser focus on the root causes — the actual structures of law — that permit corporations to legally harm people and nature. Our movement has an impressive track record of wins — more than 200 communities and counties in a dozen states have passed our groundbreaking and locally enforceable protective laws.
The very latest tragic example of the weakness of conventional activism is one that we the citizens of the Earth simply cannot afford to lose — the catastrophic climate emergency. And yet that’s exactly where we’re headed.
Take for example, the just concluded COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
The truly terrifying truth is that we are out of time as a species. We have to act VERY fast and VERY boldly just to have a 50/50 shot at not destroying most of the existing life on this planet over the next decades. And yet, what did the world’s citizens do in Glasgow to force, to demand, the truly bold global policy changes that are needed NOW? Virtually nothing. Just more of the same old conventional activism that we all know — if we’re really being honest with ourselves — isn’t working. What a joke! If only it was funny. My email in-box was flooded with phony activist success stories, filled with claims like “We did it!” and “Just look at what we got done.” What are these so-called “crucial victories” that climate activists had achieved in Glasgow? Let’s examine one example together. Ten “victories,” was the claim, from one international group, Avaaz. In a nutshell, here’s their so-called “win” that they triumphantly proclaimed on November 16th:
- We brought incredible indigenous leaders to Glasgow.
- We ran hard-hitting ads. (Which were ignored by the negotiators around the table, as always.)
- We have a 30-page action plan and 1.8 million signatures on our online petition.
- We had a powerful rally. (Which the powerholders ignored, as usual.)
- We partnered with parents groups.
- We tracked toxic disinformation from the naysayers.
- We shared our dream text for the climate deal with government officials. (Who ignored it of course.)
- We demanded Obama keep a crucial promise from eight years ago. (He won’t, of course. But demanding is fun!)
- We teamed up with some great artists and made a fabulous puppet!
- And an ad we created raised pressure for a negotiation breakthrough. (Which of course didn’t happen.)
“Just look at what we got done,” this and other groups proclaim.
But these are tactics, not “wins.” Not “crucial victories.”
In other words, we did the same-old-same-old thing but expected different results this time. Boy oh boy are our social movements naive! These tactics are fine, to draw attention. But not to force the hands of our national leaders. Why can’t 99.9% of our advocacy groups see this for what it is? Where is the urgent bold activism that WILL force the hands of the powerholders?
Frankly, the Community Rights movement is one of the very few places where authentically winning strategies are being tested and are succeeding.
More than 100,000 citizens from all over the planet traveled to Glasgow, and all they could think of doing was the same-old-same-old. Those numbers were easily large enough to have shut this pseudo-summit down — like the 60,000 global citizens in the streets of Seattle vs the WTO thirty years ago — until our climate demands had been met. But no, they just rallied outside, and ran ads, and collected signatures on petitions. What an utter failure of imagination!
We the People of Mother Earth can do a LOT better than this. We HAVE to do better than this. And SOON. We have real collective power and authority which we need to learn how to exercise. There is no other option.
We MUST quickly build new social movement structures that can meaningfully involve massive numbers of people in militantly nonviolent campaigns to ensure that our national (and state) leaders either truly lead, boldly, or that they get out of the way immediately to make room for ACTUAL leadership to emerge. And we MUST quickly build hundreds and even thousands of LOCAL Community Rights campaign groups that can pass bold locally enforceable climate protection laws such as THESE.
We’re out of time. No more phony victories. Are you ready?
Please give today. Your tax-deductible donation will help us to energize and empower activists with the ideas behind Community Rights.
Warmly,
Paul Cienfuegos
Founding Director
Community Rights US
P.S. As of last year, the CARES Act added a new above-the-line deduction that allows an individual who does not itemize to deduct up to $300 of cash contributions to a qualified charity, such as CRUS!
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