Blogs from Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

American Propaganda

A Blog Posting by guest writer Drake Chamberlin, of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from January 15, 2017. Most people in the U.S. believe that we don’t have propaganda here. “That only happens in places like Russia.” However, we live in one of the most heavily propagandized societies in the history of the world. The media is [...]

Relying on Undemocratic Mechanisms to Achieve “Democracy”: Yes, the electoral college is undemocratic – but so is the whole U.S. Constitution

A Blog Posting by Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from January 8, 2017. In stunned abhorrence of president-elect Donald Trump, many people sought some recourse to block him from becoming president. They sought some silver bullet, some mechanism in our system of governance to prevent a presidential candidate who appeared to win the [...]

From Standing Rock to Million Women March and Beyond…if There is One

A Blog Posting by Tish O'Dell & Emelyn Lybarger of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from January 7, 2017. In 2016 we witnessed resistance to environmental harms and social injustices, the likes of which we have not seen for several decades. For months, people from all over the country traveled many miles to Standing Rock, [...]

U.S. Ruled by 9-Headed Monarch: What We Didn’t Learn in School about the Supreme Court

A Blog Posting by Emelyn Lybarger & Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from December 11, 2016. President-elect Trump promises to appoint a hard-right conservative to the U.S. Supreme Court, dashing Progressive hopes for a liberal court in the foreseeable future. And he may well be appointing at least one other Justice. Progressives are [...]

Fracking Resistance in the UK

A Blog Posting by guest writer Melanie Strickland of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from February 17, 2017. As CELDF’s work grows in the United States, we are also working with communities and groups in Nepal, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other countries to advance community rights and the rights of nature. As in the U.S., we [...]

The Police State Policing Police. How’s That Been Working for You?

A Blog Posting by Kai Huschke of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from November 29, 2016. Shonto Pete. Otto Zehm. Scott Creach. It’s very likely these names mean nothing to you. Pete, Zehm, and Creach were all victims of police violence in Spokane, Washington in the last 10 years. Shonto Pete was shot in [...]

Propertied Privilege Trumps Democracy: If You Think the Electoral College is the Only Problem – Well, that’s Part of the Problem

A Blog Posting by Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from November 19, 2016. In the still early years of the twenty-first century, two presidents have been selected – not elected – without the assenting vote of the majority. How this could happen in a so-called democracy is the question of the [...]

Government Checks and Balances, and the Trump Suit

A Blog Posting by Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from November 12, 2016. In the United States, we put a lot of faith in the theory of “checks and balances” of government power. The theory goes that, since power corrupts, it is best to not give absolute power to any one [...]

From Absurd and Far-Fetched to Inalienable

A Blog Posting by Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from November 6, 2016. This year CELDF’s community rights organizing has exposed the pustule-pocked rump of corporate America like never before.  The marriage of corporate and state power that Mussolini called “fascism,” we refer to simply as “the corporate state.” And it [...]

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