Community Rights US Director Paul Cienfuegos wrote this essay for publication in Access Magazine (McKinleyville, CA) in 1999. It has been periodically updated since then. It covers some history that is nearly unbelievable from today's jaded perspective, when most activists believe there is virtually nothing we can do to dismantle the legal and political powers [...]
Think you know about the origins of regulatory agencies and regulatory law in the US? Think again! This article by Jane Anne Morris (DemocracyThemePark.org) was originally published in the Fall 1998 inaugural edition of By What Authority, the newsletter of the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy, and was reprinted in Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy. If you’re having trouble getting to [...]
This article by Jane Anne Morris (DemocracyThemePark.org) was originally written in 1998, and was published in Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy. This article was written around the time Maine and a few other states were considering “campaign finance reform” laws. The historical perspective, even in the aftermath of the Citizens United case, shows us how little has changed. Many [...]
This article by Jane Anne Morris (DemocracyThemePark.org) was written in 1998 "at the request of editors at Earth First! Journal, was never printed in full form there because they… couldn’t deal with it." It was finally officially published in Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (Apex Press, 2001). A third of your friends are locked down in an old growth grove or at [...]
On November 10, 1994, an Open Letter was sent to the leadership of the fifteen largest environmental organizations in the US. It was co-signed by people representing 400 grassroots activist organizations across the US. Other than a brief polite reply from the Sierra Club, none of the fifteen major organizations ever responded substantively to this [...]