A Blog Posting by Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from January 15, 2017. Just who are the legislators protecting when they enact legislation that forbids local law making – law making that limits or bans corporate activities like fracking, GMOs, factory farms, retail proliferation of plastic bags or sewage sludge dumping? Just who [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Community rights educator Paul Cienfuegos reads his inspiring short declaration inspired by Joanna Macy’s notion of “The Great Turning,” a total change in how we govern ourselves. Paul writes, “The Community Rights movement has been spreading across the United States — one city, town and county at a time. Since 1999, 200 communities have passed [...]
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 [...]