This article was written by Paul Cienfuegos, and published in CounterPunch on August 18, 2016. Beloved historian Howard Zinn once said, “Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. … Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves [...]
This post contains links and opening paragraphs to two articles focusing on the fight for the right to food sovereignty and local, community self-government in Maine. One of the articles was written and published in the Bangor Daily News, March 9th of 2016; the other in The Center for Media and Democracy in what appears [...]
An original essay from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Some Historial Context: “There is no unalienable right to local self-government.” That’s what Pennsylvania attorney general Thomas Corbett said to the Commonwealth Court as he tried to overturn a municipal ordinance banning the dumping of urban sewage sludge on farm land. Was he right? When [...]
This original guide was produced by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Community Bills of Rights (CBOR) come in a variety of forms, including municipal or county ordinances, home rule charters, charter amendments, state legislation, and state constitutional amendments. The community decides which form to use, depending largely upon the types of local government and [...]
An excellent introductory Primer on “Rights-Based” Organizing, presented as a 20-minute slideshow. Produced by Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.
Cliff Helming led this public forum in Carbondale, Colorado, on May 27, 2015. Cliff is a board member of the Colorado Community Rights Network and the President of the National Community Rights Network. In response to state preemption of community rights to local self-government; preemption of the Lafayette, Colorado's Community Bill of Rights for Banning [...]
In this article by Simon Davis-Cohen in Truth-Out, the Michigan state government actually cites Supreme Court cases that relied on Dillon's rule, in its argument defending the Michigan Emergency Manager law that unconstitutionally swept various poor communities' city councils into the dustbin. Detroit's hardship has garnered much attention: the privatization; the racism; the water shutoffs; [...]
Thomas Linzey, Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, gave a speech at the Colorado Community Rights Network's State Assembly on August 30, 2014. Linzey spoke about the challenges and successes of local communities asserting their rights to local governance. The Colorado Community Rights Network helps communities create their own local laws to define and [...]
This is an original speech presented by Community Rights US' Founding Director Paul Cienfuegos, in the small town of Decorah, Iowa, on September 26, 2013, sponsored by the Community Rights Alliance of Winneshiek County. An edited version of Paul's speech was later nationally broadcast via David Barsamian's 'Alternative Radio' show. I wish to thank the [...]
A critique of the Food Sovereignty movement in the US, through a Community Rights lens, by Trisha Mandes. The International Peasant’s Movement—La Via Campesina, defines food sovereignty as “the human right of all people to healthy, culturally appropriate, sustainably grown food, and the right of communities to determine their own food systems” (1). Are our [...]
