The work of the Community Environment Legal Defense Fund is more
important than ever. The history and lessons offered in their pages is
the fuel needed to empower effective resistance to corporate dominance
in all public arenas. Read every essay linked on this page. You'll learn
more in an hour or two than in years of activism. You'll find yourself
wildly copying and pasting and posting...and that's good! Please share.
Keith
The Legal Defense Fund has staked out its mission to assist communities
and community governments to establish and assert currently denied
self-governing rights and authority. The questions I ask everyone who
contacts the office seeking help with saying “no” to corporate and state
abetted assaults are two: 1) in your community, when it comes to making
decisions on issues which directly affect your community, families,
neighbors, environment, future generations and quality of life, is it
the people affected who make those decisions? If yes, then
self-governance and consent of the governed are alive and well where you
live. If not, then fundamental rights are being denied you and your
community. 2) If the answer is no, then are you prepared to change that,
to assert your rights, overcome injustice and establish self-government
and consent of the governed where you live, for yourself and for future
generations?
Make no mistake. Lost rights and community destruction cannot be
overcome by relying on rules and regulations the state “permits” us to
use under current law. Whether or not people are prepared to understand
and act upon the gravity of our situation is by no means irrelevant.
Even among those not yet ready to take a stand and assert local
self-governing rights there is little apathy for our plight, but often
there is residual hope that by deftly pleading for our rights, the
corporate-run State will yield them up to us. Lack of clarity and fear
of asserting rights are the main obstacles to creating a People’s
Movement to establish and perpetuate fundamental rights. Not everyone is
ready to take the necessary bold steps and live up to their obligation
to neighbors, the natural environment that sustains all life, and to
future generations.
And so we put our resources and energy where we think it will be most
effective: in communities where the People have recognized the face of
oppression behind the mask of false promises by the corporate state. Our
hope is that the inclination to be free is strong enough to finally
overcome the inclination to obey illegitimate power while enduring
injustice. If that’s the case, strategic triage over where to put our
efforts won’t be necessary for long. The time is coming when it will be
the rule, not the exception, that communities are ready to assert Rights
and establish local self-government at consent of the governed.
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