Why Stopping Corporate Personhood in Appalachia is not the way to go:
It's because we need to go farther! And deeper.
Half of the rights that are utilized by the Big Corporations lie outside the parameters of Corporate Personhood.
This is the reprint of the second of my OP's regarding the Community Rights movement.
I see this movement as the only way to save this nation from the One Big Money Party, the controlled "elections," and the "Puppet Masters at the Top"
Paul Cienfuego is the founder of this movement. Often, he discusses how we have to stop battling the "regulatory" fight in the courts and instead, we must get involved in the ordinance-passing activities that could indeed stop the Corporate Beast in its tracks.
Already one hundred and fifty communities are sponsoring measures, or have succeeded in passing local ordinances, that are involved with Community Rights.
Among the successful ordinances are two in Pennsylvania. One Community in PA was about to watch as a huge 14,000 pig, industrial "pig farm" came in and destroyed the soil, air and water of the community. This "farm" would have come about as Corporate privileges and rights have a tight hold over the state legislators and the governor.
The community, had it simply relied on their "elected officials" to solve the problem, well, they would have been told by their state and more local legislators, that since large pig farms are not an illegal activity, the community must accept it. Instead after a great deal of work, the Community Rights' activists put together an ordinance that the local voters voted in, and now Corporate Pig Farms above a certain size are outlawed in that County.
Part of what any Community rights ordinance needs to invoke is the Constitution. Then, should whatever Corporate Entity that is offended by the ordinance getting passed must actually come into that County and basically state that they do not want to have to abide by the US Constitution. Believe me, most of these people are Conservatives, and they would not want to admit they care more about profits than the US Constitution.
The second successful Community Rights ordinance that I like to refer to was passed in the City of Pittsburgh, PA where the Big Energy firms were about to drill at three fracking sites. The Pittsburgh ordinance now bans fracking inside that city.
Elsewhere, the Community Rights movement is currently attempting the passage of such measures as those needed to stop nuclear waste from passing, via railroad trains, through a community. Or from having Gm seeds and crops being planted.
Remember, if you have an ordinance protecting you, then you are the Plaintiff, which means that you declare what can and cannot be evidence and who is to be your witnesses. You have more power as a Plaintiff than as a defendant. recently my county's activists have gotten the right to put our ordinance regarding the Right to Grow on the November ballot. The ordinance states that as long as you are the owner of seed, and the owner of some property, (or on the property by legal permission) you have the right to plant that seed. Article nine of the US Constitution is invoked inside the Ordinance's language.
Here are some YouTube videos of Cienfuegos:
What is Community Rights Movement? by Paul Cienfuegos - YouTube
Paul Cienfuegos explains the community rights organizations.
► 5:20► 5:20
Nov 8, 2012 - Uploaded
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Interview with Paul Cienfuegos
Pls Note: This discussion was held back in 2012, a while before the most recent SCOTUS decision about money and free speech was heard.
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