Corporate Control? Not in These Communities

[marmar]

from YES! Magazine:



Corporate Control? Not in These Communities
Can local laws have a real effect on the power of giant corporations?

by Allen D. Kanner
posted Feb 04, 2011


Mt. Shasta, a small northern California town of 3,500 residents nestled in the foothills of magnificent Mount Shasta, is taking on corporate power through an unusual process—democracy.

The citizens of Mt. Shasta have developed an extraordinary ordinance, set to be voted on in the next special or general election, that would prohibit corporations such as Nestle and Coca-Cola from extracting water from the local aquifer. But this is only the beginning. The ordinance would also ban energy giant PG&E, and any other corporation, from regional cloud seeding, a process that disrupts weather patterns through the use of toxic chemicals such as silver iodide. More generally, it would refuse to recognize corporate personhood, explicitly place the rights of community and local government above the economic interests of multinational corporations, and recognize the rights of nature to exist, flourish, and evolve.

Mt. Shasta is not alone. Rather, it is part of a (so far) quiet municipal movement making its way across the United States in which communities are directly defying corporate rule and affirming the sovereignty of local government.

Since 1998, more than 125 municipalities have passed ordinances that explicitly put their citizens' rights ahead of corporate interests, despite the existence of state and federal laws to the contrary. These communities have banned corporations from dumping toxic sludge, building factory farms, mining, and extracting water for bottling. Many have explicitly refused to recognize corporate personhood. Over a dozen townships in Pennsylvania, Maine, and New Hampshire have recognized the right of nature to exist and flourish (as Ecuador just did in its new national constitution). Four municipalities, including Halifax in Virginia, and Mahoney, Shrewsbury, and Packer in Pennsylvania, have passed laws imposing penalties on corporations for chemical trespass, the involuntary introduction of toxic chemicals into the human body. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/corporate-control-not-in-these-communities

[Donnachaidh]

1. kick and Rec! n/t

[niyad]

2. k and r--sadly, the community in which I currently reside would never have the courage, or the care

for its citizens, that such things would imply.

[Beartracks]

4. You can hear it now: "Anti-business! Anti-jobs!!" :rolleyes: n/t

[Overseas]

3. K&R ! //nt

[Beartracks]

5. K&R n/t

[seeviewonder]

6. Sounds like a place to which I would like to move.

Unfortunately, I do not have the money to do so...

[pmorlan1]

7. Excellent!

This is very good news, indeed.

[molly77]

8. This is the answer. Mt Shasta is sacred. I would like to live there too.

[patrick t. cakes]

9. rebirth of the city state?

i can dig it.

[cali]

10. Here in New England, Conservation Law Foundation

deserves a boatload of credit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Law_Foundation
http://www.clf.org/

[midnight]

11. Rights above money.... Glad to read this.

[briteleaf]

12. Corporations control ALL communities. Wake up!

These are rare, local, laughably feeble attempts to control corporations. Corporations control congress with billions spent on lobbyist campaign donations to our professional politicians. Corporations control the media. America has banking corporations that are too big to fail because we are powerless to break up their monopolies. The government that corporations control give them billions of tax dollars in subsidies and enough tax loopholes so that Exxon Mobil pays no taxes. Most large corporations pay no taxes. The american people are spoon fed the pablum relegated to them by the wealthy controlled media. Ours is a country of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation.

It will end when americans go to the streets and demand a revolution.

[NBachers]

13. Maybe Monsanto's GMO invasion can be worked in there somewhere

[bertman]

14. Thanks for posting this, marmar. Kick.

[varelse]

15. K&R