Shannon Biggs, Community Rights Program Director at Global Exchange, shares some holiday reading suggestions for fans of community rights, followed by a few staff picks.

COMMUNITY RIGHTS HOLIDAY READING

• Exclusive! David Korten shares some thoughts on nature and the future of economics: A rights-based economy begins with the biosphere. In 2013 Global Exchange will be looking at how the rights of nature can play a role in shaping a new economy (or more correctly new economies) based on the needs of ecosystems and the human communities they support. What does that look like? Ecological economist, author and YES! Magazine co-founder David Korten gives Global Exchange a sneak peak of a piece he’s working on. For more related to this topic, read David Korten’s article in the latest issue of Yes! Magazine.
• An Inconvenient Truth About Lincoln (That You Won’t Hear from Hollywood): Have you seen the movie Lincoln? I watched it over the Thanksgiving break, and quite enjoyed the romp through the inner workings and backroom political dealings that go on (spoiler alert!) when passing an Amendment to abolish slavery. However much we love to love Lincoln, it’s worth noting that as a former railroad lawyer, he was a huge advocate of corporate personhood, as a means to ensure that the plantation system was replaced by a corporate version. Before you sit down to watch Daniel Day Lewis inhabit our favorite President, this Huffington Post piece is a quick and entertaining read.
• How the Mayan Calendar Works: Next, check this out for a short read before the End of Days.

STAFF PICKS available at your local independent booksellers:

• Community Rights staff suggest reading: Taming Democracy by Terry Bouton. Americans are fond of reflecting upon the noble Founding Fathers, who came together to force out the tyranny of the British and bring democracy. Unfortunately, the Revolutionary elite often seemed as determined to squash democracy after the war as they were to support it before.
• This is what Shannon Biggs is REALLY reading at home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson. Bryson takes us on a room-by-room tour through his own house, using each room as a jumping off point into the vast history of the domestic artifacts we take for granted. As he takes us through the history of our modern comforts, Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world eventually ends up in our home, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture.
• Executive Director Carleen Pickard is reading: The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts by Louis de Bernières. Set in an impoverished, violent, yet ravishingly beautiful country somewhere in South America. When the haughty Dona Constanza decides to divert a river to fill her swimming pool, the consequences are at once tragic, heroic, and outrageously funny.
• Online Communications Manager, Zarah Patriana is reading: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  A masterpiece that tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family.
• And finally, in case you missed it, check out our most popular community rights blog post (to date), which was also cross-posted on AlterNet. Read it here.

Happy holidays!

Global Exchange Gift Membership Package

We all have our own ideas on what the Holidays are all about. Family. Laughter. Good will.

Corporate greed and commercialization? They certainly don’t make the list.

It’s time to take back the Holidays.

The true meaning of the season cannot be packaged in a box. Instead of taking part in the corporate craziness, why not get the loved ones on your list something that brings them the true meaning of the holiday season?

A Global Exchange Gift of Membership is the perfect gift! You can give the gift of Fair Trade, peace, justice, people power, and human rights. You pick the gift and we’ll take care of the rest.

6 Gift Memberships to choose from:

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When your family and friends unwrap their Global Exchange Gift Membership, they will join a compassionate community of dedicated activists working for peace, justice and human rights.

We’ll send out the membership card and gift package, plus keep your recipient in the loop about Global Exchange programs and events with our newsletter and e-mail action alerts.

Order your gifts by December 14th at midnight to guarantee delivery by December 24th 2012.

Wishing you joy, justice, and peace this Holiday Season!

Now to set the mood, here’s a little poem written by Global Exchange Generation for Justice member Andy Klase:

Click on the poem to see larger version on Facebook

P.S. If you live in the Bay Area or DC, please be sure to join us for our Fair Trade Store holiday event on December 6 from 5pm – 8pm. Shop for all your Fair Trade gifts, meet our staff, and if you’re a member double your discount (20% for one night only.)

Are you a Global Exchange supporter? Yes? Well then, you are pretty incredible, it’s true.

Throughout our near-25 years we’ve been proud to share the esteemed company of thousands of passionate, bold, and dedicated people, like you.

Your volunteering, your steady contributions, your protesting (at home and on the streets), your consideration for socially responsible travel, your Fair Trade shopping and your faith in justice – all of these actions mean the difference between dreaming a better world for people and the planet and actually making it happen.

To express our gratitude, some Global Exchange staff members gathered together recently to come up with a way to thank the people who make all of our work possible. 

The result is this short n sweet video filled with messages of thanks that come from the bottom of our hearts. We hope you enjoy it! (Oh, and keep an eye out for Abad’s cameo – Global Exchange’s friendly Labrador – who got caught with his tongue out!)

Does the gratitude train stop here?

Not at all!

This week, we’re also sharing stories of a few (five, to be exact) of the amazing individuals, like you, who make our work possible:

• Matt Ramsden, member and supporter, who keeps buying prize drawing tickets even though he has not won yet, all to support the work he cares about.
• Jenny White, superstar volunteer, chocolate lover, and scourge to corporate lobbyists.
• Jennifer Carino, former employee turned Global Exchange Monthly Supporter.
• Lea Murray, took a Reality Tour to Venezuela and came home inspired to share what she’d seen.
• and Lyla Seo, puts her values first when she shops Fair Trade at our San Francisco store.

There you have it, two different mediums, one important message, to say:

Thank you.

P.S. If you want to see all of the thank you pictures from the video (plus a few extras!), you can check them out at your leisure on our Facebook page.

Susan B. Anthony beaten and jailed by police for casting her vote

No matter which side you butter your political bread, by now you’ve heard more than you ever wanted to about the election results and who won. But that’s just politics.

What you probably missed in the glare of the pundits flashy graphics and the incessant Wednesday morning quarterbacking were the real victories by and for people actually asserting their rights on Election Day against the powers that be. Yes, regardless of political affiliation; against the endlessly deep pockets and scare tactics of huge corporations; AND against the mighty robed ones of the Supreme Court—they prevailed. Big time. And they may have set the stage for the rest of the country to follow suit.

What does Susan B. Anthony have in common with voters in Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania?

 If Susan B. Anthony was afraid (and surely she was), she did not let her fear of being sued, ridiculed, harassed, beaten and jailed stop her from standing up for her rights.  And while voters in these states didn’t risk their personal security, on Election day, they took a stand for their rights, and they acted is if government belongs to us. Rights—as in, unalienable self-evident rights that come by virtue of being born, that cannot be given or granted, taken away or surrendered.

In the Big Sky state of Montana, where the Governor is a Democrat, but the electorate runs fire engine-red, you may have heard that the state voted to urge or direct Congress to enact a Constitutional Amendment to overturn corporate personhood, as did Colorado. But the real story is so much richer than that.

Verner Bertelsen (R) Montana’s former Secretary of State
photo credit: standwithmontanans.org

Many states—not only Montana—  included in their early Constitutions the subordination of corporations to the will of the people, and banned corporate political expenditures in state elections.  Over the years, most of those Constitutional provisions have been deleted to pave the way for more corporate-friendly laws—but not in Montana. In early January 2012, Montana’s state supreme court, in recognition of the rights of residents to determine the outcome of their elections, struck a defiant blow to the heart of the Super-PAC-creating-unlimited-corporate-elections-spending SCOTUS Citizens United decision, by restoring their state ban on corporate elections spending. 

The federal court was quick to respond to this challenge of their supremacy by reaffirming Citizens United and striking down Montana’s Constitutional provision. And with the flick of a pen, five of the Robed Nine denied the 1 million residents of Montana their right to decide the proper role for corporations in local and state elections (take THAT democracy).

Montanans seemed to take this news personally, as a denial of their very real authority to govern corporate entities, and on Election day, reminded the learned SCOTUS who is boss in Big Sky country. By a landslide of 75% Montanans restored their rights on Election Day and sent corporations and the Supreme Court a powerful message. Initiative 166, officially called the Prohibition on Corporate Contributions and Expenditures in Montana Elections Act, was endorsed by the Governor (D), the Lt. Governor (R) and the former Secretary of State (R).

As C.B. Pearson, treasurer for the I-166 group, Stand with Montanans  put it, “For nearly a century, Montana had elections free of corporate money. But now our fair elections system is compromised. With this vote, Montanans have provided much needed leadership on this important issue, much as we did 100 years ago with the passage of the Corrupt Practices Act.”

Communities stand up to Big Energy, State & Federal law to stop toxic dumping

Scare tactics FAIL: Mailer sent to all residents of Mansfield, paid for by the American Petroleum Institute, as noted above the address.

Elsewhere in Ohio and Pennsylvania, three communities fed up with a wealthy minority scaring people to vote against their own interests challenged the entire structure of law that puts corporate interest before residents—and won.

Mansfield, Ohio’s 50,000 residents were slated to be on the receiving end of Pennsylvania’s toxic frackwater waste, a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing, one of the dirtiest energy production methods in the US. 

Under the law, there wasn’t really anything that concerned residents could do to stop it from coming. The permits are approved by the State, and the dumping of PA’s unwanted fracking chemicals into “injection wells” in Ohio is legal, despite the scientific evidence that storing frack waste is causing large earthquakes….in Ohio (that’s right…Ohio).

Mansfield residents respond to corporate elections ads with their own message

After an initial conference call with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, and follow-up conversations with community members and the Council, the Law Director John Spon proposed a rights-based charter amendment.

Suddenly, a matter of local concern—namely the right of residents to protect their own health safety and welfare from ultra-hazardous materials—became an election issue for Big Petroleum and their PACs.

Corporate contributors poured over $300,000 into TV attack ads and glossy mailers to frighten residents into voting against their own interests, citing that the Charter Amendment Bill of Rights was a “jobs killer”. Residents didn’t believe the hype, reasoning that jobs related to injection wells are not as plentiful as promised, and dumping toxic waste into Mansfield’s industrial park seemed more likely to chase away new business.

As the Mayor put it “We don’t like out-siders telling us what to do.” Residents voted by 63% to pass the charter amendment that affirms the rights of all residents to decide if injections wells are wanted (they’re not); subordinates all corporate protections (not just personhood) to community wishes, and recognizes rights for ecosystems to be free from toxic frackwater dumping.

Elsewhere in Ohio, the town of Broadview Heights similarly passed a Community Bill of Rights charter amendment to ban any new fracking, and new injection wells or disposal of “frack-water,” “brine “tailings,” or other waste products of the fracking process.  The organizing group, Mothers Against Drilling In Our Neighborhoods (MADION) took it another step further, proposing the community vote to ban injection wells, but to futher protect the rights of citizens by prohibiting all new gas and oil drilling, fracking and injection wells.

Unlike their neighbors in Mansfield, the Mayor was not in support of the rights-based effort, and the City Council threatened to pull the initiative from the ballot, thereby stripping residents of their right to even vote on the matter, which did not go down well with residents. MADION’s charter amendment garnered the support of the local newspaper, and with no funding whatsoever the Mad Mothers made their case—door to door. On election day, the rights-based initiative passed with an impressive 66% of the vote.

Going “Home Rule” to access democracy

Campaign headquarters at the home of Pam Steckler in Furguson, PA Photo credit: Groundswell/CRAFT

Whatever you might say about the citizen initiative process—whereby the electorate can collect signatures to put items of concern before residents for a local or statewide vote—in states that don’t allow for it, residents are left with very few options when their elected officials abandon them.

Pennsylvania is a ‘no citizen initiative’ state.There is only one thing communities can put up for a vote there—and that is whether or not to become a “home rule” municipality (in other states it’s also called a charter city), which allows them to change how decisions are made tin their community and opens the door for local citizen initiatives that can effectively amend their town’s charter.   For the majority of Pennsylvanians who do not live under Home Rule, when residents oppose a policy, they must persuade their elected officials to enact new laws—sometimes difficult in areas where the “Good Old Boys” network runs in partnership with the “corporate boys”, turning towns into  sacrifice zones for one corporate activity to the next. Its something more communities are working toward—more community decision-making by “going” Home Rule.

In Furguson, PA—already a  Home Rule township, the activity that seeks to turn their community into a sacrifice zone  is fracking, along with hundreds of other communities dotted along the enormous Marcellus Shale  Marcellus Shale that crosses six states.

Local citizens groups Groundswell and CRAFT (Community Rights Activism for Ferguson Township) put forward a referendum to amend the Ferguson Township Home Rule Charter to add a Community Bill of Rights that would ban fracking. The initiative passed—despite being heavily opposed by the mayor, the town manager, and the town solicitor, who support fracking.  But as Groundswell put it, its not just about fracking, “these initiatives amount to a challenge to existing structural law concerning local government and a revolution in the way we deal with issues concerning communities and our environment…We’re not stopping here. A world will exist with an economy, environment and democracy that thrive together.”

All of these victories represent more than meets the eye. In these places Election Day wasn’t about RED or BLUE, nor were they about issues like  Citizens United, corporate personhood or fracking. Not to wax too poetically, but in each of these places, Americans took a deep breath of ownership of their rights that allows us all to breathe more freely.  If Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth are to be believed our rights are worth the risks, sacrifices and the bigger struggles for freedoms that lie ahead. It’s why Susan B. Anthony took her action to vote—not just for herself—but for all women.  Its why the freedom riders took white knuckle journeys through dangerous roads.

Montana surely faces a response from the U.S. Supreme court. And when it happens, we must all recognize that their struggle for rights is also our own—together we must stand not just against corporate so-called “rights” but we must stand together for our right to govern.

•  This piece was also cross-posted on AlterNet.

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Shannon Biggs is the Director of the Community Rights program at Global Exchange,  assisting communities confronted by corporate harms to enact binding laws that place the rights of communities and nature above the claimed legal “rights” of corporations.

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As a former Global Exchange staff member and current apprentice at Rudolf Steiner College’s biodynamic farm, Raphael Garden, I am writing to encourage you to educate yourself about the links between genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and human health before voting on proposition 37. If passed proposition 37 would require labeling of food that contains GMOs. Genetic Roulette, a new documentary by Jeffery M. Smith discusses these very important issues. Right now, you, your family and loved ones can watch this 85 minute feature film for free on You-tube (available in English, closed captioning and Spanish subtitles). In the film you will hear from farmers, doctors and mothers striving to protect the health of their children about Monsanto’s strong arm tactics, the FDAs fraudulent policies, and how the USDA ignores a growing health emergency.

You may have heard that in recent times, the nutritional value of our food has decreased. You may have also noticed that more than ever, Americans are getting sick, and that seemingly more and more people have food allergies. Recent studies, as well as countless stories from individuals and doctors show that the links between GMOs and our health are closer than Monsanto and other proponents of GMOs would like you to believe. Genetic Roulette, investigates the connections between round-up ready crops and nutritional deficiencies in our food systems, as well as connections between GMOs and food allergies, gastrointestinal disorders, inflammatory diseases and infertility. As frightening as it is to learn that GMOs are not only a danger to the economic lively hood of farmers, in the US and around the world, but also to our health, in California we are lucky. A few concerned citizens have taken steps to put proposition 37 on the ballet, an attempt to begin the process of labeling GMO food in California—allowing Californians to decide for themselves, what it is they want to put in their body for nourishment and sustenance. If passed, Proposition 37 will create a precedent for GMO food labeling in the United States.

As biodynamic farmers at Raphael Gardens, we are committed to growing delicious food that exceeds current organic standards, using ecological farming practices to cultivate food rich in vitality, that is truly capable of nourishing our community. We believe that true nourishment can provide our communities with the vitality, will and energy needed to create peace, economic justice and environmental sustainability. Recently, a friend of Raphael Gardens, organized a large number of donations in support of efforts to make the full length version of Genetic Roulette available for free on You-tube, in hopes that this crucial information will be available to as many people as possible before election day. Please watch the film, share it with your friends and family, and show up on voting day to let your voice be heard. Doing so may protect your health and the health of someone you love.

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Elizabeth Lane is a Raphael Garden Apprentice at Rudolf Steiner College and a former Global Exchange staff member.

TAKE ACTION!

• Watch the film Genetic Roulette which Elizabeth recommended;
• Watch some celebrities speak out against GMO’s in this funny video short.