Why Mora County New Mexico is Fighting Frackers for Your Rights, too

By Kiara Collins, Community Rights program intern, Global Exchange

Mora County, New Mexico is not the first place that comes to mind for challenging the ‘rights’ of corporations. This is high desert, and life moves pretty slowly for the 5,000 residents—at least until fracking arrived.

This sparsely populated county is politically conservative, with a large Native American population. Over half of those living in Mora County are native Spanish speakers, and for just about everybody, homesteading, ranching and living close to the land is a way of life. As resident Roger Alcon told the Los Angeles Times, “We’ve lived off the land for five generations. I don’t want to destroy our water, [and] you can’t drink oil.”

In 2013, Mora County became the first county in the U.S to ban hydraulic fracturing by exercising their right to local self-governance. By enacting these rights, they passed a local law—the Community Water Rights and Local Self-Governance ordinance—that bans all fossil-fuel extraction in their county, because to do so would be a violation of residents’ civil rights. The ordinance also strips corporations of their “right” to frack, and recognizes that the ecosystem upon which all life depends has a right to be free of the contamination that fracking brings.

BIG OIL TAKES ON THE PEOPLE OF MORA COUNTY

Shortly after the ordinance was passed, the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico and three landowners in a federal district court sued Mora County. They protested that Mora County had violated corporate constitutional rights “commemorated in the 1^st, 5^th, and 14^th amendments,” — the Constitution and a Supreme Court that has “found” that large corporations are rights bearing “persons”—which means as long as they have a permit, unwanted industry can set up shop where we live—even over our community objections.

Then in January of 2014, Shell Western E&P Inc. (SWEPI), a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell also sued Mora County claiming that enacting the Community Water Rights and Local Self-Governance ordinance was a violation of the corporation’s Constitutional rights.

Despite what the Supreme Court has said, Mora County residents don’t see the justice in corporate decision makers wielding the law to turn their community into a sacrifice zone for profit. The Mora County ordinance clearly states “…corporate entities and their directors and managers shall not enjoy special privileges and powers under the law which make community majorities subordinate to them.”

MORA COUNTY FIGHTS CORPORATE POWER

Mora County is not giving in to Big Oil & Gas’ exploitation of welfare, property values, health and the ecosystem all residents depend on. They stand behind the Bill of Rights ordinance which says that, “corporations in violation of the prohibitions enacted by this ordinance, or seeking to engage in activities prohibited by this ordinance, shall not have the rights of ‘persons’ afforded by the United States and New Mexico constitutions…”

With support from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Mora County Commissioners are working to defend this Community Bill of Rights, but even more so to defend themselves from laws that elevate corporate “rights” over community rights. CELDF and the New Mexico Environmental Law Center stand in solidarity with Mora County to exercise their inherent rights of environmental health and safety. Mora County Commissioners are calling on all communities across the U.S to stand in solidarity with the people of Mora county to challenge a structure of law that permits exploitation of the ecosystems and the poisoning of residents for the profit of corporate frackers.

As said by Ben Price, National Organizing Director of CELDF,

“Why is the outcome of this fight important beyond Mora County? Because at the heart of it is the question: ‘who has rights; people or corporations?’”

The Community Bill Of Rights aims to take back power that people have been stripped of due to corporate greed. People have a right and a duty to protect themselves from corporate elites who desire only to increase profit margins, and in the process, destroy local environments and families.

Nearly 170 communities have passed similar laws that aim to place the rights of residents and ecosystems above corporate interests. In Mendocino County, California, residents have formed the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) in partnership with Global Exchange to pass a similar rights-based ordinance banning fracking.

CRNMC spokesperson Ed Oberweiser believes this is a time for standing in solidarity with residents in Mora County, saying

“Congratulations to Mora County for standing up against an unjust system that says communities don’t have the authority to decide what happens in their community. We here in Mendocino County, California are working to get a community rights ordinance on our November ballot for a vote by we the people. We hope to join Mora County soon with a passed ordinance.”

HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT MORA COUNTY’s STAND FOR RIGHTS

If you’d like to support the people of Mora County in this battle with big oil and the corporate elite, please visit the Mora County Legal Defense Fund. The Mora County Legal Defense Fund recognizes that Mora’s Community Bill of Rights Ordinance, and the lawsuits filed in an attempt to overturn it, are about much more than simply fracking—so they have filed to intervene in the case.

In a recent press release from the intervenors, their civil rights attorney Jeffrey Haas stated,

“This case is about who controls the water, the land, the natural environment in Mora County, the residents of the County who have passed the ordinance to protect their rights and the rights of nature, or an out of State Corporation.”

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!

Kiara Collins is the Community Rights Program intern at Global Exchange. She aims to create positive change in her local and global community through acute social action and education. She currently attends Sonoma State University where she will be a sophomore this Fall.

Increasingly, communities throughout California are facing the dangers of hydro-fracturing (fracking). Despite the severe drought plaguing farmers, farming communities in the Central Valley and throughout the state are being siphoned for water for fracking operations, or being used as a dumping ground for the toxic waste fracking generates. But residents in Mendocino County have another idea for water protection—local control. A growing movement in this northern county—home to wineries, farms and redwood forests—is concerned about their already short supply of water, and are not willing to allow the toxic infrastructure and heavy water use that fracking brings. As Peter Norris, a Willits spokesperson for the newly formed Community Rights Network of Mendocino County (CRNMC) says, “Residents feel strongly that decisions about water here should be made locally and should be focused on the rights of community and our ecosystems, and enforced by laws.”

Fracking is slated to come to Mendocino in 18 months, though residents seek to stop it before it begins by putting a ban on the ballot this November—but the ordinance they seek to pass is more than just a fracking ban. Partnering with Global Exchange’s Community Rights program, residents there have recently formed the CRNMC specifically to assert their right to protect the community and local water by banning fracking for the extraction of hydrocarbons, banning the use of local water for fracking outside the county, as well as banning the dumping or transport of toxic fracking waste through the county. To do this, their ordinance will recognize their local authority to make decisions that directly affect them and their ecosystems in order to ban all practices related to fracking, and strip fracking corporations of the legal tools corporate executives use to turn communities into sacrifice zones for profit.

CRNMC’s Jane McCabe and Kimbal Dodge, with event posters.

The CRNMC is gathering some 6,000 signatures throughout the county in order to put the idea of community rights on the ballot this November. If passed, Mendocino County will join the ranks of over 160 communiti es—from big cities to conservative rural townships across the US that have protected the health safety and welfare of residents and local ecosystems by asserting their right to decide what happens where they live.

The CRNMC will be enlisting volunteers and signature gathering at a series of four public events sprinkled throughout the county:

Friday June 6, 2014, 7PM in Willits: LL Grange, 291 School Street
Saturday June 7, 7 pm in Ft. Bragg: Town Hall, 363 N Main Street
Sunday June 8 at 1 PM in Boonville: Anderson Valley Grange, Hwy 128
Sunday June 8, 4 PM in Ukiah: Methodist Church, 270 N Pine Street

The events will feature local speakers from the CRNMC, Global Exchange’s Community Rights program director, Shannon Biggs, and Americans Against Fracking’s founder, David Braun. Come join a lively discussion, sign the petition, or volunteer with the campaign!

For more information on the events, contact Peter Norris 707.456.9968, or visit the CRNMC’s website or facebook page.

Because a picture says 1,000 words, check out this short video on fracking, and get informed about Community Rights by downloading Global Exchange’s new toolkit!

California Congresswoman Barbara Lee with her very own “Do Not Disturb Democracy” door hanger

Update 4/30/2013: Congresswoman Barbara Lee shows off her very own “Do Not Disturb Democracy” door hanger. Please “Share” this photo on Facebook to spread the word.

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Do Not Disturb… Democracy!

We did it. Together, Global Exchange supporters from nearly all 50 states mailed over 600 ‘Do Not Disturb Democracy’ door hangers to Congress.

Global Exchange members Jessica Nuti, Hillary Lehr, and Jenny White deliver ‘Do Not Disturb Democracy’ door hangers to Congresswoman Pelosi’s office. April 17, 2013

These door hangers – a cheeky method for engaging with elected officials to communicate our concerns about corporate money in politics – provide a fun and strategic way for constituents to move past frustration with Congress to spark communication, dialogue and action about the critical condition of our democracy.

Last Monday, elected officials in Congress were called by constituents to follow up. Dozens of participants called their Senators and Representative wanting to know if their door hangers had arrived and if they had been hung on their doors. Constituents also asked for public statements from elected officials willing to go ‘On the Record’ with their official position on money in politics. This follow up puts direct pressure on elected officials to represent US instead of prioritizing relationships with high-powered corporate lobbyists.

Since our Global Exchange office is in San Francisco, we brought our door hangers to Congresswoman Pelosi’s office. It was good to meet with folks from Congresswoman Pelosi’s team and hear about her official support for the DISCLOSE Act and her aversion to the SCOTUS Citizens United decision. Previously, Congresswoman Pelosi has stated, “I promise you this, and I know it for certain. You lower the role of money in campaigns, you increase the level of civility, and you will elect more women to public office, more minorities, more young people.” (Source: United Republic)
We weren’t able to take a photo inside Congresswoman Pelosi’s office sadly, but we have a photo from just before our delivery at the San Francisco Federal Building. While many callers had a similar experience of reluctance from elected officials to tweet or comment on the door hangers, we are still making a difference. How? Together, we are contributing to the grassroots foundation of a movement to end the corrosive influence of money in politics. Calling and, whenever possible, meeting with, elected officials and staff is crucial to communicating the true urgency of money in politics… and it makes it clear that this is an issue voters all over the country will be thinking about during election season.

Regardless of the issues at hand, whether it is gun control, immigration, budget, or regulating Wall Street, we must free our democracy from the clutches of corporate money, and from the undue level of influence corporate lobbyists assert. Once we do, we will be able to make steady progress on a plethora of urgent issues. I hope you agree and will stay tuned for what’s next. Thank you for participating with us. Your action makes all the difference. Together, we can organize to build power to protect and reclaim our democracy.

TAKE ACTION:
If you haven’t yet had a chance to call your elected officials re: the door hangers, there is still time! Simply visit our call-in-page to look up your Senators and Representative along with the phone numbers, and follow our step-by-step guide. You can do it, and it only takes a few minutes!

This April Fool’s day, prank with purpose.

Send your Senator and Representative a ‘Do Not Disturb’ door hanger that keeps corporate lobbyists OUT of their office.

These door hangers are a little funny, but the corrosive influence of money in politics is no laughing matter.

Sign up to send a door hanger today.

Take a stand in the spirit of April Fool’s day. It takes less than a minute to sign up. You can select for us to email your door hanger directly to your Senator and Representative, or we can mail it to you so you can send it directly to your elected official.

Sign up by March 22nd to get your door hanger to elected officials in time for April Fool’s Day.

Why Tell Corporate Lobbyists ‘Do Not Disturb’ Democracy?

Since 2007, nearly $20 billion has been spent on lobbying government.
The vast majority of lobbying spending is at the behest of corporations which can afford to lobby for policies that protect and expend profits and minimize even the most essential regulations, often at the expense of the well-being of constituents, our economy and our environment.
Nearly a third of that $20 billion spent lobbying is from just three sectors: Wall Street, Dirty Energy (Oil & Gas) Industries, and the Defense Sector, which spent $2.7 billion, $2.3 billion, and $821 million lobbying, respectively.
Calculated another way, Dirty Trinity has spent $2,252 per minute, every minute, for the past five years to influence *your* elected officials.
It costs us around $5 to print and mail these door hangers to your elected official.

TAKE ACTION:

1) Sign Up!
2) Spread the word– help get others to sign up and send a Do Not Disturb door hanger to their elected officials.

Facebook: Share this doorhanger image and encourage your friends to sign up!
Twitter: Click here to tweet, “Your Congressman needs this doorhanger. Srsly. twitpic.com/c8p9al Sign up and send one for free: http://bit.ly/XSzIMG“

3) Learn more about Wall Street money in politics and what our Elect Democracy campaign does to stop it.

4) Chip In: Help us raise $1,883 to print and mail ‘Do Not Disturb” door hangers to every single member of Congress!

The following post was written by Alina Evans and Anna Campanelli, interns with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) is one of the most destructive energy processes on planet Earth – even the EPA reports show that fracking is the second-biggest contributor of U.S. Greenhouse gases. But as California activist RL Miller reports in the Daily Kos, “California’s oil is as dirty as the Canadian tar sands. State data shows that several California oil fields produce just as much carbon dioxide per barrel of oil as the tar sands do. A handful of fields yield even more.”

Contrary to gas and oil company propaganda, this drilling process is unsafe, unclean, and absolutely not renewable. The truth is fracking is yet another dirty energy scheme poisoning our air, soil and groundwater, and now it’s poisoning us. Gas and oil companies are quietly bringing fracking to the Golden State, placing not just Californians, but the planet at risk. In fact the process has already begun, promising to make California the #1 oil producing state, or as some call it—the Saudi Arabia of the USA—but at what cost? Global Exchange is working with communities to say “no” and along with our partners we’re leading a speaking tour April 15-22 through California’s fracklands to educate and mobilize for action.

Photo: thinkprogress.org

How Fracking works:
Fracking is an enhanced drilling technique that through a process of vertical and horizontal drilling enables fracking rigs to extract natural gas and/or oil from shale formations. Millions of gallons of water, sand, and “proprietary” carcinogenic chemicals are injected at high pressures, fracturing the underground shale and releasing “trapped” natural gas and oil. Vertical fracking is employed to increase the lifespan of a pre-existing well, while horizontal fracking is used to tap previously inaccessible shale deposits through an injection process. For a good fracking primer, check out EARTHWORK’s Hydraulic Fracturing 101.

Doing the numbers:

Between 3-5 million gallons of water are used to frack a single well one time; one well can be fracked 18 times; this means that one fracked well requires between 54-90 million gallons of water in its lifetime-that’s enough to fill up to 9 Yankee Stadiums!
Water used for fracking just one well fills up to 9 Yankee Stadiums (Photo: Populus.com)
90% of wells in the United States are currently being fracked, that’s over 800,000 wells and counting.
596 chemicals (known carcinogens) are used in fracking. These chemicals are undisclosed under the trade secret provision protecting energy companies’ proprietary “recipes”
Each time a well is fracked, millions of gallons of these toxic chemicals are pumped into our earth along with our water.
On average, 330 tons of chemicals are used per fracking operation—2/3 of the toxic chemicals remain underground.
Earthquakes in frack zones have skyrocketed in places like Ohio, (not a state previously known for seismic activity) placing geologically sensitive California at extreme risk.
Extreme energy methods = climate chaos. California’s 15 billion barrels of fracked oil will release 6.45 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, on par with the Keystone XL pipeline’s carrying capacity in its lifetime (7 million metric tons).

The millions of gallons of toxic waste water produced cannot be processed by wastewater treatment. If the steel/cement casing of a well cracks from the pressure the toxins seep into the water aquifers that we drink from. Exploding wells, dwindling ecosystems, toxic sink water, sickness and deaths of animals and even humans are not uncommon reports coming from US communities who have been subjected to fracking, depending on whether it is natural gas or oil being fracked. The latest report come from Columbus, Ohio where, since March of this year, 11 earthquakes have resulted from fracking operations in the area.

Baldwin Hills (Los Angeles County) California’s largest frack field (photo Transition Culver City)

California’s Dirty Secret is about to blow
In the Golden state, fracking is unregulated and unmonitored. Corporations do not need to disclose the toxic chemicals they are using or inform communities that fracking is happening. As a water-poor state, fracking and its toxic wastewater presents a serious danger to our communities and ecosystems. And in a state prone to earthquakes, human induced fault pressures present an alarming geological risk. Fracking proponents claim fracking has been going on for 70 years in California with no harmful effects—a misleading apples and oranges statement at best. Old-school fracking did not use the same chemicals or drill as deeply or horizontally, nor inject the kinds of chemicals that modern fracking uses. As a result of all of this, fracking in California is a well-kept secret: only 50% of residents know what fracking is.But that is about to change. Here in California, as communities are learning about fracking’s dangers, they want to stop it.

Along with our partners, Global Exchange’s Community Rights Program is embarking on a 7-day speaking tour from April 15-22. The tour will visit impacted California communities from San Francisco to San Diego and expose the reality of fracking in the state and engage community members in the movement to oppose and stop this harmful and dangerous practice, exploring with our partners all of the efforts underway statewide to stop fracking from transforming the state and the climate.

Tour stops include: San Francisco, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Culver City, and San Diego, **with others still to be added.**

Each stop on the tour will include a day of action: along with our allies, we are working with host communities to strategize and develop unique actions that meet each community’s needs. Each day’s activity will be preceded by a local media plan, social media outreach, collaborative efforts, and planned meetings with various community groups. We expect much of the energy we generate on this tour will build toward larger statewide action.

$don't frack shannon$

Community Rights Director Shannon Biggs

Confirmed Speakers and partners on the road: We’ll bring Doug Shields, former Pittsburgh PA councilman enacting the first “rights-based” ban on fracking in the nation,

scientists, fractivists, and fracking experts from our partner organizations, many of whom take different approaches to regulate or ban or place a moratorium on the process. Our allies on the road include the Center for Biological Diversity, Food and Water Watch, 350.org, Clean Water Action, Transitions Towns, community-based groups, host community partners, and you! If you are concerned about fracking in your community or in general we are here to help you too! If you would like to join the tour, if you are interested in having us visit your community or if you would like to attend one of the events set up for the tour we’d love to hear from you.

Jessica Nuti and Executive Director Carleen Pickard at the Global Frackdown Bay Area

Global Exchange is helping Communities assert their right to say “NO fracking”

Five years ago, Global Exchange launched the Community Rights Program confronting corporate power at its core: by challenging unjust law and shifting the balance of power from one that protects the rights of corporations, to one that protects the rights of our communities and the environment. The Community Rights Program enters the California and national fracking debate via our expertise in grassroots, “rights-based” organizing, where we work with communities confronted by various corporate harms to enact local laws that place the rights of residents and nature above corporate interests. A right-based approach not only offers communities a way to stop the harmful practices of fracking in their midst, but addresses the core issue of a system of law that legalizes harmful corporate practices like fracking.

We’ve already been working with a handful of communities to pass rights-based fracking bans, including San Luis Obispo, and Culver City, and we hope to be working with many more. This efforts builds on the success of more than nine communities who have stopped fracking through passing rights-based fracking bans – the most notable in Pittsburgh, PA, led by featured tour speaker, Doug Shields. Across Pennsylvania, New Mexico and New York, nine other communities have followed suit (with many more underway), declaring their right as communities to protect the health safety and welfare of residents and the groundwater they depend on.

LEARN MORE: Want to be a part of the tour? Want the tour to come to YOU?

Contact Community Rights Program Director Shannon Biggs at: Shannon@globalexchange.org or 415.575.5540.
Stay updated on the specifics for the tour at our webpage: or join our list serve (emails twice monthly)

For another take on fracking in California from our Global Exchange colleague Corey Hill, check out this article at the East Bay Express.

Alina Evans and Anna Campanelli, authors of this blog post are interns with the Global Exchange Community Rights Program.

Arianna DeMario, Elect Democracy Campaign Intern Extraordinaire

The following is a guest post by Arianna DeMario. Arianna is currently supporting the Elect Democracy campaign as an intern/volunteer. Before moving to the States, she worked as a project manager at Citizens For Europe e.V., an NGO based in Berlin, Germany, mainly active in the field of European citizenship and migrants’ political rights in the European Union.

A European Perspective on the 2012 U.S. Election

In my past two months here in the States, I have been asked numerous times how it felt -from a European point of view- to witness the 2012 U.S. electoral campaign and presidential elections from here in the U.S. But actually no European could answer this question without referring first to the initial impact of the previous elections in 2008.

By 2008, after 8 years of Bush era, a big slice of the European public opinion had lost their traditional admiration and interest in American politics and in Americans in general. The American dream, from the point of view of the old continent, was long over, and the U.S. had become for many not much more than a synonym of imperialism justified by the war on terror, social inequality, and environmental unconsciousness.

Then Obama happened. The electoral campaign of 2008 was maybe more passionate for most Europeans than Americans, with people supporting the Democrat candidate and engaging in various ways from Scandinavia to Southern Europe, in some cases moving to the States for some months to work with the Democrats. In July 2008, 200.000 people went crazy in Berlin listening to his speech under the Victory Column. In Europe, Obama had won longer before the elections of November 4th, because he had managed to bring back to Europe the American dream. Some months later, Americans did elect him. And the vote was so strong that everybody on the other side of the Atlantic had to recognise the fact that in spite of all that came out of the Bush era, American citizens had the courage to renew themselves and believe that a better country (and world) was possible.

The truth is, despite the support that Obama gained in Europe, I doubt that Europeans would have had the same courage and elected him, if they were to go to polls. In fact, a few months later we elected the most right-wing and regressive European Parliament ever (EP elections in June 2009).

That year, for the first time after a while, the U.S. gave Europe a lesson of democracy.

Then reality bit back. A couple of years later, Obama had proved not to have the magic wand to solve problems accumulated by years of bad governance, and not to be able to live up to such huge worldwide expectations. Most of his 2008 promises hadn’t turned into facts, the U.S. economy was not exactly blowing, and little had been done to reduce the Wall Street power and redistribute wealth from the 1% to the 99% in the American society.

Disillusion was deep on both sides of the Atlantic, and especially after the mid-term elections of 2010 American politics seemed to be meant to go back to the bad loop once again.

As if it wasn’t enough, the story of the Super PACs entered the game with the 2012 elections. Billions of private funding to the electoral campaign allowed by a ruling of the Federal Court…this would be science fiction in Europe, where most countries don’t even integrate lobbying practices in their political system and reject the idea of group of interests being able to influence the policy making. If all the above-mentioned conditions would have happened in the disenchanted, critical and politically unfaithful Europe, you can be sure that it would have been enough for a significant part of the European electorate to turn away from the previously much beloved candidate and fall into the hands of the first talented populist passing by. Those less impressionable would have nonetheless turned away their vote and either have given it to the other main candidate as a punishment or done what Europeans can do better in times of political disillusion: abstain. But once again, in 2012, a big democracy lesson came from the American citizen: For better or for worse, voting still remains one of the strongest democracy tools in the hands of the people (though a healthy democracy needs much more civic engagement, of course). As long as we don’t have valuable alternatives, there is no point in not making use of it. Of course the American vote, in most cases, was not a vote for the best as 4 years ago, but just a vote for the less worse…but still it showed the courage of American citizens to believe that it’s worth to give democracy one more chance.

The results that Tuesday night shot down much of the billions of dollars spent by some Super PACs to indirectly support the Republican campaign and influence the election results. This showed that the system of the big interests and the big money has an Achilles heel- it still can be beaten by participation. It shows that if people don’t turn away from politics, there is always a chance to shape a future that if it’s not going to be much better, at least is not going to be worse. It showed that if Obama can’t bring the change that he promised in 2008 (be it because of a lack of political will, or be it because of a lack of political power, with the House in the hands of the Republicans), people can do it by choosing not to have their vote sold to the highest bidder…

The day after the election Wall Street opened down: It can be defeated after all, if people don’t give up the exercise of democracy in its various forms. Restiamo uniti per difendere la democrazia!

TAKE ACTION:
What is *your* perspective on the U.S. election? Leave a comment below!

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Arianna De Mario is currently supporting the Elect Democracy campaign as an intern/volunteer. Before moving to the States, she worked as a project manager at Citizens For Europe e.V., an NGO based in Berlin, Germany, mainly active in the field of European citizenship and migrants’ political rights in the European Union. She has also worked at DPA, the German Press Agency, and volunteered in several human rights organizations. Arianna holds a MA degree in European Studies from the University of Bath (UK) and the Humboldt University of Berlin, and a BA in languages from the University of Milan, Italy.

Over $629 million in Super PAC (Political Action Committee) spending didn’t sway U.S. voters as significantly as expected in this past election, but in the coming months will the billions spent in corporate lobbying sway Congress?

Lobbying is a multi-billion dollar industry. While it’s technically true that any constituent can go lobby or try to persuade their legislators, the vast majority of lobbying that is happening in our capitals is funded by -and promotes- corporate interests.

Tens of thousands of corporate lobbyists call the DC area home. Since 2008, Wall Street has spent over $2.2 billion on lobbying, largely in order to weaken and squirm out of financial regulations. Add in the pharmaceutical, HMO, agribusiness, business, oil & energy, and defense/militarism sectors and we’re talking nearly $4 billion since 2011 spent specifically to get corporations unprecedented (and undue) influence over all those folks we just elected into office.

In this year’s election, nearly $6 billion was spent to influence the 120 million votes of the American electorate. Compare that to the $2 billion spent lobbying by the top corporate sectors this year to influence a handful of decision-makers. No matter who gets into office, once the elections are over, corporations spend billions to influence the victor. While the corporate elite gave well-financed electioneering an old college try, now these interests will be lobbying harder than ever to influence the decisions of around 750 hundred key decision-makers (Congress, presidential administrators, and state and federal offices like the EPA, SEC and FDA) to get what they want directly from the people who can give it to them. If you were a greedy businessman, what would you do?

Sheldon Adelson may be lamenting, “I spent $60 million and all I got were these lousy House seats.” But now Adelson can just reroute money into lobbying, pay someone in a suit seven figures to put his feet up on the desk of a Congressperson, and still get a lot of what he wants, or at least less of what he doesn’t.

I don’t get to put my feet up on my Congressperson’s desk. I mean, I could try, but I would probably get in trouble. So why don’t lobbyists? They don’t deserve the proximity of influence and mental bandwidth of our elected leaders that their corporate-funded tactics afford them. Besides, these lobbyists usually aren’t even members of the constituencies that decision-makers were elected to represent!

Corporations are not people, and money is not speech. But the speech of people hired by corporations to do their bidding in Washington needs to be reined in. On the heels of an historical election and shifting political paradigm, we must be prepared in our civic activism to challenge corporate power plays beyond those unleashed by the Citizens United ruling. We must be vigilant in challenging the undue influence of corporate lobbyists. The voters and constituencies who just cleaned out DC expect integrity, and this means that legislators need to say NO to corporate lobbyists spoon-feeding them profit prioritizing policy and analysis… that’s not who they are elected to represent.

Voting truly does matter, but a healthy democracy requires ongoing participation.

If you want to take action to protect democracy now that the election has concluded, consider looking into Global Exchange’s Elect Democracy campaign and follow @ElectDemocracy and @GlobalExchange on Twitter.

See for yourself how much campaign money the last Congress received from Wall Street and their “Wall Street Loyalty Rate” based on how often their votes matched Wall Street’s lobby position. Most importantly, call your Congressperson and remind them that their job is to represent you, not lobbyists, in Congress.

Fact Sources:

SuperPACs spent $629 million: MapLight.org
Election cost $4.2 billion: Center for Responsive Politics: OpenSecrets.org
Lobbying costs: Center for Responsive Politics for a) $2.2 billion Wall Street in 2012, and b) $4 for top sector lobbying (opensecrets.org)

TAKE ACTION:

Make the Call! Call your Congressperson and remind them that their job is to represent you, not lobbyists, in Congress.
Leave a comment with your ideas about how to challenge the undue influence that corporate lobbyists have in DC.

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.)

Shannon Biggs directs the Community Rights program at Global Exchange.

By 5:00 am on October 25, as I was boarding a NYC-bound plane, reports of police forces raiding Occupy Oakland were beginning to filter through the local news, Twitter and Facebook. By the time I arrived at the Liberty Plaza/Zucotti Park headquarters of OWS, events in Oakland were already a main topic of conversation.

As one-day visitors to Occupy Wall Street, my fellow organizer Ben Price from CELDF and I were asked to speak and share stories from the frontlines of the grassroots movement enacting local laws that place the rights of communities and nature above corporate interests. But within me was also a keen desire to be a part of the conversation happening on Wall Street that has inspired Occupy Everywhere: Will history remember Zuccotti Park as a landmark location and this as the defining moment we took an evolutionary step forward for democracy and system change?

Indian activist Premilla Dixit, on whose invitation we had come, greeted us Wednesday morning, and walked us through the encampment, answering our countless questions and introducing us to the Zucotti Park community. Throughout the long day of activities we learned of her journey to occupy both Wall Street and Hudson Valley, NY over the last several weeks, and how she connects to the rights-based framework. Click here to meet Premilla Dixit.

Shannon Biggs and Premilla Dixit

By 10:00 am, a drizzling rain ensured many tents remained up, and the number of people walking around remained down. Still, this is a busy place: information booths in different languages, a considerable library, sidewalk cleaning teams, press tents, and no shortage of drop-in conversations and committees already at work. Click here to see a video clip of the Occupy Wall Street site the morning we arrived. As a tourist, this would be your experience – the earnestness engagement and diversity of those gathered. But Premilla also pointed us to the deeper human experience of life inside this crowded instant-village.

There is the occasional sign of social strain. We heard that the kitchen workers were on a bit of a mid-morning strike, feeling the pressure of a 24-hour a day operation. And we walked the corner claimed by newly released Riker’s Island inmates, whose presence has raised some security concerns among occupiers (reportedly they are directed there by prison officials). But equally invisible to passers by, is the direct-democracy experiment at work, coursing through the community like blood to vital organs, to address concerns, meet new and ongoing needs, and organize countless working and moving parts.

By 11:30 we had met with dozens of activists, occupiers and visitors from every walk of life. Standing at the top of the Plaza steps on the Wall Street sidewalk, surrounded by a crowd of tourists, Wall Street workers, city dwellers and occupiers I took my first words at the People’s Mic in the the staccato cadence it has become famous for. The 360 degree crowd repeats and amplifies your words to the surrounding neighborhood, drawing the curious in for a closer look. Please click here for a blog transcript and video of our presentation.

The rest of the day moved at a blurring pace faster than a New York minute — and our group was growing. Reinette Senum, former mayor of Nevada City CA and a longtime supporter of rights-based organizing and Democracy School, was being filmed as a visiting occupier. She and her videographer joined us for much of the day, as well as new friends met during the presentation. Click here to see a video clip of Reinette talking about Democracy School. We met an Egyptian student, Shimaa Helmy, who was involved in the democratic uprising in her own country, and was in the US to tell her story in hopes of strengthening efforts in Egypt and in the US. Click here to meet Shimaa. Conversations had to be kept on the move, as we walked to the next activity, and the next. Premilla took us to WBAI radio station to set up interviews, instructed us to grab a pizza slice from a truck and keep walking.

OWS organizing meeting

We were asked to give our speeches again on camera for the OWS web and suddenly it was 6 pm, time to observe and participate in the daily General Assembly meeting, in a formerly empty office directly across the street from OWS, piled with boxes, and a makeshift supermarket of dry goods and a wall rack full of winter gear. After being on the street all day, the roomy space was quiet by comparison. The meeting itself is informal, run by consensus and a rotating facilitator and a well organized committee structure to address each item and provide report back. We linked up with those on the organizing team, about potential next steps.

The day ended with a solidarity march for Oakland, and I vowed to bring the spirit and stories of OWS home with me to the Bay Area. Whatever you may think about the Occupy Movement, its full of people moving the first conversation about structural change to the spotlight in decades. This is the most necessary conversation we could be having in our hometowns, and for the sake of system change, we need to have it peacefully, free from excessive force or violence.

Global Exchange is organizing our participation in Oakland tomorrow as part of Occupiers’ call for a citywide general strike/day of action, and if you live in the Bay Area, consider participating for a day, or part of a day or taking action in your community. Here are some resources:

Blog Author Debra Weistar

This guest blog was written by Debra Weistar, co-director of Finding the Good Traveling Semester Program.

“This was the most amazing day ever. I learned more today than in all the years of my education.”

–Wyatt Maniarrez, Oct. 6, 2011, after attending a court hearing between the Western Shoshone and the Bureau of Land Management arguing for the protection of water on Mt. Denaho in Nevada, where the largest mining corporation in the world is mining for gold on public lands.

Wyatt is 16 years old.

I should mention that the education Wyatt received on that day included a crash course on Rights of Nature and rights-based governance. As a prospective student in Finding the Good Traveling Semester Program, Wyatt joined us for a day. When he is enrolled in the full semester on January 2012, he will take a block course on community rights, Rights of Nature, corporate personhood, the regulatory system, the history of the Constitution of the United States, and social movements. Did I mention this is for high school?

Students with Chief Almir, Surui people of Brazilian Rainforest

Without the crash course in Rights of Nature and rights-based governance, Wyatt would likely have come away from the day in despair, instead of with his eyes wide and his head full of new thoughts. The hearing was, in his words, “stacked heavily in favor of the BLM and Barrick Gold Corporation” and we witnessed the lawyer for the tribes argue within the regulatory “script” to try to save the waters of Mt. Denabo. The argument was not about rights – the right of Mt Denabo to “exist, flourish and evolve”, nor of the Western Shoshone’s ancient rights to the land and water. Instead, the argument was, as it most often is, about an interpretation of a possible flaw in the EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) carrying the slim chance that the waters of Mt. Denabo – a sacred site to the Western Shoshone – might be partially protected. Opposition to the mine itself years ago was not successful and the open pit at the base of Mt. Denabo is well over a mile across.

Not an encouraging picture, to be sure, in an all-too-familiar scenario in the fight to protect and preserve the fragile ecosystems on which we all depend. The difference, to Wyatt and the other students who are learning about corporate personhood and community rights, is that they are also learning about rights-based governance, and what that might mean to them as citizens and young leaders. They can participate in action that is based on standing up and saying “no” to corporate destruction, instead of begging for lesser harms. So even though the picture is bleak, frustrating, and frightening, they are no longer bound by a myth and controlled by a fiction in their own minds. The truth can be hard, but knowing the truth is essential to an authentic education. Authentic education is essential for social change.

Students interviewing Thomas Linzey

Youth need to learn from community organizers doing rights-based work. At Finding the Good (FtG) they learn from Shannon Biggs, Rights Based Campaigner for Global Exchange, and Ben Price from CELDF, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. They interview people like Thomas Linzey, co-founder of CELDF, to learn about communities that are claiming their right to self-governance, drafting and passing ordinances that keep destructive corporate activity out. FtG is currently working with Shannon Biggs and others to create a Youth Summit for Rights of Nature and Rights Based Organizing.

In front of the courthouse on the day of the hearing, Wyatt along with Skye, media intern for Finding the Good, shot footage of the water ceremony and speeches with tribal members. They interviewed Shoshone grandmothers who spoke about the sacredness of water, and how water has a right to flow unimpeded and pure. “That’s what we believe”, said Mary McCloud, “that’s the Indigenous way.” They heard the lawyers for Barrick Gold and the lawyers for the government make statements like, “There can be degradation, just no “undue” degradation”, when speaking of the water. When the issue of Shoshone religious and cultural values was brought up, they argued that those cannot be “quantified” and therefore do not fit into the established analytical model. As such, they cannot be considered. Wyatt and Skye can consider them, though. They can also consider that humans and Nature have inherent rights and that those rights must be protected.

Wyatt and Skye will take the footage they shot and the interviews they recorded and produce news pieces for our local radio station and online news source, as well as the Finding the Good blog. While they may not yet be prepared to draft a new constitution recognizing the rights of Nature, they are learning to educate others on issues and solutions that can lead to a just and sustainable world.

Finding the Good Traveling Semester Program is open to all high school juniors and seniors, and gap year students. Please visit the Finding the Good student blog at www.blog.findingthegood.org

To donate to Global Exchange’s ongoing Community Rights Program, please click here.