Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 1366

Stripping Banks of their Power to Issue Money: an IMF Proposal

(This is the fourth of a series of posts about ending the ability of private banks to issue money.)

For the past 18 months ago, IMF economists Michael Kumhof and Jaromir Benes have been circulating a proposal to end the ability of banks to create money.

As Kumhof explains in the Nov 13 video below, the perception that governments create money is totally false. In the current global economic system, only about 3% of money (mainly coinage) is created by government. The other 97% is created by private banks out of thin air when they generate new loans. See Economic Justice: the Rolling Stone Version

For various reasons, which Kumhof explains in the video, he and Benes believe that unlimited and unregulated private money creation by banks is responsible for the current economic crisis. And that full recovery is only possible if the privilege of creating and controlling the money supply is restored as a government function.

In addition to assuming sovereign control over the money supply, national governments would also require banks to hold 100 percent reserves for the loans they initiate. This effectively terminates the ability of private banks to create money out of thin air. And this, in turn, massively reduces their political power.

Ironically, the proposal isn’t new. Entitled the Chicago Plan, it was first put forward by University of Chicago professors Henry Simons and Irving Fisher during the Great Depression.

The History of Private vs Sovereign Money

During the Q&A at the end, Kumhof briefly discusses previous experiments with government-issued sovereign money, which have mainly occurred in the US. Sovereign money funded the original 13 colonies, the American War of Independence and the Civil War.

In their paper The Chicago Plan Revisited, he and Benes trace the history of sovereign money back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, all currencies were publicly controlled (by kings and the Pope) until 1666, when Charles II transferred control of money creation to private banks with the English Free Coinage Act of 1666.

The slides, which are difficult to see in the video, are available here

For me the high point of the video is Kumhof’s disclaimer that he doesn’t represent the IMF – that he’s only doing research. Yeah right. I sure wish I had an understanding boss that let me run around making radical proposals to strip investment banks of their power and wealth.

It seems more likely that people in high places know the ship of capitalism is going down – that this is a last ditch effort to save it.

The Real Vampires: An Insider’s View of Banks

Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

Carroll Quigley* (1966 MacMillan)

Tragedy and Hope is a free download from http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119975.pdf

(This is a third of a series of posts about stripping private banks of their power to create and control our money supply.)

Book Review

Tragedy and Hope is an exacting account of how the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European central banks, and the investment banks that control them (e.g. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan) came to control all western governments.

According to Quigley, banks have controlled western society – by controlling the money supply – since the creation of the Bank of England and the fractional reserve lending system in 1694. Moreover, owing to the secrecy under which they operate, Quigley asserts that most elected officials are totally unaware of the immense control central and investment banks exert over the so-called democratic process.

He describes in exhaustive detail how all historical inflationary and deflationary crises, panics, wars, recessions and depressions were orchestrated behind the scenes by the banking establishment, for the purpose of increasing their private wealth. In his epic portrayal of three centuries of western civilization, he also describes how the banking aristocracy financed the rise of Communism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, as well as bringing Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Roosevelt to power and guiding their governments from behind the scenes.

How Banks Create Money “Out of Nothing”

The single act, according to Quigley, that guaranteed Britain’s two century preeminence over the rest of the world was the development (in 1694), by British investment banks, of the fractional reserve lending system. This system allowed English investment banks to be the first in the world to lend money (to industry and the British government) that they created out of thin air. He goes on to list the banking dynasties that have held near absolute control of the global money supply since 1694, starting with banking cartel formed by Frankfurt banker Meyer Rothschild. At the time of his death, Rothschild’s five sons each controlled a major investment bank in Vienna, London, Naples, Paris and Frankfurt. Quigley lists the investment bank formed by the J.P. Morgan family as second to the Rothschild banks in power and influence, followed by the Baring Brothers, Morgan Grenfell, the Lazard Brothers, Erlanger, Warbur, Shroder, Seligman, the Speyers, Mirabaud, Mallet and Fould.

The Council on Foreign Relations

Quigley also writes about the network of secret round tables of international corporate and banking elites started by Cecil Rhodes and expanded by his followers with his sizable estate. At their founding, they had the stated purpose of spreading British the virtues of “ruling class” tradition throughout the English speaking world and solidifying the political power and influence of the British Empire. The US Council on Foreign Relations, one of the secret round tables started by Rhodes’ followers, was started in 1919, with the explicit goal of influencing the foreign and domestic policies of a former colony over which Britain no longer had direct control.

How English Banks Controlled the US Government

According to Quigley, the US was consistently a debtor nation prior to World War I. Following the 1776 revolution, US government and businesses continued to borrow funding for industrial and colonial expansion from English and European investment banks. The American banker, JP Morgan, collaborated with European investment banks to dictate US foreign and domestic policy. They did so by threatening to destroy the US economy by 1) refusing to renew treasury bonds (i.e. money the government borrowed from banks to fund public spending 2) causing a panic by throwing large numbers of shares on the stock market or 3) destroying the value of railroads and other companies the banks owned by loading them up with worthless assets.

As Quigley relates, they engaged in all three tactics at various times throughout the 19th century, resulting in a series of booms, panics, recessions and depressions that wreaked havoc on American economic development.

How Bankers Engineered, World War I, Bolshevism, Nazism and the Great Depression

The most disturbing section of Tragedy and Hope describes how international bankers engineered (he describes their secret meetings) World War I and what Quigley calls the Banker-Engendered Deflationary Crisis of 1927-40 (aka the Great Depression). Following the 1870 unification under Bismarck, Germany experienced a rapid burst of industrialization, generating sufficient profit that they ceased to rely on investment banks to finance either business or government. They also threatened global bankers by competing with England and other European countries for export markets.

While engineering the first world war to put Germany in her place, the world banking cabal simultaneously hatched a scheme to destabilize Russia (which was making claims on Balkan members of the former Ottoman Empire) by secretly funding the Bolsheviks and other Russian revolutionaries.

Financing Hitler and the Nazis

When the the first world war ended in 1918, public debt in Western Europe and the US had increased by 1000%. In 1929, the austerity measures global banks forced on the US, England, France and other European countries led to widespread bankruptcies and unemployment and the virtual collapse of foreign trade.

Except in Germany. The global banking elite used the wealth generated from debt repayment to finance rapid German re-industrialization and militarization and the Nazi movement started by Hitler. The main German corporations funding Hitler were IG Farben, Siemens (renamed Bayer), Daimler Benz, Porsche/Volksvagen and Krupp. In addition to Henry Ford and William Randolph Hearst, the important US banks and corporations who financed Hitler’s rise to power included Kodak, Coca-Cola, DuPont, Standard Oil, IBM, Random House and Chase Bank.

* Late mentor to former president Bill Clinton, Princeton, Harvard and Georgetown professor Carroll Quigley also served as an adviser to the Pentagon and Foreign Service.

The Battle for Public Control of Money

(This is the second of a series of posts about ending the right of private banks to issue money.)

The Secret of Oz (William Still 2009) primarily addresses the long battle to strip banks of their power to issue money. In the US, this struggle dates back to the Revolutionary War.

The title refers to socialist writer L. Frank Baum’s 1900 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. According to numerous scholars, the book is loaded with symbols related to monetary reform, the core demand of the Populist movement and the 1896 and 1900 presidential bids of Populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan.

The yellow brick road represented the gold standard, the Scarecrow represented farmers and the Tin Man represented industrial workers. The Wicked Witch of the West was Cleveland banker J.D. Rockefeller and the Wicked Witch of the East was New York banker J.P. Morgan. The Cowardly Lion depicted William Jennings Bryant, who abandoned the call for monetary reform. The Emerald City represented (government issued) greenback money and Dorothy’s silver slippers (changed to ruby slippers in the movie) represented Bryant’s call to introduce silver coins to ease the money shortage during the 1890s depression.

Still traces the politics of monetary reform back to 30 AD, when a Nazarene carpenter engaged in violent direct action in a Jerusalem synagogue to evict the private bankers who sold silver coins which were used to pay a compulsory temple tax.

He also explores the use of state-controlled money in the American colonies and the early United States. He focuses particular attention on periods in which private banks deliberately shrank the money supply to trigger depressions (to increase profits or achieve specific political objectives), as well as efforts by Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson to end private corporate control of money.

Both Jackson and Lincoln oversaw periods in which federal and/or state government issued debt-free money.

Economic Justice: the Rolling Stone Version

(This is the first in a series of posts about ending the right of private banks to create money.)

In January Jesse Myerson, writing in the Rolling Stone, called for five seemingly radical economic reforms in an article entitled Five Economic Reforms Millenials Should be Fighting For: guaranteed jobs for everyone, Social Security for all (a guaranteed Universal Basic Income for all citizens), Land Value Tax (which I blog about in Progress and Poverty ), creation of a Sovereign Wealth Fund (enabling government to buy back and own public assets), and a state-owned bank (like the Bank of North Dakota) in every state.

Personally I found the article disappointing and a little sad. Myerson seems to deliberately overlook the most pernicious problem in our present economic system: the power we give private banks to issue and control our money supply.

Contrary to popular opinion, the government doesn’t issue money, except for a limited amount of notes and coins. As the film below explains, 97% of the money supply is electronic and created by private banks when they issue loans.

A lot of people have the mistaken impression that banks use other depositors’ money when they loan us money to buy a house. What actually happens is that the bank creates the money out of thin air by entering numbers into a computer.

Another common erroneous belief is the the Federal Reserve, which serves as the US central bank, is a government agency. It’s not. It’s a consortium of private banks.

97% Owned (Positive Money 2012) makes the case that the only solution to the current economic recession is to ban private banks from issuing money. They argue for making money creation publicly accountable by restoring this function to government (which, ironically, is where most people mistakenly believe it lies). Until we make this happen, private banks will continue to use their control of the monetary system to undermine genuine economic and political reform.

Zero Waste: Closer Than You Think

The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time

by Paul Connett (Chelsea Green 2013)

Book Review

The Zero Waste Solution is about 100% waste recovery and reuse, the new gold standard in recycling. Paul Connett’s new book summarizes the state of play of the zero waste movement in local communities around the world. His detailed descriptions of existing programs and technologies provide powerful ammunition for local activists trying to pressure city and town governments to be more environmentally responsible.

According to Connett, we have had the technological capability to recycle 80-90% of our waste stream since the mid eighties. What has held us back has been an artificial corporate-centered view that maximizes profit for waste management companies, the contractors who build and operate incinerators and soft drink bottling companies.

Waste management companies and incinerator contractors have powerful lobbies, as will as cozy relationships with many community councils. Connett also documents the little known role of the Business Environmental Action Coalition (BEACC) in lobbying major cities to provide curbside recycling for glass and aluminum cans. Following the first Earth Day in 1970, BEACC, whose members included Coca-Cola, the Aluminum Association and 7 Up, feared the introduction of producer-focused waste reduction laws (e.g. mandatory deposit/return programs). They viewed limited curbside recycling as a way to head this off.

History of the Zero Waste Movement

The zero waste movement first got its start in Berkeley California in the 1980s and in Canberra Australia in the 1990s. At present, California and Italy are at the forefront in terms of community participation. By 1996, 300 California communities had achieved 50% trash diversion (from landfills and incinerators). San Francisco reached 80% diversion in October 2012 and expects to reach 100% by 2020. More than 200 Italian communities have achieved 70% diversion, with some small towns reaching more than 80%.

Not only is zero waste recovery better for the environment and human health*, but it’s far more economical than traditional waste management. Recycling and reusing resources always saves money. Loss of revenue, stemming from the 2008 economic downturn, has forced many corporations to focus on more efficient resource use. Japanese companies are the clear leader here, with nearly 2800 producing zero landfill waste. A surprising number of Fortune 500 companies (including Anheuser Bush, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Pillsbury Xerox, Ricoh electronics) have also committed to zero waste.

The Twelve Master Categories of Discards

Zero waste experts divide the waste stream into 12 reusable fractions:

1. Reusable goods – repairable appliances, demolition debris and reusable clothing, furniture and household items.

2. Metals

3. Glass

4. Paper

5. Plastic polymers (including plastic bags)

6. Textiles (including non-reusable clothing)

7. Chemicals, including reusable solvents, paints, oil and lubricants.

8. Wood from non-reusable lumber and furniture (can be made into wood chips)

9. Plant debris

10. Putresibles – kitchen waste, manure

11. Soils – from barren or developed land

12. Ceramics, rock, porcelain, concrete and non-reusable brick

At present, more than 90% of the waste stream can easily be recovered for resale. The non-recoverable fraction consists mainly of hazardous materials such as batteries, electronic equipment, mercury-laden fluorescent bulbs and disposable diapers. Many zero waste advocates want to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) to deal with hazardous waste. Under EPR, the manufacturer is expected to come up with a non-toxic alternative or to accept the product back for safe disposal.

Of the 12 recoverable fractions, kitchen waste, which comprises 33-40% of the waste stream, is the easiest to resell (as compost). Connett contrasts communities in Italy that merely encourage backyard composting, with Seattle and other cities that offer curbside collection of kitchen waste. The latter has proven far more cost effective, largely because backyard composting isn’t an option for the hotels, restaurants and supermarkets, which generate most of it.

Zero Waste Creates Jobs

In view of the immense cost savings, I was surprised to learn that job creation is another important benefit of a zero waste approach. Rising land, energy and transportation costs make landfills and incinerators so expensive that zero waste programs are always cheaper, despite employing more people.

*Recycling reduces the burden of climate change by eliminating methane production (one of the most damaging greenhouse gasses) from decaying landfills and carbon emissions given off by waste incineration. Both landfills and incinerators pose major health hazards. Landfills leak toxic substances into the water table. Incinerators produce dioxin, which is linked to cancer, birth defects, and immune and neurodevelopmental problems.

Below Pete Seeger performing my all time favorite folk song “Garbage (Garbage, Garbage, Garbage) Garbage”

Zero Waste: We’re Closer Than You Think

The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time

by Paul Connett (Chelsea Green 2013)

Book Review

The Zero Waste Solution is about 100% waste recovery and reuse, the new gold standard in recycling. Paul Connett’s new book summarizes the state of play of the zero waste movement in local communities around the world. His detailed descriptions of existing programs and technologies provide powerful ammunition for local activists trying to pressure city and town governments to be more environmentally responsible.

According to Connett, we have had the technological capability to recycle 80-90% of our waste stream since the mid eighties. What has held us back has been an artificial corporate-centered view that maximizes profit for waste management companies, the contractors who build and operate incinerators and soft drink bottling companies.

Waste management companies and incinerator contractors have powerful lobbies, as will as cozy relationships with many community councils. Connett also documents the little known role of the Business Environmental Action Coalition (BEACC) in lobbying major cities to provide curbside recycling for glass and aluminum cans. Following the first Earth Day in 1970, BEACC, whose members included Coca-Cola, the Aluminum Association and 7 Up, feared the introduction of producer-focused waste reduction laws (e.g. mandatory deposit/return programs). They viewed limited curbside recycling as a way to head this off.

History of the Zero Waste Movement

The zero waste movement first got its start in Berkeley California in the 1980s and in Canberra Australia in the 1990s. At present, California and Italy are at the forefront in terms of community participation. By 1996, 300 California communities had achieved 50% trash diversion (from landfills and incinerators). San Francisco reached 80% diversion in October 2012 and expects to reach 100% diversion by 2020. More than 200 Italian communities have achieved 70% diversion, with some small towns reaching more than 80%.

Not only is zero waste recovery better for the environment and human health*, but it’s far more economical than traditional waste management, both for businesses and communities. Recycling and reusing resources always saves money. Loss of revenue, stemming from the 2008 economic downturn, has forced many corporations to focus on more efficient resource use. Japanese companies are the clear leader here, with nearly 2800 producing zero landfill waste. A surprising number of Fortune 500 companies (including Anheuser Bush, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Pillsbury Xerox, Ricoh electronics) have also committed to zero waste.

The Twelve Master Categories of Discards

Zero waste experts divide the waste stream into 12 reusable fractions:

Reusable goods – repairable appliances, demolition debris, reusable clothing, furniture and household goods.
Metals
Glass
Paper
Plastic polymers (including plastic bags)
Textiles (including non-reusable clothing)
Chemicals, including reusable solvents, paints, oil and lubricants.
Wood non-reusable lumber and furniture (can be made into wood chips)
Plant debris
Putresibles – kitchen waste, manure
Soils – from barren or developed land
Ceramics rock, porcelain, concrete and non-reusable brick

At present, more than 90% of the waste stream can easily be recovered for resale. The non-recoverable fraction consists mainly of hazardous materials such as batteries, electronic equipment, mercury-laden fluorescent bulbs and disposable diapers. Many zero waste advocates want to use EPR or extended producer responsibility to deal with hazardous waste. Under EPR, the manufacturer is expected to come up with a non-toxic alternative or to accept the product back for safe disposal.

Of the 12 recoverable fractions, kitchen waste, which comprises 33-40% of the waste stream, is also the easiest to resell, as compost to farmers. Connett contrasts communities in Italy that merely encourage backyard composting, with Seattle and other cities that offer curbside collection of kitchen waste. The latter has proven far more cost effective, largely because backyard composting isn’t an option for hotels, restaurants and supermarkets – which generate most of it.

Zero Waste Creates Jobs

In view of the immense cost savings, I was surprised to learn that job creation is another important benefit of a zero waste approach. Apparently rising land, energy and transportation costs make landfills and incinerators so expensive that zero waste programs are always cheaper, despite employing more people.

*Recycling reduces the burden of climate change by eliminating methane production (one of the most damaging greenhouse gasses) from rotting garbage and carbon emissions produced by waste incineration. Both landfills and incinerators pose major health hazards. Landfills leak toxic substances into the water table. Incinerators produce dioxin, which is linked to cancer, birth defects, and immune and neurodevelopmental problems.

Below Pete Seeger performing my all time favorite folk song “Garbage (Garbage, Garbage, Garbage) Garbage”

How to Steal an Airplane

A great video by James Corbett on the history of remote controlled aviation. What the corporate media isn’t telling you about the disappearance of MH 370 and cyber hijacking. If this turns out to be a cyber hijacking, it isn’t the first. Growing evidence suggests the first occurred twelve and a half years ago in New York City.

I’m curious when other people first sensed we weren’t being given the full story. A Boeing 777 doesn’t simply disappear.

A Rebel Comes of Age by Stuart Bramhall

stuartbramhall:

***

I was really touched by this review, by a teen blogger, of my young adult novel. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling that “teenage-related problems” made the book seem more real for her. Her revelation that she has never read a book like this also grabbed me. I guess it’s pretty rare to encounter books on protest and political change in modern bookstores and libraries.

Originally posted on Samthebookaholic:

Description:

Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, seventeen-year-old Angela Jones and four other homeless teenagers occupy an empty commercial building owned by Bank of America. As they slowly transform it into a teen homeless shelter, Ange goes into crisis mode when the other residents decide to use firearms to keep a police SWAT team from evicting them.

My Review:

This book was very interesting. It’s not something I’ve ever read before s everything was new to me. Surprisingly most of the issues that were going on were teenage issue which actually made the book seem more real. They weren’t acting too old for heir age. Let me tell you, this book is a roller coaster. There are so many ups and downs that it will make your head spin but in a good way.

Ange is around my age and when she goes through a teenage related problem I feel like…

View original 151 more words

Blue Gold: World Water Wars

Blue-Gold: World Water Wars (Sam Bozzo 2008)

Film Review

inspired by Canadian activists Maud Barlow and Tony Clarke’s book Blue Gold, this film opened my eyes to the reality that water scarcity is a far more serious and imminent problem than either fossil fuel scarcity or climate change. The film outlines three main areas in which public policy around water is urgently needed: run-off management, aquifer destruction and water privatization.

Water Run-Off

I previously believed that chemical and nutrient pollution was the greatest threat to our fresh water supply. However according to Blue Gold, run-off is actually the biggest problem – the loss of fresh water when rainwater winds up in the ocean instead of being trapped as groundwater. Fresh water only comprises  3% of global water (the rest is sea water), and much of it is so badly polluted it’s no longer useable.

The four main ways urbanization and development accelerate run-off include the construction of 50,000 dams worldwide, the paving over of soil with cement and asphalt, deforestation (destroying tree roots that normally trap water), and the destruction of wetlands (the destruction of mangroves and other plants that naturally purify water.

Aquifer Depletion

Aquifer depletion is largely due to industrial agriculture and the unregulated use of water in manufacturing, fracking and bottled water plants. Once the water from the aquifer is gone, it takes thousands of years to replace it. The film depicts several communities where citizens, across the political spectrum, have banded together to block Coca Cola and Nestle from taking their water. Some cases have involved long expensive court battles, with several corporations threatening individual activists with SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) suits.

Water Privatization, Desalination and Water Wars

The last half of the film focuses on water privatization, water desalination, and water wars. In many developing countries, water privatization is already a life and death issue. In several African countries,  the private corporations that own the public water supply set the price so high that people end up drinking polluted water and die. The decision by Bolivia to sell its fresh water to Bechtel sparked a mass rebellion and ultimately the collapse of the Bolivian government.

In the US, an alarming number of city water have been privatized and sold to corporations.

The worldwide move to construct water desalination plants to reclaim water from sea water is closely linked to the issue of privatization. In addition to being extremely expensive, water desalination greatly increases climate emissions owing to the massive amount of fossil fuel it requires.

Water Wars

Blue Gold gives several examples of historic water wars (in the US) and predicts where the next water wars are most likely to take place. They point to strategic US military bases around the Great Lakes and in Paraguay (across the border from a Brazilian aquifer that is one of the largest in the world). They also offer a possible explanation why the Bush family have acquired massive amounts of property in Paraguay.

The film ends on a positive note with recommendations for citizen activists:

Learn where your water comes from – the name of the watershed and (if privatized) the name of the multinational corporation that controls it. Local communities need to actively fight attempts by local government to allow water extraction or the takeover of local water supplies by multinational corporations.
Kick the bottled water habit. This is a trick advertisers play on you. It is no healthier for you than tap water (and may be less healthy owing to phthalates and bisphenol A from the plastic that may be linked with breast cancer and low sperm counts). The nasty taste of tap water is easily masked with a little lemon juice.
Lobby your local and state leaders to


Remove hydroelectric dams and replace with newer, more eco-friendly microturbine technology.
Adopt an active run-off management plan in which lost groundwater is measured and minimized through eco-friendly development planning. One example is the Blue Alternative (in which groundwater is replaced by digging small catchment pools in open spaces).
Pass local and state resolutions and constitutional amendments recognizing access to fresh water as a basic human right. Uruguay has adopted the right to water in their national Constitution.

Enjoy:

Ending Corporate Rule: the Community Rights Movement

One of the most successful anti-corporate relocalization movements is virtually invisible in the corporate media – namely the 13 year old community rights movement. With the help of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), nearly 200 communities across the US have enacted ordinances establishing local rights that can’t be usurped by corporations. They have done so despite corporate efforts to use state laws or the Constitution’s commerce clause to overturn them.

Clearly their strength lies in numbers. In Pennsylvania, for example, the state attorney general threatened to sue the town of Packer for banning sewage sludge dumping. In response, six other towns promptly adopted similar ordinances and 23 adopted resolutions of support. Nationwide the number of community rights statutes overturned by state courts and legislatures is surprisingly small, with more and more communities enacting them.

As CELDF states on their website:

“CELDF works with communities to establish Community Rights – such that communities are empowered to protect the health, safety, and welfare of their residents and the natural environment, and establish environmental and economic sustainability.

Community Rights is a paradigm shift, a move away from unsustainable projects and practices at the cost of communities and nature, and toward community decision-making, while recognizing and protecting our interdependence with nature.”

Banning Factory Farms, Toxic Sludge, Fracking and Aquifer Depletion

The citizens’ rights movement was born in 2000 when Belfast, in traditionally conservative rural Pennsylvania, passed a law prohibiting factory farms from operating within their township. In 2005 this law was upheld in court, and twelve other Pennsylvania townships have enacted similar ordinances. In addition to laws banning factory farms and sewage sludge, one community has banned mining and four have passed laws establishing ecosystem rights (i.e. that environmental protection trumps corporate rights).

Barnstead New Hampshire was next in passing an ecosystem rights ordinance, while five towns in New Hampshire and two in Maine have passed laws prohibiting the corporatization of water resources and aquifer depletion. Serious drought conditions across the US have greatly heightened national concern about shrinking aquifers and impending water shortages.

In 2010, Pittsburgh became the first major city to reject corporate rights after their city council passed a CELDF-drafted citizens’ bill of rights, as well as a law banning drilling for natural gas within city limits. Other communities on the Marcellus Shale (in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland) are working to pass anti-fracking laws similar to Pittsburgh’s.

Enacting Penalties for Chemical Trespass

Meanwhile on the West Coast, tiny Mt Shasta has successfully banned energy giant PG&E from engaging in local cloud seeding and Nestle from draining their aquifer for a bottling operation. The Mt Shasta Community Rights and Self Government Act asserts the right of the people of Mt Shasta to natural water systems and cycles and establishes strict liability and burden of proof for chemical trespass.

Chemical trespass is defined as the involuntary introduction of toxic chemicals into the human body. It’s based on a novel concept promoted by the CELDF and local democracy activists that corporations don’t have the automatic right to load up our bodies with cancer-causing chemicals. Halifax Virginia and three towns in Pennsylvania have also passed laws imposing penalties for toxic trespass.

In Washington State a bipartisan coalition called Envision Spokane has been fighting the monied interests that control Spokane City Council by trying to pass, via ballot initiative, a Community Bill of Rights.

Other recent citizens’ rights initiatives include the rejection by Orlando California of a Crystal Geyser bottling plant and the refusal of Flagstaff Arizona to sell water to a Nestle facility. Meanwhile a strong citizens’ rights group in Santa Monica is lobbying for an ecosystems rights ordinance, while People vs. Chemical Trespass is attempting to pass a local chemical trespass ordinance in Santa Cruz.

Fighting Corporations in Your Community

In addition to providing legal consultation, CELDF also conducts local democracy schools for communities seeking to enact community rights ordinances. Where states have balked at recognizing the legality of local anti-corporate laws, cities and towns have either passed stronger laws or changed their legal status (ending their Second Class Municipality Status) by enacting home rule charters and new constitutions).

Contact CELDF at http://www.celdf.org/

photo credit: 350.org via photopin cc