WE CAN STOP COMMONWEALTH SILVER AND GOLD MINING, INC. FROM LAYING WASTE TO OUR ENVIRONMENT … depleting our water supply, polluting our land with their toxic processing chemicals, destroying our town, our valley, and our beautiful Cochise Stronghold.

THE COMMUNITY RIGHTS MOVEMENT IS ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING MOVEMENTS OF OUR TIME!

150 communities in nine states have managed to pass ordinances that stop corporations from moving in … they’ve been able to stop natural gas fracking, huge factory farms, and other big business. All communities have rights for their citizens.

Who makes the decisions in our community?
The rights-based model of community action is being called the new frontier of the civil rights struggle, because it is our own state and federal laws that are standing in the way of our right to determine what happens to us in the places where we live. The biggest threat posed by corporations is not the illegal stuff of headlines. The real danger is what big corporations are empowered to do legally, every day, in every community across the country. From water withdrawal to polluting refineries, toxic sludge spreading, GMOs and more, the corporate few wield the law against our communities, endangering our health, safety and the environment.

State and federal law says that corporations don’t need community permission to drop pesticides overhead, or to site a toxic dump next to the school grounds. So who does decide? State agencies issue corporations “permits” and state legislatures routinely “preempt” (usurp) community lawmaking authority on behalf of those corporations. When corporate executives decide to site an unwanted project in our communities, we are told we cannot say “no,” because that would be a violation of the corporation’s Constitutional rights. But we can change that. You or I can’t dump or store toxic waste in our back yards, poison our water with deadly chemicals, yet corporations can?  What kind of righteous, self-serving laws are these?

The community rights movement is providing a framework to transform grassroots organizing to protect people and the planet.

Rights of nature – We cannot truly protect the environment if the law continues to see nature as mere property to be exploited at will. Slaves were once property, until we changed unjust law to recognize their rights. We’re at the forefront of a commonsense global revolution for nature’s rights.

Corporate Power and Personhood – Corporations are not people, and should not have the same “rights” afforded to people. The community rights movement seeks to strip corporations of the legal powers and protections (including Corporate Personhood) used to override the will of the people in their communities.

Restoring Democracy – It’s time to put the “we the people” back into the democratic process. A strong community rights program will provide a legal framework and organizing model for the public to assert their inalienable rights in the place it matters most — where we live. Organizing for community rights is the current chapter in the struggle for our civil rights. We ask you to join us in fighting for your RIGHTS.

LEARN MORE:
The Community Rights Movement and the Arc of Nonviolent Social Change