CARPETBAGGER ALERT!
Pennsylvania carpetbaggers have landed in Spokane. They actually landed a few years ago, to begin their work of rounding up acolytes, but now they are about to go public in a major way. The mother ship is called the The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (celdf.org) and is based in Pennsylvania.
These folks consider the federal constitution to be archaic and want to do something about it. Spokane has been singled out as their next big step after several successes in smaller ponds. They want to eventually court test the notion that "home rule" city charters rule over federal and state laws. And for reasons only their inner circle knows Spokane has been chosen as a likely guinea pig. .
It is ironic that lawyers are behind this movement. Usually a Tim Eyman type suffices. And by the way, much of what is wrong about Eyman's onslaught lurks here. It appears that celdf has lost some environmental cases and concluded that the "law" was just not on their side, nor were lawmakers. What to do? Hey, dynamite the law and rewrite the Constitution to give rights to nature, among other things.
The ongoing strategy is not shabby. First, indoctrination camps - called Democracy Schools - are held. From these camps there comes the "demand" from the students to do something about evil corporations and their supporting laws. Surprise, surprise! At the present time a Spokane Board has been formed to come up with a list of amendments, or maybe a proposal for a whole new charter. The cheerleaders on the Board and many of those on the sidelines are quite enthused about buying this pig in a poke. Or if it's not a pig in a poke, are they not simply puppets fronting for a preconceived set of amendments?
By the way, who is on this Board? Not independent citizens but representatives from organizations such as churches (churches?), labor unions, neighborhood councils, the ACLU , PJALS, and so forth. Not a very democratic list. Of course, a carrot is being held out to these groups in the form of the idea that here's your chance to get all grievances taken care in one revolutionary swoop, without the messy technique of each having to lobby, campaign, or sue. Whoever controls the charter controls the city.
Much of the celdf strategy is meant to give a grass roots appearance to the process. But face it, the agenda has been set. Stay tuned. This is only an alert. There is much more to come.
2 comments:
Alright, let's get this one straight to start out with: representatives of CELDF did not just randomly pick Spokane out as the next ground zero for their grand experiment in rights-based organizing. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. It was the Center for Justice in Spokane that invited a CELDF representative to come out and present the first Democracy School workshop in this area. Because the material was interesting to the locals involved at the time, another was sponsored by the CFJ and so on and so forth. Many grass roots activists across the country have begged and pleaded CELDF to come out and assist them with their own local causes. Only because various people in Spokane demonstrated enough interest and commitment to a long term process did a single adviser to CELDF relocate here to advise local activists and advocates in generating discussion at their request.
The Democracy School presentations were (and still are) available to anyone who wants to sign up, and start by explaining the context of the outpouring that resulted in small municipalities banning certain practices (i.e. land-applied sewage sludge, toxic waste incinerators, and industrial hog farms, etc.) in rural Pennsylvania, New Jersey and elsewhere. The history of various people's movements are examined, and a critical look is taken at how English common law weaseled its way into the “American democracy” and finally there is a chronological treatment of how mega-corporations have lobbied for and won recognition of “corporate rights” over time.
I would be curious to find out if Spokanarchist has taken the opportunity to attend one of these so-called “indoctrination camps”. No justification is given for this theatric and (in my opinion) inappropriate label. My personal observation of Democracy School was that critical inquiry was welcomed and spirited dialogue would frequently break out as new ideas were presented by both the instructor and the participants. There wasn't anything remotely coercive or sneaky about the discussion. All claims were backed up by fully cited sources that were made available for people to examine critically themselves. This is more than even the anarchistic CrimethInc. workshops I've participated in can boast.
Anyways, Spokanarchist has unfortunately misunderstood the facts about how the current board of Envision Spokane has come into being, and what its mission is at this time. To start, it was precisely a group of independent citizens that got together to examine a commonly held initial assumption: that a deep conversation about “what we think our rights should be recognized as” would be of interest to a broad-based group of individuals within and outside of their own organizations.
This small group making up the “provisional board” of Envision Spokane was VERY aware that they didn't represent anyone but themselves. Because of this, the provisional board intentionally made an agreement that they would disband as soon as either 15 seed representatives were democractically elected by their respective organizations to participate in the permanent board, or the original assumption of the provisional board was proved false. Read that again and make sure it makes sense before moving on.
The next step, naturally, was to brainstorm all of the groups/people that could have an interest in driving a collective amendment drafting process that could better enable them to accomplish the work they do on behalf of their constituents. Given the imperfect resources of the seven provisional board members, this part of the process is of course open to criticism, but if anyone is interested I can obtain a list of groups that were originally approached. After over 70 or so conversations with various people involved in various types of work around Spokane, 16 organizations decided to commit to the Envision Spokane mission statement:
To convene and facilitate a broad-based community conversation about the rights of people, neighborhoods, and nature. Envision Spokane will create a process of changing governing law in the city of Spokane to reflect those rights, and will seek to enlist the support and membership of community-based organizations who see the articulation of such rights as an essential component of the work they do on behalf of the people of Spokane.
This is as “set” as the agenda is at this point, there is no “preconceived set of ammendments”. It is up to whomever is participating to determine what exactly these rights might be or should be recognized as. If the majority of the orgaizations participating in the Envision Spokane discussion decide that they do not want to create or lobby or campaign for an amendment for whatever reason, then the process simply stops there. Membership on the permanent board is open to any new organizations that affirms the mission statement as envisioned by the existing board.
The last major criticism I'm reading is that “not just anyone off the street can participate”. First, everyone living in Spokane where the city charter is recognized can demand representation on behalf of their Neighborhood Council. Secondly, the Democracy School graduates got together recently and formed their own group called Democracy Spokane that elected representatives to the ES board. Anyone can attend a Democracy School and thus participate by this route. The only criteria is signing up and forking over the operational cost, or finding someone to sponsor you or exchange services for the goods provided in the workshop. Lastly, I myself (as a “cheerleader” of this effort) have been personally concerned about the challenge of broad public outreach in the face of having no budget and no particular set-in-stone agenda outside of the mission statement. So I've volunteered my time and energy to offer discussion events that are free and open to the general public. I am guessing that Spokanarchist has attended one of these gatherings? Anyhow, the idea of incorporating a non-specific 'Citizens Advisory Collective' or something of the sort has been tossed around, and I challenge Spokanarchist to walk their talk and spearhead participation by this route.
Maybe I can write some more response later on, we'll have to wait and see how this goes!
It's my understanding that celdf has come by invitation because there exists a unique structure of government here (local strong mayor, home rule charter guaranteed by the state constitution) that makes this type of multiple issue law making possible. Possible, eventually; first, there are the court battles.
Does Spokane have an ACLU office?
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