Democracy School

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Module 1: Where We Are Now – Exposing Intentional Barriers to Community Self-Determination

Module 1 – Where We Are focuses our attention on the reality of the system of governance and law that currently exists within the United States of America and how intentional barriers have been created to block essential local governing decisions. Module 1 is structured to provide an opportunity for activists and organizers to introduce themselves and become comfortable with sharing ideas and experiences as we move through large group discussions, short videos, small group discussions, and various engaging exercises throughout all the Modules in this Democracy School: Igniting a Rights Movement for Communities and Nature program.

In Module 1, we explore illusions of democracy and false protections of both humans and nature within the current structure of law and government. Using material from Chris Hedges, “corporate anthropologist” Jane Ann Morris, CELDF’s Box of Allowable Activism, and our collective organizing and activist experiences, we encourage open dialogue around the way corporatism, patriarchy, white supremacy and other oppressive structures frame where we are and why we can’t seem to get what we need in our communities. Module 1 explores how our activism is “regulated” and “boxed in”, major legal doctrines that determine the effectiveness of our activism, and our own thinking around Common Myths & Diversions that create the illusion of a democratic process for the protection of people and nature. We will reflect on what it is that holds us back from making necessary changes and what possibilities we see for future generations and the planet.

Module 3: How we could make change – Asserting Rights

In Module 3 – How We Could Make Change we consider inherent and unalienable rights, and their history and application in the United States. From the Declaration of Independence to Abolition, Suffrage and Civil Rights, to recognizing Rights of Nature, we’ll explore how people have come together in both peaceful and violent revolutions to challenge existing power structures. By analyzing both past and current movements establishing rights for people and ecosystems, we explore ways to create necessary changes in rights-protecting decision-making power.

Through group exercises, short readings and discussions, brief videos and reviews of historical confrontations between oppressed people and their oppressors, this module will encourage us to think, to grapple with the ideal of placing fundamental rights at the heart and foundation of what governing is supposed to be about.

Module 2: How did we get here? The Power of Property

Module 2 – How We Got Here focuses attention on the ways the U.S. structure of law and governance was built around valuing and prioritizing rights vested in property above all other rights. Said differently, we will examine how the U.S. Constitution, federal and state law, as well as judicial rulings predictably, favor wealth [corporate and other] and its accumulation over the equal and inalienable rights that people hold as a birthright, as asserted in the Declaration of Independence.

Through group exercises, short readings and discussions, brief videos and historical perspectives, this module exposes the interwoven structure of government mechanisms that were put forward by European colonization. Through genocide and land appropriation rationalized by arbitrary law, North America became a historical crime site. With the illegitimate invention of legal doctrines like the Law of Conquest and the Doctrine of Discovery, colonization of the continent proceeded by enslaving and transporting Africans to these colonies, and by decimating indigenous tribes and removing them from their traditional lands.

With independence from the British Empire, the patriarchal Federalists initiated a patrician counter-revolution in 1787 when they met secretly in Philadelphia to craft a system of government that would “protect the minority of the opulent against the majority,” as James Madison, architect of the U.S.Constitution put it. In doing so, the Federalists ensured the continuation of “ethnic cleansing” of the indigenous tribes, the uninterrupted enslavement of Africans, the subordination of women, and institutional checks against democratic participation by working-class people, down to the present day. We examine this living history, which set the stage for the growth of corporate privilege — or “rights” — which today define the realities of community injustice, oppression, and inequity. Module 2 provides the reframing in our own minds that the system is not broken, but is fixed to protect the “opulent minority” and creates tools for oppression that are still used today as valid law and standing precedent.

Module 4: Where We Could End Up – Building a Movement for Real Change

Module 4 – Where We Could End Up forces us to look ahead, exploring options of what is next, and what we might do. We will talk about multiple strategies around building a movement, as we seek to change our present system at local, state, and national levels.

We explore the timeline of one of the suffrage movements as a practical example to prove the necessity of a multi-pronged strategy in changing an unjust system. We also delve into Movement theory, and differentiate among Meme, Moment and Movement categories. Adam Winkler’s work in We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won their Civil Rights, and the Stratfor Report show how corporations (and bodies of power in general) enhance their own privilege by analyzing the people and activist activities in order to maintain their power.   

Module 4 requires attendees to reflect on our own roles in the work we do, and determine whether we are Radicals, Idealists, Realists, or Opportunists (using just one rubric that is conducive to reflection, strategizing and action).

Module 4 ties together the other three modules and brings fully into view the realities of the  Box of Allowable Activism introduced in Module 1 as a framework that both explains the legal doctrines that stand in the way of sustaining just outcomes and the blueprint for where our organizing must be aimed.

As we think of how to build a Community Rights Movement, we will explore the realities of how this movement is about more than just environmental rights and justice, and how working for community rights is a way of seeking a more just and equitable world for all marginalized and oppressed people among us, starting in the communities where we live.