Search Results for: democracy school

Jan 25, 2023

Yamhill County, Oregon, Virtual Democracy School

The Yamhill County Raging Grannies are sponsoring and online virtual Democracy School. Democracy School is made up of 4 sessions. Please plan to attend each of them. The dates of the sessions are as follows: $40 registration fee Direct questions to Joni Zimmerman at raginggranniesyc@gmail.com.

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Apr 1, 2022

Portland Democracy School: May 2022

Join our community partner as they host a Portland Democracy School event.

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Dec 10, 2020

Virtual Democracy School in Florida

Register today for this virtual Democracy School!

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Dec 8, 2020

Virtual Democracy School in Virginia

Register today for this virtual Democracy School in Virginia!

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Nov 27, 2020

Virtual Democracy School in Ashtabula

Register today for this virtual Democracy School in Ashtabula, Ohio! Co-sponsored by Ashtabula County Water Watch and CELDF.

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Sep 17, 2020

Virtual Democracy School in Colorado

Register today for this virtual Democracy School in the Colorado area!

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Mar 31, 2020

Host a Democracy School!

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Aug 4, 2015

Democracy School

Democracy school – Igniting a Rights Movement for Communities and Nature – is our flagship education program and a key piece of our community organizing. Our educational initiative explores the limits of conventional regulatory organizing and offers a new organizing model that helps citizens confront the usurpation by corporations of the rights of communities, people,… Read more »

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Mar 19, 2014

Not The Item: Blog post – Democracy School at Susquehanna University

Democracy School in Selingsrove, PA, in February 2014, revealed for particpants the structure of law we live under that keeps us from getting what we want in our communities – and offered what we can do about it.

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Dec 22, 2010

Mayor of Nevada City, CA Invites You to Democracy School

http://youtu.be/Eb2sMhhc1gM

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Feb 3, 2020

Blog: Crisis Calls for More Democracy, Not Less

Financial and environmental crises call for more democracy – not less. Yet we see these crises used by U.S. and state governments to suspend democracy. It’s time to stop it.

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Dec 11, 2016

Blog: U.S. Ruled by 9-Headed Monarch: What We Didn’t Learn in School about the Supreme Court

Regardless of our political affiliations, the Supreme Court claims enormous power over our lives. How does this body of government have the authority to restrict rights of “we the people,” while expanding rights of corporations and property?

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Nov 8, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – What Do We Mean by “Community Rights?”

Lakota advocate and water protector Debra White Plume (Wioweya Najin Wina), upon being introduced to the history of municipal subjugation in the United States during a Democracy School hosted by residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, remarked that “municipalities are the white man’s reservations. The only difference is, we know we’re on reservations.”

Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, News from the Grassroots, Rights of Nature

Aug 4, 2015

News From the Community Rights Movement

Through this website, our Democracy Schools and other trainings, and our organizing and legal work, CELDF is sharing the stories of how government and corporate interests are together protecting and perpetuating a legal and governing system that advances the interests of the few over the many. We are also sharing how a new movement is forming, to change this system, and how you can become involved.

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Sep 1, 2014

Spokane

In 2007, after a series of Democracy Schools held in Spokane, Washington, a group of citizens led by local school teacher Brad Read built a coalition to support a Community Bill of Rights for City residents.

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Sep 25, 2013

September 2013 CELDF Update

Ohio communities ban fracking, CELDF in Australia and new Democracy schools starting up.

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Dec 21, 2010

CELDF on the Radio

When is a Repeal not a Repeal – A look at Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and other acts of Congress, and a sneak peak at Democracy School … Listen to CELDF on the Radio – “Democracy Matters” Podcast

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Dec 5, 2010

Does Nature have Rights?

Thoughts on Democracy School

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Apr 17, 2023

Ohio River Rights Campaign Launched by Cincinnati Residents

“We began to understand through this process that we are not only connected to the Ohio River, but that we are part of the ecosystem,” stated Jim Schenk of CROW.

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Feb 28, 2023

RIGHTS OF NATURE PANEL DISCUSSION: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm PST

Rights of Nature Panel Discussion: Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 6:30pm – 8:30pm PST

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Dec 15, 2021

Portrait of a water guardian – WT Interview with Tish O’Dell

What is the force that propels a woman forward in taking a courageous stand for water and the environment water creates?
Here is what Tish O’Dell told WATERTODAY Ohio.

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Nov 28, 2021

2021 in Review

We are witnessing tremendous gains for the Rights of Nature movement and an expansion of awareness about the injustices perpetrated by highly centralized state government systems.

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Nov 25, 2021

Newsletter: Washington Update

The WACRN is now working to operationalize the network to be that change agent it set out to be nearly 10 years ago.

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Sep 14, 2021

Newsletter: Pacific Northwest Updates

Invisible Hand, the rebirth of the WACRN, and updates from the West Coast.

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May 30, 2021

Oregon Community Rights Network: Community Rights Workshop

Why do we rarely win against corporations targeting our communities? How did we get to this place? SIMPLE.Corporations – and their allies – have been busy manufacturing a structure of law over the last 150 years that insulates them from community control. What will it take to change the current reality to deal with the issues… Read more »

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Feb 28, 2021

Introducing CELDF 2021: A New Year, A New Structure

A new democratic structure will empower collaboration and expansion CELDF just celebrated its 25th birthday. Now, we’re investing in the next 25 years. For decades, our staff have spearheaded issues few others would touch. CELDF was years ahead of the curve on Rights of Nature and a structural demand for local community self-determination to counteract… Read more »

Read More | Blogs, Democratic Rights, News, Success Story

Jan 1, 2021

Host an online event with CELDF

There is a lot we can do from home. Here are a few ideas. Organize an Online Democracy School CELDF now offers a virtual version of its Democracy School. The four modules educate the public about rights-based organizing, inform participants about how the system under which we currently live undermines traditional activism, and introduce strategies… Read more »

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Sep 1, 2017

Rights of Nature Symposium

In October 2017, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), with its International Center for the Rights of Nature, partnered with Tulane Law School to host the Rights of Nature Symposium: Driving Rights of Nature into Law – Opportunities, Risks, and Obstacles. The Symposium brought together key leaders in the Rights of Nature movement –… Read more »

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May 2, 2016

Democratic Rights

CELDF is partnering with grassroots and statewide groups to confront the many barriers that are being erected by corporations and government to restrict our democratic rights, and our ability to protect people, workers, communities and the environment.

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Aug 4, 2015

Board & Staff

The CELDF staff are composed of dedicated individuals whose mission is the protection of communities and Nature and the advancement of community rights. CELDF Staff and Legal Team Stacey Schmader Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer Stacey is a co-founder of CELDF. She leads Human Resources and is responsible for planning, organization, and direction of the… Read more »

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Aug 4, 2015

Unsustainable Agriculture

Unsustainable agriculture is devastating communities’ land, health, and economies – and CELDF is helping them to stop it. Read here about the harms caused by unsustainable agriculture, how communities are organizing to stop them, and what you can do in your community.

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Aug 4, 2015

Factory Farms

CELDF has assisted the first communities in the U.S. to prohibit factory farming and other industrial agricultural practices. Learn here about the perils of factory farming, how communities are organizing to stop them, and what you can do in your own community.

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Aug 4, 2015

About CELDF

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit, public interest law firm providing free and affordable legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, local agriculture, the local economy, and quality of life.

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Aug 4, 2015

Join the Movement

CELDF is helping spearhead a decolonial movement at the local, state, national and international level to establish rights for humans and nature over the systems that control them. A People’s Movement In spite of the legendary belief that the United States Constitution established a government of, by and for the people, it is the people… Read more »

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Jul 31, 2023

Local Governments Are Blocking Ballot Initiatives at the Behest of Corporations

Feature photo by Paul Vernon AFP via Getty Images In 1979, the children’s educational television series Schoolhouse Rock! broadcast a now-classic episode titled “Three Ring Government” about the three branches of the U.S. government — executive, legislative and judicial. “No one part can be more powerful than the other,” proclaimed the narrator, who explains that our system of government… Read more »

Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Rights of Nature

Jul 10, 2023

How Do We Speak for the Trees When Our Human Right to Free Speech is Cut Down? 

In our legal system, one is either a legal subject (humans and corporations) or a legal object (nature)

Read More | Blogs, Chemical Trespass, Community Rights, Corporate 'Rights', Corporate Agriculture, Democratic Rights, Extraction & Pollution, Rights of Nature

Jun 14, 2023

Wouldn’t You Say?

Welcome to CELDF’s commentary series that focuses on key concepts in our work to advance Community Rights and the Rights of Nature. Superficially, these may appear to be separate movements for legal rights but, as we have come to understand, everything’s connected and the artificial separation of human communities from the natural communities that we… Read more »

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Mar 22, 2023

In Times of Increasing Uncertainty, We Already Have What We Need

We must start trusting in ourselves and in our community members to be able to meet our needs, solve our problems and create truly participatory community-based forms of government and public spaces.

Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, Democratic Rights, Rights of Nature

Mar 8, 2023

CELDF Presents How Wealth Rules

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit, public interest law firm providing free and affordable legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, local agriculture, the local economy, and quality of life.

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Jan 16, 2023

Guest Blog: Badges and Incidents of Slavery

The challenge: How to overcome the white dominance/Black subordination relationship. How to decolonize.

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Aug 21, 2022

Wouldn’t You Say? – Municipal Maze

Refuse to be complacent. Refuse to be complicit. Refuse to be irrelevant.

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Apr 13, 2022

Earth Emancipation Now!

Earth Emancipation Now!
Synopsis: The American Empire was built on the model of European colonialism and the enclosure of the Commons. The Federalists, who crafted the U.S. Constitution, emulated Old World Empires by privatizing government and transforming the whole natural world into property. They erected an aristocracy of wealth by vesting in property itself the authority to govern. Our common environment is legally enslaved to the whims of its owners and they, by virtue of that ownership, govern us. There is no alternative to save planet Earth but to emancipate Nature from legal enslavement as property.

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Apr 12, 2022

Sample

We help communities create & defend their rights. We assist communities to develop first-in-the-nation, groundbreaking laws for worker rights, houseless rights, democratic rights, and the Rights of Nature. We also provide free and low-cost legal services, grassroots organizing, and education support, to communities and governments facing injustice. Contact us now. EARTH DAY-ZED AND CONFUSED essays,… Read more »

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Jan 27, 2022

Guest Blog: Community Rights in Buffalo, NY

Systems change doesn’t hinge on electing the right candidate – it’s advanced most forcefully when organized communities engage in direct action.

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Jan 4, 2021

Newsletter: Moments of Transition

The following is an excerpt from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund’s End of Year 2020 newsletter “Moments of Transition

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Dec 26, 2020

Community Rights Network Established in Virginia

Virginia joins the growing network of state Community Rights Networks.

Read More | Blogs, Community Rights, News, Rights of Nature

Dec 6, 2020

Remembering Debra White Plume

Seen through her guileless eyes, the humble truth of our kinship and solidarity beneath the real—though disproportionately unequal—oppressions of empire, became clear.

Read More | Community Wires

Sep 28, 2020

Blog: Change History

The collective effort to dismantle oppressive and racist systems relies on decentralizing power. Only when we understand the importance of community control can we envision fair and just systems we must build.

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Mar 27, 2018

Dick McGinn – A Life of Service

CELDF, OHCRN, and Ohio communities grieve the loss of Dick McGinn, and celebrate his life and contributions. He was a passionate leader in growing Community Rights in Ohio.

Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & Blogs

Mar 14, 2018

Blog: The NRA, Gun Violence, and Ceiling Preemption

Communities can’t adopt the gun laws they believe would best protect their health, safety, and welfare. Here’s why – and what communities can do about it.

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