Want to see who's written for our newsletter? Check out the new author index to Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Domination, here. Got a favorite author-activist? She might also be a contributor! Each link goes to a single-page pdf of the article, suitable for printing for tabling, events, or info packets. Members get a subscription.
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Due out in October, the final issue of Justice Rising's series on "Money in Politics" will look at who runs US government. Is it the American people looking out for our common good or a corporate elite exerting control over public policy to benefit their private ends? Taking historic research by Gustavus Meyers, Thortstein Veblen and C. Wright Mills, this issue of Justice Rising will apply their analysis of "money power" to the twenty-first century. It will lay bare the disaster of a public policy driven by corporate allies in a time when the externalities of their market-driven rationales are causing extreme climate change as well as species and resource depletion-threatening life as we know it.
This important issue of Justice Rising will expose how the revolving door between corporate America and our government's top decision makers facilitates the monied elite's domination over Supreme Court decisions, our imperial foreign policy, and the daily workings of the regulatory system. It will also illuminate how our legislatures have been turned into training camps for corporate lobbyists.
In the tradition of Justice Rising, this issue will also promote the growing drive of the American people to exert democratic control over corporate power. From ending corporate personhood to creating a public service corps solidly loyal to the common good of the people, citizens are uniting to guarantee a future of liberty and justice for all.
A subscription to Justice Rising is free with Alliance for Democracy membership. For a free copy of this issue, email us in the Alliance office. Back issues of Justice Rising are available online, both as complete issues and individual articles.
Check out the latest issue of Justice Rising, our newsletter. Each edition examines a single issue through the perspective of resistance to corporate rule, and this time we're looking at the creation and development of the solidarity economy, and how its "roots and shoots" represent the beginning of a viable alternative economic reality.
You can read and download the whole issue, or read and print individual articles (perfect for tabling, legislative visits or for sharing with fellow activists, teachers, students, co-op and union members, etc...) at this page on the AfD website (check out back issues here).
Want one or more paper copies? Email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org and we'll send info on pricing. Members get a free subscription--join Alliance for Democracy now!
by Jim Tarbell
In 2007, at the Atlanta US Social Forum I witnessed the formation of the US Solidarity Economy Network. (USSEN). This past week, I used my time at the Detroit Social Forum to investigate how the Network was progressing. When I mentioned this to my colleagues, they nodded approvingly, but then stared at me quizzically asking, “What is the solidarity economy.”
That question is being answered as more people become involved with identifying and defining this organic, transformative phenomenon. Nancy Neamtan of the Quebec Chantier de L’Economie Sociale points out that “for years everyone was defining themselves as a community radio or a fair trade association or a workers co-op or a housing co-op and there was no common umbrella for defining ourselves as part of the economy. So the leap we made in 1996 was to come together as a broad network of co-ops, non-profits, and social movements in urban and rural areas that shared a vision of a solidarity economy that is democratic, inclusive and equitable.” She goes on to say that the solidarity economy is “citizen-based action within the economy through cooperative, collective or non-profit organizations that are producing goods and services based on a logic that sees the primacy of people over capital, that are democratically controlled, that respond to the needs of the community and that promote a philosophy of empowerment.”
Among the many workshops on the solidarity economy at the USSF, the Center for Community-Based Enterprise (C2BE) hosted one called Building Local Community and Creating Jobs through Cooperation. It featured several businesses across the country and included a Detroit neighborhood of community-based enterprises that hosted lunch the next day for a tour of Detroit community-based enterprises.
The US Solidarity Network (www.USSEN.org) helped organize a whole track of workshops at the Detroit Social Forum including one on how to map and organize solidarity economy members locally. Meanwhile, the Intercontinental Solidarity Economy Network (RIPESS) offered reports from solidarity networks across the planet. Representatives from Quebec, Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America reported back on laws, forums and networks that are being developed around the world to support and strengthen the solidarity economy.
At the Friday night plenary, Daniel Tygel, Executive Secretary of the Brazilian Forum on the Solidarity Economy captured the imagination of the entire Social Forum saying, “We must be able to deal with our differences, and we must be able to find what we have in common to get over the individual or organizational perspective, so that we can get to a massive perspective to propose transformation. . . We are always thinking about the transformation of the economy and the transformation of society. The main project of the solidarity economy is to combine economy, culture, the environment and politics. What we are fighting for is a kind of termite method of killing capitalism. The termites are eating the wood, but if you look at the house, it looks like it is there, but the termites are eating the wood and one day this house will fall down.”
The next issue of Justice Rising will highlight the solidarity economy and how we can all participate in the coming transformation. Let me know if you want to participate in this issue or have ideas about its content. We are all in this together and it will take a massive effort to come together and create a truly transformative solidarity economy.
The upcoming issue of Justice Rising focuses on "Courts & Corporations v. Our Common Good," and will be out in early March. Following the Citizens United decision, it couldn't be more timely.
Articles examine different aspects of the judiciary's relationship with the corporate elite, including the Supreme Court's role in cementing the false legal doctrine of corporate personhood. How did the hard-won rights of persons get handed over to corporations? Find out here!
The issues also explores how the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision has been the tipping point for building a broad national grassroots movement, community by community, to restore democracy to the people and strip corporations of their rights.
If you're part of this movement, Justice Rising is information you can use!
If you are planning local actions, starting up a study group on corporate personhood, or planning on talking to legislators about how they can limit the harm of the Citizens United decision, you'll want to order multiple copies of this issue. Call the office at 781-894-1179 or email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.
Remember, issues of Justice Rising are also available online either as complete issues or as single articles--download them to bring with you when you table, demonstrate, or visit elected officials!
For a preview, here's Ruth Caplan's article on the rights of nature--Ruth is a new vice Co-Chair and coordinator of AfD's Defending Water for Life campaign.
This article, from the upcoming issue of Justice Rising, focuses on AfD's work as part of a growing global "rights of nature" movement, challenging exploitation of the environment and the usual legal conception of nature as simply property.
This quarter's Justice Rising will feature articles on the judiciary, corporate personhood, and the relationship between legal and corporate elites--especially timely following the Citizens United decision and the start of a movement to address corporate personhood issues through constitutional amendment.
If you would like to be added to the mailing list for the next issue, please email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org, or join the Alliance--a subscription to Justice Rising is free with your membership.
by Ruth Caplan
Thanks to the leadership of President Evo Morales of Bolivia and Pablo Salon, his ambassador to the United Nations, who previously was active in the Our World Is Not For Sale network, the UN has declared April 22 to be International Mother Earth Day. The day will be celebrated in Cochabamba, Bolivia, by rallying activists from around the world to proclaim the fundamental rights of nature.
In the words of President Morales, there must be a charter to “enshrine the right to life for all living things; right to regeneration of the planet’s biocapacity; right to a clean life -- for Mother Earth to live free of contamination and pollution; and the right to harmony and balance among and between all things.”
The framing in the U.S. Constitution, which treats nature as property, is in direct contradiction to the rights of nature. Further, the series of court decisions granting corporations fundamental Constitutional rights has allowed corporations to use these conferred rights to exploit nature for corporate profit. In its organizing with local communities, the Alliance’s Defending Water for Life campaign has been challenging these fundamentals of U.S. Constitutional and court-conferred law. It is time for us to join the budding international movement.
From the small town of Barnstead NH to three other towns in NH and two in Maine, the Alliance has worked with communities that have passed ordinances to protect their water by denying corporate rights and asserting the rights of nature. These towns have challenged “settled law” based on court rulings interpreting the U.S. Constitution. Best known is the 1886 Santa Clara decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court declared that everyone understands that corporations are to be included as persons under the 14th Amendment so the Court did not need to rule on this.
Last fall, the campaign’s Maine organizer, Emily Posner, brought an international focus to the Defending Water for Life campaign. First she brought “Hurricane Season” www.hurricaneseasontour.com to Maine for several college campus performances. The two-woman show addresses pertinent social themes from the devastation of Katrina to global water justice through their dance, poetry and multi-media performance. Emily followed this by organizing a speaking tour with Marcela Olivera from Cochabamba, Bolivia who, with her brother Oscar Olivera, played a central role in the people’s uprising against Bechtel’s privatization of their water. Before organizing with the Alliance, Emily spent a year in Cochabamba working with the Oliveras.
The international focus continued with the campaign’s Water Justice art show, which opened in Portland ME in November and included art related to Cochabamba. Now plans are afoot for Emily to take the Water Justice art show to Cochabamba in April for the 10th anniversary of the Cochabamba uprising and stay on for the Peoples’ World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights. The conference goals include preparing a Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth.
Just as we must learn from nature, we also stand to learn from Bolivia and Ecuador, which have made the rights of nature part of their Constitutions.
As the Alliance joins the Right to Amend coalition against corporate personhood, we must also continue our local organizing to build a movement for the rights of nature as a fundamental constitutional right. Settled law created by the courts allowing corporate exploitation of nature must become unsettled by a people’s movement to honor the fundamental rights of Mother Earth.
The Spring issue of Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Domination is available online here. This quarter, we focus on Deglobalization/Localization, with articles by co-editors Ruth Caplan and Jim Tarbell, Mark Anielski, Maia Campoamo, C.R. Lawn, Dave Lewit, and Ellen Brown.
Remember, you are always free to use Justice Rising for your own organizing--just download and print. Paper copies are available from the national office as well. And if you'd like to make sure you never miss an issue, join the Alliance for Democracy!
We're putting together our "Houseparty for Healthcare" packets, and to get you intrigued, we'd like to share some of the material here with you.
Here's the cover story from our Winter, 2008 issue of Justice Rising, "Healthcare for Humans--Not Corporate Profit."
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Join us in organizing for a rights-based approach to health care that will be more affordable and more equitable--saving lives and money! Check back for more information, or email afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.
The latest issue of Justice Rising, "Money for People not Corporate Plunder," has been posted to our website, here.
As always, individual articles are available for download to use in your own organizing, and your feedback is always welcome! Email the editor, Jim Tarbell, at rtp@mcn.org. If you'd like hard copies, contact the office at afd@thealliancefordemocracy.org.
Contributing to this issue: Luke Allen, Ruth Caplan, John Cobb Jr., Chuck Collins, Herman Daly, Jan Edwards, Naomi Klein, David Korten, Bill Meyers, Emily Posner, and Jim Tarbell. It was edited by Ruth Caplan and Jim Tarbell.
On December 4 the Alliance's National Council voted unanimously to begin a major campaign for Medicare for All (single payer health care), based nationally and by state. We are notifying all chapters, members, and supporters, to ask you to contact our Working Group on Health Care and let us know your level of involvement or interest in helping build this campaign.
Members John Noronha of Rochester and Rick LaMonica of St. Louis both attended Health Care-NOW's meeting in Chicago last week, and hope to be working closely closely with Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP,which has great materials for any of us to use for local education and outreach--power point projections, etc.)
Please take a look at the Winter '08 issue of Justice Rising, "Health for Humans--Not Corporate Profits" and use any parts of it. For speakers, contact PNHP. For any questions or suggestions, notify our Working Group through Peter Mott, AfD Secretary, at interconnect_mott@frontiernet.net or 585-381-5606. (see his recent op-ed on single-payer in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle and use any part of it for your own media).
Registration is now opening for several BorderLinks delegations this fall, including trips to Nogales, Sonora, and Chiapas. For details, please contact BorderLinks's education department at
(520) 628-8263 or education@borderlinks.org.
After last fall's Alliance convention, several members went on an overnight trip to Nogales, Mexico with Borderlinks, a bi-national organization that brings people together on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border to raise awareness and foster action around global economic justice and inter-cultural understanding and respect. Feedback from trip participants was overwhelmingly positive. You can read more about the trip in Terrie Brady's article in the Spring 2008 issue of Justice Rising, here.
Jim Tarbell has posted clips from Invesco Field on the last night of the Democratic National Convention and the slow "official" start to the RNC at the Justice Rising blog. More coming soon!
Read more...With the RNC rebooting after Gustav, the focus is again on St. Paul, and its streets, where more than 10,000 protesters marched yesterday, with 284 arrests. Minneapolis St. Paul Indymedia has up-to-the-moment posts, street reports, pictures and video, at twincities.indymedia.org.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has video and photo coverage of the peaceful march and a less-peaceful splinter protest, and two searchable databases--one to the Ramsay County Jail bookings, and one to 2008 campaign contributions (although Twin Cities IndyMedia reports some people are being held without booking). Which side are you on? Check it out here.
Among those illegally arrested Monday was Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, who was called off the RNC convention floor when she learned her producers were facing arrest--she was handcuffed when she responded to investigate. She's charged with a misdemeanor and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddos and Nicole Salazar face felony charges. Read more on their site.
As of this morning, Justice Rising editor Jim Tarbell was not among those on the arrest list--read his dispatches at afdjusticerising.blogspot.com.
Justice Rising editor Jim Tarbell has been blogging daily from the DNC in Denver's Pepsi Center. Check out the latest post to learn about the connection between the convention venue and WalMart's not-so-subtle pressure on employees to vote against Obama. Here's some excerpts:
The other night the stairs were jammed and I was stuck with Teresa Heinz and John Kerry. She looked hot and bothered while Kerry was in his element, yucking it up and slapping the backs of every New York and Massachusetts delegate within reach. “Hey! there’s Darth he exclaimed,” leaning way over the railing to shake an outstretched hand. Smiling at the adoring crowd following his every move he continued, “We always called him Darth Vader. Isn’t that right Darth? ” Everyone laughed, even Darth.
Today, Iraq Veterans Against the War lead a march to Pepsi Center in conjunction to a Rage Against the Machine concert. I wonder what John Kerry, a founder of the Viet Nam Veterans Against the War, thinks about the insurgent Iraq Veterans Against the War. I should have asked him.Read more...
Two recent Northern California AfD events were a chance to connect with the public on two issues (issues that, coincidentally, are the focus of the last two editions of Justice Rising!)
In Mendocino, the local chapter co-sponsored a gathering of local progressive and migrant community groups, featuring food and performances by local musicians. The event was a chance to mix across cultural lines and scope out common concerns. Meanwhile, the Ukiah chapter tabled at SolFest, a weekend celebration of renewable energy and sustainable living.
Welcome to new members who joined AfD at these events! To find out more about grassroots resistance to the corporate agenda on migration and energy, check out the Spring, 2008 issue of Justice Rising, "Emigrants--World Citizens or Corporate Slaves," and the new Summer 2008 issue, "Corporate Energy or Grassroots Power," which should be online soon. Meanwhile, if you'd like paper copies, please contact the office!
"Since the current political situation in Washington seems to promise little more than a one step retreat from a three step advance into empire, newspeak and militant corporate rule, it is time for members of the independent media community to realistically assess our capacities to transmit enough vital truth to ignite a nonviolent countercoup and populist democratic revival." Read more about the Santa Cruz Media Strategy Summit, January 25-27, at www.thealliancefordemocracy.org.
Need good articles on the media for tabling, fliers, or research? The Fall 2005 issue of Justice Rising: Grassroots Solutions to Corporate Domination focused on the anemic state of the mainstream media and how activists are getting their messages out despite the corporate takeover of news and entertainment outlets. Read it online, or contact the AfD office for paper copies.
Read more...by Jim Tarbell, editor of Justice Rising
Media reform is on a roll, moving from a defensive attitude to a proactive offensive stance. As Jim reports, evidence of this shift was everywhere at the National Conference on Media Reform, held January 12-14 in Memphis, Tennessee. There, he met up with Ronnie Dugger, AfD videographer Martha Spiess of Portland, Me, and longtime AfD member Ben Kjelshus of Kansas City, Mo. Read his full report online. You can see videos and listen to audio tapes of the conference at www.freepress.net. Contact Jim at 707-964-1323 or jr@thealliancefordemocracy.org for more details.
The current issue of Justice Rising is titled Corporate Energy or Grassroots Power. If you’re not a current or recently lapsed AfD member, and would like a copy, please request one from the office, or read it online. Print out individual pages for education and mobilization.
The Fall issue will look at Food: Corporate Control or Grassroots Food Sovereignty. We welcome submissions and graphics—deadline is September 15. Letters to the editor are also welcome. For information about submissions, email editor Jim Tarbell at rtp@mcn.org, or call 707-964-1323. The Winter issue will be on the SPP and guest edited by Nancy Price and Ruth caplan Deadline for the issue is Decmber 15.
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