- Ben Price and Chad Nicholson of CELDF
Last weekend I was lucky enough to attend a two-day Daniel Pennock Democracy School workshop offered by Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)–the same organization that helped residents of Pittsburgh draft their now infamous ordinance against fracking for natural gas within their city limits. There were about 15 of us in the workshop, which was funded by the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership, and I learned more about American history and the design and development of our current political system than I did in all of elementary school, junior high, high school, and college combined. What we learned was both inspiring and disturbing.
First of all, let me allay any misconceptions about CELDF and what may be perceived as its political agenda–the group and its legal team have helped as many conservative communities as they have communities politically dominated by liberals; their agenda is nonpartisan; they are after one thing and one thing only: helping communities to declare and establish self-governance at the local level. Now, for those who find the very concept of democracy to be a socialist endeavor (and some do), some might take issue with the group and its goals. But a lot of the information that CELDF imparted sounded down-right libertarian at times–after all–self-governance at the local level as primary over state and federal law is a tenet of libertarianism, not socialism, which favors centralization.
Which brings me to the most interesting revelations and points for debate that this workshop offered. As I have equal readership (as well as backchannel communications) among conservatives, liberals and independents on this blog, I am constantly weighing the virtues and arguments of the philosophical right and left, to slowly decide how I feel about it myself. The problem is that when you’re truly open to the arguments and input of both the right and the left, and know good people on both sides of the spectrum, it can get complicated and confusing, rather than clarifying. Some of this is due to caginess on both sides with respect to answering direct questions, leaving me to do more digging on my own. The deeper I go and the more I know, the more I realize that I don’t know, and this workshop was no exception. Where I had hoped it might provide answers, it instead sent my mind reeling with even more questions. But at least now I have the distinct sense that I’m working with all the pertinent information.
So, in the epic battle of Right vs. Left (or libertarianism vs. socialism, if you will), a question had arisen for me out of an email from a reader, prior to the workshop, informing me that actually the word “democracy” is never mentioned once in the Constitution, that we have never lived in a democracy–that we, in fact, live in a republic. Now, I had always heard that America was a “democratic republic,” but with all of the emphasis in my education growing up as to the virtues of democracy and how America was “spreading democracy” around the world, I, like many others, I believe, took the idea of a government “of The People, by The People, for The People” to really mean that our government really was formed around the idea that “all men are created equal” and are equally entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I have spent my entire life believing that The People should and did determine our government after throwing off a monarchy by participating as citizens in our democracy, via voting, speaking up at public meetings, supporting the candidate of one’s choice, etc., and that any failures in our government were due to escapism and voter apathy. Now I know that our forefathers never intended for us to live in a democracy or a true republic in the first place, and that the 2nd Constitution was actually a counter-revolution eleven years after the Articles of Confederation were signed, and the 2nd Constitution (which we call “the Constitution”) was not designed to give power to The People. We are all the victims of patently false advertising, via public education.
Something that I often hear from the right, is that the left is trying to turn America into a socialist nation. This fear is often verbalized as “running our country off-track” and “not being true to what our forefathers intended.” These assertions by the Tea Party are generally guffawed at on liberal main stream media channels, and assertions are made on the left that liberals are fighting for the democracy our forefather fought and died for, while those on the right support an oligarchy of the wealthy.
Well–here’s the big news I learned in Democracy School, that was never taught to me in 16 years of public education: the Tea Party is right about some things, namely:
1. That we do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic (but that republic was not designed to give power to The People).
2. That liberal forces in this country are certainly shifting this country away from the vision our forefathers.
What our revered forefathers intended is evident in the transcribed notes from the 2nd Constitutional Convention–the notes that were sealed for 53 years until the last signer of the Constitution finally died–the notes that clearly state that:
1. Alexander Hamilton wanted to establish a new monarchy–in other words, a new nation led by a new king.
2. James Madison said that the constitution should “protect the opulent majority from the masses“ and that the best way to preserve the stability of a monarchy with the palatable illusion of democracy for the people, would be to hold elections for senators with terms for life.
3. All agreed that allowing democracy–and truly allowing The People to govern–would be too “turbulent” and unpredictable–they wanted to ensure that the government supported the wealthy land and slave owners, and the corporations that they all held shares in.
The great compromise that they settled on? To create the illusion of democracy to satisfy the people, while ensuring that power was kept in the “right” hands, and that laws continued to be passed in favor of the right interests, and that this power was held for life, they decided on…a Supreme Court. Members of the Supreme Court are appointed, not elected, and they rule until they die. So instead of a King, we have a Supreme Court, which has more power than the President, or any other branches of government. What they say, goes. So when the Supreme Court said in 1886 that corporations were people and due the same civil rights and protections of any American citizen, it became law and stayed law. And when the Supreme Court decided that corporations had the right to make contracts with municipalities and bind them to those contracts even if they violated the civil rights of American citizens in that community, it became the law of the land, opening the door to corporate pillaging of communities across the country, regardless of the wishes of The People. And when the Supreme Court last year, decided that money to a corporation is the equivalent of speech, and that The People could not infringe on corporations’ right to free speech when donating money to PACs that support political campaigns, they opened the floodgates to the abuses we are seeing in elections this year, inspiring the Occupy Wall Street movement to make getting money out of politics their unifying objective among a myriad of complaints as to the current state of our economy. So goes the role of the U.S. Supreme Court with regard to regulatory law that creates the illusion of protecting the people, when it is actually designed and written by the lobbyists of big corporations to pave the way for exploitation and profit, while slowly and steadily shutting out the small business owner, small farmer, etc.
So what are we left with? Misguided conservatives fighting to defend the big corporations and their lobbyists as if they really are defending a free market and fighting for the average American. And misguided liberals who fight for ever more regulation that only serves to help corporations exploit communities for profit (and government to expand, leading to higher taxation to pay for those government jobs), while giving themselves the warm fuzzy feeling that they have fought for and won something good for the people, which then gives them permission to pat themselves on the back and go back to sleep for a while.
What CELDF helps citizens to realize, is that fighting a protracted legal battle in the regulatory realm that exhausts The People emotionally and financially into submission, is precisely what corporations want us to do–it is precisely what they have designed the regulations for. So regardless of the issue, whether you’re fighting fracking or gun control, it is a rigged game, and all these nonprofits out there spending our tax dollars to urge people to pressure their politicians to vote for or against certainly regulatory legislation, are spinning their (our) wheels–which is why real progress in the interest of local community rights is rarely, if ever, made, and on the rare occasion that it is made, that progress is usually reversed after corporate lawyers regroup to undo what has been “won.”
CELDF offers an alternative–taking the fight out of the regulatory arena where corporations want us to fight them, and fighting instead on a state constitutional basis and a community rights basis.
Ben Price and Chad Nicholson (pictured above) have been traveling around the country helping local communities like Pittsburgh, Licking and Nockamixon Township (all in PA) to pass local bills of rights under Home Rule Charter as well as ordinances that declare and establish the right to local self-governance on a state constitutional basis. Easton is a Home Rule Charter city. While Price and Nicholson were a wealth of knowledge and inspiration, what I like about them most, is that they get results. They have won. And we can win too. Stay tuned for more on this as it develops…
Corporations also take advantage of the partisan divide. As long as citizens are blaming each other we dont notice the trickery with which corporations claim common wealth for themselves and turn us into a population of customers. A people who once created their own jobs and businesses now depends on corporations for everything, food, health care, tv for social life etc.
I came away from the course feeling alot of common ground with the teaparty. Before i thought they were wrong to attack government when the problem is with corporations. Now I see where it is the government and corporations joined against the individual and the small businesses.
The original founders – the ones who wrote the Declaration – understood that their action was technically an illegal act but a nonetheless JUST act based on their understanding of natural law and the rights of natural persons (not legally created fictional persons such as corporations) Whatever our government has evolved to currently, its right to exist at all was based on consent of the governed. If there is no consent of the governed then a law can be refused and declared illegitimate.
Cathy–re: “consent of the governed”–great point. That’s what a lot of people are forgetting when they mock Occupy protesters, and other protesters around the world. These movements are growing stronger and gaining momentum with each day that passes, because the “governed” no longer “consent” to the way they are being governed.
Also a great point on the corporations and the 1% manipulating the public via the partisan divide. The last thing they want is the “governed” all getting on the same page and realizing that they are all protesting the same thing.
To quote, from 1928, Edward Bernays, the original master of the science of propaganda as we know it today, “…we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons–a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million–who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world…Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow down the field of choice to two candidates…we have voluntarily agreed to let an invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding issues so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical proportions.”
Big ups to local self-covernance. I think that it is this reframing of the discussion that has the potential to finally unite the afflicted majority. Ask any “natural person” (human) whether they think they and their neighbors should have the ultimate say in what happens in their community. How will they respond? “no thanks, that`s just to much power for lil`ol` me, best leave it to the corperations to right the laws and the state to pass them” NOT BLOODY LIKELY!
self-governance* “write the laws”* (got a little excited and forgot that dead white men decided how we all have to spell things if we want to be taken seriously)
Asserting the sovereignty of local government is a good thing and CELDF is to be commended for promoting it. But to learn the intentions of the authors of the Constitution, it would seem to be more useful to study the Federalist Papers than to look at notes from when the Constitution was still being debated. The Constitution was designed to protect rights of individuals, not corporations. When it was still honored as written, before corporations were considered persons, it worked well. In those days people were free to enjoy the fruits of their labor and were not required by the government to make sacrifices. Prosperity and technology increased at amazing rates. What I learned in school is that the Articles of Confederation were just too weak to govern. Madison’s concern about the masses were validated when the 17th amendment was passed – popular elections of senators instead of having the state legislatures choose did not improve the makeup of the senate. One thing that the Tea Party and the Occupy movement agree on is that corrupt politicians use the power of government to favor moneyed interests. The larger the Federal government grows, the more the free market is perverted by crony capitalism which upsets the natural balance provided by true capitalism. It doesn’t make sense to say that the Supreme Court is more powerful than the President since the President picks who gets to be on the court. FDR increased his power greatly by his choice of judges to the court, which then perverted the meaning of the Interstate Commerce clause. The best solution is to strictly limit the Federal gov’t according to the Constitution. Giving it permission to print money out of thin air, and to spend that money on anything imaginable is causing bankruptcy. Local & State governments may legally spend their money as they see fit, but they can’t print it.
Dave–good points, but the President cannot simply appoint anyone to the Supreme Court, it must be someone that the Congress will agree too. If the majority of politicians in Congress have been bought off by major corporations, they will only approve appointments that those corporations want them to approve, i.e., those they feel will continue to back up laws that support their rights over the rights of citizens.
At the state level, House Bill 1950 just passed in PA, declaring that local communities do not have the right to ban corporations from operating in those communities.Why? Pressure from natural gas drillers who are upset about the number of local ordinances being passed to ban fracking for natural gas out of concern for drinking water contamination and destruction of property values. Why are politicians ignoring the health, welfare, and demands of their constituents? Because gas drillers donated heavily to their election campaigns. Gov. Corbett’s campaign alone received over $800,000 from gas drillers.
Nothing changes that fact that 99% are more powerful than the 1% who rule this country. It is time for The People to start asserting our rights to health and safety in our communities. As soon as everyone wakes up, and realizes that they are being manipulated in a “divide and conquer” manner by corporate propaganda strategies (and the strategies of our own government and media) designed to make us believe we are on opposite sides so that we can’t have the advantage of the strength of working TOGETHER–as soon as we stop falling for it and fighting each other–as soon as The People start flexing in earnest, the 1% will begin to realize that the gig is up, and that The People understand that this country was never designed for them, and will take this country whether they like it or not. This is what is happening all over the world.
It’s time for The People to put aside their preconceived notions about various “sides” are start earnest talking to each other about the philosophies and approaches that they think are best to move this country forward. Without the knee-jerk defensive responses, without finger-pointing and name-calling, without ad hominem attacks and snappy one-liners that we can all parrot without exercising INDEPENDENT THOUGHT and extending GRACIOUSNESS and PATIENCE to those we hope to convince. We should also not just seek to convince, because that is a closed-minded perspective–we should seek to BE CONVINCED of the best solution as much as TO CONVINCE because if we are all earnest in really wanting to figure out the best path forward, we cannot be attached to our ideas, but we must be willing to be uncomfortable to be truly open to listening to each other’s point of view.
This kind of a conversation among The People is the thing that the 1% fear most, and they will do anything to try to stop it from happening. They will play on our fears and sense of identity. They will continue to try to convince us that we are enemies and have nothing in common. It is time for everyone wake up and take the “red pill.”
And I repeat–Alexander Hamilton’s intent was monarchy, and James Madison’s was that the constitution should “protect the minority of the opulent from the majority.” All were in agreement that true democracy was too “turbulent.” The document was counter-revolutionary, eleven years after the Revolution, and was never meant for us.
In addition to the divide and conquer strategy, and the propaganda strategies, look forward and beware of the terror strategies. Creating terror, making us afraid is another well known propaganda device. Sowing confusion as to the real source of the terror will further the divide.
Well said.
As per state control over local communities, please see my latest comment on the post about the recent 600 block meeting for another example of why we needs to assert self-governance.
Simply on the matter of the Federalist papers; they are a classic example of propaganda (in it’s purest definition) disbursed by the winners. We herald these works today as some kind of historic record of what the founders were defending us from but make no mistake, at the time they were the equivalent of today’s dirty campaign ads.
There was a specific intent to scare the then-young country into a belief that without this newly-minted, strong central governing presence that all hell would break loose, Indians would go on the
warpath and all other forms of mayhem would commence that the confederated states would not be able to contend with.
There was an entire body of anti-Federalist papers too – written by people like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams – but we seldom here about them because losers don’t write history. If you read them they are a spot-on, chapter and verse prediction of exactly the kind of corporate and government abuses we are suffering today.
A few points about this period of history should be sobering for those who want to continue blindly believing in the romanticized version of how this Constitution came to be, such as:
Jefferson, a respected statesman (an anti-Federalist) was conveniently dispatched as minister to France, where he remained, due to “paperwork backlogs”, for the entire Constitutional Convention despite his official requests to return. His correspondences indicate he did not favor the strong central theme proposed by Madison et al.
It was forbidden for anyone to take from Constitution Hall any notes or daily minutes of the activities; all doors and windows were boarded up to prevent onlookers and the building was guarded by Federal troops.
It is nearly impossible – still today – to obtain an unabridged, unedited version of Madison’s minutes of the proceedings.
The convention itself was illegal under the existing Constitution as it did not meet the Articles of Confederation’s guidelines for amendment…in fact the impression was given to delegates that this was a mere adjustment to some commerce language to make it easier to coordinate trade activity between states…not a wholesale throwing out of the Articles for a new government structure.
The entire Convention had it’s seeds in George Washington’s desire to have the Federal government foot the bill for a canal to be built through Maryland and Virginia to Western Pennsylvania in order to open up land for development, he having acquired thousands of acres there as a result of hoodwinking his troops into trading him the land.
Washington lost a battle near Uniontown, Pa. during the French and Indian War of 1754 (part of the larger European conflict pitting France and Austria against Britain and Prussia known as the Seven Years War). After convincing his troops that the British government would never make good on their promise of payment of land in exchange for their military service, he consolidated huge
holdings and began strategizing to realize the fruits of that investment.
What began as the Alexandria Conference of 1785 to discuss navigation agreements on the Potomac River was relocated at Washington’s request to Mt. Vernon. This resulted in an agreement for a wider trade meeting known as the Annapolis Convention the following year: precursor to the eventual Philadelphia Constitutional Convention in 1787.
When you get into the details of how we got where we are today, the informality and disregard for due process is breathtaking.
DRL
Thanks for posting, Dennis. I typed a long response as a reply to this and then the dog (the internet) ate my homework : (
I was basically saying that our forefathers were brilliant men in that they clearly understood, from their notes at the convention, that to make their counter-revolutionary power grab, get rid of the first constitution and preserve the advantage for themselves, they needed to create a convincing ILLUSION of a Government by The People and equal opportunity for all. That illusion has been so convincing, that the constitution has shifted over time to include amendments that support those ideas.
Now, in the greatest feat of mind control since, we have earnest members of the Tea Party, who have been tricked into supporting rule by the few over the many when they think they are fighting for the many to rule themselves, and this slight of hand is achieved symbolically through the worship of the forefathers and the 2nd Constitution, when our forefathers never intended for The People to rule themselves.