Democracy School in Bellingham: Rights-based Frame

David Hopkinson is retired and lives with his wife Judy in Bellingham’s York Neighborhood. They are members of the Living Democracy Initiating Group (LDIG) in Bellingham.

Editor’s Note: This is Part II in a series written by David Hopkinson with the assistance and contributions of several members of the Living Democracy Initiating Group (LDIG) in Bellingham. See the June 2011 issue of Whatcom Watch for Part I: “Democracy School in Bellingham.”

Background: The following discussion of the rights-based frame accompanies Part I, which described the Democracy School that was held in Bellingham on April 1 and 2. Environmental attorney Thomas Linzey was the presenter. Linzey is co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (www.celdf.org). Also presenting was Mari Margil, Associate Director of CELDF. Democracy School is sponsored locally by Living Democracy, a movement which aims to resurrect democracy at the community level.

This new way of fighting excessive corporate control involves a “rights-based” frame of reference. Those 120 communities (mentioned in the previous Whatcom Watch article as those that have passed “rights-based” ordinances) have already asserted the right of their community to determine what happens to them, negating the power of a corporation and reducing the state control, which has always enforced the privilege of corporations to exercise power over municipalities.

The power of corporations to pursue their business interests is the predominant value in the United States. How did we get into this fix?

The founders meeting in Philadelphia wanted it this way. Some wanted the means to exploit their land holdings in the West. George Washington, for example, had made deals with veterans from the French and Indian Wars and bought out their land claims at almost no cost to himself. He wanted to build canals to access those holdings and needed a pre-emptive, centralized national government to cut through the squabbling of the states as to the path of the canals.

Others involved in framing the U.S. Constitution wanted a standing army, so as to be able to put down slave revolts and other disturbances by the have-nots. One of their main concerns was the tendency of the state governments to give the many little people with mortgages relief from foreclosure. The members who came from the money centers couldn’t stand that idea. Overall, they wanted a system of government in which the majority would not be able to interfere with the privileges of a wealthy minority.

Many framers of the U.S. Constitution stood staunchly in opposition to majority rule. The federal system that they designed would be impervious to the majority because it would be difficult for a popular movement to take over all three branches of a federal government at once. And indeed, that has proved to be true. Even when the elected branches were won over, the appointed-to-office-for-life Federal Judiciary were the ultimate backstop.

In a sense, the Philadelphia Convention created a constitution that resurrected the British Empire from which the United States had so recently separated itself. History books frequently fail to mention that the U.S. Constitution was created in a room with no windows, with guards at the doors and with no documents or notes allowed to leave the building.

In secret meetings, the Constitution was designed by a small group of wealthy white men for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind. The majority of citizens were excluded. The Constitution had nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with extending privilege. Legal benefits went to an aristocracy of wealth and power rather than to ordinary people who lived and worked in the community.

We have become the sort of empire that provoked our revolution. The current excesses of corporate power would astonish those who fought and died for the freedom to take control of their own lives. Just as the East India Company was both the instrument of imperial power and its beneficiary in colonial times, so our modern corporations use the government, its armed forces, the media, and the political parties to extend their prerogatives to the detriment of everyone else and the planet.

Local communities around the globe are asserting their autonomy and assuming their right to self-governance. Pittsburgh, for example, passed an ordinance curtailing corporate rights by making it illegal to engage in fracking within city limits. Nine states in the U.S. have passed laws that block corporate ownership of farms. In Ecuador, the newly amended constitution, adopted with CELDF as advisors, asserts the rights of the natural environment. We’re learning that Bolivia is about to pass legislation along similar lines.

The excessive power of corporations has altered our country in ways that would astonish those who fought for freedom. The rights of people to make decisions at a local level have gotten lost.

There is a difficult task ahead. But it must have seemed just as daunting to the authors of the Declaration of Independence. Hope lies in the resurgence of a rights-based democracy, a return to power at the local level, by living democracy.

On June 15, Joe Teehan of AM 930’s the Joe Show interviewed Rick Dubrow and Stoney Bird, both of the local Living Democracy group, and Mari Margill of CELDF. Listen to an audio podcast of the interview by going to www.kgmi.com, click on Podcasts, then scroll down to: “The Joe Show for June 15. How can we reverse corporate dominance of our communities and political process? We discuss Democracy School, which is coming to Bellingham.” 

For more info about Democracy School, send an email to Stoney Bird: ldig@ymail.com. §