BELLINGHAM COMMUNITY INITIATIVE

Excerpt from:
When All Else Fails
A Proposal for a Community Bill of Rights
by David Hopkinson

February 2012

Local citizens are taking steps to place a Bellingham Community Bill of Rights on the ballot. The initiative would make it illegal for coal-filled trains to pass through the city. Every city along the train route to Cherry Point will be invited to pass an ordinance such as the one proposed for Bellingham. Why do we need this, when we have the protection of environmental law? Consider the little-known history of our country.

Those who framed our Constitution wanted to do business across state lines, but state governments would not cooperate. Under the Articles of Confederation, states were pledged to aid each other in the event of attack by a foreign government, but there was nothing – no national system – that could compel them to cooperate for any commercial intent.

Wealthy citizens intended to establish a central power like the British system from which they had recently been freed, but with themselves in charge. They didn’t want a king. They wanted to re-colonize the thirteen states.

What they didn’t want was any democratic “leveling". In those days, only white, male, property-owners were eligible to vote, a mere six percent of the population. But even they were not trusted. Most framers had contempt for “the people” and said so. The Constitution intended, James Madison said, “to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority.”

The Constitution was created by a slave-owning aristocracy in a room without windows, with guards at the doors, and with documents, even notes, prohibited from leaving the building. Excluded by conspiracy were the majority of citizens, who had been told that that the Articles of Confederation were merely going to be modified. The Constitution was a coup d’etat which extended the privileges of the wealthy. Later, a “Bill of Rights” was added to appease those who were concerned by what was happening to democracy.

Regulation of interstate commerce was not the only reason for a centralized government. “Shay’s Rebellion” was a revolt of debtors, economic slaves. Former soldiers, poverty stricken after years of fighting, were being thrown in jail for debt. The rebellion was suppressed, but the fear which such “domestic violence” provoked among the wealthy was an impetus for the Constitutional Convention.

There have been ongoing problems with the Constitution. First, the commerce clause subordinates all other values. Whether or not something is good for business is the question of utmost importance. Whether people, communities, or nature might be damaged receives little consideration. Our primary legal values are not the rights of workers, not the rights of communities, and not protection of the natural environment.

Nature, in particular, has relatively few rights. To the extent that nature is protected at all, it is as a “resource”, and not for its own sake. The restrictions required by the permitting process may reduce the harm of a project and perhaps delay it, but every permitted project adds to the cumulative environmental burden.

Since the passage of environmental laws 40 years ago, the situation has only gotten worse, although not for lack of heroic efforts on the part of non-profit organizations and concerned citizens. Our fights against environmental destruction are ad hoc and reactive, rather than being strategic, structural, and pro-active. Invariably, we fight against a specific pollution or resource extraction and rarely for the right of a community to control its own destiny.

Second, by exploiting the 14th amendment, the original purpose of which was to insure rights of citizenship to freed slaves, corporations acquired the rights of personhood, including, in the Citizens United case, the right to make unfettered political contributions. Originally, a corporation was created for a specific purpose and dissolved when that purpose was fulfilled. Today, corporations can endure indefinitely, and are able to acquire enormous wealth and power. But the personhood of corporations is less problematic than the commerce clause. For that reason, revocation of Citizens United would not be enough.

Third, federal law preempts state law, and state law preempts community law. This means that if a state government decides to regulate some sphere of life, local governments are barred from engaging -- even if the health, safety, and welfare of their residents are under threat.

Fourth, local governments are allowed to function by the state, a right that can be removed at any time. The relationship is understood as that of parent to child. This makes it impossible for people to legally prevent exploitation of their community by business interests from outside of their town, their state, and increasingly, their nation.

Our situation would astonish the early Americans who fought to be free from despotism. Until we redefine corporations, limit the commerce clause and alter the structure of top-down legal authority, nothing substantial will change. Our best hope is for rights-based ordinances, which return the power of choice to local communities. Since this is contrary to the laws under which we now operate, resurrecting local self-determination involves civil disobedience, just as was necessary to bring about the abolition of slavery and to initiate women’s suffrage.

Already, ordinances which re-affirm our right to self-governance have been passed in 150 communities in the United States. Each ordinance amounts to municipal civil disobedience in whatever location it is voted into existence. The American Revolution continues, but now the fighting will be in court. As is stated in our Declaration of Independence ... Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.... The Bellingham Community Bill of Rights sets up a system that would actually protect us. To such a system, we could give our consent...

Living Democracy is local citizens working to resurrect democracy at the community level. We sponsor Democracy Schools, in which 160 area citizens have participated during the past year. For the date of the next school, see Living-Democracy.Org.

David Hopkinson is a member of the Bellingham Living Democracy group. He lives in Bellingham.

Link to complete article:
http://www.whatcomwatch.org/php/WW_open.php?id=1369