Thomas Linzey - How Things Change
The recent “occupy” movements across the country – including a now bundled-up contingent in the center of Spokane – continue to raise one of the major political questions of our times: “How do people fix a clearly broken system?”
Disillusionment with both government and big business is at an all-time high. Whether you’re a Tea Partier whose focus is on stopping free-for-all governmental spending, or an Occupier whose focus is on stopping a corporate few from deciding transportation, energy, environmental, and financial issues for the rest of us, both movements have one thing in common: they seek to overhaul how the system currently functions.
And we all know how it functions, even if we haven’t seen it in person. Governments living within their means seem to be such a part of our ancient past that we can’t remember what they look like; and we all know how rare it is for an energy law to pass Congress that doesn’t have the support of Exxon/Mobil, or a drug law that doesn’t have the support of Merck.
In fact, over the past forty years or so, it seems that we’ve thrown in the towel on actually trying to change the underlying structure of how things operate, and instead, live our lives by finding ways to work around the system.
That is, until things get so bad that we can’t work around the system anymore – like when our governments come closer to default, making individual financial situations more precarious; and when banking corporations decide to play Russian roulette with our economy.
If we know the system no longer bears any resemblance to the “of the people, by the people, and for the people” envisioned by folks like Tom Paine, then the question becomes how do we overhaul it so that it begins to work for our common good?
As the old saying goes, real change begins at home.
For the past four years, a diverse coalition of community, neighborhood, and labor leaders have tried to make that saying real, by working to create a Community Bill of Rights (appearing as Proposition 1 on this year’s ballot) within the City of Spokane.
The power imbalance within the City is stark. Our neighborhoods have no rights against corporate developers; our rivers and drinking water aquifers have no rights against corporate polluters; and workers have no rights in the workplace against employers. It’s nothing unique to Spokane, of course – such is the “law of the land” across the country.
The Bill of Rights would change that – establishing that neighborhood residents have the ability to say “no” to proposed re-zonings necessary for major new development projects; recognizing that the Spokane River and aquifer should be given the highest legal protections available under our system; and restoring constitutional rights to workers in the workplace. And, perhaps the most important (and controversial) piece of the Community Bill of Rights would elevate those rights over “rights” claimed by corporations.
In essence, the Community Bill of Rights would create a check on both governmental and corporate power, by elevating the rights of neighborhoods, the Spokane River, and workers over the rights of development corporations, corporate polluters, and employers.
Predictable opposition to the Bill of Rights? All of those corporations who are accustomed to having their interests override ours. And, since it serves as a check on governmental authority (requiring citizen approval of major property re-zonings that are currently routinely granted by City government), it should come as no surprise that elected officials – who are used to having their way with decisionmaking and spending public coffers – would be uniformly opposed to it.
Do we think the system is going to change because we write more letters to Congress? Do we think the system is going to change because we ask nicely? Do we actually think that the current system benefits us?
Prior movements in this country’s history didn’t think so. They recognized that real change occurs only when people refuse to live under a structure of government and law, which guarantees that they’ll get the short end of the stick. And this nation’s history has changed time and again when enough people have refused to move to the back of the bus.
The City of Pittsburgh, through a unanimous vote of their City Council last year, became the first major municipality in the country to adopt a Community Bill of Rights. Let’s make the City of Spokane the second, while also joining over a hundred smaller communities across the country who are asserting rights of local control over both governments and corporations.
Vote “YES” on Proposition 1, the Community Bill of Rights. I have.
Thomas Linzey is an attorney and the Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. He also serves as an advisor to Envision Spokane, the coalition which drafted Proposition 1