Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Another paradox of state/local rights (stems from Molly Maguires)
So the selfish impetus to protect home property value, drinking water, small farms and small businesses is supposed to lead somewhere big, but I have my doubts. Also if you were ever young growing up in such a place as a 'small farm community in PA', you quickly realize how the people are all 'conservative to reactionary', anti-union, completely contradicted over government and big business (the worst case being Dept. of Defense workers), and often don't give a toss about job creation (since so many in E. and So. Central PA live in one place and commute to another, there is no connection between being a homeowner and being a worker--unless it's support for building more roads). It's the CELDF in Chambersburg again: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/stand-up-to-corporate-power/communities-take-power Beyond Site Fights With the deck stacked against local control, what are citizens to do to step outside the regulatory game and take back power? Some bold communities have banned specific corporate operations, not based on regulation, but on a declaration that human beings have the right to control their local resources, and that corporations are not people and not entitled to rights the Constitution grants to humans. That happened first in Pennsylvania when farmers and small-town residents tried to resist the encroachment of corporate feedlots and the dumping of sewage sludge from other states. Ruth Caplan, of the Alliance for Democracy's “Defending Water for Life” program, tells how a Pennsylvania coalition including the Sierra Club, the Farm Bureau, unions, and the Democratic governor responded by getting legislation passed limiting pollution from corporate feedlots. “The farmers in rural Pennsylvania were furious,” about the new law, Caplan says, “because they didn't want less pollution. They didn't want those corporate farms in their area. Period.” Lawyer Thomas Linzey, founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), started getting calls from those outraged farmers. Linzey, Caplan says, had been working within the regulatory system, but he and the Pennsylvania farmers realized that they needed a new strategy. Linzey drafted model ordinances asserting community rights to self-governance and banning corporations from damaging operations in townships. More than 100 Pennsylvania townships have adopted those ordinances. Linzey and CELDF began offering “Democracy Schools,” intensive weekend programs presenting the history of corporate power in the United States, and the history of successful movements, such as the abolitionists and suffragists, to overturn settled law. Caplan attended one of those schools. It was “a real wake-up call for me,” she says, “because most of the work we've done has been through the regulatory system, with some success. But it's not leading toward a fundamental change between corporations and the rights of people and nature.” Caplan took her newfound knowledge to a U.S.-Canadian meeting on the problem of bottled water. There she met activists from New Hampshire who subsequently introduced her to Darrell and St. Germaine. Caplan told them of CELDF's work, and offered to work with them and the people of Barnstead on the water issue. Darrell and St. Germaine made presentations to the town's Select Board, which had earlier passed a “Warrant Article” declaring the town's intention to protect its water. Ultimately, they invited CELDF to make a presentation to the Board. At the end of that presentation, the Board asked Linzey to draft an ordinance similar to the ones in Pennsylvania. Linzey told the group that they needed to understand that they would be taking on settled law, Caplan says.“Well, Mr. Linzey, we understand that, and we're ready to walk point for you,” Jack O'Neil replied, using a Vietnam-era term for being out front on patrol. Reclaiming Rights CELDF's model ordinances go beyond zoning or other efforts to control corporate behavior. They ban corporations from specific operations altogether, citing the Declaration of Independence, international law, state law conferring rights on citizens, and the general rights of human beings to govern themselves and take care of their own communities. Darrell says that she and St. Germaine spent the next year educating Barnstead residents about the proposed ordinance. “We talked to people about water rights everywhere we met them—at the dump, in parks. We told them why we needed to have this ordinance be unanimous and in place before corporations came to town.” People were receptive to the idea but curious why the ordinance needed to cite such a broad range of law. “There was a lot of education about why we needed to deny corporate personhood,” Darrell says, “People don't understand how we've gotten to this point and how corporations have gotten so much power.” Darrell credits CELDF's Democracy Schools with giving her the information she needed to provide that education. In March 2006, the ordinance came befor
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Another paradox of state/local rights (stems from Molly Maguires)
Chambersburg is an exurb of Harrisburg-York-Lancaster, but also Baltimore and DC. It's the DC connection that probably led the CELDF to locate there--along with the cheap rents. Here is their journalistic, ready-for-media write up of the Licking Township ordinance (which will probably lead to a shooting war between pro-fracking/dumping vs. anti-fracking/dumping factions if I know Clarion County). http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/pennsylvania-township-declares-freedom-from-fracking Pennsylvania Township Declares Freedom from Fracking Licking, Pennsylvania defies state law by banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater. Document Actions by Mari Margil, Ben Price posted Oct 27, 2010 Natural Gas Drilling, image by Helen Slottje Photo by Helen Slottje In Pennsylvania—a central target for natural gas drilling and the controversial drilling practice known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking"—local communities don’t have the legal authority to keep unwanted drilling from happening. As fracking's impacts on water safety make headlines and public resistance to drilling grows, some towns have tried to use land use zoning to keep drilling companies out—but they can’t use zoning laws to stop an activity the state has declared legal. (At best, they can zone where the corporations site their drill pads. But since drilling is not vertical but horizontal, there’s no way to contain its impact on a community’s water and environment.) Taking local control One small community in western Pennsylvania wanted more say over what happens within its borders. Licking Township, population 500, chose to defy state law with its own local ordinance, banning corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within its borders. Licking sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a geological formation that contains large and mostly untapped natural gas reserves. On Oct. 12, 2010, the Licking Township Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban corporations from dumping fracking wastewater within the township. "When it comes to land use issues and the preservation of important resources, the local community is best suited to set priorities as they feel impacts most acutely," said Mik Robertson, chairman of the Licking Township Supervisors. Pennsylvania's preferential laws for drilling companies are not unique. For years, the drilling industry has worked closely with government to pave the way for widespread drilling, eliminating regulatory barriers that may stand in its way. The so-called “Halliburton Loophole” was inserted into the federal Safe Drinking Water Act to exempt companies drilling for natural gas, including those drilling in the Marcellus Shale (which extends from New York to West Virginia) from having to comply. Corporations have also been exempted from a host of other laws and regulations, and states have enacted laws pre-empting municipalities from taking steps to reign in the industry. The residents of Licking felt that they should be the ones to decide what happens in their township. "People have the right to determine what is suitable for their community, as they are most directly affected by intended or unintended consequences of resource extraction,” said Robertson. The dangers of fracking The residents of Licking aren't alone in their concerns about fracking. Across the Appalachian highlands, residents worried about the health effects of fracking have been calling on their elected officials to protect them. In New York, a citizen movement convinced the state Senate to place a 9-month moratorium on the practice while its safety is evaluated. However, the moratorium is only temporary and has not been voted into state law. In adopting the ordinance, Licking joins more than a dozen other communities in legally recognizing the rights of nature and subordinating corporate constitutional rights to the rights of human and natural communities. Fracking involves pumping water laced with sand and a cocktail of chemicals underground to fracture the shale rock and release the natural gas. In the process, thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater are produced and can contaminate waterways and drinking water. Natural gas wells are often driven through aquifers. The impacts from drilling can include exploding wells, groundwater contamination, and fish kills. Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined cattle believed to have drunk from a frack wastewater spill. Their milk was no longer considered safe to drink. A new study by researchers at the University of Buffalo found that fracking also releases uranium trapped in the rock, raising additional health concerns. Collateral damage includes lost property value, drying up of mortgage loans for prospective home buyers, and the threatened loss of organic certification for farmers. And it’s not only rural communities feeling the pressure. In Pittsburgh and Buffalo (both of which straddle the Marcellus), gas extraction corporations have quiet
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Another paradox of state/local rights (stems from Molly Maguires)
And this part is just too weird. The CELDF is located in Chambersburg, PA (in So. Central PA, about an hour away from Harrisburg, the state capital) and the center of political action, such as it is, is in townships in Clarion County, in NW PA, and Clarion County is the home of my mother, where she still holds a few acres of land that might end up being fracked for gas. It boggles my imagination that two such obscure places could be at the center of what will become court cases of national importance and that I should somehow feel I have a connection to them. Clarion County is about as hardscrabble as it gets, an Allegheny wing of full-on Appalachia Hatfields and McCoys style. I don't think they will have to worry about the groundwater on my mother's property, it's already completely polluted by oil drilling and coal mining. First two stores detail the coming frack for gas boom, the stories after show township resistance using the help of CELDF. Chambersburg, PA, my hometown, by the way, has the distinction of being the town the Confederate burned during the Civil War (they did twice too). It's about 25 miles west of Gettysburg, about 90 miles north-northwest of Baltimore, MD (Baltimor and DC are closer than Philadelphia or Pittsburgh). Clarion is about an hour north-northeast of Pittsburgh. http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=25907779 Marcellus shale ‘boom’ is taking off in Clarion County http://www2.theclarionnews.com/General_News/80543.shtml By Tom DiStefano, Clarion News Writer Clarion News photo by Tom DiStefano Excavators, bulldozers and off-road dump trucks were hard at work Aug. 25 leveling sites for two Marcellus gas wells along Knight Town Road in Elk Township . ELK TOWNSHIP - There has been a lot of talk about the Marcellus Shale gas reserves and the drilling boom it is bringing to Pennsylvania , but in Clarion County , it has been only talk until this year. The Marcellus Boom is huge in Southwest and Northeast Pennsylvania , but only a few permits have been issued and only one Marcellus well has been started in Clarion County so far. Now, the DEP Aug. 27 approved two permits for the big horizontal Marcellus wells in Elk Township, a vertical Marcellus well has been drilled in Toby township, and there are others both planned and under way in neighboring counties. According to the DEP’s publicly available databases, EQT Production Inc. of Pittsburgh , part of Equitable Gas, applied for permits to drill two wells in Elk Township along Knight Town Road between Pine City and Shippenville. EQT submitted the permit applications July 29 and DEP spokesperson Freda Tarbell said her agency approved the permits Aug. 27. EQT was granted a erosion and sedimentation permit for the well site by the DEP’s Oil and Gas division July 30; such “E&S” permits had been granted by conservation districts, but DEP earlier this year took over responsibility for E&S permits relating to drilling sites. Work on preparing the well sites is already under way, with heavy equipment clearing and leveling many acres for the large rigs required for drilling deep horizontal wells. Horizontal Marcellus wells start out vertically, and descend as far as two miles to the Marcellus Shale beds, curving into a horizontal direction to extend along the shale bed. Once at the shale bed, as many as six horizontal boreholes can be developed in different directions to tap as much of the shale as possible. Drilling rigs capable of reaching the Marcellus form are massive, twice the size of typical shallow well rigs, reaching heights of 150 feet, and configured with an equipment platform 20 feet from ground level. Rigs for horizontal drilling are even larger, as they require more horsepower to drive the bits farther. EQT spokesman Kevin West confirmed his company is planning to drill two horizontal Marcellus wells in Elk Township , noting the horizontal techniques maximizes the amount of gas recovered while minimizing surface disruption compared to drilling multiple vertical wells. West said he is gathering information on the specifics of the wells in Elk Township, but said it is likely the company will move in one rig and drill one well at a time. A lot of water needed Tapping this reserve is not easy; drillers use an intensive process known as hydrofracking to bring gas to the surface. And hydrofracking needs massive amounts of water – water mixed with special and secret recipes of chemicals and sand pumped under high pressure into the shale until it forces the gas up and out. Water comes back out of the well and must be treated to remove the fracking chemicals and the salts and metals it may have picked up underground. Tarbell said the DEP has approved a plan by EQT to purchase the water needed from Pennsylvania American Water Company’s system based in Clarion. Jake Gentile, Pennsylvania American field operations supervisor, said EQT wants to purchase bulk water totaling between 4 and 8 million gallons
[Marxism-Thaxis] Another paradox of state/local rights (stems from Molly Maguires)
As the Molly Maguire cases show, private corporations often like 'state rights' approaches to governance because this power is more easily bent, broken, corrupted to serve the prevailing interests of the corporations that operate or want to operate in a given state or locality. However, if the state or local government fights them and their interests, then the private corporation has use state and then federal courts to prevail. So a paradox emerges in 'state rights' in that sometimes private corporations support state rights and local autonomy because they think they can control it or defeat it. Or they end up opposing it--or it opposes them--and have to prevail over it--which is why having influence and sympathetic judges in the court system is also necessary. In the second source I cite here--celdf.org (which interestingly enough is HQ'd in my hometown, Chambersburg, PA, a VERY REPUBLICAN area of defense workers, defense worker retirees, and federally-subsidized dairy farmers), they seem to be arguing that the solution is to go BELOW states rights, since the federal-state structure has favored private corporations, and re-establish local autonomy. I'm not sure how workable that is outside of real socialism, but that isn't a term this legal action and advocacy group is going to discuss on its homepage. So I think it's possible to take 'tenther' arguments in the leftward direction if we have socialism, anarcho-syndicalism and non-profit cooperative production in mind. BTW, these local rightists are challenging corporate moves to turn Pennsylvania into the nation's biggest 'fracking' natural gas production site using township government action. Unlike southern states, local 'power' in Pennsylvania can often be found at the township level, especially when it comes to land and water use. The school district is another focus of local power, but they have long been dominated by adherence to state requirements to get federal money and to local/regional university-based 'schools of education' for the indoctrination of teachers. Their real power is in levying property taxes to pay for schools. CJ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Maguires excerpt: Four members of the Molly Maguires, Alexander Campbell, John "Black Jack" Kehoe, Michael Doyle and Edward Kelly, were hanged on June 21, 1877 at a Carbon County prison in Mauch Chunk (renamed Jim Thorpe in 1953), for the murder of mine bosses John P. Jones and Morgan Powell, following a trial that was later described by a Carbon County judge, John P. Lavelle, as follows: The Molly Maguire trials were a surrender of state sovereignty. A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested the alleged defenders, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. The state provided only the courtroom and the gallows. http://www.celdf.org/corporate-rights "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1816 "In 1819 in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, the U.S. Supreme Court introduced a distinction between the rights of a public corporation and a private one. The U.S. Constitution's contract clause did not protect the political powers granted in the charter of a public corporation such as a municipality. State legislatures could, therefore, unilaterally amend or revoke municipal charters and strip a city of authority without the municipality's consent. But the charter of a private corporation, such as a business enterprise or a privately endowed college, was an inviolate grant of property rights guaranteed by the nation's Constitution." -- Jon C. Teaford, Municipal Charters The structure of federal and state law – both statutory and constitutional – empowers corporations to override local democratic decision making. Since the early 1800s, corporations have gained rights and protections under the United States Constitution. While we never find the word “corporation” in the Constitution, corporations are able to invoke constitutional “rights” and protections under the Commerce Clause and Contracts Clause, as well as under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Corporations use these “rights” to challenge state and local laws, and to chill efforts at the local level to fight corporate siting plans. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Dartmouth case in 1819, "private" business corporations first gained constitutional protection from government interference in internal governance, ostensibly under the Contract Clause of the Constitution. Curiously, the court found no reason to similarly protect municipal corporations, such as towns, boroughs, cities and counties from state interference with self-government. As an example: the Waste Management Corporation was able to successfully sue the
