PA communities are currently living under a system of law that legalizes activities which threaten our health, safety, and welfare; this system is also used to violate our constitutional rights and deny us the ability to make decisions of crucial importance to our communities. Pennsylvania's first constitution, adopted in September 1776, was widely regarded as one of the most democratic and liberty-protecting constitutions of the Revolutionary Era. Unfortunately, court cases and legislation have, over the decades, rendered some of the most important values in our constitution meaningless, including: Article I, Section II: "All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness. For the advancement of these ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think proper." Art I Section 25 "To guard against the transgressions of the high powers which we have delegated, we declare that everything in this article is excepted out of the general powers of government and shall forever remain inviolate." Art I Section 27 "The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."The proposed amendment to the PA Constitution would help further secure those rights,by explicitly recognizing the right of local community self-government. This right shall include provisions that legally empower our communities to stop unwanted, harmful,corporate activities, free from illegitimate preemptive laws and corporate interference
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PACRN has been busy & you can be a part! The Pennsylvania Community Rights Network has been busy over the past six months preparing, training, and promoting a Constitutional Amendment in the Pennsylvania legislature. We have also been making contacts to roll out our new initiative, The Alarm. These are two of the major projects we are focusing on this year in order to push our message to every county in the state, as well as to every legislator who represents We the People. Read on and see what we are doing, and how you can be a part of it... PA Constitutional Amendment Pennsylvania Community Rights Network Board members have been traveling to Harrisburg to meet with our elected officials over the past few weeks, and we will continue these meetings in the months to come. We have been talking with our legislators (and yours) about passing an amendment to the PA Constitution that would allow our communities the right of Local Self-Government. We are seeking the right for our communities to be able to enact laws that protect our health and safety and welfare. It is hard to believe, but we don't presently have the legal right to these things. Laws have been written and interpreted in a way that allows outside, harmful corporations to come in and exploit our communities for the corporations' own benefit. The fundamental human rights of our neighbors would remain in tact, but we are asking for greater power in saying "NO" to unwanted, destructive activities like injection wells, fracking, sludge, factory farms, and export pipelines. We want to hear from you! Drop us a line at info@pacommunityrights.org or contact us here. The extinction reality we face can be scary...but there is are solutions! We just have to be willing to act. Our own Ben Price, a PA resident and the national organizing director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), is featured in this article about what we can do by David Levine. By David Levine The UN’s alarming report on declining biodiversity and accelerating extinction rates is making headlines and generating clicks and shares on social media. Based on “overwhelming evidence” from a “wide range of different fields of knowledge,” the report paints an “ominous picture,” says Sir Robert Watson, who chairs the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that issued the report. One million species are threatened with extinction, and the planetary ecosystem that supports human life is declining at unprecedented rates. “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever,” Watson continues. “We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”... ...Ben Price, national organizing director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and author of the upcoming book How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property, states that the most effective actions can be taken at the local level. “It’s time for people to stop waiting for state and federal governments to protect the natural environment,” said Price. “Every community in the country should enact laws that recognize the inalienable rights of ecosystems to exist, flourish and naturally evolve, and the authority of the community to protect their natural habitats, free from preemption, and unharassed by claims of corporate rights.” Click here for the full article... |
AuthorPACRN is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to helping Pennsylvania communities establish local self-governance, social justice, Archives
March 2021
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