Dennis Duckett, Peak to Peak. Thursday evening, April 26, 2018, a screening of the Leila Connors film, We the People 2.0 was held at the Backdoor Theater in Nederland. The event was sponsored by several local organizations, including Mountain Forum for Peace (MFP), Movement for Sustainable and Resilient Gilpin County, The Environmental Group (TEG), and East Boulder County United. Common ground for these organizations is their concern for the environment, and for the protection of our communities from massive destructive corporate and government projects. Projects currently affecting our local communities include fracking along the Front Range, a Martin-Marietta gravel strip mine near Lyons, the Gross Reservoir Dam expansion project, and the Forest Service Forsythe II deforestation project.

Local residents have organized to fight against these projects which are devastating to the ecosystems where they live. The first thing these folks encounter is their requirement to enter the regulatory system which is supposed to protect them in their communities. As they go deeper into the system they find that they carry the burden of proving these projects will harm their communities. The entrenched regulatory processes, created by collaboration between corporations and the government, operate behind a veiled front of democracy. In reality, these governmental agencies effectively suck the resources and energy from these citizen groups, as they function effectively according to their design. Project permits are almost always issued.

We the People 2.0 is a visual essay of this process and how the communities where these projects take place, and the local environment there, never win. It also reveals to us, why.

The film features Thomas Linzey considered by Forbes Magazine in 2007 to be one of the top ten revolutionaries in the country, and Ben Price, author, and National Outreach Coordinator for the organization Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). Both men are co-founders of this pro-bono legal community, and a national and international movement to claim democracy for these assaulted communities from the clutches of corporations and to bring much needed protection to the earth by creating legal rights for Nature.

Linzey proposes a paradigm shift, a legal revolution, and what he calls the de-colonization of our minds from propaganda which claims we live in a democratic society. We don’t. As our society approaches oligarchy, he maintains we must take back our country and communities by our dedicated activism, pressing to pass Bills of Rights at our local level, for our communities, and for Nature. He understands that this is against present law, and as with all effective movements, Women’s Suffrage, the Abolitionist Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement, illegal laws must be broken. He asserts that in the present corporate state, sustainability is not legal, the system is fixed, and it must be taken down. He stresses this is not a legal problem but a political one. He calls for a new and relevant constitution.

CELDF has assisted more than two hundred communities in the U.S. pass these ordinances. They work with the communities to structure effective Bills of Rights for their community, for the people, and importantly, for Nature. Pittsburg, Pennsylvania is the largest city in the U.S. to pass a Bill of Rights.

CELDF has helped Ecuador to write the Rights of Nature into its constitution. Recently, people in Ecuador sued the provincial government of Loja on behalf of the Vilcabamba River. Bolivia now has a similar law, and the Columbian Supreme Court recently declared that the “Colombian Amazon is recognized as an entity, a subject of rights” which include the right to “legal protection, preservation, maintenance and restoration.”

Today, New Zealand’s Whanganui River is a person under domestic law, and India’s Ganges River was recently granted human rights.

Locally, the municipality of Lafayette has passed a Climate Bill of Rights to stop fracking in their city. Following the screening Cliff Willmeng, co-founder of East Boulder County United, offered a short presentation of their struggle. During the discussion Willmeng mentioned he is running for a seat as a Boulder County Commissioner. After his impassioned story, this was met with a rousing round of applause. What Linzey, and Willmeng conveyed is that we have no functional democracy, we must claim it, and we ultimately will have to break the law. Accomplishing this will take commitment and dedicated activism by you, our community’s citizens. They say we have a choice, succumbing to the oligarchy, or claiming our rights.

Another screening of the film is being scheduled. Host a screening of this important film, by contacting Dennis Duckett at 303-258-7077, or email at merge@createprogressive.org.