Alliance for Democracy

2015 Report

Sing out for Fair Trade!

Singer/songwriter and long-timeAlliance supporter Tom Neilson justreleased a new song—“The TPPFree Zone Alliance,” onsoundclick.com. You can hear it andshare it here: http://bit.ly/1XPcBRR

Many years ago, our founder, Ronnie Dugger wrote, “The issue is not issues, the issue is thesystem.” What our work has proven is that the big issues, from democratic governance to theprotection of Mother Earth, demand community-level action—system change that happens fromthe grassroots up.

Take a look at some highlights from 2015. Be inspired, let us know how we can support your localmovement building in 2016, and keep the Alliance strong with a generous end of year gift. Wecan’t do this without you!

TPP Free Zones: Making the global localWe have lead the movement in empowering local communitiesto stand up to the multinationals dream of global corporate rulethrough international trade agreements like the TPP (TransPacific Partnership) and TTIP (the US/EU Transatlantic Tradeand Investment Partnership).

From Seattle and San Francisco to New York City, fromPittsburgh to Richmond CA and on down to South Miami, citiesare saying NO to these corporate trade deals. Richmond hasgone even further and included TiSA, the Trade in Services Agreement, in its resolution. Counties andsmaller towns weighed in too, including Tomkins County in upstate NY and Ft. Bragg, CA. More are onthe way.

Each resolution that gets passed sends a powerful message to local Congress members that there isopposition by city officials and the people they represent to the TPP’s assault on local jobs, laws,

democracy, public health, food safety, and theenvironment. Check out our map and keep up withwhat’s happening at www.tppfreezones.org

We also joined the labor, environmental, social justicemovement in the massive campaign to defeat Fast Tracktrade promotion authority. Now that Fast Tracksqueaked through Congress, we are redoubling our localorganizing and pulling out all the stops to preventCongress from approving the TPP. A vote is expectedsome time this spring. Expect many more action alerts!

Our Local Food Rules Campaign: Protecting traditional foodways and democracySeventeen Maine towns have now passed Local Food and Community Self Governance Ordinances! TheLocal Food Rules campaign is working with several additional towns interested in getting ordinances

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For more information on Penobscot history,from the 1700s to the present-day fight toprotect water and the right to a healthyriver, check out the new documentary,“The Penobscot: Ancestral River,Contested Territory,” available onlineat sunlightmediacollective.org.

passed next spring at town meetings. Spreading the word, AfD’s Bonnie Preston spoke at the “ChangingMaine” conference explaining how Maine’s home rule law relates to the Local Food and Community Self-Governance ordinances. Nationally, the campaign has been featured at both the US Social Forum inPhiladelphia and the Food Freedom Fest in Virginia.

Headway is being made in the Maine state legislature as wellwith bills to take on corporate agribusiness and defend therights of local farmers. One bill recognized that the people ofMaine have a right to food, to food of their choice, and topurchase it where they please, and a second extended the localfood ordinance provisions across the state. Both bills receivedunanimous “ought to pass” rulings in their first legislativecommittee hearings. The fact that the bills got as far as they didbefore dying in the Appropriations Committee shows that thereis support for local food and farms among legislators, but theirfailure to pass also shows why it’s so important to continue to focus work at the local level.

Our winter issue of Justice Rising, “Local Rules for Local Food: Communities Hold on to Food, Traditionand Democracy” features articles by national leaders, as well as farmers and local activists. It has proven tobe one of the most popular and effective tools for getting readers informed on both food sovereignty andwhat communities can do to preserve it. In fact, a resident of Alexander, Maine, who happened to pick up acopy Justice Rising, was so impressed with the Local Food and Community Self Governance ordinancethat she helped pass it in her town!

Defending Water for Life stops the East-West Super-Corridor…The Alliance’s Defending Water in Maine campaign marked a major victory this year as organizer ChrisBuchanan helped shepherd a bill through the state legislature that is expected to prevent future developmentof Cianbro’s proposed East-West Highway and Industrial Corridor, a transportation project that would havecut through the rural north-central part of the state and could have been a pathway for tar sands oil fromAlberta Canada. The law requires private development corporations to have public support before movingforward with a significant transportation project from which they’ll profit.

This victory was possible because of extensive grassroots organizing across the state through the EWCcoalition with environmentalists, sports people, small business owners, farmers, and even Tea Partymembers.

… and supports the water rights of thePenobscot NationThe State of Maine wants to deny the Penobscot Nation ofits traditional water rights to their namesake, the PenobscotRiver, from which the Penobscot have gotten theirsustenance and spiritual inspiration from long before thestate existed. The Penobscot have worked have to toimprove water quality and a create a sustainable fishery. In

solidarity with the Penobscot, Defending Water in Maine helped organize towns along the river towithdraw from the state’s legal case against the Penobscot. Orono was the first to vote to withdraw.

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Cascade Locks, OR and Sacramento CA: Corporate profits for Nestlé?The Alliance has been deeply concerned about Nestlé’s threat to bottle spring water in Cascade Locksalong the shore of the Columbia River. Now with the financial and feet-on-the-ground support of Alliancefor Democracy, local resistance has bubbled up with a petition putting a referendum opposing allcommercial water bottling operations in the county on the May 2016 ballot. Alliance water activists willcontinue with their support of this creative way to address corporate control of water in 2016.

In Sacramento, Nestlé has been bottling municipal water in the face of record-setting drought andwidespread restrictions on residential water use. The Alliance is joining the moement to stop this corporatewater grab.

Amending the constitution to take back our rights from corporationsAlliance for Democracy has joined severalMassachusetts groups in a campaign to pass a state-level bill calling for Congress to amend theconstitution to say that corporations are not peopleand money isn't speech, and demanding aconstitutional convention if Congress doesn't taketimely action. In the Boston area, several Alliancemembers are active with the local Move to Amendaffiliate, and have helped pass local and district-levelnon-binding resolutions in support of amendment.

Portland AfD launched a postcard campaign toencourage more members of Congress to support the“We the People” amendment in Congress—you canfind it online at www.afd-pdx.org/post-card-action.html. The chapter has also helped produce someinspiring public service announcements on behalf of local Move to Amend action, available atwww.movetoamendpdx.org/videos.html.

Alliance for Democracy has also supported the WAmend campaign to put a pro-amendment resolution onthe ballot in Washington state, by encouraging our members there to help with signature collection efforts.

Public Banking: Breaking Wall Street’s choke hold on our municipalities to buildcommunity wealthComing out of the 2008 financial crash, the movement for public banks sprang up across the country. Likethe Bank of North Dakota, governments can create their own bank where they deposit their funds and thenmake loans to strengthen the local economy rather than having their deposits in Wall Street banks be usedas part of the global gambling casino.

The Alliance is active in this movement through two campaigns it sponsors—Hub Public Banking inBoston (www.hubpublicbanking.org) and the DC Public Banking Center in Washington DC(www.dcpublicbanking.org.) The campaigns are reaching out to build broad alliances of support from thefaith community to labor to affordable housing advocates. At the same time they are building theirtechnical expertise. They are also sharing with each other and learning from each other.

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In 2015, members and friends of theAlliance in Ukiah and Mendocino broughtthese terrific speakers, writers, andactivists to the “Corporations andDemocracy” radio show. Podcasts areavailable at afdradio.org.• Paul Cienfuegos on community rights• Christopher Famighetti of the

Brennan Center on obsolete votingmachines and the risk to democracy

• Filmmaker Catherine Murphy• Dr. Vandana Shiva• Craig Holman of Public Citizen on

foreign money in local elections• Andy Lee Roth of Project Censored on

the top censored stories of 2014Other shows focused on trade, votingrights, and local business, environmentaland development issues. Look for moregreat shows in 2016!

The DC Public Banking Center held a standing room only public forum in October featuring a panel ofdistinguished speakers, including professor Gar Alperowitz now spearheading the Next System Project;former Wall Street banker and author of All the Presidents’ Bankers Nomi Prins; Horst Gischer of theUniversity of Magdeburg in Germany speaking of public banking in Germany; Jessica Gordon-Nembhardsharing the history of the African American cooperative movement; and Harold Meyerson columnist withthe Washington Post and editor-at-large of American Prospect who sees local communities as theincubators for innovation. Video of the forum is available at the DC Public Banking Center’s Youtubechannel at http://bit.ly/1Rc4OOS.

Looking ahead to 2016…• Defeating the TPP will be at the top of our

legislative agenda. We’re excited about more TPPFree Zone resolution passing as we work incollaboration with the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Cluband Popular Resistance. Resolutions are already inthe works in dozens of cities, towns, and counties.We will reinforce this campaign of resistance byproviding an online toolkit with model letters to theeditor and downloadable fliers.

• We also will be working for a Congressionalbriefing on the dangers of the TPP, featuring thevoices of local officials from municipalities thathave passed anti-TPP resolutions to DC to “school”Congress on why this agreement is bad for localjobs, democracy, food, health, and ecosystems.

• Our Local Food Rules campaign has set a goal ofthirty towns passing Local Food and SelfGovernance ordinances, and will continue tonetwork with national groups who are active onfood sovereignty issues, as well as local groups inPennsylvania and Maine interested in passing theirown versions of the ordinance.

• And we are excited about participating in the Next System Project, a multi-year initiative to spark anational debate on new political-economic models. The project is looking at the curriculum developedby Justice Rising editor Jim Tarbell, Michael St. John, and Carrie Durkee as a model for their ownpopular education efforts. You can read all issues of Justice Rising online, and download singlearticles to share with friends, fellow activists, and legislators atwww.thealliancefordemocracy.org/newsletters.html.

Look for us online, on social media, and in the street!And thank you very much for your member and activist support!