EARTHKEEPING NEWS A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY Volume Fifteen, Number Four July / August 2006 Corporate Empires, Democracy and the Environment: A Testimony By Jim Olson, Atty., Traverse City MI For the past thirty some years I’ve ebbed and flowed with energy to work toward environmental and social justice. My work has taken corporations and the government plutocrats who support them to task over destructive actions to exploit nature, people and their communities. But this work has mostly involved fighting in the courts, agencies, and legislatures based on rules and issues often defined in terms of imposing legal obstacles — the terms having been defined through the influence of the opposition in the first place. During an ebb in the mid-1980s, I had the fortunate experience of working with NACCE and its ground-breaking conference on Christianity and Ecology. This summer, twenty years later, I attended the joint conference of NACCE and CELDF and experienced a new realization that once again placed the struggle toward a just, peaceful environmentally sound world in a larger supportive context. CELDF’s Democracy School lays out the context of how and why a corporate-tilted government and culture has combined with good old greed to exploit the environment and communities. In solid terms, with examples of local efforts and ordinances, the School illustrates how communities are reasserting sovereign control over their lives in their own communities. In doing so, the issues surrounding advocacy and lawsuits to stop large monied redefined as not only fighting to protect our communities and the commons, but reclaiming democracy itself. Thanks to the Democracy School program, I will approach my work on behalf of rivers, lakes, citizens and communities with the realization that the problem is not only the harm to the environment but the enslavement of democracy and justice itself. The School offers a very important understanding, new context, and new tools for any individual or community that endeavors to help save the remnants of God’s earth. Jim Olson is the lead attorney in the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation lawsuit against Nestle. He was legal advisor to NACCE’s founding Board in 1986. Articles on MCWC have been featured in March-April 2006 and May-June 2005 editions of Earthkeeping News. Home     Table of Contents