New Mexico Coalition for Community rights Declaration

The New Mexico Coalition for Community rights Declaration

We, the undersigned residents of New Mexico, the people of sovereign and tribal Nations, and the communities in which we live, hereby declare the following:

Whereas, our communities are under siege from oil and gas, agribusiness, energy, and other corporations;

Whereas, our communities are under siege from a structure of law that has bestowed greater rights on those corporations than on the communities in which they operate, and it is that system of law that enables the corporations to do what they do;

Whereas, we recognize that such a system— which grants a corporate few the legal authority to override our community majorities— constitutes tyranny and usurpation, we are therefore duty bound to oppose such tyranny and usurpation;

Whereas, we recognize that economic and environmental sustainability have been rendered illegal under this system of law, that nature is treated as property and as having no rights, and that this system is not democratic;

Whereas, given the control by those corporations over our elected representatives, we have given up hope that either our state government or the federal government will help protect us from these corporations;

Whereas, we declare that if democracy means “majority rule” and “consent of the governed,” that a democracy does not exist in our communities or in the State of New Mexico, and that we must now create democracy in our municipalities and within the State; and

Whereas, we now call on communities across the State of New Mexico to do the following:

·      Adopt local laws that recognize community rights for New Mexico residents and municipalities, including legal rights for the natural environment;

·      Include in those local laws direct challenges to the legal doctrines that currently mandate that corporations have greater rights than residents of our communities;

·      Join together with other communities across the State to create a statewide movement focused on rewriting the State Constitution to recognize a right to local self-government which eliminates these legal doctrines at the State level, to protect the local laws adopted within our municipalities; and

·      Join together with other statewide movements to rewrite the federal Constitution to elevate the rights of people and communities above the claimed rights of corporations.

Founders:

Andrew Feldman, Las Vegas (6/2/2012)

Kathleen Dudley, Ocate (6/2/2012)

Don Hamilton, Ocate (6/2/2012)
Miguel Pacheco, Las Vegas (6/2/2012)
Lee Einer, Las Vegas (6/2/2012)
Natalie Thomas, Laguna Pueblo (6/2/2012)
Judith Lawson, Santa Fe (6/2/2012)