
Who is
Community Rights Lane County

Our Mission
Goals, Values, Intentions

Community Rights Lane County (CRLC) is an organization formed to protect our local right to make decisions affecting our lives right here in Lane County. We focus on protecting our communities from destructive corporate practices by challenging the corporate “rights” and privileges that presently permit these activities. No matter what the specific threat is—to the food system, to social inequities, to local economies, to the environment at large—the fundamental cause is the same: Governmental structures and corporate constitutional rights/laws are rigged against the people in order to serve corporate interests, regardless of their harm to individuals, communities and the planet.
Because there is a single over-riding cause, we can develop a unifying, over-riding remedy: The Community Rights Movement, which places our communities’ rights above corporate “rights”. This Movement begins here, now, at the local level where we can have effect—and eventually by building rights into our state and federal constitutions in order to restore the People’s sovereignty and our democracy. How do we do this? By empowering ourselves to challenge and replace existing unjust laws with our own local and just Community Rights laws.
We recognize that true decision-making requires action by concerned citizens. We join the more than 200 communities in the US who have decided to reclaim their power by crafting relevant, rights-based laws. Our work benefits from the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which works with communities throughout the world to protect the health, safety, and welfare of residents and the natural environment, and to establish environmental and economic sustainability.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion…
“We view that Community Rights are either inclusive, diverse, and equitable, or they’re non-existent. In advancing our core mission of community rights, we view that every member of the human community needs to be encountered with respect, offered the same opportunities as others, and liberated from any of the processes of exclusion, subordination, and victimization. This includes both official and private aggression, whether subtle or systemic, unconscious or intentional. We are working to build and nurture a culture where inclusiveness is a reflex, not an initiative. Different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative work environment that we value and want to encourage. Lane County Community Rights is committed to creating an inclusive organization that promotes and values diversity and we recognize that we have much more work to do in this area.”
“We choose to create a restored, vibrant and just world because we are willing to walk alongside our heartbreak and our fear. We do this for those who will pay the price if we fail. And we do it for those who will carry this incalculable hardship if we waver. And for those who are watching to see if we will choose to have more stuff or more life. We do this not because it’s lucrative or furthers our prospects. We do this because it mobilizes and enlivens our spirit and intelligence.”


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