National Community Rights Network (NCRN) is excited to offer the upcoming webinar on Wednesday June 30, 8 pm ET. "How do I know I've been colonized? Let’s count the ways!," is based on the work of Jane Ann Morris. Her 1998 article entitled “Help, I’ve Been Colonized and I Can’t Get Up” shattered the delusions of many social justice activists trying to navigate a regulatory system that was set up to benefit the corporate elite at the expense of communities and the environment.

This important piece outlines how the fixed system is designed to manage us and prevent any viable change that would benefit communities and the environment. We may think that others are colonized but not us, but by reading this article you will discover the many ways that you and I have been colonized.
 

Register in advance
for this meeting on Wednesday June 30, 2021 08:00 PM Eastern Time 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
 

If you can read Jane's article before our webinar, great! And/or listen to Jane talk about this on C-SPAN, a 25 minute VIDEO clip November 22, 1996. 

Jane’s biography: 

Jane Anne Morris (1953-2019) was a Corporate anthropologist, activist, and author, who worked on many issues including local democracy, the environment, human rights, labor organizing, energy, police brutality, health care access, and food security.

Morris’ Doctoral research grew out of her activism working with a group of semi-rural people who had organized to oppose stripmining in their county. She focused on the board and staff of the Texas electric utility, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) involved in the stripmining project.

“By tracing the relationships and actions of board members, staff personnel, and regulatory agency representatives, I was able to map out and extensively document the specific strategies that enable public utility companies such as this one to successfully obtain permit after permit and carry out their plans, despite very vocal, well-organized, well-informed, and to my mind, valid, local opposition.”

Informed by this decade-long stripmining campaign, Morris wrote and published her first book Not In My Backyard: The Handbook (1994) “as a manual for the ‘average citizen’ who wakes up one morning and discovers that something new and unwanted is planned for their neighborhood.” 

“In 1996, she coined the phrase ‘democracy theme park’ to describe the way decades of corporate strategy have undermined democracy to the extent that citizens are left pulling at the levers of a democratic system, levers that are not connected to anything.”

Read her complete bio at the Democracy Theme Park website.

Check out NCRN web post for more resources.

We look forward to conversing with you on this important path of discovery.