We are happy to be able to share about our work in Virginia at length on Richmond airwaves. We bring our friends to the table with their rich history and experiences from across the country and around the globe.
Heres’ the line up for Sunday August 30, 2020:
- At 2 pm, Hanuman, Mindy and Heidi Dhivya of Virginia Community Rights Network (VACRN) will speak about rights-based organizing and the Rights of Nature in Virginia.
- At 3 pm, Susie Beiersdorfer, president of the National Community Rights Network (NCRN) will join Jay to continue the conversation. Based in Ohio, she will also be speaking about her activism with the Ohio Community Rights Network (OHCRN).
- At 4pm, Ben Price, National Organizing Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, (CELDF) will weigh in with his perspective as the CELDF liason to Virginia communities, providing support for writing their Community Bills of Rights.
Citizen Voices Radio Show, by that name is on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/groups/501596803577349 it is also on The Work FM facebook page, shows are stored under “videos”, there is a Citizen Voices show collection
Susie Beiersdorfer is a teacher, geologist and tree planter who lives in Youngstown, Ohio. She grew up around and worked in the California oil and gas fields until the mid-1980s. In 2011, after multiple injection-induced fracking earthquakes shook up Youngstown, Susie, along with other members of Frackfree Mahoning Valley, began organizing by jumping through the hoops of our government in the hopes of exposing the environmental pollution caused by extreme unconventional extraction of fossil fuels. After realizing the extent of the corporate/government collusion, and that “We don’t just have a fracking problem, we have a democracy problem,” the group began carrying out actions of civil disobedience. These actions included 11 attempts to pass local rights-based initiatives for clean drinking water and free and fair elections. Knowing that the governmental system is rigged to put corporate profit over the unalienable rights of people and nature, Susie is an outspoken advocate for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature. She represents Mahoning County for the Ohio Community Rights Network and Ohio for the National Community Rights Network. Susie is the current president of the National Community Rights Network.
Ben Price, has sixteen years of experience organizing communities across the country to challenge state and federal legalization of corporate assaults against people and their environments. Ben worked closely with the first community on Earth to recognize legal rights for ecosystems (2006) and with the City Council of Pittsburgh, PA to adopt a community bill of rights banning fracking, directly challenging state preemption of local control over oil and gas corporations. Prior to teaming up with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Ben worked in the corporate world while also serving as President of the Pennsylvania Consumer Action Network (PCAN). Ben is also organizational liaison with the National Community Rights Network (NCRN). He is a board member of the Terra Conservancy and participated in the founding of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (Ecuador, 2010). Ben authored the book “How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property,” which won the Independent Publisher’s 2020 silver medal.
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