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ACE Vision
Advocates for Community Empowerment is committed to ecological
integrity, natural balance, diversity, strengthening of community, and
reverence for the earth and all living things.
ACE Mission
ACE provides education and consulting services to communities which decide to exercise their inalienable
right to self-governance by codifying into law democratic control over
corporations and democratic rights-based visions for vibrant, self-governing,
and participatory communities.
Many communities around the country are facing the prospect of unwanted
industrial projects that threaten to deplete or degrade their resources,
peacefulness, environment and/or quality of life.
Many time responses by members of the community to these intrusions is “It’s a
corporation and they always get what they want” or “There is nothing we can
do.”
If citizens are able organize and fight the project they usually find
themselves quagmired in the endless regulatory system arguing over “parts per
million”, “safe levels” or other irrelevant minutia. It often costs them
thousands of dollars and endless hours studying the offending project and all
of its details. These groups, despite their passion and creativity come
face-to-face with the power and structure of a corporate system that has
evolved over the past 200 years. This system channels our activist efforts
into a scripted, well engineered path which creates campaigns that fail in
predictable ways.
The bitter reality for most communities is that the project usually gets
built.
There is something fundamentally wrong when a handful of corporate executives
can come into a town or community, exert their power and override the wishes of
the thousands of people who call that community their home. It directly
contradicts and is a repudiation of everything that is inherent in a true
democracy.
The work of Advocates for Community Empowerment (ACE) directly challenges this
contradiction. Drawing upon the successful community democracy work
initiated in Pennsylvania by the
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (www.CELDF.org). ACE works with community groups to drive into
local law essential democratic protections. These by-laws and ordinances,
enacted by the people, create democratic precedence in helping communities
define and protect their environment, health, economy and way of life.
We invite you to review the materials on this site so you can get an
understanding of how and why this basic, yet revolutionary, democracy-based
work could be essential to the future of your community. Listen (here) how over 400
communities in PA have banded together to successfully eliminate unwelcomed
corporate control. Learn (here) how Democracy Schools around
the nation are re-teaching the hidden truths about our history and exposing the
tactics that corporations have used to create their controlling power.
If your community is facing an environmental or social threat, please contact
us so we can begin a dialogue. A dialogue that is designed to keep your
efforts from being drawn into the ineffective black-hole of regulatory
run-arounds and instead focus on creating pro-active democracy-based solutions
designed by “we the people.”
Contact Us:
Ellen Hayes
Ellen@ACEne.org
603-252-1411
We greatly appreciate your tax deductible donation
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