A free community rights workshop is being offered this Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Coralville Public Library for groups and individuals interested in changing the system that places corporate rights over the rights of citizens.

Paul Cienfuegos, a nationally recognized community rights educator and author from Portland, Oregon, has been engaged to conduct the workshop by 100Grannies.org for A Livable, Fossil-Free Future.  Cienfuegos brings to his presentations important information regarding corporate assaults on people, our planet and democracy. He provides historical context for the devastating consequences of corporate rule, and offers examples of citizen action that begin to put corporations in appropriate, subordinate relationships to ‘We the People.’

Registration is at 8:45 a.m. with the three-hour workshop starting at 9:00 a.m.

Participants will learn why communities can’t keep out undesirable developments such as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), pipelines and big box stores.  They will learn why corporations have attained more rights than citizens and why nature is an exploited commodity.  

Those attending will find out how to change the system to give community rights precedence over corporate rights and how to protect future generations and the rights of nature.

More than 200 communities in nine states have passed legally binding, locally enforceable laws reining in the “rights” of corporations.  This workshop will be a beginning for such actions in Iowa.

For those persons inspired by this three-hour workshop Saturday, 100Grannies.org is bringing Cienfuegos Nov. 13-15 back for a three-day intensive course  at the Johnson County Fairgrounds Extension Building. Cienfuegos’ work has been called the cutting edge of social change.