Jackson Free Press

Thomas Linzey, author of "Be the Change: How to Get What you Want in Your Community"(2009, Smith-Gibbs, $12.99), understands the disappointment that can come with fighting the good fight. Linzey is an environmental lawyer and co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

As an idealistic young lawyer, Linzey lost a 1995 case representing a community opposed to an environmentally destructive highway through historic Ellet Valley in Virginia.

A few years later, Linzey founded The Daniel Pennock Democracy School. The Democracy School teaches citizens how they can change existing laws and ordinances to create the type of community they envision.

Choosing Legal Battles Instead of Civic Activism
Linzey says that often when unwanted change threatens a group or a community, the first action is to obtain a lawyer to seek legal action for their cause. He calls this operating within the regulatory system, in which rules favor government and corporations instead of communities and people.

Lack of Grassroots Organizing
Linzey says democracy first occurs around the kitchen table. If you don't engage other community members through round table discussions, it will be difficult to gain momentum for your movement.

Being Reactive Instead of Proactive
"We see that the one thing that motivates people is when something becomes detrimental to them in their daily lives," Linzey says. Don't wait until an environmentally destructive corporation tries to move into your neighborhood before you start organizing a movement. Linzey advises citizens to work together and envision the community they want by changing existing ordinances or a city's charter. If you don't want Walmart to move into Jackson, for instance, organize a group to make a city ordinance against the company moving to town.

Apathy for Change
Accepting the idea that things can't change is detrimental to democracy. Linzey says we have the right as citizens to govern ourselves, and people can use their municipal governments to change laws that affect them instead of being a subordinate to the system. If a group as a whole doesn't adopt this way of thinking, change is unlikely to occur.