Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/01/13/category-errors.html
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I’m stuck trying to figure out the real reason here. Is it because protecting profits is above everything else, or is it because they want to minimize white nationalism?
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Nonviolent activism is the gateway to violent activism. Everyone knows this.
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Eco-terrorists have been the majority of the “terrorist groups” since long before the resurgence of white nationalism.
Some of it is the good old boys network in the FBI, but mostly it’s because logging/drilling companies are willing to go to the effort to work with law enforcement to deal with the vandalism and property destruction. The groups don’t really neatly slot into any of the other categories so they get lumped in with the Boston Bombers and the like.
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Yep, I remember this being an issue in the '90s. Non-violent eco-protest groups that had committed any acts of vandalism got declared “terrorist” organizations. Then 9/11 happened, which shifted the public focus, but those designations never actually changed.
The UK is in on it, too, but they don’t even need the vandalism, just protests as justification:
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I suppose that this is really poorly timed. It’s too late for my children to really get in on the thrills that $HERSELF and I had as college students in the late '60s though early '70s, and too early for their kids (now preschool.)
On the other hand, Boomers didn’t seem to take any lasting lessons from that so maybe it’s just as well.
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Why not both? It’s a autocrat’s two-fer.
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Both?
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Obviously this is problematic. What is required is a change in law. Politicians write the law. We need to identify what laws need to be deleted, updated, or added and then write new law. That law needs to be presented to politician tied a bright green bow - money. PR, advertising, and marketing are important. All of this requires money and coordination.
Awareness without effective action is a weak position.
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Somewhere there exists a video of police officers rubbing pepper spray into the eyes of chained logging protestors with q-tips. Any time I start thinking “Well yeah, interfering with national assets is a problem” I always ask myself to step back and question motives.
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Naturally. The activists’ disobedience interferes with the flow of the spice. I’m surprised they don’t rank them as even more dangerous than run-of-the-mill mass murderers and racists.
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Came to post the UK version of this but @Shuck beat me to it.
Here’s the follow-ups
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It’s an excuse to beat up hippies, criminalize dissent and characterize any sort of protest against commercial interests/development as terrorists. It’s a means of soliciting donations from oil and other corporations. But mostly an excuse to beat up hippies.
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i thought all the hippies had retired on their 401ks by now.
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Tricky Dick was on top of this decades ago. Think War on Drugs.
Where the ballot box is concerned, money begins the conversation, money ends the conversation, money decides who is part of the conversation.
As long as official channels and elected representatives and campaign money are the only ‘acceptable’ way to agitate for change, the oil interests will drown out the people with their vast amounts of speech/money.
And no meaningful change has ever occured soley by asking nice. It always takes street protest as part of this nitritious breakfast, before anyone important begins to listen.
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These are your fracking profits.
These are your fracking profits on radical environmentalism.
Any questions?
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Yes. The government can have more than one goal at a time.
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How long until it’s illegal to “interfere” with the economy?
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