Protesters are being charged with felonies under Louisiana’s new anti-protest law.
PHOTO/L’EAU EST LA VIE CAMP
As the people in the path of environmental destruction attempt to use their right to free speech and engage in civil disobedience to protect their communities, the corporate/government partnership uses government repression to protect the “private property rights” of corporations over the “rights” of the public.
Legislation modeled after laws passed by the state of Oklahoma in early 2017 following the anti-pipeline protests over DAPL, is now being considered in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Idaho, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming. Four states have already passed such legislation while Minnesota and Wyoming have vetoed prior attempts.
The model legislation calls for criminal punishment in the form of incarceration or heavy fines for those who “willfully and knowingly trespass or enter [oil and gas industry owned “private”] property containing a critical infrastructure facility without permission by the owner of the property.”
Individuals can be fined up to $10,000 and a year in prison; for actually damaging property, protestors can face up to 10 years in prison and fined up to $100,000; co-conspirators [which includes anyone who contributes money to a “go fund me” campaign] can see fines of up to $1 million. These bills are written and introduced into state legislatures by members of ALEC and CSG.
Both ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and CSG (Council of State Governments) are corporate “bill mills” which draft legislation in favor of corporations that is then passed on to state legislatures for adoption into law. Both receive generous funding from oil and gas industries. ALEC is composed primarily of Republican state legislators and lobbyists while CSG is bipartisan and, in addition, receives generous tax-payer funding. Both work together to protect the financial and political interests of powerful corporations and their billionaire owners.
Flint and Standing Rock showed the nation that the people will not accept corporate dictatorship. The people have no choice but to carry on this fight not only in the courts but also in the streets, in every state house and in Congress until we, the people prevail and have a government that takes control of these criminal corporations that decide who will live and who will be sacrificed on the altar of profits.
Bringing energy corporations under “public” control and democratically deciding how to use these resources is the next step forward in our fight to save the earth and humanity.
Cathy Talbott is a former telephone operator, a job lost to automation. She was a homeless mother of two and fights for welfare rights. A former co-host of a weekly community radio program out of Carbondale, IL, “Occupy the Airwaves,” Cathy is the Environmental Desk for the People’s Tribune.
