Surprising no one, the recent wave of anti-protest laws is a coordinated effort by monied interests to weaken democracy.
Not surprising, but still…it’s wild how naked this stuff is. The petrochem industry is just straight-up drafting bills for legislators to protect their wealth by suppressing dissent. Not indirectly, not obliquely, not in a POSIWID kind of way — just “let’s email each other about how best to strangle democracy.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/26/anti-protest-laws-fossil-fuel-lobby
@inthehands "draft bill attached"
Should be the name of the documentary about this abject failure of our political process.
@inthehands Seems naive to not expect activists to adapt by, for the same price, petrol bombing infrastructure without getting caught. Fossil fuels burn well.
@martinvermeer
I mean…I don’t like the idea of infra destruction. The George Floyd uprising started right in my neighborhood, and there were a few beloved local businesses that are gone now, never to come back. It was heart-wrenching and incredibly wasteful.
BUT
The •point• of democracy is that to provide a mechanism for people to influence community decision-making •without• that sort of destruction. With GF and now this, if you take away democracy, what result do you expect?!
@inthehands Well, yes. Wasn't it Ben Franklin who pointed out that one benefit of elected leadership is to abolish regicide?
@inthehands Bills drafted by lobbyists is a thing that happens across the board. It’s in large part a function of how Gingrich and his ilk cut huge quantities of the support staff in Congress as well as fucking up pay such that it’s hard to retain skilled staff. Where thirty years ago the offices would have people inside to turn to to write legislation, now they’re much more reliant on outside resources.
@donw
Yes, bills drafted by lobbyists is normal. Bills to •destroy democracy• drafted by lobbyists is…more notable.
In the Gingrich days, a petrochem corp might draft a watered-down limit on pollution, say. But directly writing a bill to illegalize protest? That would have felt pretty damn shocking in the 90s.
@inthehands I can no longer count the things that were disqualifying and now are just Tuesday. It’s mind boggling to imagine we bounced cabinet members because they didn't pay taxes on a nanny. I’m not sure keeping a nanny as an involuntary unpaid prisoner would stay in the news 3 days anymore.
I just meant to point out that the attack vector here is a very foreseeable result of that 90s era action that continues to cause problems to this day. It's easier to hide something in a haystack.
@donw
All that. Incredibly, we still have remnants of the press able to find those needles in haystacks! But as you point out, nary a ripple.
@inthehands in UK they did the same last year ... and yeah, the way how openly they do it, is remarkable. I think it's easy now, after having raised a full-on culture war against anyone concerned about climate.
https://www.desmog.com/2023/09/12/atlas-network-vilifying-climate-protestors/