Restoring Democracy in the Fight Against Fracking

Posted by Luke Ashley (cause founder)

Same story. Different day.
People are threatened by an activity that will injure them, and they work overtime to pass a law that bans the activity.
An affected corporation—or industry association—then sues the municipality, contending that the community can’t prohibit what the state allows, and that the ban violates the “rights” of the corporation.
The upshot of these machinations is that the municipality then either repeals the ban or is bankrupted trying to defend it. Most likely, the insurance corporation for the municipality brokers a deal in which the municipality agrees not to enforce the ordinance in exchange for the corporation dropping its lawsuit.
Day after day, issue after issue, community after community, this machine has been humming along happily (for some) ever since the late 1800’s. All under a structure of law so perfectly constructed that very few understand how it actually works in practice.
Under a structure of law that lawyers, law professors, elected officials, judges and established activist organizations call “democracy.”

Movements build when opportunities are seized, not lost—when that which is hazy suddenly becomes clear. By framing the problem as “fracking,” and not as the corporate and governmental powers that force “fracking” on unwilling communities, it becomes easy for the gas corporations to divide, conquer, and then dissuade other communities from following.

Read the full story here.
http://links.causes.com/s/clHJfo?r=jSwQ

As I`ve said before, try not to focus too much on fracking, water contamination, flaming taps or earthquakes etc.
There is so much more to it than that, but simply put, we must occupy the law.