While today environmental activism is being singled out, the ruling class in decades past focused on labor unions, and before that the free speech of Communists, according to David S. Meyer, professor of sociology at the University of California Irvine and author of Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America. “Whenever someone in power feels threatened by whatever cause is out there, they want to use the power of the state and police to crack down,” Meyer told MTV News. “Companies used to be able to count on the government to protect them and to pay for protection.”

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