Behind the Colorado Fracking Betrayal
- by Joel Dyer, August 7, 2014, Boulder Weekly
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"233","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 355px; height: 266px; float: left; margin: 3px 10px;","title":"Photo: OccupyCorporatism.com"}}]]So what went wrong with ballot measures 88 and 89? How could these popular citizen’s initiatives written to give local communities more control over drilling and fracking in their neighborhoods have failed to get on the ballot?
Well, the first mistake Colorado citizens made was they trusted a politician, Congressman Jared Polis, to help them with their cause. Polis formed a green-sounding organization, which wrote ballot initiatives 88 and 89 and paid the signature gatherers for their amazing efforts, which culminated in more than 260,000 signatures being gathered, more than enough to put both measures before the voters in November.
In fact, Polis was so effective in his efforts that his organization sucked up all the anti-fracking energy in the state, causing other local-control ballot measures which were written and put forward by actual grassroots activists to be withdrawn. They couldn’t compete with Polis’ money or his organization. And why should they compete, they all wanted the same thing, right?
And so began the Polis show. And what a show it turned out to be.