If you ever doubted that activists have an impact on big business interests, this leaked Stratfor document should convince you that they take us very seriously. The document focuses on protesters trying to stop the extraction, transport and development of tar sands, which they call oil sands. They divide the various groups involved in the effort to stop tar sands into four categories, radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists. As we can see in a previous article their strategic approach is to divide these groups, pull opportunists and realists into compromised positions, convince idealists they have the facts wrong and isolate the most dangerous group, the radicals. These documents show best case and worst case scenarios to different responses to activist campaigns from the vantage point of the corporations. Obviously corporations take social justice movements very seriously. We should not underestimate our power. We can develop strategies to ensure that their ‘divide and destroy’ tactics fail.
Sample images from the document:
