Wanting clean water is extremism, poisoning it is entrepreneurship.

Winona LaDuke , an Anishinaabe activist from Minnesota and a thorn in the side of the oil and chemical industries for decades, has formulated a sentence that hits the nail on the head so precisely that the entire machinery of lobbyists, press offices, and interior ministries winces simultaneously: Someone please explain to her why the desire for clean drinking water makes one an activist, while the plan to destroy water with chemical warfare does not make a corporation a terrorist.

The question is old. So is the answer . But hardly anyone has ever uttered it so bluntly. Because it is precisely at this fault line that it is decided who is protected in this system and who is persecuted. It is not a question of morality, it is a question of the facts. And the facts are clear: those who protect the water end up in court. Those who poison it sit on the board of directors.

Who here is called an activist and who is an entrepreneur
Let's start with language, because that's where the double standard begins. Since the resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, there have been many similar situations in the USA. fifteen state laws They enacted laws that upgrade protests against so-called critical infrastructure from a minor offense to a crime. Trespassing becomes a felony punishable by several years in prison, chaining oneself to an excavator becomes... Offense punishable by five, six, seven years Prison. These model laws were not written by concerned citizens, but by ALEC, a lobbying firm that is financed by companies including ExxonMobil and Shell. So they're essentially writing the very laws that protect them from their own victims.

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have classified environmental activists as one of the greatest domestic terrorist threats . An agency analysis advised security forces to watch out for people dressed in black—not those flooding groundwater with industrial toxins, but those holding banners protesting against it. Those demonstrating for clean water are suspects. Those poisoning it are employers.

The chemistry that lasts forever
While water protection advocates are being criminalized, the real crime continues unabated. PFAS, colloquially known as "permanent chemicals," now permeate the drinking water of entire regions, and they are called "permanent chemicals" because they practically never break down in nature. The manufacturers have known about this for decades. Little has changed. I have seen just how widespread this contamination is, even in this country. elsewhere already taken apart.

What has changed are the figures in the settlements. 3M agreed to a settlement with public water utilities for up to $12,5 billion , and DuPont and its subsidiaries Chemours and Corteva added another $1,2 billion. New Jersey alone squeezed around $2 billion out of DuPont and up to $450 million out of 3M . Anyone who sees these sums as remorse hasn't grasped the business model. It's not a penalty; it's an operating expense. The corporation pays, denies any liability in the same contract, writes it off as an expense, and carries on. Citizens whose wells are contaminated have to fill out application forms with deadlines; otherwise, their claim expires. Poisoning is free. Compensation is provided over time.

How the corporation itself defines its own protection
Then came the cautionary tale moment. In March 2025, a jury in North Dakota convicted Greenpeace and ordered them to pay damages to the pipeline operator Energy Transfer. more than 660 million dollars to pay, later ordered by a judge approximately 345 million Cut off. The accusation: complicity in the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which Standing Rock once opposed, fearing for the very drinking water that has been discussed here all along. It was a classic case. SLAPP lawsuitA legal attack designed not to win, but to wear down. North Dakota is one of the few states without a law against such intimidation lawsuits. One might suspect coincidence.

Consider the symmetry. The corporation pushing the pipeline through the water protection area is suing the protesting organization, driving it to near bankruptcy. The polluter gets the courts as a weapon, the water protector gets the bill. This isn't hypocrisy anymore; it's a functioning system. It just doesn't work for you.

Different theaters of war, same equation
And while litigation rages domestically over every well, big money flows unchecked abroad. According to the US, in 2025 SIPRI almost one trillion dollars for the military, more than the next nine countries combined, and for 2026 the threshold will finally break once the additional costs for the latest Iran campaign are included. Operation Epic FuryIn spring 2026, an estimated additional $48 billion is expected, with a request for a cumulative $61 billion submitted to Congress. Iran, which is being used to fund this, recently reported a Defense budget of around eight billionThe ratio speaks for itself. I know that the true winners of such campaigns are never on the front lines. already described in more detail.

It's always money for the next war. It's never money for one's own well. Clean drinking water remains a contentious political issue, one that can be debated for years, while the next billion-dollar tranche for a weapons system is rubber-stamped—a system that no one ever approved in a public meeting. Those who defend water in their own country are considered extremists. Those who defend it abroad with bombs are considered patriots.

So only one question remains, and it is more uncomfortable than any campaign slogan. Whoever protects a people from clean water protects nothing; they manage harm. Whoever pumps billions into foreign wars while letting their own wells rot is not defending a country; they are plundering it. And whoever criminalizes people because they refuse to give up their water, while simultaneously handing the poisoner the courtroom as a weapon, is not protecting order; they are protecting crime and calling it "law and justice"!