American Legislative Exchange Council
History and Philosophy: After the "shellacking" the Republicans took in 1964 with conservative Barry Goldwater's defeat in the presidential election, some really smart conservatives got together to form ALEC in 1973 with the intention of changing state laws gradually and, thereby, changing the country from a liberal-leaning mood to an ultra conservative one. Keep in mind this was the Nixon era when Democrats and Republicans alike were passing things like the EPA, the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, women's rights, and other liberal programs. (It's only since 1972 that it is illegal for newspapers to print "jobs -female" and "jobs -male" in the want ads.) Back then, "conservative" had a negative connotation which the Paul Weyrich and friends crowd wanted to change. With huge funding from major corporations, ALEC has grown from just an idea to one of the most influential ultra conservative organizations in the country.
Go to www.alec.org and read the three guiding principles of ALEC on their masthead: Limited Government, Free Markets and Federalism. These ultra conservative extremists honestly don't believe it is the government's job to help individuals. They believe that individuals will make self-serving and therefore good economic decisions and, thereby, contribute to the well-being of society as a whole (the "invisible hand" theory.) This is why they are anti anything "public."
They believe "markets" should regulate themselves and that states should be allowed to make their own laws without interference from the national government. (We know how well that worked out with segregation and labor laws.)
The whole "Don't Tread on Me" theme so popular now with a small fringe of voters sums up the ALEC philosophy of federalism. On the ALEC website, click on "Initiatives" and see how they brag about their "triumph" over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. They are the ones putting out the talking points calling health care reform "Obamacare" and doing all the fear-mongering about the effect of health care reform on different constituencies.
Notice also under "Initiatives" that they are the ones who came up with the expression "EPA train wreck" which ultra conservative politicians on all levels of government are using. They know that a catchy phrase like that, if repeated often enough, burrows its way into voters' brains. And that people don't vote using rational arguments and facts. They vote what they "believe." Ultra conservative extremists have pushed the "global warming hoax" frame so successfully that even rational voters question the facts about climate change.
Membership: State legislators join ALEC for a nominal fee. Corporations join by paying anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000 in dues. This is what they call a "public-private partnership." Corporations foot the bills for meetings, dinners, retreats, vacations for legislators (and their families if they choose) who then go home and introduce the bills written by ALEC which benefit the corporations. The website lists the number of bills written by ALEC and which law firm gets to write them.
(The next national ALEC meeting will be August 3-6, 2011 in New Orleans, and states have one night during that conference to themselves which they call "State Night." Legislators from each state get treated to a nice dinner and a chance to schmooze with corporate staffers. Ask your state rep and senator where they will be August 3-6.)
Issues: Given their philosophy, it isn't hard to figure out what ALEC's priorities will be. They are
*anti union, anti collective bargaining, anti minimum or living wage laws
*anti public education
* anti environmental regulation
* anti tax ("starve the beast")
*anti health care reform
* anti voter participation in elections (Photo ID bills)
Each issue has a "task force" with legislators and corporations that are affected by each particular issue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/alec-states-unions_b_832428.html
From the above source:
"Backed by the oil industry, ALEC has lined up legislators to lower taxes on gasoline and to undermine regulations aimed at curbing carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming.
"Backed by the drug companies, ALEC has mounted a full-scale campaign to defeat initiatives by cities and states to promote importing lower-priced select medicines from Canada.
"Backed by low-wage employers, ALEC has promoted legislation to block local governments from raising local minimum wages or even requiring government contractors to pay a fair wage to their employees.
"Backed by the telephone companies, ALEC has worked to bar or hamstring cities that have sought to build cheaper or even free Internet services for their residents.
"Backed by the insurance companies, ALEC has been promoting a campaign to stop state insurance commissioners from requiring insurance companies to meet the same accountability and auditing rules that were imposed on publicly-traded corporations in the wake of the Enron debacle."
So ALEC's tentacles reach into every part of our lives. They are well-funded and have been very successful. "Graduates" of their state legislature programs are now in the U.S. Congress pushing for the same goals. To their credit, the people who run ALEC and their corporate backers have been very successful. They started small and have grown into one of the most powerful organizations in the country.
If voters prefer the "Limited Government, Free Markets, Federalism" philosophy, so be it. But I doubt most voters really understand the implications. For a look at what our country will be like in a few years, go back and read the chapters about the 19th century in any history textbook. I doubt this is what the majority of Americans want, but the gap between the rich and poor in our country is now as bad as it was in "the Gilded Age" when robber barons ran the country.
Wisconsin voters have started the revolt against the corporate takeover of our country. It's up to the rest of us to join the protest movement and vote the ultra conservative extremists out of office starting at the state level. Happy Independence Day !!
Susan Cunningham
July 4, 2011
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
American Legislative Exchange Council goals
These are quotes from the interview with Jared Bernstein (link below.) My contention is that the ultra-conservative extremists in Congress truly believe in gutting the social programs we all depend on at some point in our lives. Go to www.alec.org and read their three guiding principles - Limited Government, Free Markets, Federalism. Everything we see going on in state legislatures around the country and in the U.S. Congress can be traced back to those principles. The ultra-conservative extremists have worked their way into power at all levels of government over the past 40 years. They are very well organized and well funded. We are kidding ourselves if we believe, as Bernstein says, that members of Congress will do the right thing when push comes to shove. President Obama lives under that spell too. Anyone who knows the engine of power behind what happened during the G W Bush administration can see clearly that these ultra-conservative extremists really DO want to make government small enough to "drown it in a bathtub" (Grover Norquist.) They created huge budget deficits on purpose so they could use that as an excuse to gut social programs and public education. And they are willing to let the U.S. go into default to make a point. To them, that will be the cleansing of the American spirit and the rebirth of their vision of what the country was meant to be. Go to the ALEC website (American Legislative Exchange Council) and get involved. The country you save may be your own. And, no, you can't say you are too busy or not interested in politics. Politicians control EVERYTHING that happens in your daily life, the air you breathe, the water you drink, the schools your kids go to, the safety of the food you eat, the peace of mind knowing you can call 911 if needed. If you let the ultra-conservative extremists make all these decisions, life will be wonderful for 2% of the population and miserable for the rest of us.
Susan C
Because, if you actually want to make a serious dent in the budget deficit, and you do it all on the spending side, you're going to have to gut government functions to a point where you do much more harm than good. You’ll cut way too deeply into Medicaid, into Medicare potentially, and those cuts will end up significantly reducing the economic security of retirees, and weakening a safety net that's already barely holding it together.
That's the moral case; is there an economic case, too?
Yes. If you implement aggressive spending cuts too soon, you'll turn a frazzled recovery into a double-dip recession. If you implement solely spending cuts as your solution to the budget crunch in the medium- or long-term, you'll end up restructuring programs that vulnerable people depend on, such that you'll worsen our poverty and inequality problems, which are already much too large.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jared Bernstein on the Phony Debt-Ceiling Debate | Rolling Stone Politics | RS Politics Daily | Rolling Stone Writers and Edit
Susan C
Because, if you actually want to make a serious dent in the budget deficit, and you do it all on the spending side, you're going to have to gut government functions to a point where you do much more harm than good. You’ll cut way too deeply into Medicaid, into Medicare potentially, and those cuts will end up significantly reducing the economic security of retirees, and weakening a safety net that's already barely holding it together.
That's the moral case; is there an economic case, too?
Yes. If you implement aggressive spending cuts too soon, you'll turn a frazzled recovery into a double-dip recession. If you implement solely spending cuts as your solution to the budget crunch in the medium- or long-term, you'll end up restructuring programs that vulnerable people depend on, such that you'll worsen our poverty and inequality problems, which are already much too large.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jared Bernstein on the Phony Debt-Ceiling Debate | Rolling Stone Politics | RS Politics Daily | Rolling Stone Writers and Edit
Friday, June 24, 2011
Don't Tread on Your Fellow Citizens
On Wednesday, June 22, as I was driving the recently completed hwy 100 from I-44 to Washington, a big red pickup truck was belching out billows of heavy black smoke behind me. I saw the smoke in the rear view mirror and thought maybe a vehicle had caught on fire. Then the truck speeded up and wove in and out of traffic trying to pass those of us who were obeying the 60 mph speed limit. Every time the driver shifted gears, another cloud of black smoke spewed out of his tail pipe in the faces of other drivers. It was so thick, we had to slow down in order to be able to see the cars ahead of us.
As the driver passed me, I noticed two bumper stickers and have to say I wasn't surprised. One was a Nieves campaign sticker. The other was the snake with the "Don't tread on me" slogan. My impression of the people who display those stickers is that they don't care what happens to the rest of their fellow citizens, and this guy confirmed that for me. I asked an acquaintance of mine who attends tea party rallies about working class families suffering from the economic collapse caused by Wall Street greed. His answer for people who lost good paying jobs and who can't afford basics like health care was that they should depend on their families and their churches, not the government. Besides being incredibly unrealistic, that attitude is so selfish it defies comprehension.
We are at the most important juncture in our history as a nation since the Civil War. We literally have to decide whether to continue as a society based on strength in numbers and a social compact that respects the common good or not. If we choose to go back to the days of feudal dynasties and powerless serfs, 99% of us will be in the latter category. The shift of wealth and power to the top 1% of our population over the last 20 years has come at the expense of the rest of us. The "anti-government" message coming at us daily via talk radio and corporate TV is really an "anti-neighbor" message because we are all in this together.
Now that we've ceded our power as citizens to a handful of multi-national corporations, I'm not sure we'll ever get it back. There won't be a middle class anymore. Wages for workers relative to the rest of the economy have been on a downhill spiral for years. We are on our way to being a dog-eat-dog society where selfish individuals and corporations don't give a damn about anyone else and feel free to pollute the air we all breathe with their filthy smoke.
As the driver passed me, I noticed two bumper stickers and have to say I wasn't surprised. One was a Nieves campaign sticker. The other was the snake with the "Don't tread on me" slogan. My impression of the people who display those stickers is that they don't care what happens to the rest of their fellow citizens, and this guy confirmed that for me. I asked an acquaintance of mine who attends tea party rallies about working class families suffering from the economic collapse caused by Wall Street greed. His answer for people who lost good paying jobs and who can't afford basics like health care was that they should depend on their families and their churches, not the government. Besides being incredibly unrealistic, that attitude is so selfish it defies comprehension.
We are at the most important juncture in our history as a nation since the Civil War. We literally have to decide whether to continue as a society based on strength in numbers and a social compact that respects the common good or not. If we choose to go back to the days of feudal dynasties and powerless serfs, 99% of us will be in the latter category. The shift of wealth and power to the top 1% of our population over the last 20 years has come at the expense of the rest of us. The "anti-government" message coming at us daily via talk radio and corporate TV is really an "anti-neighbor" message because we are all in this together.
Now that we've ceded our power as citizens to a handful of multi-national corporations, I'm not sure we'll ever get it back. There won't be a middle class anymore. Wages for workers relative to the rest of the economy have been on a downhill spiral for years. We are on our way to being a dog-eat-dog society where selfish individuals and corporations don't give a damn about anyone else and feel free to pollute the air we all breathe with their filthy smoke.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Fracking a small town in Pennsylvania
The first thing I noticed as I approached my sister's town of Montrose, PA, was the traffic. My last visit was four years ago, and the town had changed a lot even then, but I don't remember so much truck traffic on the one lane road through town.
When I commented about the traffic, my sister explained that it is because of the gas drilling. My 76 yr old sister doesn't follow politics and tends to believe whatever she hears from her friends at Penny's Cafe. When I asked her if any of the area residents protested the hydraulic fracturing method as dangerous, her answer was that it's better to produce our own energy and not have to rely on "someplace like Syria."
My sister is one of the more educated residents of Montrose, and she believes the gas company propaganda. So what hope is there for this sad little town? They believe the gas company has saved them from becoming a ghost town. Most of the other job opportunities have dried up or moved too far from town to make it reasonable to commute to work.
At the old inn on Main Street where my husband and I spent two nights, the rumble of truck traffic is constant and disturbing. There happened to be a pot hole right in front of the inn, so the heavy trucks made a "kar-umphing" sound as they hit that hole every 2-3 minutes. (I actually timed them.)
My sister said the noise continues 24/7 except for Sunday mornings. I'm guessing that was part of the deal. The gas company allows the people a few hours of peace and quiet each week.
At dinner, I asked my niece and grand-niece what they thought of the gas drilling. They see it as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the money the workers make gets recycled in the community as they pay rent, shop, and eat in the diners. On the other hand, with all the new workers bidding for apartments, the rents have shot up and forced longtime residents out of those apartments.
My niece said there is a lot of tension among farmers who used to be close friends because some want the drilling and pipelines on their property and others don't. She observed that "People aren't working as hard as they used to." I understood that to mean the new money is tempting farmers to give up growing crops. Coincidentally, my niece's husband sells farm equipment which may be why he has noticed the changes in farm productivity.
When I asked about people's drinking water being affected, they said six families complained about their wells being contaminated, and the gas company agreed to drill them new wells. A handful of protesters show up one evening a week in a nearby town, but "nobody pays any attention to them."
My grand-niece is 20 years old and more aware of the environmental damage caused by fracking. She said she wished Pennsylvania had done the same as New York State and established a moratorium until more is learned about the consequences of this type of drilling. Montrose is about 30 miles north of Scranton and only 25 miles from Binghamton, NY.
I asked whether the gas company was going to pay to fix the roads their trucks are tearing up. Evidently, some money is going to the local road department, but the taxes being paid by the drilling company to the state probably won't come back to the local area, according to my niece. They are not optimistic about their roads being repaired.
sarah jo :: Fracking a small town in Pennsylvania
I asked the waitress in a local diner about the awful noise rumbling by just a few feet from the window where I was eating breakfast. She said most of the traffic was the "water trucks."
So I paid closer attention, and saw that some of the tanker trucks were labeled "fresh water," and some were labeled "residual waste." But there were hundreds of dump trucks abd flat bed trucks loaded with rock too. I learned later that there is also a bluestone shale quarry nearby that has been in business for years. So maybe the local folks are so used to truck traffic that a few hundred more a day doesn't bother them.
It's like the frog in the boiling pot metaphor. The destruction of this quiet little town has been so gradual, and they are so desperate for income, that they don't even notice the earth shattering noise a few feet from their doors. When an older woman was ready to leave the diner and had to cross the street, three people sitting near her offered to walk her across the street. They joked about how easy it would be to get rid of a crabby relative by pushing him or her into the traffic. I'm not a mental health professional, but joking about something you hate but can't do anything about must be listed somewhere as an indicator of emotional stress.
Keep in mind that these roads were built decades ago to handle local traffic and maybe some vacationers on their way to the Pocono Mtns. One lane in each direction, no shoulders, no sidewalks, no grassy right-of-way spaces. The difference between the store parking lot and the lane of traffic is about the size of your shoe.
Heading west on our way back to Missouri, we saw dozens of billboards pushing the propaganda messages. "The New Green is Blue" with a blue gas flame prominently featured. "Clean coal is the energy of the future, and it's all RED, WHITE AND BLUE." (Cue the patriotic music.)
My own observation of what is happening to these small towns in NE Pennsylvania is the same as many others. All over America, people are so desperate for jobs with enough income to live on that they are willing to work under any conditions, never complain and allow themselves to be dehumanized so gradually that they don't notice how much their quality of life has been diminished. It used to be that an educated or trained person could count on a good job with benefits. Not any more. Our Corporate Masters have enslaved us by eliminating our choice of occupation and power to bargain for better pay and working conditions.
I saw several young women standing near cars and old pickups loaded with household goods. These are the new Okies. Families travel wherever they can find jobs, living out of their vehicles when necessary, hanging on to whatever shred of self respect they can muster. This is what has been done to us over the last few decades, and it has been all planned out by the greedy bastards who don't give a damn about small town folks or their communities.
I hope I live long enough to see the current rumblings of protest around the country erupt into an overthrow of corporate power.
When I commented about the traffic, my sister explained that it is because of the gas drilling. My 76 yr old sister doesn't follow politics and tends to believe whatever she hears from her friends at Penny's Cafe. When I asked her if any of the area residents protested the hydraulic fracturing method as dangerous, her answer was that it's better to produce our own energy and not have to rely on "someplace like Syria."
My sister is one of the more educated residents of Montrose, and she believes the gas company propaganda. So what hope is there for this sad little town? They believe the gas company has saved them from becoming a ghost town. Most of the other job opportunities have dried up or moved too far from town to make it reasonable to commute to work.
At the old inn on Main Street where my husband and I spent two nights, the rumble of truck traffic is constant and disturbing. There happened to be a pot hole right in front of the inn, so the heavy trucks made a "kar-umphing" sound as they hit that hole every 2-3 minutes. (I actually timed them.)
My sister said the noise continues 24/7 except for Sunday mornings. I'm guessing that was part of the deal. The gas company allows the people a few hours of peace and quiet each week.
At dinner, I asked my niece and grand-niece what they thought of the gas drilling. They see it as a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the money the workers make gets recycled in the community as they pay rent, shop, and eat in the diners. On the other hand, with all the new workers bidding for apartments, the rents have shot up and forced longtime residents out of those apartments.
My niece said there is a lot of tension among farmers who used to be close friends because some want the drilling and pipelines on their property and others don't. She observed that "People aren't working as hard as they used to." I understood that to mean the new money is tempting farmers to give up growing crops. Coincidentally, my niece's husband sells farm equipment which may be why he has noticed the changes in farm productivity.
When I asked about people's drinking water being affected, they said six families complained about their wells being contaminated, and the gas company agreed to drill them new wells. A handful of protesters show up one evening a week in a nearby town, but "nobody pays any attention to them."
My grand-niece is 20 years old and more aware of the environmental damage caused by fracking. She said she wished Pennsylvania had done the same as New York State and established a moratorium until more is learned about the consequences of this type of drilling. Montrose is about 30 miles north of Scranton and only 25 miles from Binghamton, NY.
I asked whether the gas company was going to pay to fix the roads their trucks are tearing up. Evidently, some money is going to the local road department, but the taxes being paid by the drilling company to the state probably won't come back to the local area, according to my niece. They are not optimistic about their roads being repaired.
sarah jo :: Fracking a small town in Pennsylvania
I asked the waitress in a local diner about the awful noise rumbling by just a few feet from the window where I was eating breakfast. She said most of the traffic was the "water trucks."
So I paid closer attention, and saw that some of the tanker trucks were labeled "fresh water," and some were labeled "residual waste." But there were hundreds of dump trucks abd flat bed trucks loaded with rock too. I learned later that there is also a bluestone shale quarry nearby that has been in business for years. So maybe the local folks are so used to truck traffic that a few hundred more a day doesn't bother them.
It's like the frog in the boiling pot metaphor. The destruction of this quiet little town has been so gradual, and they are so desperate for income, that they don't even notice the earth shattering noise a few feet from their doors. When an older woman was ready to leave the diner and had to cross the street, three people sitting near her offered to walk her across the street. They joked about how easy it would be to get rid of a crabby relative by pushing him or her into the traffic. I'm not a mental health professional, but joking about something you hate but can't do anything about must be listed somewhere as an indicator of emotional stress.
Keep in mind that these roads were built decades ago to handle local traffic and maybe some vacationers on their way to the Pocono Mtns. One lane in each direction, no shoulders, no sidewalks, no grassy right-of-way spaces. The difference between the store parking lot and the lane of traffic is about the size of your shoe.
Heading west on our way back to Missouri, we saw dozens of billboards pushing the propaganda messages. "The New Green is Blue" with a blue gas flame prominently featured. "Clean coal is the energy of the future, and it's all RED, WHITE AND BLUE." (Cue the patriotic music.)
My own observation of what is happening to these small towns in NE Pennsylvania is the same as many others. All over America, people are so desperate for jobs with enough income to live on that they are willing to work under any conditions, never complain and allow themselves to be dehumanized so gradually that they don't notice how much their quality of life has been diminished. It used to be that an educated or trained person could count on a good job with benefits. Not any more. Our Corporate Masters have enslaved us by eliminating our choice of occupation and power to bargain for better pay and working conditions.
I saw several young women standing near cars and old pickups loaded with household goods. These are the new Okies. Families travel wherever they can find jobs, living out of their vehicles when necessary, hanging on to whatever shred of self respect they can muster. This is what has been done to us over the last few decades, and it has been all planned out by the greedy bastards who don't give a damn about small town folks or their communities.
I hope I live long enough to see the current rumblings of protest around the country erupt into an overthrow of corporate power.
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