Follow up on Michigan's 'Financial Martial Law'

[lunadelcorvo]

Another very disturbing dimension of the recent legal maneuverings in Michigan is that it's not alone. There are a significant number of the current crop of governors and state legislators enacting, or trying to enact, strikingly similar legislation. We have seen this with the union-busting measures in Wisconsin, Ohio, and other states, and it's looking like Scott Walker may try to enact a the same emergency powers arrangement in Wisconsin as well.

Now none of this seems too far fetched for the Tea Party. However, it is interesting when one takes a step back and wonders exactly how did all these state-level politicians all come up with the same legislative initiatives at the same time? If you're thinking they must have some 'sooper seekrit' neo-con policy handbook, you're not too far off.

Introducing the American Legislative Exchange Council (or ALEC). A conservative legislative policy group, they provide boilerplate ideas designed for implementation by state legislators and aimed at dismantling unions, regulation, pretty much everything they don't want to have to contend with. Membership is open to state legislators (for an affordable $100 a year), but boasts an impressive cadre of corporate sponsor/members as well (for the far more significant $5,000-50,000 per).

So what, right? After all, industry folks flock together at conferences; it's what they do. It's as inevitable as geese flocking in the fall. Chiropractors, shoe salesmen, grocers - they all have organizations where they compare notes, show off, trade ideas. What's the big deal?

Well, let's look at who founded ALEC, and who the big names are. ALEC's founders include:
-Paul Weyrich, a long time Right Wing activist, and one of the founders of the Moral Majority, founder of the Heritage Foundation, and known for his dominionist leanings.
-Henry Hyde, of the Hyde Amendment fame, another long-time conservative stalwart, and a banner bearer in the Clinton impeachment proceedings, internet censorship, and other Religious Right causes.
-Lou Barnett, former Political Director of the American Conservative Union, National Director of Reagan’s Political Action Committee, "Citizens for the Republic, and central to the revival of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The real clincher is the big money though. ALEC, in 2000, collected $56,126 in dues from members who were legislators. However, their total revenues were $5,685,299, almost 100 times that much. That money comes from big money corporate interests. Represented among the big money contributors and members? Amoco Corporation, Archer Daniels Midland , Koch Industries, Coors Brewing Co, Verizon Communications, Inc., PhRMA (Big pharmaceuticals), Pfizer Inc..... it's a regular Who's Who of corporate America.

According to reports from people who've been in these conferences, the agendas tend to run on two tracks: enabling corporations (by union-busting, stripping regulations, etc. ALEC was also behind the recent bills criminalizing attempts to expose cruelty or unsanitary conditions at factory farms.) and social conservatism (opposing health care reform, global warming denial, anti-environmentalism, anti-immigration, etc.). Groups like Family Research Council and the Pro-Family Legislative Network are represented in ALEC as well.

Read more on this story at these links:
SmartALEC: Dragging the Secretive Conservative Organization Out of the Shadows
ALEC fingered as source of coordinated anti-union, anti-immigration legislation
Creating a Right-Wing Nation, State by State
American Legislative Exchange Council - Source Watch.org
American Legislative Exchange Council | Right Wing Watch
Gov Rick Snyder Sellout? Prefabricated Corporate Michigan (Government) Courtesy of Koch & ALEC
FORTUNE - The big political player you've never heard of

Comments

[samuraiartguy.livejournal.com]

What's so crazed about all this is that the Tea Party, for all their noise and thunder about smaller government, have been so cynically manipulated by the Conservative Right over divisive and polarizing social issues to elect Politicians that seem to be tripping over themselves to hand over the country to the Megacorps and the über-rich who are absolutely content to kick their predominately working class base to the curb and rob them blind.

And as George Carlin said in 2005, "nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care." It's damn late in the game, but maybe a few of us are getting a clue now- even if it's delivered wrapped around a brick flying through the living room window. But I am fearful that it's too late and the Corporatocracy has gained too much momentum to be opposed in any significant way other than civil disobedience, protest and unrest.

When Donald Trump has become a viable candidate, and apparently a front runner (???!!!), they're not even trying to PRETEND any more that they're representing the 98% of us on the bottom, or that we're represented AT ALL.

[raven-moon.livejournal.com]

At the risk of being uber-paranoid, I can't quite decide if this was the agenda all along (it's not like the religious right and corporate America haven't been bedfellows for a while now, after all. Prosperity gospel, anyone?), or if the big government takeovers are intended as the Molotov cocktail tossed into the heart of the truly regressive, government-hating, gun-toting, Christian Reconstuction/Donimionist-types.... And honestly, I'm not sure either possibility offers much hope, as you say.

Blech! Some days, it's harder than others to maintain the idea that this crap will eventually be called out and will turn around. Thing is now, I wonder if the people who are likely to reject this government-takeover stuff with the most vehemence are really the sort of people we want to be the ones rising up and making changes...

[lucretiasheart.livejournal.com]

I've been keeping an eye on all this and I'm amazed at how quietly we're walking into the night. Maddow is one of the few even bothering to report on something so incredibly important!

This is yet another reason why I wanted to return to a liberal area of the country after living in a conservative one-- I just had a bad feeling that I'd get screwed even harder if I stayed.

My concern is that this will continue to spread. How long before enough people notice that it makes a difference? And will it be too late by then?