ALEC Caves: Real or Fake Victory?

[Pharaoh]

ALEC has been behind anti-union legislation, voter id laws, and Stand Your Ground laws across the US but since the Trayvon Martin case, the pressure to get corporations to leave the group has really picked up. In recent weeks, Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's Wendy's Intuit, Mars, Kraft Foods, and other have all stopped supporting the group. And today, ALEC announced that they would be disbanding their Safety and lections Task Force that dealt with more social issues. Lee Fang with RepublicReport.org discusses.

[msongs]

1. bad PR (companies dropping them)= reconfigure and do same thing another way nt

[dballance]

3. My thoughts exactly nt

[freshwest]

2. Fake. Reducing size of government: Privatization, attacking public workers, selling off the commons,

And giving more power to corporations and churches over people's lives remains their goal, per the statment.

Their 'smaller government. movement is for more unaccountability and still siphoning tax dollars into their hands, out of proportion to what legislators should be doing. Lawmakers need to be making laws that benefit everyone instead of buying the lie that cozying up to corporations is saving jobs or making the lives of the voters better.

We see what 30 years of ALEC writing laws to savage the environment and rights of humans has done. They need to go home, but they have no intention of leaving us alone. Sorry, but I'm not buying that they are giving up in any fashion. They are just running from what has been most aggravating to voters.

A feel-good victory, like the one on Rush, who is still spewing his malicious filth daily. It takes more than a few days or weeks in a news cycle to eliminate such an entrenched foe.

[stuffmatters]

4. Totally Agree. ALEC remains relentlessly evil and powerful.

They are not going away nor have they been weakened much. Their obscene objectives, supermonies and legislative influence remain the same. Maybe 10% of their members dropped out; maybe 10% more people in America learned of their venality. Little was reported by the msm about the interconnex tween the environmental, economic and info pollution machines of ALEC and their accomplices like Koch, Chamber of Commerce, Rove, no real media attention given to naming all the ALEC owned Governors and Legislators, or even educating the public on the multitude of their antidemocratic. privatization cut and paste legislative playbook.

The consumer boycott remains about the only avenue I can see for continuing to pressure their membership into dropping out of
ALEC. I called State Farm today, both my rep and their national number, and told them I'm cancelling all my policies with them if they don't drop out of ALEC because of its antidemocratic social and economic agenda. I also notified AT&T that I'll be cancelling unless they get out of ALEC.

Consumer protest won't have any effect on CCA,Philip Morris, Koch, Fed Ex/UPS (who are salivating over getting the USPS), for profit education,big oil, Pharma, Montsanto, banks or even AT&T/Verizon,because their corporate rewards in ALEC objectives are clear. But there were some corps like State Farm that don't seem to need ALEC & might be vulnerable to the negative PR and still drop out.

It's all only a drop in the bucket; ALEC has been only marginally exposed and weakened by recent events. Their response that they will abandon "social issues" insults the intelligence of those who understand their meglomaniac agenda. Something was certainly accomplished in exposing and demembering ALEC lately, but there is so much more to do to make the greater American public aware of their relentless assault upon our democracy and to essentially own our commons.

[ancianita]

5. If there's so much more to do, what do you suggest?

Shouldn't the council itself be legally attacked for out-buying politicians? Might Occupy support be drafted?