MoveOn targets Chamber of Commerce

[babylonsister]

http://www.openleft.com/diary/13758/moveon-targets-chamber-of-commerce

MoveOn targets Chamber of Commerce
by: AdamGreen
Sat Jun 13, 2009 at 12:39


The Chamber of Commerce is a right-wing hack group that essentially steals the branding of local small businesses they don't represent. Many local Chambers of Commerce aren't even affiliated with the national organization.

In the past, writing here on OpenLeft, I got the Chamber of Commerce to admit that they are now spending taxpayer bailout money to fund their right-wing issue-advocacy campaigns.

I've personally been told by old-school liberal institutions things like, "Oh, you can't attack the Chamber. Their branding is too strong." Umm, that's why you attack them. And today, my former MoveOn colleagues stepped up to the plate. An email from Anna Galland:

Less than 48 hours ago, the biggest corporations in the country declared war on President Obama's agenda. The scale of the attack is mind-boggling.

The right-wing lobbyists at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend $100 million to defeat Obama's plans for health care and a clean energy economy. They call it their "most important project" in nearly 100 years.

Congress is voting on a crucial energy bill in less than two weeks, and you can count on a barrage of misleading TV ads and arm-twisting in Congress aimed at weakening the bill. We're countering with an emergency organizing drive to strengthen the energy bill—but we urgently need to raise the funds to power our organizing drive.

Can you chip in $45 to help fight back against the Chamber's campaign?
https://pol.moveon.org/donate/10days.html

Your local Chamber of Commerce represents small businesses, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is different—it represents the interests of mega-corporations, especially Big Oil and Coal.

In the next ten days, we'll pull out all the stops to block the Chamber and strengthen the energy bill.

Huzzah! And a boding of future anti-Chamber activism is in the P.S. of the email.

P.S. If you're a member of your local Chamber of Commerce or run a small business, please sign our petition asking the U.S. Chamber to stop lobbying against Obama's clean energy jobs plan:
http://pol.moveon.org/chamber/

Knowing MoveOn, signing this petition is the first step in what will be a multi-step activism chain sticking it to the Chamber. If you are a local small business person, step up and sign!

I'd note: It should not require MoveOn to do this. The unions should have been doing this for years. The Clinton'ites should have done it back in their heyday. But now somebody is doing it -- and I, for one, am very supportive!

[annabanana]

1. The Chamber has been a "bad actor" since the '70's

Google Lewis F. Powell

Thom Hartmann spent a bunch of time on this guy last week, and he should become well known among all who would get exessive Corporate influence OUT of everything that matters to this Country.

Introduction
In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell's nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell's legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell "might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice...in behalf of business interests."

Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration's "hands-off business" philosophy.

Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building - a focus we share, though usually with contrasting goals. One of our great frustrations is that "progressive" foundations and funders have failed to learn from the success of these corporate institutions and decline to fund the Democracy Movement that we and a number of similarly-focused organizations are attempting to build. Instead, they overwhelmingly focus on damage control, band-aids and short-term results which provide little hope of the systemic change we so desperately need to reverse the trend of growing corporate dominance.

More at link:
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/powell_memo_lewis.html

[virgogal]

2. Thanks fot the memories-----I loved Jack Anderson.