Who is Funding ALEC
As more and more people are learning, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a corporate front group which has been bribing dozens of state legislatures into legislating the corporate/Far Right agenda. Basically, corporations are dictating to their secretaries — formerly known as “legislators” — which laws to pass.
Voter suppression laws, union-busting legislation, state governments’ “demands” that all federally-owned public lands be returned to the states — these assembly-line state laws were all bought and paid for by ALEC.
Pepsi and Coca Cola have canceled their affiliation with ALEC. But they were just the tip of the iceberg. You probably thought (as I did) that ALEC got its funding from just a few corporate monoliths — Exxon, Koch Industries, etc.
Check out the list at the end of this article. You won’t believe how many companies are donating to ALEC. It’s like all those science fiction movies were it’s not just a few people who have become drones — it’s everybody. Or think of John Prine’s famous line, “and all your friends turn out to be insurance salesmen.”
BP (of course), several health insurance companies, telecom conglomerates, Amazon.com, FedEx and UPS, Kraft Foods, some of the largest drug manufacturers — the list is huge.
I’m not necessarily suggesting a boycott (then again…), but keep in mind that every time you purchase the products/services of one of these companies, you’re helping to pay for the Rightwng Agenda.
And a Hat Tip to the source from Think Progress who obtained this list.
Labels: ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, Coca Cola ALEC, Pepsi ALEC
posted by Tom Harper @ 1:34 PM
16 Comments:
I'm sorry Tom, I'm not finding a link to the list...and I surely want to see it.
jadedj: You mean the link doesn't work at all, or just doesn't show the list? I just tried the link again and it still worked. The list is down at the bottom, under the article and the illustration.
In case the link doesn't work, here's another article. It doesn't list all the companies, but it has a lot of ALEC-related news and scandals:
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed
I must be missing something, so I'll use the other one. Thanks.
Click on the word WRONG.
What really irks me is that many of these companies already receive generous tax breaks and handouts from the Government and generally pay zip in taxes, just how much more do they want?
Erik
It's pretty clear that the corporation owns the Government. And it's past time for us to reverse this.
What exactly do you have against funding Obi-Wan Kenobi?
the list surely includes communications companies, food conglomerates, utilities, oil, etc. how can you boycott them? They supply everything we live on. The only weapon we have is the ballot box and the average joe is too stupid to know what's going on.
Erik: What more do they want? Lower taxes, fewer regulations and more handouts, of course.
JR: No doubt, large corporations own the government lock stock and barrel.
Randal: That's right, he's our only hope.
Mr. C: True, the list includes telecoms, food conglomerates, utilities, etc. -- but not every company in those categories. When there's a choice (within reason), I hope consumers will vote with their purchases.
And of course we need the ballot box and informed voters. We can hope for that anyway.
As of today, Kraft, Pepsico, Coca Cola Intuit are not renewing their memberships in this awful org. You know Walmart and the Kocksuckers will stay on till the very end with ALEC, since it benefits them to do that, with all the model legislation they get through under the radar.
Jess: I'm glad those 4 companies have withdrawn. I hope some others follow their lead.
I was going to bring up the corporations that have dumped ALEC lately due to the bad publicity for them but I see it's been done.They were all on ALEC's board of directors.
So, it does prove that bad publicity in this day and age will change corporate minds..I love it!!! We must keep up the good work and keep on these fuckwits by publicizing that they choose greed and profits over human rights and human dignity. Things have died down w/that blowhard Rush Limpballs, but I wish people would stay on him so we can keep seeing advertisers drop like friggin flies from that asshole's show.
It is interesting that they dropped their support because of bad publicity, not bad policy, which means they change after the fact, not before the fact. So, there is not real change in corporate mentality. This is just a case where they got caught. how many other similar situations are there that we don't know about, I wonder?
Dusty: You're right, we need to keep up with the the publicity; keep turning on the lights to make the cockroaches scatter. Corporations like to commit their bribery behind closed doors, not out in the spotlight.
Jerry: Nah, it has nothing to do with them wanting to be better corporate citizens or anything like that. They're just afraid bad publicity will jeopardize their profits. That's their Achilles Heel.
This just proves how greedy and thoroughly morally bankrupt corporate America has become. I say POWER TO THE PEOPLE and to hell with the greedy, self-centered stockholders!
Jack: Exactly. We need to keep the light pouring in so these corporate cockroaches will keep scattering.
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