[ Will the billionaires and corporations behind ALEC and other
groups fighting racial, gender, income, and educational equality in
America succeed?]
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WILL BLUE STATES EVENTUALLY HAVE TO SURRENDER THEIR “WOKE”
AGENDAS?
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Thom Hartmann
December 28, 2022
The Hartmann Report
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_ Will the billionaires and corporations behind ALEC and other groups
fighting racial, gender, income, and educational equality in America
succeed? _
, Image by Merlin Lightpainting from Pixabay
America is increasingly becoming two nations, a result of the Great
Neoliberal Experiment playing out across the country since the start
of Reaganism in 1981.
ONE IS MADE UP OF STATES REPRESENTING MODERN DEMOCRACY HOLDING
EGALITARIAN VALUES; THE OTHER HAS REVERTED TO RACIST REACTION,
WIDESPREAD INDIGENCE, AND OLIGARCHIC OWNERSHIP OF STATE POLITICAL
SYSTEMS.
States run by Democrats generally offer better educational
opportunities, higher quality and more readily available healthcare,
and easier access to the ballot box. States run by Republicans
generally see shorter lifespans, poorer health, more gun violence, and
deeper poverty.
THIS IS NOT AN ACCIDENT OR MERELY A REMNANT OF HISTORY. IT’S THE
FINAL PLAYING OUT OF A WORLDVIEW THAT, AT ONE TIME IN THIS NATION,
SANCTIONED PEOPLE OWNING OTHER PEOPLE AND EXPLOITING, TORTURING, AND
EVEN KILLING THEM WITH IMPUNITY.
Slavemasters and plantations have been replaced by billionaires and
corporations, but in many cases that worldview still predominates.
“Might makes right,” and wealth is the ultimate might.
In the years since conservatives on the US Supreme Court legalized
bribing American politicians, multiple organizations have emerged
dedicated to bringing Red state lawmakers together with potential
corporate or billionaire “sponsors.”
ONE OF THE NATION’S MOST EFFECTIVE, ACCORDING
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DEMOCRACY (CMD), IS THE AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL OR ALEC.
Twice a year they hold a national convention bringing together state
legislators and corporate lobbyists to work out the details of
state-based laws their mostly-Republican members will then sponsor in
upcoming legislative sessions.
AS ALEC NOTES
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A PRESS RELEASE ON THEIR WEBSITE:
“[B]etween 2010 and 2018, ALEC model bills were introduced 2,900
times across all 50 states and in Congress, and had a 21 percent
passage rate.”
ALEC HAS, IT APPEARS FROM READING
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PROPOSED LEGISLATION THAT:
— limits
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and consumers’ rights,
— makes it harder
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victims of corporate crime to sue,
— promotes
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schools and opposes
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help for young people to get a college education,
— blocks
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healthcare,
— protects
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profits of pharmaceutical companies,
— guts
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social safety net,
— increases
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profits of the fossil fuel industry,
— ramps up
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difficulty facing working class people who want to vote,
— expands
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for-profit prisons,
— and fills
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with more guns.
SMALL WONDER, THEN, THAT THE RED STATES ADOPTING THESE LAWS OFTEN HAVE
THE HIGHEST RATES OF GUN MURDERS IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD, MATERNAL
MORTALITY AND MORBIDITY RATES THAT COMPARE TO THIRD-WORLD COUNTRIES,
AND EVEN WIDESPREAD HEALTH CRISES INVOLVING PARASITES AND SEXUALLY
TRANSMITTED DISEASES.
Particularly troubling is how the conservative movement has morphed,
over the past 40 years, into a revanchist movement seeking to
“reclaim” from working class people the wealth “looters,”
“takers,” and “moochers” have extracted from “producers,”
“makers,” and “job creators.”
In the past 40 years the top 1 percent have “recovered” over $50
trillion that was once the wealth of a heavily unionized American
middle class.
THEIR NAKED CYNICISM HAS LED TO SOME RATHER UNUSUAL POLICY
POSITIONS.
For example, given how phobic rightwing billionaires and oil industry
barons — like the ones who put together ALEC — are about “big
government power,” you’d assume they’d oppose any efforts by
state governments to use their political and economic power to
influence corporate behavior.
In that, you’d be wrong.
ALEC’s latest venture, according to CMD, is the “_Energy
Discrimination Elimination Act
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which punishes companies that make decisions using “social,
political, or ideological” factors, particularly those that may
disadvantage the fossil fuel industry, Big Mining, Big Logging, or Big
Ag.
This past month, CMD reports:
“ALEC’s energy task force — made up of industry lobbyists and
GOP legislators — voted to adopt an even more radical model bill
calling for states to blacklist any business that considers any
‘social, political, or ideological’ factors to limit their
commercial relations with fossil fuel, logging, mining, or
agricultural industries.
“ALEC’s radical measure would authorize state governments to
scrutinize corporate speech for any ‘evidence’ that a company is
taking into account environmental, social, and governance (ESG)
factors—along with issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion
(DEI)—in its business practices.
“It would prohibit state contracts based on a company’s
‘branding, advertising, statements, explanations, reports, letters
to clients, communications with portfolio companies, statements of
principles,’ and so forth, or even a company’s association with
‘any coalition, initiative, joint statement of principles, or
agreement’ that the [state] government deems unacceptably
‘woke.’”
THEIR MAIN TARGETS APPEAR TO BE FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, FROM BANKS TO
INVESTMENT HOUSES AND HEDGE FUNDS, THAT ARE TRYING TO BEHAVE IN A
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE FASHION. _ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL AND
GOVERNANCE _(ESG) CONSIDERATIONS HAVE BECOME THE NEW CRITICAL RACE
THEORY-TYPE CLUB TO USE AGAINST “WOKE” MAJOR CORPORATIONS (AS IF
THERE WERE SUCH A THING).
Like Ron DeSantis’ famous war
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Disney for being considerate of its LGBTQ customers and employees, Red
states are increasingly trying to force corporations to reflect
anti-gay, anti-Black, anti-education, anti-environment, and
anti-consumer attitudes.
More often than not, corporations — being essentially conservative
institutions to begin with — are going along. Sometimes it’s their
own lobbyists who are writing the laws ALEC and others are pushing via
business groups they belong to or control.
WILL THE BILLIONAIRES AND CORPORATIONS BEHIND ALEC AND OTHER GROUPS
FIGHTING RACIAL, GENDER, INCOME, AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY IN
AMERICA SUCCEED? WILL BLUE STATES EVENTUALLY HAVE TO SURRENDER THEIR
“WOKE” AGENDAS?
ALEC’s most recent project, along with other groups funded by
rightwing billionaires, is to force Blue states into submission
by rewriting
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US Constitution. Republicans are just a handful of states short of
their goal and have been holding
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Conventions almost every year for over a decade.
It’s a _Hail Mary_ move, but as long as the Supreme Court’s
endorsement of political bribery stands as US law, it’ll be dicey to
bet against the billionaires and their bloated corporate coffers.
_Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author 34 books in 17
languages & nation's #1 progressive radio host. Psychotherapist,
international relief worker. Politics, history, spirituality,
psychology, science, anthropology, pre-history, culture, and the
natural world._
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