with far-reaching tentacles.

Dozens of overlapping board members in most of these corporations as well as lots of cross-ownership.

How about this freak...Larry Pratt - Exec. Director of Gun Owners of America (GOA).

"Fringe Gun Rights Advisor with Ties to White Supremicist Helped Build Up ALEC"

http://www.nationofchange.org/fringe-gun-rights-advocate-ties-white-supremacists-helped-build-alec-1334934530

Is a list of names of every politician who offers the bills into the legislature or this entire effort will be for naught.

Those are the hands doing the dirty work in our daily lives, stealing our social safety net, auctioning off the commons, privatizing our schools, water and land to the corporations. The corporations are merely doing their sociopathic duty of putting profits above people, money above morality.

As far as the social problems they are paying for, they are merely helping the business model of an divided and helpless minority or in the case of the women, a majority to make more profits and drive us to the Middle Ages again. Because the wealth that was accumulated in those days of brutal theft and mass murder is not gone. It undergirds some of the most powerful corporate groups on the planet, whose word is law, no matter what any whining government wants to pretend.

Until we in this country, which our Founders and many others fought to give reality to the ideals of the Enlightenment, take back one by one, state by state, and use what little power of communication we have left, the internet, nothing will change. We have lost the mass media to the sycophants of these entities and they are in no way benign to the interests of humans or any other living beings on this planet.

and we need to make it known both to ourselves and those who make purchases. Our dollars are the best motivators and it is far past time to wrench them away from toxic, right-wing organizations that do not support us. They do not have a divine right to our dollars.

Last edited Fri Apr 20, 2012, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

We call these people 'lawmakers,' but when quizzed about the laws they introduce or vote on, they get flustered and can't answer. They aren't all stupid, but they are not cudgeling these bills out of their own beliefs or intellect.

These bills are handed to the legislators by the lobbyists, complete with all the formating, notations, numbers, etc., written in by the employees of the corporations or lobbyists. I've seen these bills and seen how they get a legislator to introduce them. Virtually all of it is done under all sorts of faux causes, and each time, just before it's put on the floor to be reported, there is news story. Are hundreds of pages magically produced, after one news story?

Not hardly, they were written up by the corporations in advance and handed to the lawmaker before the alleged crisis or incident is reported.

The media is complicit in this manufactured consent process. By putting a story, which may be false, may be years old (they've been caught going back into the archived to present scandals, crisis's, etc. that are not at all current, but have emotional power) on the news the day before it sets up the assertion that there is a need for action by the legislature. Generally, that need is something that is being handled by government and public workers, which a corporations wants to take over and make profit from the service.

But many services are not profitable, and corners will be cut, regulations slashed, because corporations are chartered to make money, not serve human needs. The government is set up with the moral authority and duty to handle human needs.

Yet the same ALEC primed legislators, and other entities that call for slashing the budgets to de-fund all the public services are really doing it in order to make chaos in those agencies so that they struggle against almost impossible odds to maintain standards. Then a scandal occur as regulation and the number of people to supervise or do a job breaks down, and it is saved for the introduction of another privatization scheme.

Often, citizens who have put in tens of thousands of hours writing, meeting with others, canvassing their communities to educate and get support for existing programs, are swept away by the legislators who are in this system of law writing for profit, and not for the needs of the people. If one is a public worker or in a union, they are barred from speaking about the good work being done or lives being saved or made whole, as a conflict of interest.

Yet the greater conflict of interest that the privateers consist of is never brought out by media, as they are paid by these same groups. Every legislator should have to ask permission to speak to any group that will get money from the government in the long run. Citizens who believe in privatization don't get the point or are already on the take. They will defend their right to work for private firms taking government money to your death.

BUT, don't stop with boycotting their defenders. They must be made to think about what they've done by turning a blind eye to the influence of the Rushes and Becks in pursuing their own financial interest. And don't let them forget what they've done to the political process of this country and to the Trayon Martins.

You really didn't hold back there, and you know what? You are absolutely right!

It's an important part of helping others.

No office is too small for Republicans - city planning commissions, school boards, libraries.... these corrupt leeches operate most effectively at local and state levels. Add to that, of course, most folks not payin' attention.

A number of very bad things can happen that will cause financial and social hardship to you and your family.

That's why I get angry at internet warriors mocking the Democratic Party when they don't know people who have stood and took a beating for their ideals.

They don't know how vicious this is, and the stress these people are under. I've seen a lot of true believers in traditional Democratic programs that have saved lives, with their health being destroyed by the strain.

They don't need us to dump on them when they are being punched in the face by the GOP daily. And by DINOs, as well. Those who fail to do all we want, by the way, are not DINOs.

They are simply outnumbered. People say it's no use to vote because it makes no difference. The voices of despair guarantee that their nightmare vision of a conservative world be inflicted on all of us.

Which benefits who?

Although I know the word 'hope' is unpopular among the cynics, consider the words of a lifelong activist:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

- Howard Zinn

I just searched the site and did not find this list.