ALEC complaining about a “well-funded campaign of intimidation” is like the Klan complaining about the rise in sheet prices.
The American Legislative Exchange Council has for years been a weapon in the corporate attack on working people. They literally write the anti-labor, anti-civil liberties legislation that conservative state legislators introduce in state general assemblies. Some dopey legislators have even forgotten to remove the ALEC logo from the bill before presenting it.
It has been funded by the biggest corporations in America, most specifically by the Koch brothers.
When it was discovered that they and the National Rifle Association were behind the Stand Your Ground and Kill laws that resulted in the Florida death of Trayvon Martin, public notice hit the tipping point. The last few days have seen some corporations, particularly those that depend on retail sales like Coke, Pepsi, and Kraft foods, pull their support for ALEC.
This has led to ALEC crying that they are the victims of a “well-funded campaign of intimidation.”
This is like the Klan complaining about an increase in sheet prices.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kaitlyn Buss
Phone: 202-742-8526
Email: kbuss@alec.orgStatement by ALEC on the Coordinated Intimidation Campaign Against Its Members
(Washington, D.C.) April 11, 2012—Ron Scheberle, Executive Director of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) issued the following statement today in response to the coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign against corporate members of the organization:
ALEC is an organization that supports pro-growth, pro-jobs policies and the vigorous exchange of ideas between the public and private sector to develop state based solutions. Today, we find ourselves the focus of a well-funded, expertly coordinated intimidation campaign.
Our members join ALEC because we connect state legislators with other state legislators and with job-creators in their states. They join because we support pro-business policies that promote innovation and spur local and national competitiveness. They’re ALEC members because they’re more interested in solutions than rhetoric.
For years, ALEC has partnered with legislators to research and develop better, more effective public policies – legislation that creates a more transparent, accountable government, policies that place a priority on free enterprise and consumer choice, and tax policies that are fair, simple and that spur the kind of competiveness that puts Americans back to work.
At a time when job creation, real solutions and improved dialogue among political leaders is needed most, ALEC’s mission has never been more important. This is why we are redoubling our commitment to these essential priorities. We are not and will not be defined by ideological special interests who would like to eliminate discourse that leads to economic vitality, jobs and fiscal stability for the states.
Ron Scheberle
Executive Director, American Legislative Exchange Council
Fred Klonsky 
Fred,
Thanks for posting this letter. It would take many pages of comment to pick apart all of the outright lies and nonsense in Scheberle’s letter. The idea that ALEC is the subject of a campaign of intimidation is ludicrous. But one thing is clear:
ALEC has learned the lesson of propaganda: if you are going tell a lie, make it big, plausible, and keep repeating it until people begin to take it as fact. And they have willing dupes in the Republican Party, who will do the bidding of the right-wing and anti-labor money. How else, for example, did Scott Walker become governor of Wisconsin? Is the attempt to recall Walker a campaign of intimidation, or simply people fed up and angry at being lied to? When the playground bully cries that his victim is picking on him, when his victim is just standing his ground and saying “no more,” it’s a classic move for the bully to claim victimhood.
Moreover, the ground that ALEC ploughs is fertile for anti-labor legislation. We in this country have a long history of antipathy towards organized labor. And when unions were making headway during the Second World War, they pressed their luck too far, and ended up with Taft-Hartley in 1947. In the 60s and 70s, unions did well, but Reagan managed to turn the tables when PATCO went out on strike. That strike and its aftermath gave new life to the anti-labor union folks. The Koch brothers are benefitting from that anger against unions.
The fact is, however, that labor unions have been far more beneficial to working men and women than management is willing to admit. Part of the problem (a big part) is that labor unions do a lousy job of communicating to people outside their membership how labor unions make workers’ lives better and make workers more productive and safer. More productive and safer goes straight to the company’s bottom line, so everyone benefits.
Over time, teachers unions have done a miserable job of making their case to the public. It’s not surprising that school “reformers” and ALEC-allied politicians stand up and say teachers unions are just out to protect the teachers in their cushy jobs. THAT’s the public perception, because there is no voice coming from our side. And union leadership has followed the failed policies of Neville Chamberlain, trying to appease the dark side. Just like the British and French in the 1930s, they have tried to ignore the problem, hoping it would go away. It hasn’t. Now, all they seem to have been doing over the last few years is trying to accommodate the fake ed reform assault on teachers and on children’s right to a real, quality public education.
It is heartening to see CTU standing up for its members and for public education. The teachers in Rockford finally said “no,” and seem to have benefitted from standing up to power. Standing up to power is necessary, but it carries with it the imperative of communicating clearly, simply and widely the reasons for which the teachers (or other workers) are doing so. In other words, public relations and communication through media of all sorts is and will be critical to any chance of success, and to any chance of stemming the tide of pernicious fake ed reform.
ALEC plays the “Victim” card. This beyond surreal; it is personified evil.
These guys would kill their mothers and fathers and complain that they were orphans.
Thanks for posting Fred. I needed a good laugh tonight to get me through tomorrow. All I can say to ALEC is, it takes one to know one. I always doubted that trite phrase, what goes around comes around. Guess I was proven wrong.
Once again, thanks, Fred, & to all those who replied, especially Richard A.Sloan (how informative–a brief history of labor/unions). Couldn’t we all see this one coming? Awww–poor widdle ALEC.
They–& their foolhardy members–need to see the movie “Bully” for a REAL definition of bullying.