TRANSCRIPT:
This is a chart from 1973 to 2015 showing our income growth.
The growing line is our national income which looks good.
But, the bottom line is 90% of America.
So – Why is the rich getting richer?
One of the main reasons I discovered is that our state governments are allowing corporations to actually write our laws. So, our state laws do not represent our voices, but the voices of corporations.
I knew there were lobbyists influencing politicians but naively thought that our politicians writing our state laws… but no, turns out, there is this somewhat secret organization called ALEC.
Let me show you: Lets Google Alec
The first thing that comes up is their website and it’s completely slanted to make you believe they are doing amazing things.
But let’s go to Wikipedia and I’ll show you some of the things they stand for.
They are responsible for the Stand Your Ground Laws, the Voter ID laws, they are pushing out extreme anti-immigration laws
This is a good one – they’re passing laws that establish environmental or animal rights protests as actual acts of Terrorism… silencing people from protesting…
They are actively pursuing more privatizing of prisons
They are climate deniers and their biggest donor, no surprise is Koch Industries.
Here’s ATT and Verizon creating laws to prevent the establishment of a public internet.
They support big Pharma and oppose the Affordable Care Act
They create and distribute anti-gay propaganda
They are pushing for more privatization of education and charter schools.
Here’s another good one – they were funded by tobacco companies and disputed the science linking tobacco to health issues – the same way they’re disputing the science behind climate change
And who are the members of ALEC?
Let’s look at a list in Wikipedia.
It’s supposed to be Non-partisan. This is the board of directors in 2017, does this look non-partisan to you?
What corporations are members of Alec. Let’s just start in the A’s… as you can see there is lots of Pharma and lot of Oil and Gas… Again, this is just the A’s and this list goes on forever.
Now let’s look and see who in our states are members.
I’m going to scroll down and choose my State – Texas…
and here are all of the people in my state government working with corporations to write our bills.
Let’s look at some articles online about ALEC.
Here’s USA Today from July of this year, “They Copied Bills from Corporations. These lawmakers say it’s Ok”
Here’s the Washington Post from August, “Conservatives Remade American Politics. Here’s how they did it.”
Here’s the Atlantic, “Exposing Alec, How Conservative Backed State Laws are all Connected”
Another USA Today from this year, “You Elected Them to write new laws, they are letting corporations do it instead”.
Another, “What is Alec, the most effective organization for conservatives says Newt Gingrich”
Here’s “Who’s really writing State’s Legislation” from NPR.
Here’s a report from Common Cause from 2018 called “ALEC in Texas: Uncovering the Influence of ALEC”
The good news is, they were exposed starting around 2012 and now there’s a website called ALECExposed.org and there are lawsuits from organizations like Common Cause so, they are losing members..
Here’s an article from Nov. 2018, “Alec lost membership worth 7 trillion in Market Cap.
The bad news is, for some stupid corrupt reason, they are classified as a 501c3 – so all “contributions” since they were founded in 1973 have been tax deductible… as if they are a charity…
I’m not Anti-Republican at all -but this pisses me off.
We are NEVER going to see that bottom line representing the income of 90% of Americans increase until we get the corporations out of our government.
We didn’t elect people in our state to spend the majority of their time fund raising and then using legislation written by corporations who just duplicate the same bill over and and over and then that passes from state to state.
Our laws are created for We the People – not We the Corporations.
This is why our vote in 2020 is crucial. How many people in your state are doing this? Look and see.
You have the power to vote them out if they are part of this corruption. The information is at all of our fingertips.
Stop thinking about what party you stand for and start thinking about what candidate stands for the things you believe in.
The Two party system has become so polarized that neither party is recognizable
Consider that your party doesn’t represent you anymore and vote for the candidate, not the party.
I’m asking all people to choose our State over Party – choose Integrity over Party and please let’s make America Sane Again…
I’m Gina Fant-Simon – please be kind and respectful in your comments….