We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, December 5, 2013

ALEC calls for penalties on 'freerider' homeowners in assault on clean energy

Click here to access article by Suzanne Goldenberg from The Guardian

The article provides another report on how capitalist agents are using corporate funded ALEC to prevent any restrictions on their ongoing pursuit of profits. In this example we see them working directly with state legislators using bribes funded by donations from major corporations. They know that clean energy cannot deliver the energy they require to expand their production of goods and services, and they refuse to be deterred by a public who want a safer environment.
The group sponsored at least 77 energy bills in 34 states last year. The measures were aimed at opposing renewable energy standards, pushing through the Keystone XL pipeline project, and barring oversight on fracking, according to an analysis by the Centre for Media and Democracy.
Of course, the capitalist fake version of "democracy" has essentially always worked this way. The power of this ruling class is derived from a system that concentrates wealth in the hands of "owners" of the economy. This wealth provides the power to insure that their version of democracy always selects representatives to represent their interests and not the interests of the public. 

What we now see is that these "owners" over the past several hundred years of rule have now extended and concentrated their private ownership of the economy on such a huge scale that they are impatient with the legislative processes of their fake "democracy". They now are engaged in aggressive campaigns to head off any public ideas about restricting their access to cheap energy which they need to feed their addictions to ever more wealth and power. ALEC is the weapon they are using against state governments.

Regarding the sub-headline "ALEC facing funding crisis after exodus of big donors" which was reported in an earlier article, I think that The Guardian grossly exaggerates. Their own data shows that ALEC has enormous assets--more than twice that of their liabilities. The only negative data are the net income loss for a six months period ending in June 30 of this year and loss of some corporate memberships. I think you can be certain that this is only a temporary setback that they will soon remedy one way or another.