"Brought to you by ALEC" airs again tonight on MT-PBS. This film was produced in Montana, by the J-School at Missoula. Here's some more good info, in case you missed it...
I've been actively opposing ALEC at every opportunity for 12 years, now. I've gone to Democrat meetings and told them about the dangers posed by ALEC and its organization in Helena. Steve Doherty, a long-time Great Falls legislator, tried to start a national organization to oppose it in 2006. Basically, it got no support and absolutely no media coverage in Montana when he did that. So little was it known that I, who knew Steve for nearly 20 years before that, and was publishing the Montana Green Bulletin at the time, never heard of his efforts.
We had both served on an early Great Falls Public Radio Association Board, and were both environmentalist activists, Native American advocates, etc. But Steve was part of the Baucus Machine, which was punishing any of its members who had anything to do with the Green Party. And the fact that the Green Party was already geared up to fight ALEC meant that the Baucusites would support ALEC instead of us, and in fact, most of the bad legislation that ALEC supported had a lot of support from traditional Democratic power blocs - especially military boosters (NO CUTS in military spending, ever), the Police State lobby (especially prison guard unions and the rest of the contractors, suppliers, private prisons, PATRIOT Act, Homeland Security, etc), and the "resource" extractive industries and their unions, including public utilities.
Montana Power was a big supporter of ALEC (which wrote most of the "de-regulation", "free trade" energy policy, making ENRON and other corporate scams legal), and now, Northwestern Energy has inherited that curse, as the largest ALEC sponsor in Montana.
If you're wondering why we're now paying twice as much for electricity, this is the reason. And since our Legislature and Public Service Commission are thoroughly controlled by ALEC supporters, that is why we continue to build prisons, "prison schools" and "the school to prison pipeline", and now propose to "buy back" the MPC dams at three or four times what PPL paid for them. Energy policy and the 7-fold expansion of the prison population (see the third story, linked below, from American Radio Works (2002) are ALEC's greatest successes, along with the revival of the nuclear industry, suppressing climate science and opposing any sort of taxes on polluters, let alone preventing them from happening in the first place).
When support for phasing out nuclear power was high, PPL (which owned 18 nuclear reactors, including part of 3-Mile-Island when it melted down), used that as an excuse to buy Montana's generating facilities by hiring Goldman, Sachs to gain control of MPC and liquidating the company. Needless to say, the Montana ALEC lobby along with the "Coal State Democrats" like Schwinden and Schweitzer were all for that.
For those who still don't know what ALEC is or does, it is the storm troopers of Corporate America. It is entirely owned, controlled, and in service to the largest corporations of nearly every kind, from Agri-business to Aerospace; from the "health insurance" racket to the drug cartels (5 corporations produce 80% of the world's drugs, and they are extending their monopolies through "free trade" laws to the rest of the world). From Banksters and Wall Street to Fox News and most of the rest of the national media. And don't forget the retailers - Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola, Sarah Lee, Monsanto, and all the companies which contributed to defeating the several campaigns to require GMO labeling. They are especially interested in busting unions, turning schools into prisons, and otherwise creating a totalitarian fascist state. One of the main mechanisms by which they accomplish this is the so-called "war on drugs," under which we lock up 5-10 times more people for non-violent crimes than any other country. They are also leading the opposition to legalizing cannabis for any reason.
Of course they call it "Jeffersonian Federalism" in the old rhetoric of "state's rights" and "local control." Needless to say, it is nothing of the kind. Although its work and sponsorships have recently come under considerable public scrutiny, I have yet to read a major media expose which really explains what ALEC does and has done.
Here are some links....
The United States of ALEC: Bill Moyers on the Secretive Corporate-Legislative Body Writing Our Laws
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/27/the_united_states_of_alec_bill
Democracy Now! premieres "The United States of ALEC," a special report by legendary journalist Bill Moyers on how the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council has helped corporate America propose and even draft legislation for states across the country. ALEC brings together major U.S. corporations and right-wing legislators to craft and vote on "model" bills behind closed doors. It has come under increasing scrutiny for its role in promoting "stand your ground" gun laws, voter suppression bills, union-busting policies and other controversial legislation. Although billing itself as a "nonpartisan public-private partnership," ALEC is actually a national network of state politicians and powerful corporations principally concerned with increasing corporate profits without public scrutiny. Moyers’ special will air this weekend on Moyers & Company, but first airs on Democracy Now! today. "The United States of ALEC" is a collaboration between Okapi Productions, LLC and the Schumann Media Center.
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America's Top Prison Corporation: A Study in Predatory Capitalism and Cronyism
Thursday, 03 May 2012 09:27
By Dina Rasor, Truthout | News Analysis
http://truth-out.org/news/item/8875-corrections-corporation-of-america-a-study-in-predatory-capitalism-and-cronyism
Last week I wrote about the private prison company The GEO Group and how allowing private businesses to operate prisons can affect our justice system, our laws and the fate of our prison population. This week, I will tackle the largest private prison company, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and its unprecedented proposal to buy prisons from money-strapped states, as well as how CCA has gamed the system with trips through the revolving door, self-dealing and influence peddling.
Just to set the stage as to how large the prison population is in the United States: our prison population is the highest in the world; one out of 100 US residents are in prison. This number has grown dramatically since 1990, due to tighter crime laws and longer sentences. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), "Between 1970 and 2005, the number of people incarcerated in the United States grew by 700 percent. Today, the United States incarcerates approximately 2.3 million people...."
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April 2002
Corporate-Sponsored Crime Laws
by John Biewen
On the Internet
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/corrections/
Over the past two decades, America's prison population doubled, then doubled again, before finally leveling off at about two million inmates. One result: a $50-billion corrections industry. That's bigger than tobacco. The crackdown on crime has enriched corporations that build prisons or sell products to them, prison guard unions, and police departments that use budget-fattening incentives to pursue drug criminals. In this special report, American RadioWorks correspondent John Biewen explores how some groups with vested interests work to influence public policy— helping to keep more people locked up longer.
Prison Industry a Revenue-Generating Opportunity
The annual trade show sponsored by the American Correctional Association is like other big trade shows: a sprawling bazaar of colorful display booths. This one fills a huge hall at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. It brings together shoppers — mostly prison administrators — and hundreds of vendors hawking their wares.
You can find plenty of companies selling the basics, of course: prison design and construction; fence and razor wire; uniforms as well as RIT dye to color-code those uniforms and a system for stamping them with numbers and bar codes; handcuffs; surveillance equipment; janitor services; steel doors and powerful locks and the electronic control rooms from which to operate them.
The major phone companies are here — Sprint, Verizon, AT&T and the Bells and former Bells — vying to provide collect-call service to inmates' families. Dupont shows off a new lightweight, Kevlar protective vest just for prison guards. It won't stop a bullet but it will protect against inmates attempting to "stab and slash" the officer, explains Dupont's Gary Burnett. Of the 450,000 guards in the nation's prisons and jails, "only about fifteen-percent of them are now protected, so the goal is to get protection on as many as possible," Burnett says.
How we "lost" Montana Power and cheap electricity
There are still numerous confusions and misrepresentations about how we "lost" Montana power and our unique and irreplaceable hydropower, which gave us some of the cheapest electricity in the nation. In going through some old papers, I found this essay from 1998, before anything had really happened, but it was underway. I've added a new preface with some additional information I didn't have, then. I also refer to the Clinton "deregulation" plans (which go back decades including the airlines, AT&T, IBM, etc), as well as the "Reinventing Government" which I supported, then, under Al Gore. I was actually a Gore fan in those days, and I still put him ahead of most Democrats for finally being honest and public-spirited, or at least using that rhetoric.
As for the state of the environmental movement and energy policy, today, here is an excellent summary:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/07/the-environmental-movement-at-the-crossroads/
The solutions, then and now, are the same - renewables only, and vast reconstruction of the infrastructure and lifestyle patterns to replace nearly all carbon-based energy within a decade or two. Unfortunately, the first decade has already been completely wasted. Fewer people believe in the necessity of this course, now, than they did in 1998.
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The following essay was my attempt, in 1998, to address the policy implications of the "de-regulation" legislation then being promulgated by Montana Power. What I did not know at the time is that Goldman, Sachs had already bought up a lot of MPC stock (under a plan commissioned by PPL) and appointed a new CEO, Bob Gannon, whose mission was to sell off MPC assets so that PPL could acquire sufficient non-nuclear assets to replace the power produced by its 17 or so nuclear power plants nearing the end of their life-spans. This proceeded by a number of apparently unrelated steps, like starting Touch America and laying $1 billion or more worth of fiber-optic cable which at that time was grossly overbuilt, and had to be sold at a huge loss.
At that point, the power industry was reconciled to not being able to rely on nuclear energy in the future. After Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, no new nuclear power plants were being built in the United States. Yet, there has always been a strong nuclear lobby waiting for an opportunity to harvest vast public subsidies and "protections" from liability to build its horribly dangerous and proliferation-prone power plant (each of which is a potential bomb factory, which everyone recognizes in North Korea or Iran, but denies for other "allies" and NATO bloc countries).
For the very same reasons which the world fears Iran's development of a nuclear power industry, we should fear even more those countries which do not adhere to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, and which have already developed substantial nuclear weapons arsenals - like Israel, India, and Pakistan. Other countries, like Japan, Brazil, and any other country with a domestic nuclear power industry (or even a foreign-built plant which they control), is only a few months from actually building a fission bomb (like Hiroshima) out of enriched uranium or re-cycled plutonium from the reactor's fuel rods. So, nuclear power as such needs to be phased out quickly and completely - a major part of the reason why so many peace and environmental people supported Barack Obama. That was a cornerstone of his platform, and one which he repudiated immediately after being elected.
But back to the liquidation of MPC (which, in 1998, wasn't even hinted at by those responsible). All of the analysis here is spot-on, if I may say so. I understood fully that this had nothing to do with the federal "de-regulation" which had very different purposes and mechanisms - namely, to induce more competition and real market pricing in the electricity market, instead of allowing entrenched local or regional monopolies to continue their promotion of more carbon-based energy and the resulting pollution (especially CO2 causing global warming. I was well-informed on this issue back to the 1970's).
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What's Wrong With the Montana Power De-Regulation? (1998)
The emerging debate between Montana Power and public policy analysts and activists is proving to be very damaging to Montana Power and its perceived self-interest. All sorts of fundamental issues and questions have been elided or ignored in the discussion. I'd like to take this opportunity to outline a few of these issues so that we can more accurately bring to bear the relevant information and arguments necessary to arrive at the correct policy decisions.
Obviously, what has happened so far is that Montana Power has tried to "cash in" its previous winnings under the regulated regime, claiming it is now prepared (having divested itself of the weaker sectors soon to be subject to competition) to face the "Brave New World" of de- regulation.
In order to properly understand this process, and to determine what the correct public policy should be, we need to examine the concepts of "infrastructure", "public utility", "regulation", "environmental concerns," "historical concerns", "social justice concerns," and "public policy," to name but a few. If we are not on the same page with respect to language and analytical tools, we can hardly arrive at a decision agreeable to all.
What, if any, are the philosophical assumptions held by each side in this controversy? If we can first define our philosophical differences, and go over them, we should be able to determine whether we might ultimately achieve a consensus on policy in this area.
Montana Power and its supporters claim to have already done this. The problem is, the discussion was grossly skewed to include only those who had direct financial interests in the "de-regulation" process. This is happening with increasing frequency. Environmental law, for instance, is being altered so that only those with recognized, official financial or political interests, are invited to the discussion, or allowed to bring suit to prevent a timber sale, oil lease, or whatever. Montana Power can hire 18 lobbyists to the state legislature and utilize the best law firms in the state (essentially with your money because all of theirs comes from the rate-payers) and not only participate in the disucssion, but dominate it and largely write the ensuing legislation.
A former regulated monopoly providing a recognized vital public service, Montana Power wants to have de-regulation, and is even willing to compete openly with rural electic co- operatives, who were once restricted to low-profit rural areas, and not allowed to compete in the more lucrative urban, industrial areas. Now, by a kind of Devil's Bargain, rural co-ops will lose their "cooperative" character, and have owner-members in addition to commercial customers who are not owners. This is what is happening in China, as well. Former state companies and co-ops have begun to compete aggressively in the global marketplace, and some have become very wealthy and powerful - not exactly the kind of "socialism" which Mao envisioned.
Montana Power's interests have gradually shifted to the coal and petroleum business and other aspects of energy generation and supply, with subsidiaries in other states and Canada. It is now more like a resource conglomerate (like its parent company, Anaconda) than a public utility. We should remember that much of our public utility infrastructure was actually built (and until recently often controlled) by Anaconda or its successor companies. This is the history that must be taken into account in any policy changes initiated by Montana Power.
Like the Anaconda Company before it, Montana Power is a symbol of hegemony and domination over the people of Montana. Even its employees don't care much for it, although it has the reputation of paying better than almost any comparable job. Yet, the temptation to cut payrolls is overwhelming in today's cutthroat economy, and this is probably the main reason Montana Power has opted for the de-regulated marketplace. As the unions lose political power, the state will no longer be able to protect their interests.
Since the 1970's and earlier, Montana Power has been promoting, lobbying for, and hiring consulting firms to justify policies such as these: export coal and electricity; make Montana a "right to work" state; get rid of the Coal Severence Tax and environmental regulations, and so forth. Then our economy will boom (like North Dakota's?).
By now, we've done virtually all of it, and no boom is in sight, except in stock market prices - a boom which will obviously not be sustained over the long run, since price-earnings ratios are now nearly 3 times normal. I visited the State Employment Office the other day, and aside from skilled trades, only about 3% of the jobs paid more than $7/hour. Most were $5.50 or less. We're rapidly reaching the point of working for bare survival needs - the "iron law of wages" which Ricardo identified and Marx later believed was true.
If we gave up our private automobiles in favor of bicycles and public transportation, and began to live communally and share our material goods more equitably, we could all work less, use less energy, and thus need less money. We could also live healthier lifestyles, and thus spend less on medicine and health care. We could maximize economic efficiency in the provision of basic needs. Perhaps this solution, reminiscent of the Chinese, will eventually happen. But I don't think it's quite what Montana Power and the co-ops have in mind.
Montana Power has not yet begun to prove that what they are doing is in the best interests of the people of Montana. Let's not assume that "de-regulation" as a federal mandate is necessarily the same thing as what is happening under Montana Power's direction. Indeed, regulation and de-regulation were both accomplished to suit Montana Power's needs and interests. It thrived under the regulated regime, and intends to thrive even more under alleged "deregulation." But its means of doing so is disingenuous. The business it retains will still be regulated by friendly, Montana regulatory agencies, which have demonstrated that they are almost immune to public interest concerns. It makes little difference which party is in power.
Few business concerns actually favor de-regulation. Instead, they would prefer monopoly, regulated status in which they can largely control or have a close working relationship with the regulators, who often leave through a revolving door to become top salaried executives of the regulated companies.
The Federal Government could do a much better job of de-regulating local industry and protecting the environment, and do so according to uniform standards nationwide, so that no region can unduly benefit at the expense of others, and large corporations cannot impoverish, pollute, and deplete one state's resources for the benefit of its stockholders, workers, and customers.
Montana Power has taken a big chance by attempting to forestall a process which is inevitable. Neither the people of Montana nor the nation as a whole will stand for Montana Power ripping us off even more, while using our money, our rivers, our coal, and our jobs to make itself and its stockholders even richer. It's a public utility. Its business interests belong to its stockholders, but its material assets have a set, book value, and anything above that value belongs to the people of Montana.
If the "book value" of its dams is $600 million, then they must return them to the State (the people) for that price. It's that simple. We can use the sale of electricity from the dams to pay back the $600 million. After that, we can decide which dams to retain, and for what purposes.
Most of all, this episode in Montana Power's sorry history demonstrates the need for more creative thinking in public policy. This is what "reinventing government" is all about.
