In case you missed it, NPR put out a great report on how the for-profit prison industry assisted in getting Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law on the books. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, as it shows how things that appear to be “grassroots” or being driven by the anger of everyday people are actually far more cynical efforts by special interests to boost their own bottom lines.
One aspect of this story, however, really jumped out at me:
It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.
It’s a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.
…
“ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group,” said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting.
Hough works for ALEC, but he’s also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona’s law.
That’s right. Not only are there state legislators around the country who enact laws that directly benefit private for-profit companies who build and run prisons (whose profits come directly from taxpayers, of course), but these legislators have the nerve to refer to that as “limited-government.”
There are a lot of misused and misunderstood terms in our political discourse – from socialist to libertarian to fascist – but I’m not sure any of that has been anywhere near as cynical as how the term “limited-government” has been used. It’s now been attached to the belief that we need to round up illegal immigrants en masse and house them in prisons (the 4th Amendment be damned!). And this is not an anomaly. I see this sentiment repeatedly on right-wing Tea Party blogs. There’s a weird kind of cognitive dissonance going on where the presence of large numbers of undocumented migrant workers is indicative of “big government” and the effort to arrest them all and put them in prison is “limited government”. The Tea Party movement, which we’re repeatedly told believes in “limited-government”, only believes in it as a slogan, not as an actual coherent political philosophy.
the great City of Destiny (Tacoma) took an extra step to stab this in the eye with an non-binding resolution to say how much the new Arizona law sucks which is IRONIC because previously the city council approved and later expanded the Northwest Detention Center the exact same private prison corporation that wrote the Arizona law.
I drew TWO cartoons about this…
http://comics.feedtacoma.com/t.....fore-vote/
http://comics.feedtacoma.com/t.....mes-whose/
The fact that a significant portion of the citizenry are filled with passionate and fiery anger over they know not what can be a cause for concern or an opportunity for conversion to a ‘belief’ thatwill at least get them to vote in their own interests.
Every opportunity must be taken over the next few years to tarnish multi national corporations as the villains.
A good start would be to start hammering away at the need to impeach Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. on the grounds that he lied at his confirmation hearings by stating that he intended to stick to legal precedent in his tenure — which he obviously has not.
The Republicans are going to start investigations of everything Democratic in the next few months. Why not beat them to the punch by impeaching Roberts?
@2
LOL..good luck with that…..
Go see the movie “Inside Job.” It lays it all out. The American people, in fact the entire world, has systematically been ripped off by corporations like Goldman Sachs. It is the biggest heist in the history of the world, and it isn’t over yet. They don’t just want part of your money, they want all your money.
Now consider that the so-called Tea Party was in fact a creation of rich people and corporations. That they got so many ignorant people to buy into the Tea Party shows how stupid and ignorant these people are. Tomorrow they will go to the polls and vote against their personal self interest, all because they hate the big scary black man who got elected president.
110% Correct. I’d have more sympathy in the “limited-government” idea as expressed by most on the right, but “limited-government” is meant for just them in ways that only benefit them (Medicare for free, ag subsidies for them but paid by somebody else, massive Defense for free, etc)
This story is one of the more appalling and frightening examples of how corporate America leads the GOP around by the nose that I have come across in a helluva long time. The people of Arizona should be up in arms; but, of course, as good little red staters, they don’t care how they were manipulated. There’s a word for the blending of corporate interests and governmental servitude to those interests–fascism.
Remember Pennsylvania’s “jailing kids for cash” scandal? A private prison company paid corrupt judges for sending kids to (private) prison for trivial offenses.
Yep, that’s private-sector efficiency for ya! Thousands of kids are scarred for life, and taxpayers were robbed of millions, in the name of profits.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/.....pt.judges/
@ 7
And that, is something that Lost and cynical and spuddy have no problem with. Its all good, when done in the name of commerce and corporate ownership of the country.
Everything for business, and nothing for people. If there is corruption, that only means the government is interfering with someones business. Everything is acceptable, as long as it makes someone money.
Cons since Hamilton have openly relied on government to provide them with goodies, enable them to extract economic rents, and basically reinforce their egotistical need to be assholes.
Ask any con why they oppose significant cuts to the Defense Department…pricks, each and every one.
Local ALEC attendees (I’m aware of):
Tim Sheldon
“Sir” Brad Owen
And, PL, of course it’s fascism! They’re pefectly happy they didn’t have to deal with some crazy asshole, get all military about it, and kill a bunch of people to do it.
They coach lawmakers and dump cash on them — now totally unlimited and without disclosure! — instead.
While we’re impeaching judges for perjury, Alito and Thomas qualify.
A better use of our time and effort would be an amendment that says simply that the protections in the constitution only apply to actual human beings.
The prophetic Sinclair Lewis:
Every time someone votes in their own economic interest, the baby Jesus cries. Vote for fascism. Don’t make baby Jesus sad.
@10 said, “A better use of our time and effort would be an amendment that says simply that the protections in the constitution only apply to actual human beings.”
Absolutely!
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
And it will call itself “progressive.”
@2 “Every opportunity must be taken over the next few years to tarnish multi national corporations as the villains.”
Corporations are neither evil nor good. They are organizations run by people striving to advance their own self-interest by furthering the corporation’s self-interest. If corporations do pernicious harm to society it is because we have created rules of the game that allow them to. It is the responsibility of society, through its political mechanisms and processes, to tell corporations what they may or may not do. If a corporation breaks the rules then it should be held accountable by the legal system.
Have we failed in these things? Yes, abysmally. It’s our responsibility to fix it. Without our intervention, the corporations will not fix themselves. It begins with whether you vote, and then by who you vote for.
@14 “And it will call itself “progressive.””
You don’t have to keep your head up your ass all the time, you know. It won’t hurt you to come up for air once in a while.
@8 Republicans are all about lining their own pockets with other people’s money. When they speak of “freedom” what they mean is the freedom to loot without interference. I’ve never met a Republican who believed he could get rich by working for it. Wealth comes from having the power to manipulate money that doesn’t belong to it in such a way that it comes to you.
Zotz @ 11
And, of course, naturally, these folks who are wearing the flag and carrying the cross to bring us fascism understand what neither the flag nor the cross stands for.
@14
In Sinclair Lewis’ time, that was true, the Progressives of that time were also xenophobes and aligned with the Klan. Today, the traditional party divide is quite different.
@19 Lee
“Sinclair Lewis’ time, that was true, the Progressives of that time were also xenophobes and aligned with the Klan.”
Seems to me you may be listening too much to Glen Beck????
Lewis wrote at the end of the depression and was anything but a KKKer.
Have yu ever read his (frightening) novel “It Can’t Happen Here?” He wrote a prescient novel novel about the election of a fascist to the American presidency.
You might also read his book on running for Governor in Caleefornia,.
SJ
I think you mean Upton Sinclair, not Sinclair Lewis.
@ 21
Sinclair Lewis wrote “It Can Happen here”
He also wrote “Dodsworth” “Gideon Planish” “Babbitt” “Elmer Gantry” and “Main Street”.
Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” and was a socialist candidate for Congress. He also founded California’s chapter of the ACLU.
Both writers were vilified by the rightist wing. Both had books banned from whole States and cities, and both are considered enemies of the modern, christian/fascist movement in this country. To this day, their books are considered subversive.
@22: Thanks froggie! I had some sleepy time tea and went to bed early. Slept like a log, ready for the short strokes today!
I see you had trouble sleeping (2fittyam!). Positive thoughts your way…
@14
Words have meaning, Politically Incorrect. Fascism has very little in common with the modern progressive movement.
Of course, I like to believe that the part of the German Fascist society which involved killing millions of Jews has little to do with the right in America, either. The other aspects of Fascism are much more closely aligned with the right wing agenda in America than the left.
@21
I have no idea what he’s talking about. I never said anything about Lewis being a KKK’er. Although I should have been clearer that the 20s and the Depression started the realignment to what we now have today. My comment at #19 absolutely should have been clearer about that.
All I was pointing out was that the political alignments at the turn of the 20th century were very different than they are now. The Progressive movement at that time was very different than the Progressive movement of today. Folks like Glenn Beck (and in this case, Politically Incorrect, who should know better) try to oversimplify that history to draw parallels that don’t make sense.
Where are the fucking Republicans on THIS thread?
Chickenshit bastards.
As a gamer geek this is great news! I just need to wait until 2012 when elves and dragons appear.
Then I can hire myself out as a Shadowrunner.
Lee
You said …
but before that you said:
Maybe I am missing something, but this reads to me as if you are drinking tea from Glen Beck’s pot. The Beckies lump Woodrow Wilson, the KKK, Sinclair Lewis, FDR, etc wi the KKK and then try to appropriate MLK and Jesus as their own.
A HUGE problem on the left is allowing the right to redefine vocabulary. After all Peace is War!
As for Politically Inc, I think he is correct.
The Beckies ARE trying to appropriate the mantle of populism for themselves. Moreover, if you look at fascism in China and Weimar Germany, BOTH of these claimed the mantle of progressivism.
Words DO matter, unfortunately the right seems to have figured out how to inculcate the public with Orwellian Newspeak on a regular basis. Their current vocabulary:
Jefferson=opportunity
opportunity=private property
private property=corporate property
the founding fathers were Deists
Deus means God
God=Jesus
the founding fathers were Christians
Sara Palin is a Christian
Jefferson approves.
liberalism=progressivism
progressivism=socialism
socialism=communism
communism=fascism
Pretty soon we all run put of vocabulary.
SJ,
“Maybe I am missing something, but this reads to me as if you are drinking tea from Glen Beck’s pot.”
Huh…I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.
Lee’s comment was “In Sinclair Lewis’ time…” which is clearly setting a time frame rather than attributing an ideology to Lewis.
Your response…
“Lewis wrote at the end of the depression and was anything but a KKKer.”
…suggests that you believe Lee was saying Lewis was a KKKer. To me, that seems like a misreading of the plain-language in Lee’s comment.
worf @ 12
Wow. That’s an awesome video.
David Barton (Wall Builders), the whackjob in that video, is scary effective.
David Domke makes the point in his Speaking Americanese seminars that progressives need to make the moral argument to be more effective.
I learned two things from Barton’s video.
As a progressive, I’ve always marveled how the right’s useful idiots vote against their own self interest. Barton explicitly argues that Christians should place moral ahead of economic issues. Here I always thought the minions of the right were ignorant, stupid, rubes, etc. Not so. They drank the koolaid. They KNOW they’re voting against their own economic interests. To serve a higher purpose or some such.
I had no idea.
Secondly, Barton argues that God gave Christians the vote, and it’s their responsibility to use it. That’s so wrong on so many levels. But as rhetoric, it’s huge powerful.
We must learn from our enemies. Steal their fire. Per Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
Again, great find on that video. I think it, again, give’s strength to Domke’s appeal to make moral arguments.