WEEK 3

7/10/2014

Read: Chapter 5 & Chapter 6
- What is political dissent? – Political Parties, Elections & Public Opinion - 2010 Election in
California – The 2012 and 2016 election - The impact of national elections – the 2000 election
Understanding Citizens United
- Social and economic policy in the 20th & 21st century – Hot Button Political Issues – Media,
Advocacy, and the role of Interest Groups. Who is A.L.E.C. and why should you care?
- Handouts in class

-First Draft of Critical Reflective Essay is due Thursday at the start of class
– Short Essay: Question given in class by instructor (Thursday)

Guiding Questions

Describe three themes from the video below that relate to the lecture topics from class.
How do the themes from the video relate to the course themes?
What are the benefits and disadvantages to the passage of Citizens United?
How can corporate influence in political strengthen or weaken our democracy?

Requirements for BLOG POSTS

You must write 250 words each post (due Thursday @ Midnight), Responses to two other students 50 words each (due Sunday @ midnight)
Students must post during the week the blog is assigned or it will not be graded.

199 Comments

Maleah Mariano

7/15/2014 02:16:42 pm

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, owns a lot of big name corporations, prisons, etc. The video relates to our course themes of dissent and people power.

Political dissent is the right to express grievances at a state level. It is almost impossible to express these grievances against ALEC because they own many corporations and they are the ones making rules in their favor.

People power involves the rights of people expressed in the constitution and organizing/maintaining that fairness. Corporate covers the cost of legislative travels and has them stay at top notch places. They discuss bills and pretty much make up their mind about how they feel about each bill, so by the time the public finally hears about the issue, it doesn't matter much because their minds have already been made up. If bills and policies are being passed in favor of corporations, with hardly any say from the people, how is that fair? How is that people power? The passage of Citizens United would uphold the true definition of people power.

Corporate influence on politics right now has a negative effect because their decisions never keep people in mind, all they keep in mind is their company and the money they are making. They make decisions based off of what would be more profitable for them and on what they need. For example, he says thatALEC would pass bills regarding dumping and pollution because of its polluter members such as chevron, that encourage more drilling and less environmental regulations. If Corporate would have the people's best interest in mind rather than their own, then they could possibly have a really positive effect on politics and strengthen our democracy due to how they have a lot of say in what happens.

Brandon DeBorba

7/16/2014 01:34:07 pm

Maleah,

Hi!! I absolutely agree with you in which the corporates influence on politics would be in a negative manner. Many companies are ran by money hungry people who only think about themselves. They don't keep people in mind nor do they care how it will effect the "little people." They would pass bills to help lower the taxation rate on their income or find a way to hide their profits.

Steven Duong

7/17/2014 04:00:43 am

I also agree that corporate has a negative influence on politics. Coming from a business perspective, it is reasonable for a corporation to think in their own best interest first and maximize their profits. With that said, corporations would pass bills to lessen the regulations to please the companies supporting them rather than receiving less profits for pleasing the public.

Hieu Nguyen

7/17/2014 12:51:04 pm

I agree with the corporate negative influence in the government because after all, ALEC is funded by corporations and businesses and their main purpose is to make money. Most of the time, big businesses do not care about the interest of the people and just focus on the interest of themselves. This weakens America's democratic values and slowly makes America corrupt.

cong cao

7/20/2014 02:33:45 pm

i agree with that corpporate has a negetive influence on politics. the effect of corporate political activity is negative for shareholders of companies that are neither highly regulated nor highly dependent on sales to government.

Petrina Picariello

7/17/2014 03:21:04 pm

I really liked how you used the class theme people power to get your point across. I think the theme people power is an almost perfect example of what is happening in our democracy. For example, people power is shown in our democracy by the people and corporations in out democracy. One theme I also think goes along with this ALEC video is the theme consent because I believe that in a way the people in our democracy are too passive and do not act against these types of organizations.

Gabriela Iniguez

7/20/2014 04:50:40 am

I agree with you on everythting you said. I strongly believe corporations dont ever think about the people and are very selfish. Corporations dont consider citizens they only look after their own best interests and the money they make.

Kevin Tran

7/20/2014 08:30:47 am

ALEC has been among us for 40 years now and the class lecture was the first of me hearing about them. It surprises me how there is so much in the world that people dont know about theses type of issues. It has occurred to me before that big corporations have a huge impact on the government but not like this. ALEC pretty much controls the federal government.
This case does show people power in the way that you speak and others. It proves that with the number of big corporations in ALEC, their numbers have power to persuade politicians into voting one way rather than another.
ALEC is a huge company that only things about profit. Profit is what matters the most, and regular citizens and the environment dont matter much to them.

Abrar Khaja

7/20/2014 12:45:02 pm

I agree with you when you stated that people power involves the rights of people expressed in the constitution and organizing/maintaining fairness. Without those rights we would not be able to give power to the people to do actions such as overthrow the government. I also agree with you that corporate influence has a negative effect because their decisions are based on corporate expansion not based on the people's interests.

Aldrich D'silva

7/20/2014 03:28:00 pm

Maeleah,

I have to disagree with what you say about corporate influence. The idea of a corporation is to increase profits, not maintain environmental friendliness. Though some may argue that they have some moral obligation to fulfill, a corporation must generate profits or fail. In addition, taking focus away from the increasing of profits simply lowers the competitive capacity of that corporation within its respective industry. Given these parameters, I for one am able to empathize with the corporate inability to "have a really positive effect on politics." I do not think a corporation can afford to have " the people's best interest in mind rather than their own." In addition as the owner of the corporation I would definitely like to see my dollars have the largest amount of influence possible. It is these policies (or lack thereof) that have enabled the technological boom we have seen over the last 20 years.

Maleah Mariano

7/20/2014 03:42:30 pm

Aldrich,

Oh no, just to clarify, when I said corporations could be an influence to maintain environmental friendliness, what I meant was that they are a strong influence as is, so IF they wanted to help out the environment, then they would be successful in doing so because of how influential they are. But since that is not the case and all they care about is themselves and what is best for profits, then the environment won't be tended to.

Brandon DeBorba

7/16/2014 01:31:37 pm

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is known by many as a company who runs and owns many different companies and government regulated firms. The video relates to the course theme of dissent.

One of the guided reading questions posted above asks how the involvement of corporations can strengthen or weaken our government. I believe that the involvement of corporations can strengthen our government, but at the same time can corrupt it. While the corporations can improve the government by aiding their factories to the government, or helping provide an insurance policy, it can help further corrupt our government than it already is. When looking at the history of companies who have purposely created things like the subprime ledgers, CDOs, etc. we see that there is a continuous pattern. They companies had no one to regulate them. They were privately owned companies who had no attachments to the government other than what they are taxed. If companies were given the opportunity to have an effect in the government, we could see more laws passed like the law that “Daddy Bush” passed in which made that the selling of stocks are non-taxed, like that of George W. Bush’s Treasurer, Henry Paulson. By having companies involvement in the government, there is the possibility of something more powerful than the subprime ledgers and CDOs that helped lead to the cause of the stock and housing crash of 2008.

Philip Chit

7/16/2014 05:01:55 pm

I think that your "there is the possibility of something more powerful....that helped lead to the case of the stock and housing crash of 2008" can be answered by saying "lack of self-regulation." You don't have people self-regulate themselves. That's why this country was created with the idea of checks and balances in the government. You can't have one supreme power because no one is going to be able to keep them in check and make sure that they can't abuse it. However, that is what the big corporations did. Self-regulate. Pay off regulators. Allow people to not have accountability for their actions *cough the people who give AAA ratings cough cough*. We're here with no one regulating big corporations due to fools and con-artists telling us that Laissez-Faire and Keynes are worth believing. Keynes was already proven wrong yet people hail him and his "gov spend more to bail people not spending as much to help economy" idea as the second coming of Jesus (okay not that extreme but they practically worship him). We already had some presidents in the early 1900s trying to break up trusts and monopolies, knowing that they hurt the competitive spirit of America, and yet government is turning a blind eye towards super companies merging and creating monopolies. What I don't get is how would corporate factories and insurance policies help the government, as you said. What purpose would they serve to help the government?

Khang Do

7/20/2014 10:33:06 am

Hi Brandon ,
Just in my own perspective , I think there is no way ALEC STRENGTHEN our democracy , only weaken our democracy because I think ALEC controls the bills by using the funds coming from the big companies and it goes against people power which is free will , free access . As you know , people is the base of democracy ,so it obviously weaken Democracy .
Thanks.

Linda Luong

7/20/2014 02:50:40 pm

Yes, I believe companies can help the economy by creating jobs, but other than that they need strong regulations. Taxes implemented without finding loopholes and these “bonuses” given when they are hundreds of thousands of dollars are not fair. Companies should be entirely left separate from the government decisions because corruptness will then again take place. Companies was the only reason why the recession of 2008 happened and shows the world how powerful companies can become.

Jaqueline Ramirez

7/20/2014 03:07:26 pm

I agree with the concept that corporations corrupt our government. In a book called Predatory Society the fraud and corruption that small businesses take part on is discussed a swell as the influence of capitalism. I I believe that in ALEC's case we have the same concept. ALEC simply aids in the facilitation of a similar scheme with large corporation. I'm my opinion if this is not halted the people will be soon left so Voiceless that they won't be able to live under the oppression and control of the large corporations.

Chris Johnson

7/16/2014 02:49:24 pm

The American Legislative Executive Corporation. Is an interest group who is funded by large corporations in return of lobbying legislators in a non traditional way to influence the decisions on bills being passed during those periods if time.Alec ignores traditional lobbying methods by flying legislators over to corparate designated areas where there travels expenses are paid in corporate dime. The legislators stay for a three day period were they are sold on friend corporate ideas which fly legislators back with predetermined ideas on certian bills.

With Citizens United being passed allowing corporations to put mass amounts of funds in these pacs allowing they to fund politicians who will work in there favor over policies. Corporate power on our political system weakens our democracy because these corporations are treated like an existing 1% by the senate which recieve massive amounts of money from these corporations so they can brainwash the people through the media and internet. With predetermined choices made up in these legislators minds the people power of the people are not being granted and the voice of the people are being restricted because the government is now protecting the policies if these corporate companies.

Philip Chit

7/16/2014 05:09:23 pm

Reading your first paragraph, I feel like you are summarizing parts of the video rather than talking about themes and how they relate to the course themes.
I agree that corporate power weakens our democracy. I don't think it's just the Senate, I believe that the House of Representatives are also eating out of the hands of the corporations. I wouldn't say 'brainwash, as that would be too nice, I would say 'program' as there are corporations in charge of the media. We don't need to be brainwashed when they control everything we view from the start. They just have to program all of our cultural values into us. I would argue that the power of people is granted since we the people are voting in corruptible legislators that listen to big corporations over the people and are getting our just desserts.

Chris Johnson

7/18/2014 10:10:22 am

Yes the first part is a summurization leading into my secound point. Brainwash os similiar to programming your mind to what they want us consumer to buy, view on political issue, or shape our lives around

Vivian Gia

7/19/2014 09:13:49 am

I agree with you about corporations. It seems as though money can really buy anything and since corporations can help support senate and house of representatives with keeping them in office, government is basically being run but giant companies rather then people that represent the people and for the people. Brainwashing is similar because they basically dont have a mind of their own but growing up, they teach us to what they think we should learn instead of what we should know.

Gabriela Iniguez

7/20/2014 04:42:47 am

Chris, I totally agree with you. I also believe these corporation weaken democracy and count as the 1%. It is true, people like us will never see so much money in our entire lives and these high rollers get all the profits. Nothing is really done for the benefit the citizens and the government is going to help to improve the situation.

Philip Chit

7/16/2014 04:47:48 pm

I would say that three possible themes from the video would be that 1) private interests and public interests do not usually agree, 2) private corporations use their vast amounts of wealth to try to either guilt, convince, or obligate politicians to go along with policies geared towards benefiting private interests, and 3) private companies see life as nothing more than profit/loss statements; dropping their ALEC memberships will benefit them more compared to being associated with ALEC.
These themes relate to consent, dissent, systems, and people's power as since private interests usually clash with public interests, people are not consenting to these policies that private interests bring about. It also relates to dissent as in the video, it mentions at 6:08 that in 2013, ALEC's bills have not passed. This shows dissent as enough legislators are voting against these bills to not allow them to see the light of day. These themes relate to systems as private corporations are trying to fit themselves as the public interest, the people, and replace the real American people in the system balanced between government and the American people. These corporations are taking away the people's power as they have more money and thus easier access at getting to the politician to get their views heard compared to people who have to petition and protest outside buildings compared to flying politicians to top-tier hotels to talk.
The benefits of the passage of Citizens United means that corporations aren't limited to spending on politicians. Corporations can now pour millions to billions of their retained earnings to tell politicians to listen to big business. One benefit would be that corporations have a voice. A really loud voice. One that would maybe deafen politicians to the small tiny squeaks of one lone American citizen with his own ideas? A disadvantage of the passage would be that corporations aren't restricted. Corporations have money. A lot of money. Probably more than a randomly chosen American in any random city. Unlike the American people that have to unite and convince thousands to millions to gather up a similar amount of capital, the officials that run the big corporations all have one goal in mind and are already united. Make all of the money. It's easier to move with a smaller group than a larger group. They can easily tilt the scales of balance on issues that people are fighting over.
Corporate influence in politics weaken democracy. When corporations fight for profit over trying to protect the environment and having financial deregulation, there should be a connection that corporations do not carry about the world as much as they care about how high their balance books say their net worth, salaries, and profits say they are. They'll bypass rules and ignore moral decisions to put themselves ahead of others. Since they don't have strong regulations on them, big corporations will continue this history of creating bubbles and popping them while consistently draining the federal taxpayer dollars to bail themselves out. They are leeches, parasites. Big corporations and their monopolies are worsening democracy.

Tiffany Do

7/17/2014 01:03:53 pm

I definitely agree with your statement that private interests and public interest conflict. I think this could be tied to the fact that we are in a capitalist society and that to do things for the good of all people would make it hard for corporations to rise in power and profit. Similar to Inside Jobs, these big name corporations are trying to profit despite what it may do to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I think you also make a really good point when describing the disparity between how a corporation looks when trying to lobby for their cause and how the people look, and how much harder it is for the people to be heard.

Helia Mohseni

7/17/2014 04:35:34 pm

i think the reason why corporations always act in their best interest is because they are in the top 1%, so they do not understand the majority of people's struggles. like how in the movie "inside job" the CEO of rating agencies did not feel guilty lying how triple A loans.

Jessie Cardoso

7/20/2014 01:24:33 pm

I agree with Helia's statement. Those who control the votes get essentially bribed by the top 1% to vote a certain way, and the rest of the 99% don't get their voices heard because they don't have as much money. The fact that ALEC works with government officials in the White House is a scary thought because that means we don't have a say in how our government is run.

Linda Luong

7/20/2014 03:28:39 pm

I agree wholeheartedly with your statement because even if the top 1% understood the majority of peoples struggles, that would not even factor in their actions. There is a reason why they have schemes and bypass laws and rack in the amount of money they do. They believe in the power of money and want the most of it, so even if they did hear the struggles of the common people, their ideas would remain the same. Finally, remember that our society believes in and breathes capitalism.

Andrew Chen

7/19/2014 05:41:01 pm

Big corporation are most definitely cancerous growths eating away at the democracy that it has sprouted itself from. If the cancer is not stopped, this country's democracy is grave danger.

Weibo Xing

7/20/2014 02:47:45 pm

The conflict is between big corporations’ interest and major people’s interest. The companies gather together to make up the ALEC in order to have enough power to interfere politics, so it’s very possible their interests are defended. But what happens to the majority? The people will be forgotten group, and they don’t have any back up. Only the people at the the top of the pyramid can get benefits. Democracy will never be achieved under this condition.

Aldrich D'silva

7/20/2014 03:33:20 pm

Weibo,
I agree with you that the majority can easily become the forgotten group. Unfortunately, only the minority at the top have the access to influence legislation and policy. However, isn't it an ideal of democracy to provide equal opportunity to all? And given that, if one group of people had more success than the rest of the majority, is it fair to punish that one group? I do not think it is fair to punish the one group because true democracy is what led to the situation at hand. (Just playing devil's advocate here).

Lynh Nguyen

7/16/2014 04:59:09 pm

ALEC is a secretly corporate-funded charitable organization that many large companies and firms gather together with state legislators for support in exchange of special interest lobbying and pushing for model legislation. This relates to the theme dissent.

What ALEC was doing is not the act of charity. There have been at least 3 credible complaints against ALEC c3 charitable status, one by Common Cause, alleging that ALEC primarily operates to advance private interests rather than public interests, and also that they're participating in impermissible amounts of lobbying. As a charity, ALEC is supposed to be involved in minimal lobbying. But by existing to advance legislation through the states, it would appear that they're involved in much more lobbying than should be permissible for charity.

The benefits for Citizens United being passed is that the corporate can give money to legislators and can make the policies happen. The corporate influence weakens our democracy by "bribing" the legislators with loads of money and advertise them, in which they would think of promoting their goods and products to consumers, and only think about making higher profits.

Fadri Attamimi

7/17/2014 12:48:40 pm

I agree that corporate influence will weaken our democracy as it bribes the legislators to doing what is best for their corporation. The government will end up acting in the best interest of the corporations instead of the American people. America will be a country for the profit rather than for the people.

Chris Johnson

7/18/2014 11:38:38 am

Its so eye opening to see how Alec porvide acesses for these corporations to avoid traditional lobbying tactics and take matter into private. It clearly shows these big time corporations are out for thier onw private interest rather than the good for people. The citizens unites case being passed just weakens are democracy even more and i dont see any further changes in the near future

Vivian Gia

7/19/2014 09:33:35 am

I do agree that Citizens United can help policies happen, but that does not guarantee the policies will benefit the people who are living in the States. I do agree that they are weakening our democracy because of all the bribes going on it is like government is run on money and would only want to listen to people with more money and power.

Nicholas Yuk

7/19/2014 03:03:26 pm

I don't fully agree to the extreme that ALEC is a secretly corporate-funded charitable organization. Yes I agree they do corporate funded charities hence the C3 charitable status, but they should be viewed upon as more of a corporate funded lobbyist group that tries to pass bill (their main goal). I do agree however that ALEC is pretty much a bribing organization.

Abrar Khaja

7/20/2014 12:51:23 pm

I agree with you when you stated that what ALEC was doing was not an act of charity because they are working in there own interest of lobbying and pushing for the model legislation. I also agree with you that Alec is supposed to be involved in the minimal amount of lobbying but is participating in impermissible amounts of lobbying.

Weibo Xing

7/20/2014 03:04:35 pm

The citizens surely get befits in some degree, but the corporations are not doing that purposely. Everything the corporations do is to improved their own benefits, maybe in this process people will be beneficial by accident. I agree that the corporate influence does weaken democracy, because they are not for people, they are for themselves.

Andrew Tran

7/20/2014 03:37:36 pm

I agree that the corporate influence does ruin democracy by bribing legislators. This doesn’t let people have a choice and they just corporations just do whatever they want and not for the people. They just do things that benefit themselves by making more profit for themselves and not doing anything for the community.

Jamal Jamal

7/16/2014 06:11:28 pm

Three themes that are from the video that relate to our class topics are, government system, descent, and people power.

ALEC’s work effects the government system where they work as if they are outside the law. The corporations that join ALEC pay thousands of dollars and all that money count as charitable money or called “gifts”, basically they are not taxable. So all the money that they receive from the corporations that want to join can benefit them first and then allow corporations to push their agenda and work for themselves rather than for people. This brings us to the second theme, people power. If ALEC is allowed to get away with such acts and work legally like this and with no accountability, who benefits from this? The answer is not the people. If ALEC can push acts that can harm the environment and the people but help the corporations, then the people are damaged instead of helped. Consequently, since ALEC holds such power and the people are getting harmed more than aided, people cannot go against them because of the power that they gained from the money that they received as “Gifts” and the alliance that they formed with large corporations.

Having passage of Citizens United can go in either direction. If large corporation can support a campaign and change the results because of the unlimited funds, that means they can choose whomever they want that works best for their pockets rather than for the people.

In the last couple of years, corporations are doing more damage to democracy than helping. They have the power to tip the balance in pushing bills that help them gain more money. For example, according to the video, ”more than 77 bills where they opposed renewable energy standers, support freckling and the controversial keystone Xl pipeline” The Real News, 2013. This campaign by ALEC and other corporations want to block clean- energy states as well as other agendas, which means our environment is at risk and so is our lives; simply because they want to save money and not care about how much the cost to make and maintain a safe environment. Also, it feels like corps nowadays have even the upper hand in elections where they could possible pick or help a person to get elected that they know it could benefit them more than the people.

In the end, we should start to realize that corps and the likes of ALEC are dangerous and they should be giving less power and support so that people can maintain their safety and freedom.

Steven Duong

7/17/2014 04:10:23 am

I agree that corporations do more damage to a democracy than they help. I like how you pointed out that ALEC opposed clean energy because they were less profitable even though clean energy enables society to live in a safer environment. Corporations, like ALEC, only strive to maximize their profits which is one of the reasons why our democracy is damaged.

Jamal Jamal

7/17/2014 06:44:43 pm

It scares me when I see corporations and organizations like ALEC having this much power. We do not even know who their members are, in the video George bush was speaking in one of their conferences so that means they have way too much power and we know from the reports and the bills that they push is not for the benefits of the people. I just hope people realize who they are and what they can do and hold them accountable for their actions.

Chris Johnson

7/18/2014 01:53:12 pm

Agreed! People power is weakened as Alec regulates pushes more acts, limits renewable energy sources, harms the Enviorment and prevents any situations that take away from their profits as they help corporations gain leadway to legislators by lobbying and pushing thier acts that benifit themselves through pursuasion on politics to have predetermined choices on bill that weaken our democracy and make corporate profit.

Jamal Jamal

7/18/2014 06:21:16 pm

The more allies they get, the more power they acquire and in the process weaken democracy. To be honest, I never knew who they are before seeing the video and after seen the video, I know now how some awful bills that most people don't agree with gets pushed. I hope people write and talk about them more to expose them but it seems if you have money these days you can walk away from anything.

Giselle Ozuna

7/21/2014 02:28:04 am

I also agree with you Chris and Jamal!
It also scares me thinking that an organization like this has so much power! This just comes to show how much authority people have when they have money. Even though these bills have no interest in the people, we, the people have no voice since we aren't the ones giving this organization so much money!! It's absurd!

Andrew Chen

7/19/2014 05:39:21 pm

I agree that awareness of the dangers of organizations such as ALEC is very important in this day and age. The fact that they create a direct connection between big corporate money and legislators is very dangerous as it doesn't not include the interest of the country's citizens at all.

Jamal Jamal

7/19/2014 07:22:30 pm

That is exactly what i thought when I first heard of ALEC. The fact that the have the connection and the power, plus money. This makes me wonder if there are more of ALEC like organizations out there and if they go head to head pushing bills and laws, where it works for them and not the people. What does that mean for people's safety and democracy?

Andrew Tran

7/20/2014 03:42:50 pm

This is so true. ALEC doesn’t benefit the citizens. People should be more aware of this and there should be something done about it. The fact that they only want to benefit themselves and nothing else like for the people makes me think that they should just not exist anymore.

Eileen Javadi

7/21/2014 04:45:33 am

Its unfortunate to see these types of organizations begin to take more control and power than this country needs. Specifically, with such horrific environmental issues occurring right now the last thing we need are groups of people such as ALEC that believe in blocking out clean energy in order to save their profit. The power that these organizations have gotten has resulted in the people not being able to have a voice anymore. Corporations and big organizations have taken priority in big decision making processes and this will ultimately result in the downfall of our society since the people feel as though they cannot express their thoughts anymore.

David

7/16/2014 07:25:02 pm

One of the first theme is money power. This is related to our course because of how Alec sends money to legislatures in order to convince them to attend one of Alec meetings. In class our topic covers on how private firms are backing up the government with money and twisting it to allow leeway for that particular firm.

Another theme in the video that relates to our course theme is Dissent. In the video around 6:08, Brendon was saying that Alec was Alec unsuccessful at getting their bills pass. This is worrying because Alec corporate agenda and the bills that they are proposing are being rejected which could mean that it might not be in the best interest of the people. I can only wonder what will happen should the laws be passed. I could be wrong though, as they have not stated what the bills are and it could be me just over thinking it.

The 3rd theme in the video relating to our topic would be corporate interest. Alec is trying to get the legislature to pass bills that would benefit them. These bill will probably no benefit the public. In class we talked about how Private firms often analyze existing bill and often try to propose new one in order to exempt certain laws for their own interest.

Corporate influence can weaken the democracy by being able to exempt laws that would otherwise prove beneficial to the people. Usually corporate interest differs from the people and more than often would try to gain at the expense of people's welfare. Take for example the 2008 market crash, they exploited a new method in order to gain, and when that failed many people lost their homes.

David Huynh

7/16/2014 07:25:50 pm

^^ my full name

Nicholas Hardy

7/17/2014 03:01:25 pm

I agree with your assessment about dissent because it is very important that we stopped a lot of their bills from passing. The bills are for their private interest rather than public interest and are clouded by income and their profits. It is hard to go against these billionaires because they have more resources and connections than the common American.

Jaqueline Ramirez

7/20/2014 03:17:59 pm

I agree that in this situation the power of money proves to be overpowering of people power and a form of dissent. The will of the people can not be heard if some of the monetary power of these corporations is not muted.

Steven Duong

7/17/2014 03:54:55 am

ALEC stands for the American Legislative Exchange Council. As an interest group funded by large corporations, ALEC’s intent in gathering with state legislators is to lobby and push for legislation. Three themes present in the video that relates to our course are corporate interest, dissent, and people power.

Corporate interest is a theme that is apparent in the ALEC video since ALEC strives to get legislative to pass bills and laws in order to benefit themselves as a private firm. The bills they pass will most likely not benefit private firms rather than the public interest. Dissent is another large theme. The definition of dissent is when people express their opposition against the established norm. Shown near the middle of the video, the ALEC bills were not passed. Because there were some legislators vote against the bill, the act of opposing the ALEC bill is an act of dissent. Lastly, people power is another theme shown in the video. Corporations, such as ALEC, make their voice and ideals louder than the general public since they are wealthier. Although the public have the ability to petition and fight for their stance, the people’s power is greatly lessened compared to the easy access wealthy politicians have.

Corporate influence on politics negatively influences our democracy since corporations base their decisions on what is most profitable for their company rather than people’s best interest. In other words, corporations like ALEC would pass bills that lessen regulations to please companies funding them despite the negative consequences on the environment and the general public.

Chungchen Ran

7/20/2014 04:51:20 am

I agree that the people’s power has been lessened because of ALEC. As mentioned in the video, ALEC uses their wealth to get legislators to side with them before the public gets a chance to speak their opinion. I consider this to be indirect bribery, ALEC isn’t paying the legislators directly, but they are still paying for the legislators’ travel expenses. This kind of treatment gets the legislators to like them instantly.

Jenny Ugale

7/20/2014 05:06:56 am

The power of the people is being taken away because of corporate influence on politics. Legislators are being bought off by these corporations' money and are biased when it comes to listening to the people. Although I agree with Chungchen that ALEC is using bribery, I don't necessarily think it's "indirect." Paying legislators to come out on a mini-vacation--using corporate funding--seems pretty direct to me.

Khang Do

7/17/2014 04:30:37 am

To me ,American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a secret corporation that works secretly. They use the funds from the big companies to help pass the bills which obviously will benefit those big companies , too.

First question that I am currently going to do now is how is the video theme relate to the course themes ? According to the video , I can see that the video theme relate to the course theme of " people power". What is people power ? People power is free to access , free will and expression . ALEC goes against this definition because they have their people as legislators in legislature , which means that they have power to control the bills which benefit themselves and the companies that fund them , not for the people . Legislators are elected by the people to represent the people will in the government through the bills , but now as I already said above ALEC methought controls the legislature .

Second question is how can corporate influence in political strengthen or weaken our democracy ? I am going to say that it weaken our democracy . This question actually relates to the first one because democracy is for the people , by the people . So if ALEC goes against people power, can I say it weaken our democracy ? Of course yes .
ALEC destroys the base of Democracy which is people and from that I would like to say that without the base , a building can not stand well .

Khang Do

7/17/2014 04:34:06 am

I would like to end my post that ALEC in my mind is a dangerous hidden source which can destroy our democracy , people power , so ALEC should be given less supports .

Jamal Jamal

7/17/2014 06:49:30 pm

I agree with your points. I think in class we should change the term people power to " corporation power". ALEC and the likes of them earn millions everyday while people suffer by their actions. What really surprises me is how much support they get but then again all corporations share the same bed and look for the same goal (money for themselves). I feel like they are so deep within the system that they are untouchable.

Maleah Mariano

7/20/2014 03:52:43 pm

I completely agree with you that ALEC is all around bad and can destroy everything we have. Even though it is apparent that they are a source of destruction, the public is not aware of this. I was honestly never aware of ALEC until learning about it in this class. ALEC is so powerful at this point though that even if the general public knew everything about them, it would be hard to make sure they have less power.

Jaqueline Ramirez

7/17/2014 04:40:54 am

Directly taken from the A.l.E.C web page Alec defines itself as, "The American Legislative Exchange Council (who) works to advance limited government, free markets, and federalism at the state level through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public." Although the ALEC definition tells what ALEC looks like on paper the real ALEC hides being diplomacy and omission.
Cristalee Crain's political science class stands for dissent, people power and interest and in the business that ALEC conducts in, " the non profit sector" none of these are represented. The ALEC that exists is a Company that creates bills that advance the corporate agenda in primordially big oil big agriculture. ALEC functions in a simple strategical manner. Members of ALEC pay for legislators to fly in to these three day long ALEC meetings as opposed to 15 minute local lobbiest meetings. In these three days corporations attempt to convince legislators that a bill or policy is in the best benefit for a state. Through this process 77 bills have been passed in 34 states.
Although people have power, corporations like ALEC make it difficult to use this power to improve their states. Lobbying is the process of trying to make this voice be heard and this is being compromised. People can not actively participate in acts of dissent if corporation's money and luxurious trios will outshine the desires of the people.
The Citizens United cooperation seeks to function as a barrier, to initiate the, "returning of the United States government to "citizens' control" and to "assert American values of limited government, freedom of enterprise, strong families, and national sovereignty and security" (citizens united.org, 2014). It's time to return the power to the people and begin to rebuild the debilitating democracy that legislators and big corporation have deliberately weakened.

Chris Bunoan

7/20/2014 01:18:23 am

Your blog was very informative and you brought up very interesting points. I think the number of bills that will be screened by ALEC board members will increase in the future and that's a crazy thought. It's very hard to put an end to these guys because they have such a power network. This class is interesting too at first I didn't like it because it was so depressing,but when we do assignments that directly correlates to present day corruption I can't help but be engaged with interest.

Khang Do

7/20/2014 09:49:11 am

Hi Jaqueline.
I and you have the same perspective about ALEC goes against people power . You are better than me in explaining it out. I really like it . You saw the dissent in that problem which is the thing that I could not see . With the money that ALEC gets from supporters , there is no way for people to show their dissents .
Thank you for telling me it M

Shubaan Taheri

7/17/2014 07:03:25 am

• Describe three themes from the video below that relate to the lecture topics from class.

Interpretation of the constitution: in the Citizens United case the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were people and had first amendment rights. This is a stark contrast to 150 years ago when Black humans weren’t even considered people.

Political socialization of the media: Corporations get unrestricted access to spread their biased opinions in commercials or on the news. This has a great effect on the mass’ opinions.

Gov/citizens self interest conflicting: Gov is happy to get paid off for letting corporations lobby without restriction. People would rather have a clearer view of what the issues are.

• How do the themes from the video relate to the course themes?

These all relate to consent by the spreading of misinformation. It also has a lot to do about people power. These corporations get more say than people because of the money they have. Instead of our value being measured by humanity, it is measured in dollars.

• What are the benefits and disadvantages to the passage of Citizens United?

Benefits: corporations get to have a say in politics
Disadvantages: corporations get to have a say in politics

• How can corporate influence in political strengthen or weaken our democracy?

Corporate influence definitely weakens our democracy. Sorry to bring up marijuana again but it is relevant. The top three lobbyists against the legalization of marijuana are big pharma, police unions, and private prisons. Pharmaceutical companies who make medicine that treat the same issues as marijuana such as chronic pain, anxiety, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis, PTSD, sleep disorders, among others, stand to lose millions if patients who use their medicine use medical marijuana instead. Police departments are dependent on the war on drugs for grants to finance their budget. If cannabis were to become legal, the war on drugs becomes much smaller, and less lucrative. Private prisons lobbied against legalizing marijuana because they get money for housing inmates when state prisons reach their capacity and since there are a lot of people incarcerated because of marijuana; if marijuana were to become legal they could lose millions. This corporate interference in our politics weakens our democracy by distracting us from the issues and spreading biased information.

Frank Martinez

7/17/2014 09:52:26 am

Three themes that were presented in the video that are related to lecture themes in class are making things illegal to legal, open society to closed society, and influences of major corporations in politics. Going back to when we were talking about our forefathers making things illegal legal relates to how ALEC is basically making bribery legal. They are allowing people to take advantage of using nice things, special treatment and money to get them to do things they want to do. The video also talked ALEC making certain things private. This relates to the video we saw End of America by having the society closed off. If at any point you have something that is private then you are leading towards a closed society. Lastly, the theme of influences of major corporations in politics. Industries who support certain things like gay marriage, or anti gay marriage have influence. Example of H&M that was brought up who were not supporters of gay marriage and Ms.Crain stopped shopping there.

The two course themes that relate the closest to the themes of the video are dissent and systems of government. In a way this is an act of dissent on their part. They aren’t really happy with the way the government does things so in response they are using their money and power to make things better for themselves by using the government. In a way they are working with the system but at the same time they are cheating. Their form of dissent obviously isn’t really good for everyone but more than likely only good for themselves and the politicians who get money or nice things. Systems of government is also a theme the video talks about. Like I said before they are kind of working within the system but cheating. Of course they are getting a vote for a decision, but they are easily tempting people to do this or that with money. That’s not right or fair for any political issue even if they are on the side for good. In my opinion they should at least set a limit on how much money can be spent, but the number of companies that can support a cause can be unlimited.

An advantage of the Citizens United being passed is major corporations can be a huge asset to things that wouldn’t normally be passed. Example being gay marriage, usually its not passed for some reason, but it can still be helped a lot with the support of major companies whom have a bigger voice in politics. However, a disadvantage is that it isn’t always going to be them supporting the underdog in the race. It’s possible that they will only use this power of citizens united to help influence the vote of something or someone that will benefit them and not the bigger picture.

In my opinion, corporate influence can really weaken a democracy. Right now we see all the petitioners around the school asking for signatures, and media telling us why to vote for this or why not to vote for that. If this corporate influence thing gets big, then the balance of things won’t be how many votes people get, it’ll be who can get the most corporations to support their cause and that will equal more votes for their cause not because they believe in it passionately or were convinced it was right, but through materialistic gain.

Jameelah Tran

7/17/2014 11:17:37 am

I agree! If this doesn’t change, it won’t be about how many votes anymore. It will be all about how many corporations support the petition. Businesses are already supporting in many conflicts of America, which we don’t know about until we dig up for information. It will definitely be through materialistic gain because they will only support things that will help their company or help them expand.

Tiffany Do

7/17/2014 01:09:00 pm

I think that you bring up an interesting benefit of the passage of Citizens United. Corporations can try to use all the power they have for good, by rallying for causes that matter to the rest of the people and that benefit more people than just the corporations themselves. I do agree that it is probably unlikely that they will do anything like that because they are too busy trying to make more money. However, even if they could, I don't know if that would be a good thing. I would want to be part of the democratic process and see that any issue I care about gets resolved, not leave it up to the hands of a corporation.

Nga Ho

7/18/2014 09:24:07 am

In my opinion, the three themes of the video are:
Big companies use money to buy off politicians to make public policies but benefit their private companies.
There is no any effort to eliminate lobbying from American politics.
If lawmakers and executives together serve for the interests of super wealthy corporations, our balance would be threaten because the process of “check and balance” can not work effectively any more.

Nicholas Yuk

7/19/2014 05:31:46 pm

I feel that the bribery of ALEC is a bit overrated due to the fact that all it does is give a pathway for corporations to submit bills they want completed in their interests. However, the main difference is even with this “bribery” it gives no guarantees to the corporations that their bribes will work in passing the bill. The video gave a lot of examples of green initiative bills that denied ALEC corporations even when they tried to submit bills of their own to benefit the oil companies.

cong cao

7/20/2014 03:19:21 pm

i agree with what you were talking about, just like what you said, bussiness in the USA have been support by the goverment, the citizens in the US only can get the support when they can let the conpanies or the goverment get some benefits!

Joshua Kim Cruz

7/20/2014 03:26:44 pm

In your comment of dissent in the video, I would like to see your opinion on how even bigger politicians and government officials are using the same tactic, essential bribery and manipulation, to get their way. This type of manipulation is not limited solely to ALEC but rather used in the entire world. Ultimately I agree with your statement that what they did was wrong and was cheating, but I also would've liked to see your stance on how the same actions are done elsewhere.

Vivian Gia

7/17/2014 09:53:00 am

ALEC related to the course theme of dissent because it is suppose to be a charity organization, but instead is using that name for possible avoidance of tax. Also, they were more involved with lobbying by trying to get bills to pass that would benefit big companies rather then the people they are suppose to serve. Also, under normal circumstances for a lobbyist, they would only get around 15 minutes with legislators to convince them why this or that is important, but ALEC flies the legislators to some place else, spends 3 days convincing them why they are right which is completely absurd.
Corporate influence in politics can definitely weaken our democracy because again, they are using ALEC to try and pass bills that are more beneficial to them. They are also trying to repeal bills that are benefiting the environment, and creating more jobs because it threatens their wealth. In the video, they are also trying to pass bills that would make it harder for the people to vote and speak up. Making it so that only the big companies have a say in politics. I don't think Citizens United would benefit the people. It would be extremely disadvantage for the people but a huge win for the benefactors who are the big companies and people running for office. It gives them a free pass to using the money in whatever way the want. Even though in the past, ALEC members failed to get bills pass, they are still trying which is the scary part because one day they might actually get their way, and that is going to have a disastrous outcome.

Nicholas Hardy

7/17/2014 03:16:22 pm

I agree with your thoughts about people power and dissent because it is very hard to show either of these things if the corporations are constantly lobbying legislators to have their bills passed. Average Americans cannot consistently go against billionaires with unlimited resources which makes it easier for the corporation to get what they want.

Chris Bunoan

7/20/2014 01:31:01 am

Very interesting blog post. ALEC is a very corrupt organization and the have enough power to over power peoples views on them. They can pass bills that only ensures their benefit and they are completely ran on greed. They just want what's best for them and who ever is associated with them, but I have one question for you.. If you were apart of ALEC would want to give up millions dollars of property, cars, boats, etc. Would you want to give up all those materialistic assets then live like a regular middle class citizen who's rights are constantly violated and they have no power to fix it? Now that's a hard question..

Kevin Tran

7/20/2014 08:35:14 am

ALEC is a huge company that I have no nice things to say about. It does amaze me about what people and big corporations would do to get things their way. It shows that money can pretty much buy anything. Being a charity organization, but overall their plan is just not to pay taxes because that would mean loss of money. They are all about profit and nothign else. Public safety, and the environment dont mean much to them if their pockets are full. The general public are the ones that get affected the most on a daily basis compared to these rich folks. It surprises me what companies that they have said to be part of ALEC are, and those are just a few. Big corporations with big money control our nation and that is true.

Medea Mohseni

7/20/2014 08:35:43 pm

Kevin you are right. I have been carrying this question in my mind for a while about "why paying for charities can take away the responsibility of paying for the taxes. This is a pathway that many cooperation choose mostly, even the smaller ones. In my opinion paying taxes distributes money among the society rather than directly helping the charities and not paying for the taxes because who knows the money that goes for funding a certain plan will have effective ending or not.

Louis Tagum

7/17/2014 10:06:34 am

The video explains three themes that relate to our class topics, such as: corruption, manipulation of the system, and personal gain. Corporations corrupt our legislature to their advantage. They would not listen to the people, but rather the corporations themselves. Also, they are using their power (money), to manipulate the playing field to their advantage. They stated on the video that ALEC bribed state legislatures with fancy accommodations and special treatment in exchange for influence in their decisions. Lastly, they are paying people out of their personal gain. Corporations like ALEC would not a spend a single dime towards anything if it does not give back benefits.

Systems of Government and people’s power relates to those themes. Corporations have the ability to manipulate our government with funding. I believe that if this goes on, our society would become the sandbox for the corporations rather than the people. The corporations also would use their power to buy the people power, rather than taking in consideration of our free will/expression.

With the passage of the Citizens United, corporations are just buying people. They spend as much as they want to have support for and against a candidate. Sure, that would benefit the person that the company support, or help pass a bill that favors everyone. If they are doing the right thing, that would be for the best. However, if it means of paying something that will negatively affect our society, then our society will be at a disadvantage.

Our country’s democracy is affected negatively when it comes to corporate influence. Corporations such as ALEC would only care for the economic solutions that benefits them rather than for our society. They can resort to using underhanded tactics that controls our government to their favor. Not only would they care for the people, but rather shape our society to their liking.

Jameelah tran

7/17/2014 11:11:54 am

It is wrong for corporations to manipulate the system and bribe legislators to pass a policy that is for their own good. Instead of directly saying that it is a bribe, they called it a “gift,” which makes the legislators blinded by the great hotels, vacations, and money. Money is power in this country and if nothing stops the secret ALEC organization, the country will no longer be for the people.

Frank Martinez

7/20/2014 02:32:25 am

I agree that the whole special treatment of government officials is wrong but a different perspective came up on my blog post. Someone said that just because they throw these nice things at them doesn't mean the bill is automatically passed. This point of view makes sense͵however͵ it definately tips the scale into their favor. After watching the movies in class how many politicians are out for the greater good rather than benefiting themselves??

Jameelah Tran

7/17/2014 11:07:42 am

ALEC is a secret organization of state legislators and corporate lobbyists. The organization is funded by large companies to model bills in their interest.

The themes that are related to our class topic are system, voting, and power.
System: As a capitalist country, money is valued over everything else. The corporations are beginning to control the laws we have and don’t have. Our democracy is to serve the people, but the large companies are pushing laws that will protect themselves instead of the rest of America. Through the ALEC organization, they order the state legislators to lobby bills that will benefit them and keep them in higher power.
Voting: The corporation members in ALEC have state legislators create and vote for the bills. Only the legislators in ALEC are able to vote for the bill they believe fits the corps. This is a secret organization because if ordinary citizens were able to vote, many of the bills would fail to pass. If we aren't allowed to vote, america will be a country for corporates.
Power: Huge corporations are starting to have a part in the government and are allowed to have a say in what they think is right. They lobby the bills to influence the government to work with the policies that they propose. With their persuasion, there has been 77 bills passed in 34 states. The corporations mainly have more power because they fund ALEC. They pay the state legislators to lobby for them and they state it as a “gift,” this will weaken our democracy and the people who are not infiliated with any large companies.

ALEC will weaken the democracy because America will no longer be the country of the people, but the country of the corporations. It will put the people in poverty in danger and the corporations will push for a conservative country. It will leave the poor with no more special programs to help them. The large companies will start controlling residents of America.

Won Ho Kim

7/19/2014 10:15:41 pm

I do not know about the reduction in welfare programs. I do agree that, with corporations running things in the background, we have slowly evolved into a country that is only focused on helping the upper echelons of society, but I think the key player in the upcoming political battlefield will be America’s growing middle class. They have the power to affect the most changes… the only question is whether they will wield it.

Anna Aguilar-Pineda

7/20/2014 01:51:32 pm

I agree it will weaken our democracy as well. Corporations do play an important role in our economic status. They do have the money to influence politicians to make decisions that would best benefit their corporation. Who know how much more corporations will try to get but it will have an impact on everyone especially those of lower class.

Jennifer Zihla

7/17/2014 12:04:53 pm

The video is focused on the actions to ALEC and its extensive lobbying. This is in line of the topic of corporations being granted the same rights as people and having protection under the law. As stated in the video, these corporations have the monetary funds to sway and or law makers that the acts they push for are in the best interest of everyone. And as the video said, by the time the people get to have a say in on what is happening, the people in Washington already have an idea in mind of what needs to happen. This catering if you will ties into the reading on the subject of how in recent years, the government has been making exemptions to big corporations. As mentioned in the text, President Ragan had the notion that if the big corporations had tax exemptions that these benefits would eventually be passed down to the working class. This however has proven to not be the case. In fact corporations became even more powerful in their ability to hobby and push politics that benefits them over the well being of the people.
As to the question of if corporate influences strengthen or weakens our democracy? Corporations help keep a healthy and in theory a stable economy. However, because they don’t necessarily have nationalities, or even loyalty to a particular nation, I would have to say that it weakens democracy in the sense that they influence policies more so then the governments own people do. However at the same time they are an integral part of our economy and without a strong stable economy and democracy is kind of meaningless.

Fadri Attamimi

7/17/2014 12:54:59 pm

I like how you mention that corporations are integral to the American economy, however to me it seems that you take the economic health of the country to be more important than its democracy. Shouldn’t these two things work hand in hand with each other to provide its citizens with a better living condition? Having a strong stable economy is important but meaningless if people are constantly being monitored and having miserable lives.

Kevin Duong

7/17/2014 12:05:46 pm

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, to me, is known as a secretive nonprofit organization. It is funded by popular and powerful corporations to push for legislation. This video relates to our course themes, political dissent, people power and corporate influence.
Political dissent is showing any expression that conveys dissatisfaction against government policies. In the video, ALEC is supported by corporations that own billions of dollars that make it hard to show dissent. Private corporations that support ALEC use their vast amount of wealth to pressure politicians. This makes it harder for the average American to show dissent. The way wealthy corporations act with ALEC show us that many wealthy and powerful people are corrupt. Although, showing dissent is harder when billion dollar corporations support ALEC, it is not impossible.
People power is the ability for Americans to make a difference when they work together. It is also when people have free access, free will and expression. Because of the people uniting and showing dissent, people power stopped some ALEC bills from being passed. However, people power is significantly lessened because of the many corporations supporting organizations such as ALEC.
Corporate influence significantly weakens our democracy because wealthy companies almost never have the people as a top priority. Wealthy corporations are almost always looking for profit and making money so they never keep the people in mind. For example, corporations would influence organizations such as ALEC, so ALEC can pass laws that would help make their lives to be much easier.

Dustin Van

7/20/2014 01:00:33 pm

The fact that ALEC is rather secretive and creates such an impact on our bills is terrifying. It allows all these big time corporations to act shady at a higher impact. Also I agree with what you said with it not being impossible to show dissent versus a group like ALEC. If we were to all band together and have one voice then we can be heard.

Jessie Cardoso

7/20/2014 01:16:02 pm

Hi Kevin,

I agree with your point that ALEC prevents political dissent. Money can be very persuasive, and unfortunately it sways the politicians' votes to favor those with money and not the majority of the people's opinions. Even when the people show dissent, it is not taken into consideration.

Jose Tabili

7/20/2014 04:16:20 pm

I agree with your point on People Power and how it is able to stop groups like ALEC who are influenced by big corporations to have laws passed that benefit themselves. Through people power, we should be able to render organizations such as ALEC useless no matter how much money is behind them and who is backing their organization. It is sad that our society today is controlled by wealth, but people power stopping some of ALEC's actions show that we can still do something if we all act as one.

Nicholas Yuk

7/17/2014 12:09:21 pm

Three key themes that from the video about ALEC were: the ability for large corporations to have the abilities to bypass regular lobbying methods to get their wants across to politicians, the aggressiveness of corporations where money comes first, and the effectiveness/ineffectiveness of the group over its history. These themes relate to all four of the course themes. Consent is given by the general public and the government because everyone knows these type of groups exist but do nothing to stop them. Dissent is evident in how bills are created that opposed the corporations of ALEC, for example the green initiatives that have been hampering many oil ALEC companies. People power also is restricted in the fact that these huge companies with money in a sense get the cut in front of others to get their needs done, leading to how the system is flawed. The benefits are that if corporations actually have a viable agenda that is beneficial to themselves and the state, they can get it done much quicker than usual. This allows for a win win situation. However, as mentioned in the video, if some policies are not in the interest of the states, the bills they propose will not get passed. As a result, their wine and dine strategy may not always sway the state legislators. Corporate influence in politics definitely weakens our democracy because companies want to put their needs ahead of the people because that is what a company does, make money. As a result, in their greedy for more profits, there can be collateral damage to unknowing citizens who had no say against these huge corporations.

Anand Rao

7/19/2014 05:10:49 am

I agree with the idea that consent is given by the general public, but I don't think that "everyone knows these types of groups exist". ALEC is doing a lot of these transactions with large corporations behind the public's back. The video mentioned that many of these companies are anonymously associated with ALEC to make sure that the public remains unaware with their access to legislators for corporate profit. However, the idea of consent works here because the public chooses to remain unaware of the existence of ALEC and how these large companies are able to work around bills.

Tal Hod

7/17/2014 12:38:06 pm

Three themes from the video are the Citizens United law, Big corporations funding Alec, and Alec not having to pay taxes.
The Citizens United law passing means that corporations are seen as people, which lets corporations spend as much as they want on advocating for or against candidates.
Alec is considered a "non-profit" organization funded by big corporations such as exxon mobil. This gives Alec power to do things such as take legislators on trips to nice hotels and not have to pay taxes. They use this power to ask legislators to introduce bills that work to their advantage in exchange for nice hotel stays/trips.
All of this relates to people power from the course themes. People don't have the power to individually make such a big difference in elections, and it is unfair to let one corporation make a huge difference while one person alone can barely change the polls.
The disadvantages to the passage of citizens united are that corporations have huge amounts of money. Being seen as a person lets a corporation basically be a super rich person who can use their money to influence bills and votes. This strengthens are democracy because it blows real people's influence on voting out of proportion and makes us real humans look like ants.

Tal Hod

7/17/2014 12:39:17 pm

*our democracy

Tal Hod

7/17/2014 01:00:37 pm

Wow I'm out of it today. I meant it weakens our democracy. Oops!

Jamal Jamal

7/17/2014 06:52:11 pm

Its a weird website, you cannot even edit your own comment. I will mention this to Dr. Crain, it would be more efficient if we can edit our comments.

cong cao

7/17/2014 12:39:35 pm

ALEC is a conservative nonprofit made up of state legislators and business leaders that writes model bills and resolutions to help businesses and weaken government programs.

In a series of prosecutions, precedents are being established for the criminalization of political dissent in America.The ruling class is in the advanced stage of preparations for an inevitable confrontation with the working class. Working people must make their own preparations, central to which is the building of a new, revolutionary leadership. Only a conscious political struggle for a workers’ government and socialism can avert the threat of dictatorship and establish genuine democracy and social

This gives corporate America extraordinary power within the US political process. No longer does the public have a right to know which companies are spending millions to influence the outcome of an election

The last thing is dissent in the state,If we live in a country with the widest disparity between rich and poor of any country in the world, with large numbers from both classes behind bars – the poor in their prisons and the rich in their gated communities – and national economic policy is to accelerate the pace of that widening gap; if we commit the “supreme international crime” of waging aggressive war, pretending we are freeing a people whose dead and mutilated we can’t be bothered to count; if we bomb Iraqi hospitals with children in them while prosecuting Americans who dare sneak vital medicines into Iraq; if our government plants fake “news” stories here at home while killing real journalists elsewhere; if our biggest problem with prison torture is the damn digital camera that revealed it.

Hieu Nguyen

7/17/2014 12:55:50 pm

I agree that if ALEC continues to help the wealthy 1%, it would create a bigger gap between the poor and rich people. In order to balance things out, big corporations should not be able to lobby and fund things such as ALEC to pass bills that would only benefit themselves. The government should start worrying about the lower and middle class more than the upper class. They put more effort into helping the upper class more than the lower class because the upper class can provide them with money and fund their campaigns and so on.

Fadri Attamimi

7/17/2014 12:45:03 pm

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a company that runs and owns many government related firms. Many big name corporations such as Coke Industries, Amplify and BP support ALEC. Throughout this video I can see three themes arise: money plays a large part in the bills that are passed, policies will be passed for the benefit of profit and corporations, politicians do not always act in an unbiased manner.

These three themes connect to the course theme of consent. ALEC works in their best interest, which means that they will pass bills and legislations for their benefit. American citizens do not get to give their consent on the bills being passed. Even if there are bills that do help the American citizen, should it hinder the business of those affiliated with ALEC, ALEC will try and change the bills so it doesn't affect business.

The passage of Citizens United will allow corporations to support or denounce individual candidates in election. A huge benefit for Citizens United is that corporations can now support candidate and policies that they believe in and that can show people which companies are backing which candidates. Those candidates can also gain more exposure with the corporations help. However, corporate backing could affect a candidate’s beliefs. A candidate may be forced into promoting bills and legislations that they do not necessarily believe in for the sake of corporate backing. This allows corporations to have a lot of power in the political arena.

Corporate influence in politics weakens our democracy. While a normal citizen can only vote and protest peacefully against the actions the government takes, corporate influence can direct bills and proposals giving them much more power than the average citizen. Furthermore, corporations will generally field the views of their owners or senior management, which means keeping the power with the one percent.

Jenny Ugale

7/20/2014 04:57:59 am

I also think the passage of Citizens United is potentially a positive benefit for the reasons you pointed out. If corporations were to use the funding to educate and spread exposure to different policies, it could be beneficial for everyone. However, like you mentioned, the corporate funding could also result in candidates being controlled by the corporations.

Hieu Nguyen

7/17/2014 12:48:51 pm

ALEC is an organization developed to avoid taxes and for a group of state legislators and corporate lobbyists. Their main purpose is to work for big corporations to better aid them in making more money. The wealthiest companies fund ALEC to help pass bills that would ensure their profit margarine would increase. This ties in to the class themes by system, voting, and power.
America is ran by a free market producing more exports than imports. Money holds the highest value in today's society and the corporations are using money to regulate laws and restrictions towards their goals. They would fund bills that would benefit them, and decline the bills that would hurt their company and profits. ALEC is supposed to work for the people, however, it helps the 1% more than the 99%. By doing so, it damages the economy and creates a bigger rupture in the equilibrium of the income margins.
Voting plays a huge role in all of this. Due to ALEC holding several positions as state legislators, they can create and vote for bills that would greatly impact the American people. These bills can only be voted by them and the people can not veto their opposing bills. America is a democratic society which gives the people the right to vote, and ALEC has corrupted the system, forbidding the American people the right to vote on their beliefs.
Wealthy corporations have now touched into government and has many of the people in government in their payroll. They can lobby bills influencing the government to pass bills that would only benefit them and not the American people. Through the use of ALEC, there has been a total of 77 bulls passed in 34 states and they were funded by the corporations that would most benefit from those bills. This weakens our democracy because it creates a severed tie between the people and the government. If the people can not vote on what will affect them, then America is no longer a democracy.

Anand Rao

7/19/2014 04:47:47 am

I think that your first point about them avoiding taxes is important. ALEC allows these large corporations to manipulate (environmental, work conditions, etc.) laws that people/lobby groups worked hard to create just to save some money for themselves. ALEC also avoids taxes through its 501c non-profit organization, which makes them eligible for tax deductions. Large corporations and ALEC have created a mutualistic yet corrupt relationship that prevents people's voices from being heard.

Kevin Duong

7/19/2014 05:32:08 pm

I completely agree with you. ALEC is a company in disguise as a non profit organization. However, this is not the case. ALEC is a company that is being corrupted and manipulated by super wealthy corporations. The corporations fund the organization so they can pass laws that can exempt them from taxes and pass laws that will make their life a lot easier.

Tiffany Do

7/17/2014 12:58:38 pm

Three themes from the video were the extension of freedom of speech to money, the process of lobbying for a cause, and corporate influence in the democratic process. These themes relate to the course themes of people power and systems. Corporations were able to redefine what it meant to be considered “people” with the Citizens United decision, and with the passage of Citizens United, they were granted rights belonging to actual people. These themes also relate to the course theme of systems because corporations know how to navigate the political system in order to have things go in their favor. They understood that although we are a democratic nation, money can influence how loud one’s voice is within this democracy. By bringing attention to the fact that limiting their spending within the political process seemed unconstitutional, corporations demonstrated that they knew exactly what they were doing and were skillfully navigating the system.

Corporations clearly benefit from the passage of Citizens United because they can spend as much money as they please on political campaigns and lobbying for bills they would like to see pass. They use bribery in order to sway politicians to side with them on some issue. The disadvantages of the passage of Citizens United is that it is unfair to the rest of the people (actual people) who do not have as much leverage in the political process because the people do not have the same resources. That being said, corporate influence is weakening our democracy. These corporations, which make up a small percentage of the population, have much more power in the political process than a regular person on the street. Under the law, we should all be equally represented. Even though the all-expenses-paid-for-by-corporations trips for politicians to hear about a bill about some issue of importance to these corporations are legally seen as charity, I think it is clear that it is plain old bribery. In fact, I think the passage of Citizens United is extremely detrimental to our democracy. Our democracy is supposed to be for the people, by the people. In my opinion, corporations are not people.

Petrina Picariello

7/17/2014 03:18:04 pm

I agree with you when you said that corporations benefit from the passage of Citizens united because these corporations are able to do what they want with there money and barely have anyone watching the transactions they are putting forth. Also, I cannot agree more with your last statement. Our democracy is supposed to be for the people but I have noticed that our democracy is not for us people but for the corporations that are "supporting" our democracy.

Chloe Li

7/20/2014 02:18:15 pm

I also agree with what you wrote about how the corporations benefit from Citizens United. The transactions to "bribe" legislators are catered to corporation interests, not people interest. Adding on to the previous comment, Citizens United goes completely against our democracy "for the people, by the people" since the corporation's decisions do not necessarily complement what the people desire.

Richard Le

7/17/2014 01:01:42 pm

ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is basically a club for big corporations to get together and push bills on legislators that would benefit their own agenda. They use their money to sway legislators onto their side by flying them out and treating them to high class hotels, food and entertainment. This shows a weakness in our governing systems, in that the people working within these systems are only people and can indeed be swayed with riches. The public interest tends to suffer in this regard (privatization of education, more destruction of environment and changing the standards of renewable energy) should these bills be passed.

In the end, corporations think with a business mindset. What will benefit their company? What will make them money? Either by stepping on public interests or by putting themselves in a better light in view of the public, they are thinking about what will make them money. If the corporations that left ALEC (Amazon etc.) truly cared about the people, they wouldn't have joined in the first place. Only when there was scrutiny that they left to save their own hides from bad PR. With the passage of Citizens United, corporations would have more influence in the political system as they are not limited to how much they can front to buy legislators off. We all know how immensely rich these corporations are and now their influence is as strong as how filthy rich they are. The fact that these funds would be considered tax-exempt would mean that we as people not only subsidize the money that corporations pay to join ALEC (being that it is considered a charity organization), but that we would subsidize the money that they would pay off as well.

I believe that corporate influence in politics ultimately weakens our democracy being that they are so much more powerful than the public. They are organized and have a specific goal in mind, goals that are quite simple compared to the issues that we try and deal with. They want money. They don't care about people, or the environment, or who suffers as a result. We do. Not only do we not have the money to influence the political systems, we as a whole comprise of many different viewpoints, backgrounds, and cultures. We are divided, and that's a good thing. That leads to discussion and makes us question the morality and consequences of our choices. Corporations don't need to discuss, they can push bill after bill while we argue amongst ourselves. If corporations valued public interest then maybe it would be beneficial, but it is still a powerful entity, a loud entity, that is making decisions. I believe that we as humans are easily corrupted, and to be tempted day after day at that level, you're bound to slip. If you try to use your power to please everybody, you're going to fail, maybe even growing cynical and resort to looking after yourself. Whatever the case, power should be checked and it should never be allowed to run free.

Uyen

7/18/2014 09:35:26 am

I agree with you that corporate influence in politics weakens our democracy. However, it's a bit hard when you said "If the corporations that left ALEC (Amazon etc.) truly cared about the people, they wouldn't have joined in the first place." Because I think a organization as ALEC could be good to help the legislators understand more on some bills that they might not have enough information than the people inside the issue.But only if the organizations be fund by the general citizens or good corporations which willing to help the sake of democracy.

Shubaan Taheri

7/20/2014 10:49:26 am

The worst aspect of ALEC is that they are allowed to be considered non-profit. Our tax dollars should go back to helping the people, but its clear that ALEC acts in corporations best interest (private education, fighting solar energy, etc.). I agree that the passing of Citizens United weakens our democracy because ordinary people can't compete financially with corporations and the money that ALEC has can be very persuasive.

Jenny Ugale

7/17/2014 01:11:20 pm

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a charitable organization funded by numerous large corporations. ALEC is involved with gathering state legislators to lobby and push for legislation.

As discussed in the video, ALEC works for its own self-interest, instead of working for the public’s best interest. Corporations are only looking to make money and don’t necessarily care how they do so. Companies such as BP, Chevron and Shell push for fewer environmental regulations, such as the Electricity Freedom Act. The push for greener solutions and the use of renewable energy sources works against ALEC members making any profits. Having a more green approach in how we consume energy works in favor for the environment, and in turn, the people, but since it works against ALEC, they have been trying to find ways to convince states that they’d be losing money and creating more unemployment.

Corporations have the ability and power to strengthen our democracy, but are too caught up in their own self-interest and blinded by money. The extent of ALEC’s influence on political issues is high, having state legislators working to their benefits. Although lobbying is a perfectly legitimate way in getting issues known, the way ALEC goes about it is questionable. ALEC holds lavish meetings—often meeting for a few days when the average lobbyist gets fifteen minutes—for legislators to listen to ALEC’s concerns and be pitched their ideas, nudging the legislators to pass bills that work in their favor. This works against the people and takes away our voice because legislators have already been sold on whatever ALEC has proposed.

Uyen

7/18/2014 09:21:56 am

I agree with you that the corporations have the ability and power to strengthen our democracy but more often they force on there own interest than the majority. I think a organization as ALEC could be good to help the legislators understand more on some bills that they might not have enough information than the people inside the issue. But the organizations need to be fund by the general citizens or good corporations which willing to help for the best of democracy.

Jose Tabili

7/20/2014 03:18:53 pm

I agree with you about ALEC being selfish, as they are run by these companies who are losing profits because of the sudden push for clean and renewable energy. It disgusts me that ALEC is actually trying to fight against having a cleaner energy source; clean energy is beneficial for every living thing on the planet but all they're concerned about is the money they will lose, not caring about the future and attempting to stop progress.

Weibo Xing

7/17/2014 01:21:34 pm

From the video, the three themes I found relevant to class topics are consent, dissent and people power. The video mentions the money from taxpayers subsidizes the organization, so the people give consent to ALEC by supporting this council; Some companies decided to drop from ALEC as they don’t want public know their brands are associated with ALEC, which is a example of dissent; People power is shown from the nature of ALEC. ALEC is a organization that gather corporations together to push model legislation on state politicians, and it help people participant in the process of decision-making. A single individual or company is too weak to influence the political process.

The achievements that ALEC has successfully made including creating new jobs, from which citizens can be beneficial. A potential good effect is that ALEC may push legislators to make some decisions that will bring benefits to the public. However, ALEC may try to prevent these legislations which threaten the companies’s benefit from making, such as Electricity Freedom Act. This kind of act surely will better the life of people from many aspects, but as it may not be a good thing for some ALEC members, in the future there will be less act like this being made.

It seems that democracy is strengthened because ALEC does have influence on the legislation making, however, the fact is ALEC cannot represent people’s idea. What ALEC did was to making more benefits from themselves, for the corporations, rather than people. Thus it’s actually weakling the democracy.

Angel Moreno

7/17/2014 02:41:09 pm

I have to disagree with you about whether it is strengthening or weakening our Democracy. I believe it is weakening our Democracy heavily because the peoples vote is having less of an impact. Yes, ALEC doesn't represent the people's idea, but when legislators are being persuaded heavily, then our vote has little effect on what they decide.

Brian Nichols

7/20/2014 01:07:18 pm

You make an interesting point in that the peoples vote does not matter because of special interest lobbying. However, the people vote in the candidates who are the ones making these kinds of decisions. It should be the case that those same people that put a person in office should be holding those elected officials accountable for their actions?

Nga Ho

7/17/2014 01:53:44 pm

ALEC is an organization whose members are powerful corporations in many fields. The purpose of this organization is to conduct the lobbying with the new approach: members of the organization will compose bills that benefit their company and legislators will attend seminars organized by ALEC at luxury hotels with all expense paid by ALEC members. After attending such conferences, lawmakers will return to their states and become advocates for bills.
ALEC has proved very successful in the past four decades, and public seem not to know about the presence of this organization. Thus, using money and lobbying, bills that are beneficial for the ALEC members become laws.
Looking back, all most recent bills had the hallmark of ALEC. From privatization education to privatization of education, all of them are taken placed under the will of ALEC members who are benefit from those bills. And lawmakers with smiles raise their hands to vote for the bills and wait for another meeting with ALEC.
It's not fair for middle class who have to work hard, but only receive a very little share. Whereas, there are a few people, who receive millions of dollars each year from the business relationship when they combine the power of information, the power of money and the political power.
While the majority have to use all their time to struggle for their daily living expense, the elite use their money, their time and political tricks to take advantage of democracy to benefit for themselves. See "Inside Jobs", I wonder that the elite have actually served their country and their people or not? And if their talent can do anything good for this country or not. I only see that in the dark ages of foreclosure, many people lost their house, and the properties of these elite increase millions dollars per year.

Angel Moreno

7/17/2014 02:27:23 pm

To add on to what you have already discussed, I'm more frightened about how our Democracy is being affected. Not to say what happened with the foreclosure of homes is frightening enough, but when I hear that our vote is not having the same value as it used to have, it scares me more. Our country was built on having the citizens have a vote and when ALEC is clearly twisting it, it can only lead to bad things.

Angel Moreno

7/17/2014 02:18:01 pm

In relation to the themes discussed in the video and our class themes, people power, consent, dissent were all demonstrated in this video. ALEC was involved through all of these themes. The first course theme, people power, is found when ALEC shrinks the participation of voters with their version of lobbying. a normal lobbyist only discusses their topic for around fifteen minutes. ALEC stretches the lobbying idea by paying for the legislators traveling expenses, bringing them for a three day session about passing corporate friendly bills. This dramatically affects the voters impact on the legislator because by the time the voter puts his opinion, the legislator is already convinced by ALEC. In addition, another corse theme that has been taken advantage of by ALEC is consent. Alec is abusing consent by subsidizing the citizens charitable tax right op, so that we pay for their special interest lobbying.Thus the people are being pushed and tricked into giving consent because they are not knowingly paying for it, when they should know. Lastly, dissent is displayed at the end of the video where groups like Common Cause and Center for Media and Democracy are reporting and sending a letter with the IRS that the scholarship scheme is underreporting scholarships that has been given to state legislators. This is an example of going against the status quo and stopping all of these intolerable acts by ALEC. We have the power to change what is happening.
Next, in regards to to the passage of Citizens United, I feel it is a total disadvantage for everyone, except the corporations and unions that benefit from the passage. This passage has allowed corporations and unions to spend on elections. This makes it tremendously easier for the political action committee to slander people like Hillary Clinton in 2008 through the media. However, now all citizens of this country will not know who to believe, or believe in false truths. Corporations and unions may benefit, but the citizens are the ones who suffer.

Lastly, I believe that our Democracy is being weakened because it does not represent what the people want. Specifically, ALEC is twisting the lobbying process to persuade legislators to their side ad voters are now powerless because of it. Also, Alec is making it harder not just to vote, but with working standards, getting jobs, and privatizing schools and prisons. This is further weakening our voice in our so called Democracy. We need to not only care about what is happening, but do something about it.

Nga Ho

7/17/2014 03:12:45 pm

When that money and lobbyists substitute for the transparency and fairness of our democracy is threatened. It’s important to recognize organizations like ALEC. I think there are also other variants of this organization and they are still shrouded in secrecy. People should ask questions about bills that lawmakers support. Is the bill necessary and who is the most benefit? People must thoroughly use their political power: voting to eliminate lawmakers who do not really represent the interests of the majority.

Andrea Olivos

7/20/2014 11:34:20 am

I agree when you say that the passage of Citizens United would be a total disadvantage for everyone except the corporations because since they now would have the right to spend as much money as they want in the elections, their voice will become louder. So as their voice gets louder, ours get under heard causing an imbalance which isn't fair.

Gautam Prabhu

7/20/2014 05:02:44 pm

Many folks wonder why vigilantism and Robin Hood-like characters are immensely popularized in modern media, like movies tv shows, and video games. It is because almost everyone is fully aware of the systematic failures of the system itself to actually serve the people it is supposed to be servicing. In almost all of these media pieces, a completely backwards, inefficient bureaucratic methodology consistently fails to do its job (eg. Dallas Buyer's Club, Royal Pains, etc.). These scenarios are based off of real situations that should not exist.

Brian Nichols

7/17/2014 02:44:05 pm

There are many themes presented in the video about ALEC that tie in nicely with the class themes. One of them is ALEC lobbying for corporate interests instead of public interests which goes against ALEC's status as a 501c non profit organization. The course theme this connects with is consent. The majority of citizens are giving passive consent by not holding ALEC accountable to the rules that dictate what a 501c should be allowed to do. If the majority of citizens do nothing than it simply says to ALEC that what they are doing is OK.

Another theme in the video is corporate America has unfair access and influence over elected officials. People power is the class theme that best represents the theme presented in the video. ALEC funnels money from corporate members to legislators in the form of elaborate trips, conferences, gifts and other events to use money "buy" increased time with elected officials and thus greater influence over them. This goes directly against the theme of people power because it thwarts the ability of the average citizen to have their voice heard. It is very difficult to compete against an all expense paid 3 day trip paid for by a corporation when most citizens who attempt to lobby are lucky to get 15 minuets in an elected officials office.

A third theme is ALEC lobbies against government accountability for businesses because regulation will hurt corporate profits. This topic could fit into any of the course themes but an interesting way of looking at it is through the theme of systems. ALEC is attempting to change the system of government to benefit private corporations at the expense of the public. One key piece of legislature talked about in the video that exemplifies this is the attempted repeal of renewable standards. The video states that renewable standards is a highly successful policy that creates green jobs, protects the environment, encourages innovation and holds corporations accountable for following the system set forth by the government. ALEC's membership feels that this is harmful to companies because it reduces the profitability of the business.

Chungchen Ran

7/20/2014 06:38:52 am

I agree that corporations have too much influence over elected officials by using conferences and gifts. Through those officials, corporations have influence over our government. As you may remember from “The History of Stuff” video, corporations had become more powerful than the government. This means that the government will be more likely to listen to the corporations than to the people, which is against the purpose of our country’s democracy.

Jay Reason

7/17/2014 02:47:15 pm

Sorry for sounding repetitive, but ALEC (from my understanding) is a bill writing machine that is influenced by a handful of powerful cooperations. The bills they pass have a wide range of meaning. They particular included regulations regarding certain business interests the cooperations might want to take advantage of, while limiting the power and rules that the government might have over them.

It’s a popular belief that economic goals and social goals can’t coexist together. And while both have been claimed destroy the other, in ALECs case, it is the greed and lack of accountability that has kept the social aspect of our fine establishment from functioning.

While the lack of responsibility has literally ruined our economy, I still promote at the idea of a large scale cooperation. It’s not for the idealistic goals that they think believable, but I’ll always prioritize competition, and the more competitors, the more the economy wins. The game is seriously left unchecked, allowing ambitious/crazy CEOs to threaten our very way of living with their money, but that is not to say we shouldn’t allow certain companies to back presidential candidates.

We should have the right to publicly support one potential candidate over the other, while maintaining our business practices and services. Perhaps there needs to a be an extensive investigation regarding the actual purpose of donations made, which might leave room for error (as the process is subjective), but it would manage to for a better alternative that what we have now (I don’t know if that is still classified as lobbying though).

Nicholas Hardy

7/17/2014 02:56:50 pm

The organization ALEC is a nonprofit filled with corporations who want to pass bills that benefit them. The 3 themes that stand out to me are dissent, people power, and the simple fact that corporations are corrupt. The group is very secretive and privatized so the public does not know who is a part of the organization and who runs it. This makes it harder for the population to dissent to the actions of ALEC because we do not know who is in it, and what is going on. The policies that ALEC tries to pass have a lot to do with less environmental restrictions which would take a lot of jobs from renewable energy companies. The public expressed people power, which is when Americans make a decision of change together, when the people have stopped some bills from passing. The fight still goes on with ALEC and they are not backing down on the bills that they want to be passed. This brings another idea that corporations are corrupt because they are only looking for the benefit to themselves, not the public. Everything becomes about many and how they can make more instead of them actually focusing on being a nonprofit. These things hurt our democracy because it makes things harder for regular Americans to make decisions if big corporations are making them for us. With ALEC lobbying constantly for these bills to be passed to legislators the legislators already have their minds made up before they even ask the public.

David Huynh

7/20/2014 03:09:49 pm

I agree that due to the secrecy of Alec it is harder for the public to know what their actual purpose are. The fact is Corporations such as Alec is the one trying to change and makes decisions for the public which alone is prone to a large amount of dissent among the public. Their secrecy spices up the number of dissent as well.

Jonathan Paulo

7/20/2014 04:29:25 pm

I agree that for profit corporations can be are corrupt. ALEC is a perfect example. I think it's kind of difficult to try and stamp out an issue like this. Especially in a capitalistic society like ours, where for profit is pretty much the name of the game. Also, it's kind of human nature to be greedy.

chris Bunoan

7/17/2014 03:06:03 pm

This video is very interesting because it is exploiting this corrupt government we have in America. ALEC has so many major corporations working with them the probability of changing regulations to fit their personal standards are more probable to being passed. Even if it is horrible to our environment such as the Keystone XL pipeline. That pipeline proposal is so bad for our environment especially the pollution that it will produce with leaks and other hazards. This corrupt government is in dispirit need of a leader whom isn't addicted to greed. Such as our financial advisors in the White House who are still in charge of finances for this country even though they were major contributors to our recent financial crash in 2008. We need a change this country is so corrupt and ran to only keep the poor poor and get the rich richer. This video makes me think that our democracy really isn't a full democracy. This corruption weakens our democracy by showing us viewers that these major corporations that run this country financially will pass laws and policies only to their benefit and not for the benefit or well being of the American people. A majority of our leaders and politicians participate in fraudulent behavior and we need to educate ourselves and let our voice be heard and advocate change in America because we need help.

Petrina Picariello

7/17/2014 03:13:27 pm

ALEC was founded in the wary 70s. The ALEC meetings are normally held at the nicest hotels. The people in charge of the meeting are paying for people to come for the meetings. ALEC is usually operated discreetly.

Corporate influence is weakening our democracy. The ALEC program is very secretive and the public does not even know who is a member of ALEC. This is a good example of corporate influence weakening our democracy because once again, us citizens are not being told the truth. The whole point of is to bring corporations together with state legislators whom push legislation on state politicians. If this program can push our state legislators, than, how can out democracy be strong? It is being told what to do.

Big corporations purchase and fund the ALEC memberships. These corporations are able to push their policies forward and have access to the legislators. One big policy ALEC is trying to pass is called the Electricity Freedom Act, which would repel standards of a majority of the states in the US that require utilities provide a certain percentage of electricity from sources. This is a good example of our democracy weakening by corporate influences because all of our problems are somehow being involved in organizations that do not need to be involved with us. Luckily, ALEC’s bills have not been passed in regard to the renewable energy standards. Renewable energy standards effects are meant to create innovations, renewable technology, and create jobs that will get the green economy going. This is a way of the corporate influence strengthening our democracy because this will be giving us more job opportunities to the unemployed.

Lynh Nguyen

7/20/2014 11:24:09 am

It's an interesting point on how ALEC operates only for the benefit and interest of the corporations instead for the people. To try to keep it a secret from the public and trying to take an advantage of the state legislator's power for their benefit, it does, in fact, weaken the democracy. ALEC was meant to be a charitable organization, but they did more lobbying than expected.

Gautam Prabhu

7/17/2014 03:16:42 pm

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is membership based 501(c)(3) charity that focuses primarily on lobbying through the state level by convincing state legislators of the benefits of certain bills, and throwing money at them.

Clearly, this mass bribery causes drastic misrepresentation throughout each and every state, because of the fact that these state legislators are already convinced on the effectiveness of the bill, and dissent expressed by regular citizens is many a time disregarded and pushed aside. Also, these large corporations that undermine the environment for personal gain are the same ones that promote the consumerist culture that revolves around by those affected by those corporations (everyone).

Citizens United is without a doubt a hypocritical piece of legislation that contains numerous logical fallacies that hinder the wellbeing of the American employee. Although corporations are allowed to be religious people that refuse to provide women with contraception, they are not persecuted as individuals, not taxed as such, and are not held accountable for otherwise unacceptable acts (eg. BP oil spill).

Corporate influence on the legislative process is one of, if not the most damaging force on the democracy of the United States of America. Not only is corporate lobbying (done by a charity) a blatant slap on the face of representative justice, corporate campaign funding completely undermines and destroys every shred of equality the founding fathers attempted to establish. I believe that there are only a few things worse for our nation than corporate campaign funding.

PERSONAL NOTE: I urge you to go to WOLF-PAC.COM to help end bring the voice back to you and me.

aakash Kadakia

7/17/2014 03:34:31 pm

i agree that citizen united is very hypocritical and can not be trusted. However i believe that people as Individuals are better then people who are united because that causes people to never express how they feel and people become more pressured that way

Jamal Jamal

7/18/2014 06:29:13 pm

I agree with your reasons. The charity money that they receive, feels like they are saying we are above taxes and the law. Money is power these days so the more ALEC gains, the more they can manipulate and help push bills and weaken democracy.

Brian Nichols

7/20/2014 01:03:13 pm

You have said that this is mass bribery and that is not accurate legally. While I agree with you that it is highly unethical it is not bribery because of the way the laws are written and the fact that the money is not going from the corporations to the legislators. What should be looked at and changed is the interpretation of the laws to prevent these kind of loopholes from existing.

Gautam Prabhu

7/20/2014 05:06:57 pm

I may not have made it clear in my original statements, and I apologize if that is the case, by I was essentially insinuating the same message that you just expressed.
Though I would be genuinely surprised if those plain old bribes didn't go around under the table.

Gabriela Iniguez

7/17/2014 03:17:38 pm

Alec a private association mainly to recruit conservative law makers. According to Alec"A nonpartisan membership association for conservative state lawmakers who shared a common belief in limited government, free markets, federalism, and individual liberty." Clearly, they lean toward the conservative party because most of the beliefs are the same as the Republican Party. Some of the topics i could relate the video to would be Capitalism because the goal of this association is for a free market and laissez faire. Most of the tactics used by the association are for the benefit of their own best interests. They benefit from being privatized because there is more control over the money they make, how its distrubuted and who gets it.The course themes correlate with the themes because it represents consent- which is by giving permission for associations or corporations especially private ones, to do as they please with their money. They may be committing fraud but who is regualting their actions. Dissent would be the way these private institutions express the disagreement of having a regulation in their bussiness, it does not benefit them in any way or form. People power and systems. Alec has a lot of power and it definitely carries on to the political spectrum. These corporations can make a big difference the lives of many americans but most the time for the bad. Corporations have too much power over the government and unfortunately there is no proper regulation. I believe corporations only care for themselves and how much money is coming in,and from the videos i have watched in class most committ fraud along the way. They want to control every aspect of the citizens lives. As time goes democracy will weaken more. As of today i do not see a democracy but a country who is ran by money and power hungry corporations who wont do anything to benefit the majority of the U.S.

aakash kadakia

7/17/2014 03:30:42 pm

i completely agree this country only runs on the power of money now. It became the survival of the fittest kind of concept in modern day America. Im really disgusted as to how low these people can actually go for money.

Aakash Kadakia

7/17/2014 03:26:00 pm

Alec stand for American Legislative Exchange Council, their job is to basically to help corporations pass the laws that they put out to the legislators to pass. They basically appease them by giving them fancy hotels which are all paid for them. the 3 themes according to me that Alec uses is consent dissent and people power They use consent by making the legislative on their sides. Alec uses dissent because the laws passed are not for the people but more for them self. and finally people power in terms of how they lobby. In a normal lobby people usually get to the point and talk about the bills they have but in this case they stretch the process and appease the people they are presenting the bill too. I really think that the only benefit they have is having the product physically with them but the disadvantage is that if people don't like the law, they do not know how to blame since its a very private and secret organization. I think that the cooperation really weaken the process of democracy. the reason is very simple, i believe that they really care about themselves and how much profit they make then the people

Juan Pablo Hernandez Lopez

7/17/2014 03:26:19 pm

I think that one theme from the video ALEC Turns 40, But Who’s Behind It? Could be consent because they are operating in secret with the public, so Alec members are unknown, and it can relate to Naomi Wolfs of a closed society, which the government hides to people what they are doing. Another theme could be government system because ALEC’s polluter members such ad Chevron, and TransCanada prefer fewer environmental regulations and more drilling and freckling. In other words, our environment will suffer because there will less regulation that will protect our wilderness.
Having the passage of Citizens United can either benefit people or corporations because if there are not enough funds during a election campaign, corporates will choose people that best represent the interests of the corporates, and if that happens, people are screw because those representatives will not look for interests of the people even though people vote for them.
I think corporate influence in political has weakened our democracy because corporations do not care about people’s opinion, and our environment has also been negatively affected by ALEC. I also feel that middle class are negatively affected because of the effort that ALEC is doing to privatize school, restriction of worker rights, to promote privatization, and undermine advocacy for wage hiking. The middle class composes the majority of the U.S. population, but if ALEC keeps helping the upper class, the middle class will either become lower or upper class. It seems that ALEC and some corporations are as dangerous as corrupt governments, and if we, the people do not stop them, our democracy may be gone and communism will take over the U.S.

Uyen

7/17/2014 03:27:05 pm

Three themes of the video relate to the lecture topics is lobbing: how convince a legislator to pass a bill; the people power (the big corporations which have more influence to the government for their private interest); and clean energy, create green job.

I think the themes if video that related to the course themes is dissent and people power. For dissent, we learn that as citizen, if there things going wrong, we can review give our voice to legislators to make the change in the Government. Like doing lobbing, or protest . And for people power, that we see that the government was build up by people, and we are part of it, we can make change and improve the system. However, as we see in the video ALEC as a charity, but funded by big coporation, as Koch industries, BP Amplify … they try to make the legislator to pass the bill that help to protects their own members rather than for public interests. Which mean it's weaken our demorcarcy

Yes the Citizens United would be really good, help to promote or support the best interest for the major population. But as same time it’s depend on the member of the union and also their wealthy. If rich organization as ALEC, they have much more power influence the legislator than the non-profit group with traditional lobbing. At the other hand, on my option, some time the major vote might not healthy for the population either.

Eileen Javadi

7/17/2014 03:45:03 pm

ALEC is a secretive organization of conservative members who lobby and push for legislations to happen. Major corporations fund ALEC in hopes to continuously be able to work with them and push their policies. The video stated how lobbyists are primarily setting the minds of legislators before the public gets a chance to weigh in, and this ultimately provides a negative effect and weakens our democracy. Corporations have always prioritized their profits over any other important matter and lack the genuine best interest of the people, which is where our government is currently failing the most economically.

The concept stated above ties in greatly to one of the themes discussed in class, which is people power. Individuals should have the free availability to play a key role in politics and how legislations are being handled. However, lobbyists continuously go against this theme by influencing legislators to pass bills that benefit their corporations. Lobbyists pay for traveling plans, take care of the legislators’ needs, and essentially bribe them into accepting bills that go in their favor. The constitution and government have always stated that the people should have a voice and the power to decide on major reforms but organizations such as ALEC make it harder for individuals to do so.

All in all, groups such as ALEC should not be granted as great of an influence as they currently have because they essentially take away the basic rights of an American. Because of lobbyists, voting has become harder, playing a key role in passing legislations is very minimal, and the democracy is overall weakened.

Louis Tagum

7/20/2014 03:32:44 am

I agree with how corporations like ALEC should not be a great influence. In fact, the more we let them do what they do, our society will be shaped and run by corporation standards and norm. Sure we still can vote and fight for what we think is right, but by having power, most likely their large sums of money, corporations still have a large influence that target people like legislatures.for their gain. With that, it is indeed that our democracy is weakening...

Medea Mohseni

7/20/2014 08:27:00 pm

I agree that democracy can be weakened if unknown groups do great amount of lobbying against certain legislation. Essentially, these types of lobbying violates the first amendment because people's participation in process of politic and decision making faint out, especially when these lobbies are done for the benefit of cooperation rather than for the benefits of people, more specifically the low income people. In every society low incomes pay the most price.

Julio Valdez

7/17/2014 03:45:17 pm

My themes would be on dissent, money, and United People.
Alec is the American Legislative Exchange Corporation who has only for the cooperate agenda and interest of their supporting corporations rather than the peoples’ interest. Alec is just there for profit from changing working standards, wages, privatization schools, prisons, and making laws that are harder to vote on. Alec is not so transparent with how they do things compared to lobbyist. Lobbyist meet with legislators for about fifteen minutes. Alec has meeting and workshops with legislators for a couple days with the best accommodations funded by the companies that want the legislators to be on their side to pass bills and laws. During those three days they are forced to believe in the new bill they want to get passed. Then when they get back to the place they reside, it is too late for the citizens to change the legislators mind. That is what corporations want, just to get throughout the legislators to push their polices. Luckily some bills are not being able to be put into effect.
What good is it that the corporations are being protected, and being included into the ‘We The People’ slogan like if they were people too. They are weakening our democracy; We all as citizens should have the right to vote, but they are taking that right away. After the United Citizens passed, corporations can put any amount of money into PACs to elect or defeat candidates who will work in the corporations favor. They only push for themselves and forget about what’s best for the people. Some corporations have ties with major media companies or might even own them. They will broadcast whatever they want in that will only favor them. They might only show their one sided censored propaganda. We have our right to vote taken away, and our right to know the truth around us.

Gautam Prabhu

7/20/2014 04:54:31 pm

I agree with you in terms of corporate campaign funding. I think almost every average citizen that cares about democracy would rather have a insignificant amount added to his/her taxes, if it were a viable alternative to the systematic corruption of politicians. Krony capitalism is one major reason the nation's views and opinions aren't being incorporated into legislation.

Medea Mohseni

7/17/2014 03:48:57 pm

ALEC is a conservative nonprofit organization that is ran by state legislator and business leaders that are trying to write regulations in favor of businesses. ALEC’s members are billionaire business owner and basically their actions are opposing to trust and consent that people have gave to government in terms of decision making based on what video is trying to imply. These decisions made by big cooperation never consider people benefits as part of their plans and decisions further people power does not really have any emphasis on the function of society. This result of such action is something like what is happening currently about waste and e-waste production. Cooperations are trying to produce low quality products that needs to be replaced quite oftenly. Further people are purchasing new product constantly and end of with pile of useless product in their houses that ultimately goes to the land fields and third world countries. Besides, most of the natural resources, and primary product is destroyed and consumed on high rate. Be that as it may, the corporation benefits the most from ALEC regulations and people across American and world hurts the most. First world countries become consumers and third world countries become space for trash produced and cheap labor.

Anna Aguilar-Pineda

7/17/2014 03:50:32 pm

Three themes from the video that can relate to the lecture topics from class are dissent, government system and people power.

In the video it mentions how certain companies decided to have nothing to do with ALEC because they didn't want the public to know that they were associating with them. This would be an example of dissent. As for the second theme government systems, Alec is scamming the system by giving legislators "gifts" which is buying their decisions to pass bills that will benefit ALEC. The third theme is people power, people can't go against ALEC because of the amount of power they hold and who they are allied with such as big corporations.

The benefits of passing Citizens United is that corporations can give legislators money or how they say "gifts" in order to make their bills pass. With this they no longer need to worry about their bills not passing.

I believe this will weaken our democracy, because the government will end up making decisions that will best benefit corporations rather than the people. The government should represent the people therefore making decisions that will best benefit the people and giving them what they want.

Frank Martinez

7/20/2014 02:46:47 am

I agree with you on the dissent and in my point of view͵ ALEC existing is a form of dissent to me. The huge corporations aren't getting what they want and its not working within the system. However they are using ALEC to work within the system but also the way they do it is basically cheating. They are presenting the bills to the legislatorsbut they also try to tip the scale to their favor. In my eyes that's going against the government and showing dissent of democracy.

Andrea Olivos

7/20/2014 11:01:55 am

I agree with you that it will weaken our democracy. You would think that the government would respect the peoples needs rather than just automatically siding with big corporations but unfortunately the people don't really end up getting what they want.

Linda Luong

7/17/2014 03:51:55 pm

This video about ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council, relates to themes such as dissent and people power.
Dissent is being shown by Brendan Fischer who towards the end wrote a letter to the IRS claiming that ALEC has underreported the amount of scholarships they have given to legislators over the recent years. Thousands of dollars have been spent to fly these legislators to meetings with Alec and the stay at nice hotels. Fischer and his organization is trying to prevent ALEC, a very conservative establishment, from passing their wanted bills due to very shady schemes.
Also, it relates to people power because the legislators that are being lobbied by ALEC are now passing bills without the consent of the people. By the time legislators inform their citizens, the decision has already been made by the legislator. This then restricts the people’s opinions and thoughts on the matter because the legislator is now persuaded by ALEC.
Corporate influence essentially weakens our democracy because they want to make decisions on what is most profitable towards them. ALEC has an anti-environmental agenda, but in reality, more green companies can create more jobs for the American people. Corporations do not operate in the peoples best interest because at the end of the day, racking in thousands of dollars is more important than the wellbeing of their nation.

Amanda Ramsey

7/17/2014 03:52:41 pm

What the video talked about relates to the course theme of people power in that it is trying to bypass people power, or the say that the people have in the government and in their own interests. ALEC is going straight to the legislators and is convincing them to pass legislature in the favor of these big companies who are a part of ALEC by basically bribing legislators by paying to fly them there with room and board and all of the amenities. They then convince the legislators over the course of days on how to vote on certain bills and give incentives for voting the way that ALEC wants them to. Legislators are supposed to be representatives of the people and are supposed to represent the people’s interests, but instead they are now representing corporations through ALEC. This takes away the people’s power of dissent because the legislators no longer feel accountable to the people they represent and thus the people’s right of dissent is weakened. At the same time, the people who support the legislators that represent them either passively or actively are giving their consent to the actions of ALEC in bribing the legislators and are giving consent to the bills that ALEC is trying to push through and overall giving consent to the large companies who are a part of ALEC and who are bribing the legislators. This is then undermining the way our representative democratic system works by bypassing the people completely and it is weakening the democratic process because people no longer have a say in issues that matter to them.

Chloe Li

7/17/2014 03:54:50 pm

The video primarily focuses upon ALEC’s involvement the privatization of public institutions, people power, and corporate involvement within the system.
ALEC is involved in privatization of schools and prisons, an issue we’ve discussed in class. Privatizing institutions gives people the power to set their own rules such as how much they charge individuals and how they run their business. Privatization, also limits state and government regulation, which allows for circumstances to be made unfair.
Furthermore, ALEC uses money from corporations to participate in a private form of lobbying, which is essentially people power which we discussed in class. Corporations are a group of people that are able to influence and socialize with legislators, changing their minds and convincing them to vote for bills favorable to corporations.
As stated in the video, legislators are paid by corporate people to fly to ALEC meetings where lobbyists hold meetings and workshops that influence legislators to pass “corporate friendly ideas”. This way, corporate groups can convince legislators to agree with corporate-friendly ideals prior to the passing of a bill or law. In our discussions in class, we have seen through the “Story of Stuff” that corporate influence in politics only increases consumption, taking our world further and further away from environmental recovery. That being said, there is public dissent as ALEC memberships are dropping corporation by corporation in the eye of public scrutiny.
The passing of Citizens United is beneficial because it allows for big corporationos to spend a whole bunch of money to influence legislators and politicians. This means that they get a huge say on issues that they find important. That being said, a disadvantage to Citiens United is that the corporation’s support for an issue may not be for the public interest, but may be for their self-interest. If what they support is only beneficial to themselves and not for the general public, then it is disadvantageous to the rest of citizens since the corporate has a huge influence on politics.
I think corporate influence in politics will ultimately weaken our democracy because their actions are not necessarily “for the people”. The main purpose for them is to make more and more money, which may not be beneficial to the public at all. There is a conflict between self-interest and public interest that may weaken our democracy: their efforts to create profit will deplete our natural resources and put our citizens to dangerous work.

Andrew Tran

7/17/2014 03:58:08 pm

ALEC is an interest group that is funded by large corporations. ALEC stands for the American Legislative Exchange Council they have intentions. They pass bills to benefit large companies. ALEC is a pay to play operation where corporations buy a seat and vote on task forces to advance their legislative wish lists and can get a tax break for donations, effectively passing these lobbying costs on to taxpayers. Three themes that are shown through the video are corporate interest, dissent, and people power.
Corporate interest is shown because ALEC really wants to get legislature to pass bills and laws just to benefit themselves. There is also dissent because ALEC bills were rejected because legislators rejected voted against the bill and that shows dissent. Second, there is people’s power shown too because corporations like ALEC, make their voice heard loud and clear than the general public since they are really rich. People’s power is not as powerful compared to wealthy politicians even though people have the power to fight and protest.
Corporate influence on politics weakens our democracy because corporations only do what benefits them and not the people. Like ALEC, they would only pass bills to only benefit the companies that fund them and they don’t care about the people and environment. They just want to only help themselves. I think this should change and they should pass bills to help the world and people. ALEC should be stopped because they are taking advantage and aren’t helping out anyone but themselves.

Joshua Kim Cruz

7/17/2014 03:59:58 pm

Themes that can be taken from the video we all saw that exposed ALEC for the system it really is could be People Power, Dissent, and Systems of Government. The corporation actually throws the concept of people power right out the window. They do this by essentially favoring state legislators by treating them to fancy hotels and paying for their fares to simply show them the better side of agreeing with them. By the time public wants to voice their opinion on any certain bill, the legislator has probably already made their mind to pass the said bill. As expressed in the beginning days of class, People Power is about having the free-will and expression to put out ones voice on a certain topic. By essentially cutting out the public from big decisions, the People Power cut off completely. With regards to Dissent, whether it be the trend of seeing the earlier bills passed via courting or simply more people awakening to see how the system set up is wrong is not quite sure, but what is sure is that later on in the video ALEC is reported to have bills failing to be passed. The constitutional right to protest is then very apparent is then seen as people putting their foot down to these absurd bills being laid out with no word of the public. Finally, I believe Systems of Government is a key theme in the video. Buying power is not the same as earning it. By manipulating the outcome of power, the system we try so hard to uphold where one is just is simply torn down.
I believe these types of corporate influence ultimately weaken our democracy. When we have people fighting for jobs that promote renewable energy standards being opposed by a company for their own gain, that truly says what our nation's mentality is. If any of the people on top had the chance to wipe out the opposing party, by which would mean eliminating their jobs, for the cause of getting a better paycheck, they very well would do so without hesitation. When you have manipulation, deceit, and lack of morality going for high positions in our society, it truly does show the demise of our democracy.

Jennine Robancho

7/17/2014 04:05:26 pm

ALEC is American Legislative Exchange Council. It's basically known to companies who own and run different government and company firms.

This is a video is related to dissent.

The involvement in corporate influence in political strength and weaken our democracy both ways. It can strengthen our democracy because the from improvement of the companies that is run can help the government. And it can weaken us because sometimes the people who run the companies take advantage.

Helia Mohseni

7/17/2014 04:32:28 pm

can you explain further why you think that the theme of the video relates to dissent which is our course theme?
i think that people power relates to the video theme too! Due to the fact that the power is not well distributed to everyone equally, as corporations are gives the advantages to use their money to fund PACs who would support their stance of different issues/bills.

Chloe Li

7/20/2014 01:59:24 pm

I agree with you that the corporate influence in politics weakens democracy and that, as you said, people running companies will take advantage. I would like to expand on that idea; however, that corporate runs on its own best interests, and that these interests sometimes do not coincide with the people's best interests which creates conflict and therefore weakens our democracy even more.

Maira Sandoval

7/17/2014 04:07:12 pm

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is an organization that brings state legislators and big corporations together in order for the corporations to push policies and legislations on state politicians. The legislations ALEC lobbyists try to pass are predominantly in their own best interest. They have done well in serving as a channel for the corporate agenda and advancing special interest legislations throughout the U.S. A few themes that relate to this video would include, people power and systems.

The big amounts of money people pay to become members of ALEC are in turn used by the ALEC organization as charitable tax write-offs. This means that the taxpayers (all of us) are actually aiding this type of special interest lobbying.
Because of the way the system works and is structured, many people have no idea where exactly their tax money goes to. People may have a passing understanding of what their tax money is used for and I’m sure that if this information was made completely public to the people they would not stand by it.

Alec lobbyists work covertly and underhandedly to push legislators to pass their legislations. Most of the times ALEC gets their way and legislators agree to their reasoning and persuasions and are convinced. Many times, legislators make decisions to pass certain bills well before informing the public. This is an example of how state officials strip the power citizens are entitled to have in regards to having their opinions valued, and heard, about what policies get passed in their state.

Richard Le

7/20/2014 02:26:20 pm

Yeah, if people were more informed about ALEC and how they are manipulating taxpayers for their own privatized agendas, there would be more of an uproar since it affects them directly. People may not care so much about corporations trying to pass their bills since it is a little more complex but knowing that your money is essentially being used against you is easy enough for people to understand and become interested in.

Jason Jung

7/17/2014 04:11:01 pm

The American Legislative Exchange Council owns a majority of the largest corporations, prisons, and other federal institutions. This video relates to the course themes of dissent and the power of people. Political dissent is the right to express an objection at the state level; however, it is nearly impossible to overrule ALEC's decisions due to the alliances formed between the large corporations and government.

The corporate influence on politics has a negative effect because the decisions are never in the best interests of the people. Instead, these corporations push their own agenda for generating revenue, making decisions that solely benefit the major corporations. For instance, touching back on the video "The Story of Stuff" we were able to see that corporations integrate toxic chemicals into their products. When these products reach their disposal period they release even more harmful toxics that pollute the air we breathe. Since the government poorly regulates their big business friends and doesn't put tighter laws when it comes to production and disposal, it shows that corporations do not have the best interests of the people but rather their own. Now looking at a more optimistic aspect of things, if corporations were really about empowering its consumers, then they would greatly be able to affect the way policies are made.

The unfortunate part of policy making is the fact that government passes bills to benefit their big corporate friends. Essentially these bills are introduced and voted on in a very "under the radar" manner so regardless of public opinion expressed, it still gets the green light.

If we are able to ignite are local communities nation wide to ban together, then there could be a radical change. (that was just a random thought)

Dustin Van

7/20/2014 12:55:11 pm

I completely agree with your view of the situation that the American Legislative Exchange Council is too powerful that it makes it impossible to fight against their desires. I think you also bring up a good point that if we were to rally up communities then we could possibly alter the decisions the big corporations make since most of these big corporations are really just made up of people like you and me (like workers at mcdonalds).

Chungchen Ran

7/17/2014 04:23:11 pm

The three themes in the video relate to three of the course themes.

First, there is the theme of consent, which is what ALEC received for manipulating American citizens. We were made to believe that ALEC is a charitable organization. This means that we, the people, allowed them to do as they please because we believed that their actions would not be for profit gain. But we were wrong because they push certain bills to legislators that would have great financial benefits for the corporate members of ALEC. Therefore, we were tricked into giving our consent to ALEC to perform their greedy activities.

Next is the theme of dissent that was used against ALEC by some of its former corporate members. ALEC used to have many corporations as members such as Koch Industries, BP, and Amplify. But as the public kept looking over the organization’s shoulder in recent years, some of its members felt that their brands would become synonymous with ALEC and that would make them lose profit. So at least 49 of its major corporation members like Amazon.com and GE felt it was time to leave the boat before it sinks. This was a major act of dissent to ALEC because they have lost some resourceful members.

The final theme is people power; ALEC had suppressed the people’s voice so that their bills would not have any complications in their approval. The method of lobbying that ALEC had used completely influenced certain legislators so that they would approve the bills without having to listen to the public. This means that the power of the people had been restricted because of ALEC’s lobbying method.

Maira Sandoval

7/20/2014 12:55:35 pm

In the beginning you mentioned how the people were made to believe that ALEC was trustworthy organization but in reality people were deceived into giving their consent for ALEC. This is a constant reoccurring theme in our society; people not knowing, or fully comprehending a situation, but consenting to it either way because someone was clever enough to make it sound like a good deal.
It is important that people get the full story of a situation before cooperating.

Melanie Antonio

7/20/2014 02:23:59 pm

It's good to see big corporations see past the "non-partisan" facade of ALEC. Once companies found that they weren't involved in any type of policymaking, they gave them the boot.

As stated by Mars, the candy maker, "In the past, we attended the ALEC annual meeting to create awareness of our positive economic impact and job creation in the communities where we operate. At no point was Mars ever involved in ALEC’s policymaking or Private Enterprise Board."

http://crooksandliars.com/kenneth-quinnell/alecs-really-bad-day

Joshua Kim Cruz

7/20/2014 03:23:01 pm

I agree with your first theme of consent being misused, but I'm curious to see your stance on people that knew what ALEC was doing was wrong from the beginning. What they were doing, their manipulation, was not exactly in the dark, but rather some individuals spoke out against their actions and called for the rest of the public to know. I wouldn't say that the public was tricked, but it was more like the legislators were in passing the bills that they did.

Anand Rao

7/17/2014 04:24:53 pm

The first theme that came to mind from the video was the idea of monetary power and how companies can influence government and politics. A lot of the business who are members of ALEC are big-name institutions like Coca-Cola or BP. Since these are some of the most successful businesses in the world, they have the wealth, unlike smaller businesses, to share with politicians/legislators to push for bills that would aid the growth of their company even more. These bills in turn help the growth of these large corporations even more money, therefore creating a cycle of corruption where both sides (large corporations and ALEC legislators) become wealthier at the expense of people not getting the bills that they want passed/considered.

The second point is the discrepancy between corporate/private interests and public interest. We see that when it comes to issues such as saving the environment, privatizing institutions, and lowering working conditions/salary. ALEC has helped pass 77 bills in 34 states that lowered environmental regulations to allow companies like TransCanada and BP have more freedom in their future endeavors, such as pipeline building and illegal fracking. One example is the Electricity Freedom Act that "repeal state renewable portfolio standards". However, many people in society care about preserving the planet and being environmentally friendly to counter large issues like global warming. We therefore see a large divide when it comes to what the people and companies see as necessary changes in our world; most people want legislation that benefits society as a whole, while corporations are focused on legislation that help their brand flourish.

Transparency is another idea that stems from this ALEC issue. The video reveals that many of these companies are lobbying for self-benefiting legislation behind the people's back. While they seem to have a 501c charitable status, they are actually dealing with sketchy transactions with large businesses and profiting. Just like the government, ALEC is implementing policies and laws that seem harmless at the time but are there to aid these the big companies.

The passing of Citizens United is beneficial with the idea that a (large) group of people with ideas for policies can dump a lot of money onto politicians for their ideas to become implemented and favored in future legislation. Although this process still requires the donation of large sums of money, it is something that is accessible to many people (if they have enough change in their pocket) who want to see change in certain aspects of society. The obvious negative here about the legislation is the idea that it still favors larger corporations that have larger funds to sway politicians towards their own personal policies. Other than the fact that it acts as another platform for large companies to thrive, it also is suspect that these candidates are not required to release the name of the contributors; the idea of non-transparency still continues to loom in our society, and people/corporations with large amounts of money can get away with a selfish favor without being exposed to the public.

Overall, corporate influence is a huge detriment to our society's democracy. As I pointed out earlier, these large corporations are, for the most part, on different agendas than the people, so they are pushing for legislation and policies that may be totally different from what the people want. However, even though they may be just one entity, the monetary power that they hold allows them to have the loudest, most important voice out of the other contributing figures in our society.

Jennifer Zihla

7/20/2014 11:25:42 am

Well said! I love the bit about transparency. It is interesting that some companies feel the need to “hide” their actions and involvement. How does the saying go? “Don’t do anything that would make your mom proud”. I would say feeling the need to hide your actions from the common populous would indicate that they know what they are doing to swaying the outcomes and mind set of the politicians.

Richard Le

7/20/2014 02:41:16 pm

I've noticed more and more criticisms aimed at bills and politicians mention who exactly is putting the funds behind it, which brings to light what the agenda is and who benefits from it. I'd like to think that more of these activities are being exposed (like it is here) but even if the information is public, if it is not clearly stated then most of the public would not know it. It should be made more obvious who is backing what, then perhaps there would be some change and better decisions be made.

Helia Mohseni

7/17/2014 04:26:42 pm

The first theme is that private and public interest do not correlate with each other because they have different incentives. The second theme is that the system of convincing politicians by using money, does not work well in a real Democracy society because majority's opinion is not influential, it is rather the amount of money spent by each side that ultimately reflects how the bill/issue would be passed. The third theme is that corporations think how a bill works in their best interest and depending on the importance of it, they spend money toward it.
These themes related to three of our course theme: consent, dissent, and people power. Due to the fact that people spend less money on every issue, they have the less power to influence it, which means that even if a bill is not given majority's consent to, does not matter, so their are powerless in this system.
the benefit of the Citizen United is that it gives corporations a chance to show what bills they want to pass. this is the reason why, they actively contribute funds to PACs who would influence the politicians greatly to act in favors of their side. The disadvantage of the Citizen United is that corporations' contribution, overshadows regular people; therefore, politicians value the ideas of the corporations more than regular citizens.
The corporations' influence in political activities weakens the Democracy because the power is not defined by the population, rather how much money each individual is contributing toward their side, so majority's opinion is not important anymore which leads regular citizens to become discouraged from participating in political activities.

Jason Jung

7/20/2014 02:30:52 pm

Helia,

Your post could not have said it better. You touched on one of the major subjects that stood out to me the most, which was the fact that private and public interest are not in stasis with one another. This consequently hinders the idea of "For the people, by the people" because major corporations are the reason that so many ridiculous deregulations are being passed and getting away with so much. The Inside Job was one of the examples I felt best reflects this. Major private banks were profiting off the at the expense of the public. Giving out these risky loans that they knew people may not be able to pay was the first step to the bubble that formed and later crashed. With more regulation and prioritizing the interesting of the people, I feel that we could gain back our power as citizens by starting with our communities.

Andrea Olivos

7/17/2014 04:30:00 pm

The three themes that I noticed from the video were dissent, consent and people power.

Dissent is shown when Alec's bills weren't being passed because the legislators voted against them. Consent is also a theme because Alec uses the citizens charitable tax right op to subsidize all the money used to do the extra lobbying with the legislators. Consent comes in because by giving Alec money, we're giving them consent in whatever they use it towards. The third theme is peoples power because with Alec doing the extra effort to get legislators to vote on their side and already having them convinced, we get the short end of the stick because our opinions and votes aren't as important anymore.

The benefits with the passage of Citizens United could be that corporations don't have a limit on how much they spend on politicians. But that may also lead to the disadvantages because since corporations can now spend as much money as they desire, they can easily influence politicians way more into things that would specifically just benefit the corporations.

I believe that with what Alecs is doing its weakening democracy because they have large corporations funding them and backing them up with their bills and lobbying and its sabotaging the importance of the citizens say on things.

Maira Sandoval

7/20/2014 01:03:47 pm

I agree with your view of dissent in the matter. Though peoples opinions seem to come second when considering which bills should be passed, ALEC was still unsuccessful in passing many of their biased bills. Also, i agree that, with the passing of Citizens United, corporations are basically given a green light to bribe or influence politicians into seeing things their way.

Anna Aguilar-Pineda

7/20/2014 01:38:23 pm

I agree with you about how we get the short end of the stick, corporations make such an influence on politicians by spending money on them that in end what we say or try to do really won't matter as much.

Jonathan Paulo

7/20/2014 04:34:12 pm

I agree about corporations like ALEC weakening our democracy. In my opinion, its actions are corrupt and manipulative. Granted lobbying is a common practice, but what they're doing is sort of an unfair thing. Using fancy expensive hotels and gifts, and trips to exotic places to try and persuade politicians is wrong. It also makes me wonder how easily swayed a politician can be. Makes me weary to trust politicians as well.

Paul Merrill

7/17/2014 04:33:24 pm

Citizens United is a devastating blow to democracy. Democracy should be a government for the people, by the people. Citizens United is not for the people, nor does it give more power to the people. Instead, it gives more power to the rich and the super rich: the executives and board members, those in control of corporations. It gives corporations more influence over politics.

Money is power in politics, and money is not found with lone citizens, it's found with corporations and PACs. (Although now with Citizens United, super PACs exist.) Money gets things done and is important for political outreach, publicizing of ideas, and garnering votes.

Corporations should not be allowed to mingle in politics because they are not people. It is my believe that the current Supreme Court's interpretation of corporations having more rights is immoral. When corporations vote and lobby, they use their power to help themselves and to exploit their employees, their customers, and their business opponents. They do not have their employees, customers, or opponents best interests at heart. They don't have any person's best interests at heart. In fact, it's my belief that they shouldn't be allowed to participate in politics at all.

Why are corporations be allowed to participate in politics? I believe it is motivated by our capitalistic values and policies. Most modern states have corporations. Shared stock corporations are legal constructs given legal entity status that are owned by many people. Trouble arises because they are allowed to hold assets. They must then be allowed to spend assets. How do you decide which spending actions are political and which ones are not? This is a problem that must be solved if we want to repeal Citizens United.

Shubaan Taheri

7/20/2014 11:49:29 am

You brought up a difficult problem. How do we decide if an action is political or not. This is a big reason why I think we can't stop ALEC from spending money. What we can do is remove their 501c charity label so we as taxpayers aren't helping their funds.

Paul Merrill

7/20/2014 02:30:31 pm

Well, I hate to break it to you, but Wikipedia says "the 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) categories are for politically active nonprofit organizations." I don't think we'll be able to remove that status from ALEC. I don't think that non-profits should be banned from politics in the first place. But I do think that for-profit institutions should be banned from politics.

Juan Pablo Hernandez Lopez

7/20/2014 11:57:47 am

I agree with you about the Citizens United because the rights of people are taken away by corporations. We live in a democracy, not a communist nation. Sadly, the people are letting it happen because I guess they have other matters to worry about it. I think our founding fathers of this nation will be ashamed on how this country is turning.

Jeanette Uddenfeldt

7/17/2014 04:37:04 pm

The American Legislative Executive Corporation. An organization that is currently seen as a non-profit organization and therefore people can, as of now, donate money to them and write it off on their taxes. ALEC's main purpose is to get corporations and legislators together and by offering fancy vacations and stays at conferences, they indirectly bribe the senators and legislators to push for their bills.

ALEC has managed to stay anonymous for the longest time, however, a few years ago a list of ALEC members were leaked, among the supporting corporates were Kosh. It is known that part of why ALEC even still exist today is because of Kosh who donated money to them while they had a financial crisis. There are however some companies that have been saying no to ALEC and taken a stance that they do not approve of what they do. A couple of these companies are Walmart and Coca Cola.

It is all about consent, dissent and people power. Coca Cola and Walmart are showing their dissent to ALEC by clearly state that they are not a part of it, but the fact that there are so many senators and legislators that are a part of it, not to mention all the corporations, also shows a big sign of consent. It's all about which side of the ALEC fence you're standing at. If you are a corporation and want to make the big bucks, then ALEC is an organization that is for your benefit, but for everyone else they are just bad news.

Won Ho Kim

7/19/2014 10:43:23 pm

It is interesting how everyone seems to agree that A.L.E.C. is all big and bad (myself, included), but we have to think--the people that are being flown out to these vacationing joints are being convinced. They are weighing the pros and cons in their minds and thinking, "Hey, this does not sound too bad." There must be an iota of merit to some of these suggestions, and they cannot all be rotten eggs.

Still, no matter how you slice it, it is still pretty shady.

Jeanette Uddenfeldt

7/20/2014 01:16:42 pm

It is more of a trade, since they get those fancy things and vacations in exchange for putting their name on the ballot or whatever it is ALEC wants them to do

Paul Merrill

7/20/2014 02:26:08 pm

I wonder if what they primarily do is make things happen. In politics, we all have agendas and goals, but it's often hard to actualize them, to make them happen in real life. Does ALEC help politicians make things happen? Probably, yes. And that's why politicians like them. They make their lives easier and help them achieve their goals.

Jonathan Paulo

7/17/2014 04:40:44 pm

From watching this video, three themes I can think of is corporations with special interests influencing the government, corporations using money for personal gains, and corporations functioning as an entity in order to practice free speech.

As it states in the video, ALEC uses lobbying to gain favor from government officials with fancy expensive hotels, trips, and gifts. By gaining the favor of politicians, ALEC can push their own interests onto them. These interests are often to get them more rich, which is a personal reason. They don't regard the impact they have on the environment, the economy and the people. Also, because of Citizens United, corporations like ALEC have free reign to spend, and increase their influence, and interests.

The course themes I can think of relating to this are consent, dissent, and people power. Consent relates because ALEC is doing things that aren't what people want. In this way, ALEC is going against consent. Dissent relates because in the video, people were protesting ALEC. They are unhappy with ALEC as an establishment. Also, Citizens United, argues that corporations are people, and so they must have constitutional rights. This relates to people power also because of Citizens United.

Benefits of Citizens United is that corporations now have more constitutional freedoms to practice their views. This is also a bad thing because those views may not always work in the best interest of everyone. Some corporations may be corrupt.

I think corporate influence weakens our democracy because corporations may have ill intentions, or intentions that wouldn't support everyone. For example, the banks and their constant loans and spending caused the most recent recession. The recessions have had disastrous effects on our economy and the people.

Kevin Duong

7/19/2014 05:29:26 pm

I agree with you. I agree with your point that ALEC is going against consent because ALEC is doing things that the people don't want. ALEC is non profit organization in disguise that is being manipulated by its wealthy sponsors. Billion dollar corporations are funding ALEC so they can push laws that they want and laws that will make their life easier.

Giselle Ozuna

7/21/2014 02:25:19 am

I agree with you Kevin because ALEC does nothing but thinks of themselves. The people don't have a voice in what they are doing because they are t o busy being manipulated by the wealthy sponsors.

Dustin Van

7/17/2014 04:47:27 pm

The course themes that the video is related to are dissent and people power. The reason for this is because while ALEC is supposed to be a charity organization, it is basically using that title to do all sorts of shady activity. For example, normal lobbyists are given around fifteen minutes to talk with legislators to try and persuade them while ALEC members are given 3 days. The difference between the time to try and convince someone is huge. The way that affects things is massive because these ALEC members are of course going to try and pass bills that are beneficial only to them which in turn leads to more power in corporations. This ties into another guiding question “How can corporate influence in political strengthen or weaken our democracy?” On the first week of class we saw a video on consumerism, capitalism, and the environment in America which explained how our environment is pretty much not going to last us at this rate. Reason for this is because of groups like ALEC that fight against environmentally friendly bills in order to create more jobs to strengthen their own wealth. This gives the corporations too much power over normal everyday people which leads to our democracy getting weaker. There is no “people power” over these huge corporations because they are getting much more of a word in with these legislators due to being rich. This shows how the system really works as money is valued over fairness and humanity.

Jason Jung

7/20/2014 02:15:55 pm

Dustin,

You bring up some great insight that challenge the current perception of our government. I completely agree with you that major corporations are destroying our planet in order to line up their pockets. In my personal opinion to answer the question whether our democracy is strengthen or weakened, I believe that it does both but in very different ways. In terms of strengthening it, the bond formed between government and corporations will grow as both will benefit from each others power. In terms of weakening it, I predict that it lowers our power as citizens of America and ultimately make us a docile group. In other words, the government will make these private gains at the expense of the public.

Tiajuana Carter

7/17/2014 04:48:56 pm

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is know to be bourgeois a class of modern Capitalists, that. as ownership of big name corporations and institution prisons, banks etc.
The video consigned to our course themes of dissent and people power.
When people in power are in charge we as proletarians is the hard work that keep this nation thriving, but big wigs with big pockets can turn our nation inside out with their rules and money.

Political dissent as the American people using or voice to address our concerns, but it's pointless you would be voting against the people who call the shot. It is an old say goes do not bit the hand that feed you.
ALEC as control over laws decision and incorporate with privatization corporation . They control the proletarians working wages. ALEC whole corporate meeting in different states which in majority case the corporate as to travel to the location, Amelia Island we as taxes payers pick up the expense. In these private meeting the legislative is convince that ideals are right for the state. The public doesn't have a change to their point of view hear or vote. The ALEC is organize large corporation to come together , such as BP, Amplify, which I'd the education division. The ALEC is very successful in bright these groups together to push the policies to be voted in to place. No money no power.

julio Valdez

7/18/2014 07:13:32 am

I agree with what you said about being pointless voting against them, because it will be hard to change the laws and bill we don’t approve of, since we have no money to have a say. They bribe to be able to pass on the laws without our consent. Then when we find out and try to consent or disagree, it is just too late to do.

Won Ho Kim

7/17/2014 04:49:35 pm

A.L.E.C. stands for the “American Legislative Exchange Council,” and its goal is to essentially have laws passed that benefit the big companies under its wing. Unfortunately, this and the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision (along with numerous other concessions we, as a people, have been making to big businesses) are resulting in the loss of voice for the average American citizen.

What I am talking about is how, originally, businesses were considered inherently different from people. Now, we are considered the same, and the same protections and rights that are typically reserved for an individual is being applied to large groups of people… large groups that have lots of money. Organizations such as A.L.E.C. make it more and more difficult for every day people to have their political dissent heard. If you were a political figure, would you listen to the couple of emails you got from a few individuals or the guys in suits that decided to fly you out to a beach resort and hold the equivalent of the best birthday party you ever had?

The video makes it pretty clear—when organizations such as A.L.E.C. become more powerful, we, the people, lose out. The nation stops even resembling a democracy and corporate interests rule all. Suddenly, it does not matter whether we consent or dissent, if such consent or dissent is educated or not—the people at the top of the food chain get a disproportionately louder voice. The legislator is already fully convinced by the time the public can voice concerns about the issue, so the whole thing becomes an uphill fight; and considering how apathetic the general public is these days when it comes to politics (guilty as charged!), that is a dangerous road to go down.

We have already become a society focused on consumerism—these things only encourage that.

Louis Tagum

7/20/2014 03:47:34 am

With all the lobbying these corporations are capable of, as well as the people like legislatures who become biased due to these corporate influence, its pretty clear that our society will not be a full democracy, but rather a playground for corporations such as ALEC. If the corporations already influence us through our process of consumption, and now through our government, how can we voice our concerns and ideals, with all of these guys running the playground. The playground is supposed to be for everyone.

David Huynh

7/20/2014 03:16:25 pm

As powerful as corporations are, they are getting even more power and influence. I will not even be surprised that sometimes in the near future, the government positions will be filled with corporate representative. I agree with your statement that the people are slowly losing power and that even with people's dissent, it still is not a loud voice compared to that of the corporate.

Giselle Ozuna

7/17/2014 04:56:06 pm

The American Legistlative Exchange Council known as the ALEC is known to own many of the big name corporations. This is the non traditional way to make decisions on bills which are passed in a long period of time.
ALEC is not doing anything for charity, everything has a selfish intend behind it. ALEC pays thousands of dollars yearly and calls it “gifts” which means the money they pay does not get taxed. This money received from the corporations allows them to be selfish about the decisions being made. They do not do things for the interest of the people; in contrary they are doing things in the interest of themselves. ALEC gets away with this scheme and since they hold such high authority not much can be done to change it.
Even though people have power, their voice is taken away form them with corporations like ALEC making it difficult for them to speak up and say a word. Selfish acts like the one ALEC performs does nothing but further damaging our tough economic crisis. We are no longer a country “for the people” but we are a country that benefits the rich and continues to do things in their favor.
In my opinion, corporations should not be allowed to have a say in politics just because they hold such a high voice in society with money alone, that they will not do things in the benefit of the people when in the contrary they will only think of themselves and what benefits the company as a whole.

Julio Valdez

7/18/2014 06:37:17 am

I agree with what you say about Alec. They get away with not paying taxes, because of their ‘charitable’ contributions. That could be money that can help pay the debt we are in. Corporations should just be separate from the state and federal, just like you can’t connect religion and political affairs. It won’t happen, but it would change the playing field.

Tiajuana Carter

7/21/2014 10:14:45 am

The Alec is a bull dozer it ran over anything in there way. By these corporation standing together we the people doesn't have a fighting chance. We the people voice and rights are smash mention, but rolled over. No matter how many people are join together we're an match box compared to Brink's armor truck.
I can understand why corporation power for voting rights it numbers are powerful when joined together. Is it right? not at all. These corporation has our money in their back pocket. We need them, so we are their bait, that catch the fish and Alec is the fisherman.

Andrew Chen

7/17/2014 06:23:43 pm

ALEC provides a perfect example of the removal of the people’s power. The organization’s fundamental purpose is the bypassing of the people’s consent and dissent. Without having to bring to light their agendas, the public is not given a chance to scrutinize the intentions and. They are able to operate in a way where they can influence the decisions of the legislators. This provides the corporations with the unfair advantage by creating a bias within the officials. This in turn weakens the democracy because of the crooked mentalities of the legislators. Without the opportunity for the legislation and regulations to be properly examined and assessed, faulty or bad regulations are put in place. The proper way to make sure the system is in working order and working for the people is for the people to vote for the right and ideal guidelines for the system’s operation. ALEC allows the corporations special access to the system to influence it to work for them. Therefore the system is no longer a fully functional democracy. The discretion now belongs to the corporations and their interests become the priority over the peoples. Without the ability to consent or dissent in an educated fashion, the people are left powerless.

Melanie Antonio

7/18/2014 05:09:32 am

The themes addressed in the video in relation to the course themes are people power and our governing system.

When we talk about people power, I think of this as the fundamental basis of democracy - power is entrusted to the people and exercised directly by them. But ALEC took this away, and instead of allowing us to exercise people power, the power fell into the hands of ALEC. For one they have a better advantage than traditional lobbyists because of the extended amount of time they have with government officials. Covered travel expenses and meetings held in top-notch hotels are the extra perks that bribe the legislators. While they are already influenced that a particular bill should be passed, by the time it reaches the public, we don’t get a chance to weigh in on those bills.

In terms of our system, it seems like corporations now run our governing system. This is detrimental to our society because corporate influence is giving the wealthy too much influence, while the people in lower classes are being overlooked.

Corporations will benefit from Citizens United because now the court says it’s okay for them to spend as much as they want. The disadvantage? That corporations will benefit from this, and will demonstrate that our government doesn’t represent us but rather the interests of corporations.

Jennifer Zihla

7/20/2014 11:13:08 am

I wonder if limiting the time each lobbyist could spend with a politician would help reduce the sway of an organization like ALEC. I mean, it might not necessarily be the paid for flight, room and board that gets politicians to follow ALEC’s lead, but instead the prolonged exposure of a certain mind set (one with the view of a ways that is in the best interest of a corporation or industry instead of the population as a whole). If this is the case, then limiting the amount of time ALEC has with a politician might reduce their success in swaying them.

Melanie Antonio

7/20/2014 03:24:00 pm

Hey Jennifer, I agree with you. I mean ten minutes with the public interest groups compared to three days with ALEC makes a HUGE difference in influencing politicians.

Eileen Javadi

7/21/2014 04:51:52 am

I agree with the point you made about wealthier people having more power than the middle and lower class individuals because the corporations are now in charge. This is unfortunate since this country is mainly consisted of individuals of a lower class and they have a right to have their voice heard. By giving the wealthy and the corporations the main influence in our governing system there isn’t a sense of equality and proper reasoning when big decisions are being made because not everyone on the financial spectrum is being considered.

Kevin Tran

7/18/2014 10:08:43 am

As we all know, the American Legislative Exchange Counsel (ALEC) is ran buy a bunch of head members of huge corporations. ALEC has numerous members that are unknown, but we do know some of the companies that are involved with ALEC. The themes of this video relate to consent, dissent, systems and people power in various ways. As citizens, we give them consent to try and persuade politicians by being ignorant. Not knowing about these issue, and not knowing how to prevent these type of actions from taking place. Dissent when group of protesters gather together and try to defeat this powerful company with all their money. Systems show that big corporations are the ones that really run this country. You hear that money talks, well that is true. ALEC which is a group of rich corporations and politicians always gathering together and trying to figure out what is best for them, how to profit the most without the citizens in mind. ALEC and US citizens show the affects of people power. People power in 2 ways, good and bad. ALEC shows that the number of rich corporations coming together with similar goals in mind, shows that with numbers together and money, they can do what they want and they can persuade politicians to passing bills that benefit corporations. People power as for US citizens is when we protest, which should be showing that there is a great deal of us who are concerned about their nation. When comparing ALEC to US citizens, we stand no chance. It shows that our nation and head politicians are corrupt.

Juan Pablo Hernandez Lopez

7/20/2014 11:14:35 am

I agree with you that we have a corrupt nation, and do not forget that corruption may get worse if we, the people, do not stop them from getting power. We voted for them because they promised us a better society, but after elections they forget about their promises and are just focused on getting more rich. Well, we gave them power, so I think we can take that power away if they do not keep their promise. Do not forget we can stand a change against ALEC because if the people who voted for them work together we can take their power away.

Aldrich D'silva

7/20/2014 03:19:54 pm

In this video, there some themes relating to our lecture topics are as follows. Firstly, the dichotomy of public interest and private interest can never truly hold similarity in goals. Secondly, the system of democracy in place today is more affected by the expenditure of money than the true opinion of the majority. Thirdly, corporations may lobby legislators to advance laws that further their own interest. These themes relate to the discussed topics: consent, dissent, and people power.
In terms of consent, the various corporations agree to pay membership fees to be a part of ALEC, in exchange for lobbying opportunities.
Sometimes the consent of legislators influenced by ALEC overpowers the dissent of public interest on a particular agenda. This dissent is very hard to manifest into results because more money lies in the pockets of the rich corporate majority. This enables the corporations to have higher influence on policies regarding their interests (i.e environmental interests for companies like BP, Shell, TransCanada). The theme of people power is central to the passage of Citizens United. The passage of this would remove caps on campaign contributions for corporations. Though this would help the money go farther in terms of influence on policy, the fear exists that such uncontrolled presence of money in campaigns could overpower the opinion of those with less funds and access. Though the ideal of democracy is based on the opinion of the majority, the minority can have more influence on policy especially if they have more resources and access to legislators.

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