LESA MARTIN
Active Ingredients:
ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council---a corporate
backed group with a right-wing agenda)
NRA (National Rifle Association)
Florida’s Stand Your Ground Law (pushed through with the
full throttle of NRA)
Inactive ingredients:
Teenage boy (black), walking down the street, shot dead
Combine: behind
closed doors, ALEC task forces, including NRA, corporate representatives,
non-profit lobbyists, who prepare model bills that promote the right-wing’s
agenda
Mix: into the
closed-door meetings conservative legislators (trip and time often paid for with “scholarship” money from
ALEC), who then take the proposals of the model bills, often verbatim, and introduce
them as the legislator’s ‘own bill’ to the state government, pushing passage of
the bill into law
Add: Florida’s Stand Your Ground law (otherwise known as Kill-at-Will
law) in which a person no longer has a duty to retreat and instead has the
right to “match” force with force at
user’s discretion in any public place
Fire-up the racial oven and heat until dead.
Serve hot. Over
floods of family tears.
Notes on Stand Your Ground law:
Florida Gov. Rick Scott---- "If there's something wrong
with the law that's in place, I think it's important we address it. I'm going
to look at it. If what's happening is it's being abused, that's not right. We all
want to live in a safe place…."
NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who pushed for the law---
"So for law enforcement to rush to judgment just
because they are being stampeded by emotionalism would be a violation of law.”
"This law is not about one incident. There is
absolutely nothing wrong with the law. And if the governor wants to waste time looking at it he can knock
himself out."
Attorney Mutaquee Akbar told Scott---"These problems
are racial profiling, the abuse of police discretion and the abuse of
prosecutorial discretion. Trayvon Martin is dead because of racial profiling."
"Death is the ultimate and most final result of a problem
that has plagued our community for centuries. It can no longer be
ignored." "George Zimmerman is walking free today because of this
abuse."
Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, who sponsored the measure---
"Invariably when there's any adverse incident, it's
open season for anti-gun factions to disseminate this idea that there's
something wrong with 'stand your ground….'"
Smith, D-Fort Lauderdale (who said justifiable homicide has
increased three-fold since the "stand your grand" law went into
effect seven years ago, with many of the victims black)---"What it's done
is, it has emboldened those who are sometimes looking for confrontation,
because they realize they have the shield of this law. This is a classic case
of, if it's my word against yours and you happen to be dead, there's no way of
knowing."
Steven A. Jansen, vice
president of Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (a national group that sees Stand
Your Ground as a barrier to prosecuting criminals)---“It’s almost like we now
have to prove a negative — that a person was not acting in self-defense, often
on the basis of only one witness, the shooter….”
Notes on ALEC:
This group (again, ALEC is not a government body) pushes laws that: Restrict voter ID (which
benefits conservative votes);
Restrict labor’s ability to organize (which benefits
corporations); Encourage corporate money to finance political will;
Shift education from public to private;
Deregulate gun laws and push to spread Stand Your Ground
laws in other states (already more than 30 states have versions of this law),
among many other issues on the right-wing agenda.
ALEC likes guns.
ALEC and the NRA:
Support lifting bans on semi-automatic firearms;
Support eliminating waiting periods for firearm
purchase;
Support legalizing concealed gun-carrying;
Support allowing gun manufactures to sell weapons/ammunition
that can be used against police;
Support student gun-carrying on campus;
Oppose local restrictions on firearms.
ALEC is supported by the right-wing Koch brothers ($$$ from oil), Coors,
many oil companies, drug companies, chemical companies, communication
companies, etc..
Here are a few examples of the many for-profits that support
ALEC:
·
Amazon.com,
·
Anheuser-Busch
▪ Archer
Daniels Midland
▪ ARCO
▪ AT&T
▪ Bank
of America
▪ Blue
Cross and Blue Shield Association
▪ BP
America
▪ Chevron
Corporation
▪ Comcast
▪ ConocoPhillips
▪ Coors
▪ Dow
Chemical Company
▪ ExxonMobil
▪ FedEx
▪ General
Electric
▪ General
Motors Corporation
▪ HP
▪ IBM
▪ Johnson
& Johnson
▪ Koch
Industries
▪ McDonalds
Corporation
▪ Microsoft
Corporation
▪ Miller
Brewing Company (now MillerCoors)
▪ Monsanto
▪ Nestlé
USA Inc
▪ Pennzoil
Co.
▪ Reynolds
American
▪ Shell
Oil Company
▪ Sony
Corp.
▪ State
Farm Insurance Co
▪ Texaco
Inc
▪ Thomson
Reuters Accelus
▪ Time
Warner
▪ United
Airlines
▪ United
Parcel Service (UPS)
▪ Verizon
▪ Walgreens
▪ Wal-Mart
Stores
Here is a list of ALEC’s Corporate Board:
▪ CenterPoint
360, W. Preston Baldwin (Tobacco)
▪ Altria
Group, Daniel Smith (Tobacco)
▪ American
Bail Coalition, William Carmichael, Jerry Watson
(commitment to the private sector in the war on crime)
▪ AT&T,
William Leahy (communications industy)
▪ Bayer
Corp., Sandy Oliver (pharmaceuticals)
▪ Diageo,
Kenneth Lane (alcohol)
▪ Energy
Future Holdings, Sano Blocker (coal energy, ties to Goldman Sachs, Rick Perry)
▪ ExxonMobil
Corporation, Randall Smith (oil)
▪ GlaxoSmithKline,
John Del Giorno (pharmaceuticals)
▪ Johnson
& Johnson, Don Bohn (pharmaceuticals)
▪ Koch
Companies Public Sector, Mike Morgan (oil; Charles Koch and David Koch,
arguably two of the most influential financiers of anti-regulation and right-wing
ideology in the United States. Tea Party idea men and financiers. Koch
Industries is reported to have a revenue of over $100 billion in revenue per
year.)
▪ Peabody
Energy, Kelly Mader (coal)
▪ Pfizer
Inc., Michael Hubert (pharmaceuticals)
▪ PhRMA,
Jeff Bond (pharmaceuticals)
▪ Reed
Elsevier, Inc., Teresa Jennings (publisher---defense weapons, medical, etc)
▪ Reynolds
American, David Powers (tobacco)
▪ Salt
River Project, Russell Smoldon (private electrical utiliy)
▪ State
Farm Insurance Co., Roland Spies
▪ United
Parcel Service (UPS), Richard McArdle
▪ Wal-Mart
Stores, Maggie Sans
Here is a list of a few of the many think tank/non-profit
groups supporting ALEC:
·
Cato Institute, (also founded by Charles Koch)
·
Center for Competitive Politics (supported Citizens
United)
·
Heritage Foundation (right wing think tank)
·
National Organization for Marriage (oppose same-sex
marriage)
·
National Rifle Association,
·
National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative
Action (the lobbying arm of the NRA)
·
National Right to Life Committee, Inc. (the largest
anti-abortion organization in the U.S.)
·
Walton Family Foundation owners of Wal-Mart (focus on
the eradication of public schools)
References
The Washington Post, Stand Your Ground laws coincide with
jump in justifiable-homicide cases, by Marc Fisher and Dan Eggen
The Nation, Don't Just Pressure ALEC's Corporate Sponsors,
Name and Shame ALEC Legislators, by John Nichols,
New York Times, Lobbyists, Guns and Money
By PAUL KRUGMAN
ALEC's own website:
http://www.alec.org/about-alec/private-enterprise-board/
The Center For Media and Democracy—Exposed These Bills, What
Is ALEC?
http://alecexposed.org/wiki/Guns,_Prisons,_Crime,_and_Immigration
The Palm Beach Post, 'Stand your ground' self-defense gun
law draws protests — and governor advises new look at it
By DARA KAM
Florida Governor Rick Scott’s website:
http://www.flgov.com/?s=trayvon+martin&x=0&y=0
The Woman Behind the Politic World Section:
Lesa Martin, after retiring from a career of professional ballet and graduating from UCLA, has sparked a wonderful career as a multi-media artist. She has shown her work in the SF Momma Rental Gallery, and has many ambitious plans concerning enticing new paintings people are itching to see! Multi-faceted Mrs. Martin is also deeply engaged with politics, nose buried in the New York Times daily. Here, she brings us a real, accessible woman's perspective on politics. Enjoy!
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