The idea of absolute control means exerting one’s will over every aspect of an organization from the very top down to the lowliest position. In their drive to control America from the top down, it is insufficient for the Koch brothers to control Congress and the Supreme Court without owning the occupant of the White House any more than controlling every Republican state legislature without control over those state’s city and county governments. It is true the Koch’s are poised to spend nearly a billion dollars to put a Koch surrogate in the White House, and to completely take over the entire nation they are paying an American Legislative Exchange Council subsidiary to impose their corporate agenda on every town, village, city, and county in America.
Many Americans have never heard of the Koch brothers much less their legislative arm in Congress and, more importantly, state legislatures across the country. What the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) does is allow corporations to write legislation for Republicans to introduce and then pass into law. Corporations pay the Koch brothers’ ALEC for the privilege of allowing their operatives to write corporate legislation for Republicans and it makes ALEC, and now a subsidiary, more powerful than any special interest, lobbyist, state legislator, and in the majority of cases informs how and why corporations control Republican state governments. Apparently, though, controlling state legislatures is not enough for the Kochs and their corporate cabal so they set their sights on local jurisdictions like city councils, mayors, school districts, and county supervisory boards to round out their sphere of corporate influence on America from the federal government down to the local village council.
The American City County Exchange (ACCE) is an offshoot of (ALEC) that describes itself as “America’s only free market forum for village, town, city and county policymakers.” Beginning in 2015, ACCE became an ALEC-operated project and not a separate Koch-funded social welfare 501(c)(3} charitable non-profit organization. Like its mother organization ALEC, ACCE is wholly funded by corporations whose operatives write and vote for “model legislation and measures” for city and county governments to give the Koch brothers and corporations complete control of every jurisdiction in the nation regardless of size.
The only difference between ALEC and ACCE is that where ALEC (the Kochs) exerts complete control over the United States Congress and state legislatures, ACCE will seize control of all city and county governments in the nation. As the Guardian accurately reports, with Koch and corporations funding their operations, ALEC and its subsidiary ACCE have effectively handed “corporate America a direct conduit to control the policy making process of city councils and municipalities” in every state in America. It is a bloodless coup d’état, but bloodless or not, it is still a complete takeover of every legislative body in America with absolutely no opposition or outrage; that is the effect and consequence of a nation with an incredibly ill-informed and stupid population.
Despite controlling most of America’s government, the Kochs just were not getting the results they wanted fast enough using ALEC as its legislative arm in Congress and state legislatures along with ALEC’s sister organization, the State Policy Network (SPN), SPN is tasked with abolishing public pensions, unions, minimum wage, and employee benefits like sick leave, overtime pay, and worker’s compensation in state legislatures, but they have not succeeded fast enough for the Kochs and it is not for lack of trying. So the Koch’s decided to create and use ACCE to impose corporate control of city and county governments with the goal of imposing corporate control over school districts, banning city and county-level union representation, privatizing local public school districts, eliminating prevailing wage laws, abolishing commercial zoning regulations, and eliminating local environmental provisions their corporate funders and churches claim are either communist intrusions on the ‘free market’ or a vicious liberal government attack on religious liberty.
The American City County Exchange held its organizational meeting last month in Dallas to help its corporate operatives push policies important to advancing the Koch corporate libertarian vision on all Americans. According to Jon Russell, ACCE’s national director and town (not city) council member in Culpeper, Virginia, “There are some really good ideas out there that are percolating, and those are the kinds of out-of-the-box thinking that we are really pushing hard.” The “out-of-the-box thinking” Russell wets his knickers over includes pushing corporate operation of city and county services like garbage pickup and providing water and sewer services, eliminating collective bargaining and unions, banning prevailing wage and overtime laws, and imposing corporate control of public schools. ACCE’s goals are imposing ALEC’s state-level corporate control over every municipality in America under the guise of free markets and fiscal responsibility.
As a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in campaign finance, Jessica Levinson, noted, like ALEC, ACCE’s mission is not fiscal responsibility, helping municipalities, or improving conditions for Americans. Levinson is completely correct in saying that “There’s a lot of money to be made in local government,” and that for the Koch brothers “privatization makes perfect sense, working hand in glove with corporations makes perfect sense, and expanding (ALEC’S) corporate agenda to county and city governments makes perfect sense.” A research analyst at Common Cause, Jay Riestenberg, echoed Professor Levinson and said that ACCE opens the door for corporate influence over local governments and profit from that control. Riestenberg said, “This’ll ease the way for corporations to take over all local services. The public sector is a $6 trillion enterprise, and this is a huge money-making opportunity for them.”
It is true there is an inordinate amount of public money corporations and the Kochs want to steal, but absolute control of every aspect of American government is much more important to the Kochs. As Professor Levinson said, everything about using an ALEC subsidiary to impose corporate control of government and pillage town, city, and county coffers makes perfect sense to the Koch brothers. Because they will never be satisfied until they have imposed corporate-ownership libertarian-style on all aspects of American government. The new ALEC subsidiary, the American City County Exchange (ACCE) will give the Koch’s the control they so desperately lust, and the Koch cabal’s corporations running local governments will profit handsomely from all American taxpayers.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
This is some “serious” shit guys!!!
I would do everything in my power to prevent ALEC and it’s offshoot from screwing my home town harder then what is going on now.
Right now, the town is in full fear of seeing it’s biggest employer have it’s workers go on strike. Add to that the persistent drug use and lack of jobs and you have a potential target for the Kochs.
Well, I say NO! I will fight tooth and nail to make sure these bastards don’t taint a single damn inch of Longview and Kelso.
For real!!!
Folks! this is the face of the REAL GOP! this is called OLIGARCHY! come on! take a good look!! especially YOU $HIT for brains republican TROLLS! while YOUR dumbA$SES are jumping all over NON conservative websites talking BULL$HIT and cheerleading for the GOOD OLE GOP! that same LILY WHITE party YOU feel so close to! so comfortable with! because the vast major of them LOOK just like YOU!! LMFAO I got some news for you! unless YOU’RE extremely wealthy and just can’t resist jumping on the internet and playing make believe you’re bill o’rielly or ann coulter, you’re gonna get screwed by the GOPS overlords too! YOU really think the GOP and corporate america gives a damn about you being WHITE? YOU really think the powers that be care about YOU? ask yourself a question, what happened to your 401k’s??? what happened to your pensions? huh? WALL STREET got a bailout! DID YOU? I guess the OLIGARCH’s don’t care about your WHITE PRIVILEGE! they just care about the GREEN! LOL
Oh take a good look at Detroit!! my hometown! take a look! that’s whats coming to YOUR LILY WHITE community! see GREED is a BIT@H! it eats up everything! including it’s OWN!
Progressives/liberals must have our voices heard. Through letter writing to your local papers, attending local government meetings, sharing on social media the facts. This can not and must not happen. If we remain silent we will become the United States of Koch!!!!
Great Article/Great Comments Knight!
It was GWBush who once said:
‘We can Fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones we concentrate on’.
Look how they CONCENTRATE/FOCUS on FOX News MIS-INFORMATION & Lies-by-Omission.
PLUS: coast-to-coast RightWing Radio being funded by big-money the Koch Brothers.
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3A0DD68A-D5A2-4DED-A232-1546F8F1B1A9
If we allow ALEC/OLIGARCHY to take over …It’s our Own Damn Fault!
We all need to help-pull-the-wagon…
That Will Wake-Up-America!
IOW, they are trying to turn the entire country into the John Birch Society.
Let’s call the Koch brothers what they really are – Fascists.Libertarianism is just and innocuous name for Fascism. These wealthy fascists have tried to take over this country before and failed. They will fail this time.
Helen, In many places we are already there.
Through fear and racism, they slowly took over the Republican Party. They hijacked the Tea Party and made it their own. All done to slowly take over the Federal and State Governments. That control is not quite enough even though they control most media outlets as well, they feel they have to get control over local governments as well. After all, politics start at the local level. Soon, The United States Of America will be in name only. It will actually be The Corporate States Of America.
Big Brother’s name is ALEC. The Oligarchy is here and its name is Koch. This is not new news; this has been going on for at least 20 years. It has been kept as quite as possible. This truly qualifies as a conspiracy to take over the country. It is a sneaky, inside, direct attack on America.
We need to advertise this on Facebook, Twitter … this is fascism.
This basically coincides with the way Dominionists work, and they are probably co-operating…for now, which raises the question: if they succeed, how are they proposing to divvy up the spoils? I don’t think they like to share toys, or play well with others.
When the Middle Class has been eliminated, and America is turned into a Militaristic Feudal Society- bent on Empire Building with it’s Poor-folks enlisted for life, will ALEC begin to be happy.
For those who claim that they are Libertarians, Corporate control over all local governments is your worst nightmare. When Corporations take over Government it will not be small government – it will be corporate government and you and I and all working and middle class citizens will be screwed. The Medieval Ages comes to America brought to us by Religious Fundies and Corporate Oligarchs. Hope all you right-wingers enjoy having all your rights taken away from you.
“Libertarianism, n: A political philosophy some people embrace
after the roads have been paved.”
Oh! I’ve got to remember that one. And how utterly true.
The kochs didn’t have to hijack anything. The so-called tea party was theirs to start with. It was never a grass roots organization but was totally funded by the kochs. It was their replacement for the john birch society started by their father. They just connvinced some gullible “patriots” to join up due to their hatred of a black president. But, my guess is most of the people involved were there because they received koch cash.
The saddest part of this whole corporate takeover is that it will still not be enough. Greed is an addiction which can never be satisfied. Like any addiction, it will eventually kill its host. However, in the meantime millions of people’s lives will be damaged and the planet will be destroyed. Where will be 1% live then, I wonder? Oh, and of course, it will all be Obama’s fault.
You got that right reynardine. The Dominionist’s believe they have the right take from the rich for themselves what ever they can or want.( example: Palin, who lives off others.) Now I wonder who will be the ones taking between the Kochs and the Domionionist? That may be quite a fight. The blessing would be, the destruction of both.
“Hope all you right-wingers enjoy having all your rights taken away from you.” Not to mention their guns. Does anyone believe these oligarchs will allow the serfs to be armed? What about that, right-wingers?
You do know the NRA has a database on every gun owner in America
How The NRA Built A Massive Secret Database Of Gun Owners
While the National Rifle Association publicly fights against a national gun registry, the organization has gone to incredible lengths to compile information on “tens of millions” of gun owners — without their consent.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevefriess/how-the-nra-built-a-massive-secret-database-of-gun-owners#.hoENk8ldO
And that the NRA doesn’t seem to like the notion of non white folks being armed either…
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/04/robert-farago/rick-ector-why-the-nra-doesnt-include-blacks/
If someone did manage to start a ‘race war’ they don’t seem to like the notion of someone else shooting back.
I did not know that, DJ, but I did know that when a background check is conducted, it goes through law enforcement data bases. So if you got your gun legally, they know who are, right?
Tell you what. Not every gun that changes hands involves that kind of a background check. Now, I don’t know what the NRA data base consists of, but if they’ve got more/other than what you said, that’s interesting.
I remember a few years back, the NRA sold a list of those who let their NRA subscription lapse, to interested folks…
Yes but the government by law cannot keep records on guns
. There is no national database of guns. Not of who owns them, how many are sold annually or even how many exist.
Federal law bars the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from keeping track of guns. The only time the government can track the history of a gun, including its first buyer and seller, is after it’s used in a crime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/gun-crime-tracing-weapons-difficult_n_2572908.html
I didn’t know that, DJ,so thank you. I’m going to read the 2 articles you have referred to me to.
Sure hope you’re right. Suspect when enough people figure out what’s happened, though, it will be too late, and a repressive right-wing dictatorship will be in place. If a certain gov from WI becomes POTUS, this will be well before 2020.
Sure hope you’re correct. We may be approaching a tipping point where America will become a repressive right-wing dictatorship bought and paid for (in secret) by the Koch bros.
Excellent reporting. ACCE has the potential to be worse for the 99.9% than it’s parent, ALEC.
But, no surprise, the Koch’s have ANOTHER asset in play here at this city and county level – the third party in politics, Americans for Prosperity.
Just like it does at the national and state level, AFP is the “boots on the ground” for the rabid right. Take a good look sometime at the AFP web site and see how large and very well-organized its ground game is. This is something missed badly by Dem strategists before and after the 2014 elections.
It’s all part of a well-planned and well-organized economic coup against the United States. Just think what you could do with billions of dollars to spend, so many think tanks at your disposal (add Heritage, Heartland, Mercatus, CATO, Manhattan, Aspen, and others to the 54 or so think tanks in SPN), and a conservative echo chamber based around Fox.
Thanks for another great article.
do you actually look at facebook or twitter?
Something must be done to rid America of ALEC/ACCE and the kochroach brothers’ money. They are the scum of the earth, and should destruct on their greed and lust for total power and control of every American. Who the hell do they think they are? They didn’t even earn their money……they INHERITED it! Damn them.