Two major corporations have decided to cut their ties with the conservative bill-writing organization…The American Legislative Exchange Council (or better known by its acronym – ALEC). Both Kraft Foods, Inc. and the Coca-Cola Co. both either discontinued their memberships or let their memberships expire.

If your head is already ringing…it gets better.

If you are asking why these companies were involved with this group in the first place…Susan Davison a spokeswoman for Kraft, Inc. offered up this explanation; the company’s involvement with ALEC “has been strictly limited to discussions about economic growth and development, transportation and tax policy.”

“We did not participate in meetings or conversations related to other issues,” Davison said.

Right…and Hoover Dam just got sold to the Iraqi government for 200 shekels.

ALEC pushed Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows the use of deadly force in self-defense. The law recently attracted national attention in the wake of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17.

Martin was shot on Feb. 26 by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., who has said he acted in self-defense and has not been charged.

A spokeswoman for ALEC has said the organization was not involved in the passage of the controversial Florida law.

As a People For the American Way report put it last year, ALEC is “the voice of corporate Special Interests in state legislatures” across the country. Whether it’s an anti-union, anti-environment, anti-immigrant or anti-consumer issue, ALEC has been busily pushing pre-written, far-right legislation to pro-corporate lawmakers across the country. Those lawmakers, in turn, have been turning bills adopted by ALEC into law — sometimes even forgetting to remove ALEC’s name from the text before it’s introduced.

Is the American public starting to get just how much power these special interests hold here in the United States and the world?

~ Erik Sudberg

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