WHO IS "ALEC" AND WHY ARE THEY RUNNING OUR COUNTRY?

A little-known nonprofit has become far too influential in writing the policies that govern our lives - wages, food, fuel, medicine. We are becoming less and less a country of the people, by the people, and for the people - as our forefathers intended, fighting long wars for the right of self-government. But it's not too late, yet, to turn this around.

But first, who is running our country? This past October, as our economy lost billions while sitting for weeks in shutdown mode, the people spoke: a poll showed that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats wanted Speaker John Boehner to bring a clean budget to a vote in the House to open our government again. But the Speaker was answering to a higher power, and it wasn't the Tea Party - not completely. They were a conduit.

There is an ingrained corporate-funded policy-making infrastructure in the U.S. Big industry of every sort (oil and gas, tobacco, gun, chemical, pharmaceutical - and even education and prison) is represented as members in a right-wing state-by-state policy-influencing network called ALEC - the American Legislative Exchange Council.

ALEC also influences the media, such as Fox News, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Amy Hanauer, Executive Director of Policy Matters Ohio, explained the group to a crowd at a League of Women Voters gathering last month. ALEC writes laws, has its members introduce them, and then lobbies other legislators to pass them. ALEC brought in $9.2M in 2011, 80% of this from corporate contributors who are members. It uses these resources to influence state legislatures around the country.

According to Amy, ALEC attacks renewable energy, wage standards, product safety, and unions.. ALEC promotes cuts in funding for basics such as health care, human services, and safety. They attack regulation, promote privatization, and change state processes to ratchet down programs that help citizens.

2,000 of 7,382 state legislators are members of ALEC - that's up to one-third of legislators.

There was a temporary weakening of ALEC's powers, since they promoted "Stand Your Ground" laws. After the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Amazon, WalMart and Proctor & Gamble backed out as members. But this only caused ALEC to re-double their efforts to focus on the economy and go after workers' rights.

There are organizations networking to fight ALEC and their influence often led by the Center for Media and Democracy. Others include Common Cause (with Robert Reich as Board Director), and many others, including Bill Moyers. Bill Moyers put together a report titled the "United States of ALEC", featuring public watchdog organizations (http://billmoyers.com/segment/united-states-of-alec).

Why is policy so important? We have all of the answers to be sustainable, and have had them for decades. We could shift to much more use of clean power. Other countries are on this path, including Spain, Germany, and many others. There is truly only one main reason we continue to have mercury in our fish, climate change intensifying, a middle class disappearing, and low income conditions worsening - and that reason is money. Money influences policy and ALEC promotes that approach.

It's not too late to take our government back, and mainly all it takes is knowing who to trust, putting the right people in power, and voting, including with our daily actions such as what we buy and where we buy it. The resources from Policy Matters Ohio, www.policymattersohio.org, can be trusted (as well as similar organizations in other states, including organizations that Policy Matters Ohio lists).

Bill Moyers, another trusted resources, retired to write a book, but came back to work since the stakes are so high. MSNBC is a trusted mainstream news source. The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) gives an annual "Scorecard for Environmental Voting" for each member of Congress, which can usually also be relied upon to indicate those politicians with good records for social issues.

DRINK FOR YOUR HEALTH, THE EARTH, and SOCIAL EQUITY

A very easy way to make a huge impact in being green and sustainable is simply to carry a reusable glass bottle and fill it with tap water. What appears to be a small action actually helps to reverse, over time, nearly every environmental, health and policy concern. When multiplied over a lifetime of drinking fluids, and by billions of people, the results can be overwhelming.

We all have to keep drinking to stay alive - all 317 million of us in the U.S (7.1 billion globally). According to Beverage Digest, bottled water is on its way to surpassing soda pop as our top choice. If we multiply our individual daily consumption (e.g., about 21 gallons of bottled water per person per year), Americans consumed 6.7 billion gallons of bottled water last year. These figures don't include flavored water, carbonated water, etc.

Water is "free" for us now in the U.S., although already being sold back to us in the form of bottled water - at 300-2,000 times the cost of tap water, according to Business Insider. Bottled water is not as regulated as tap water, which is sometimes simply bottled in plastic and sold back to us with fancy labels. And "almost all" plastic products have been found to leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including those labeled "BPA free", according to a 2011 study published in the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. Aluminum bottles and cans may also be lined with plastic.

Soda pop is just bottled water with unhealthy stuff added to it. Each American consumes an average of 44 gallons of soda pop per person per year (13.9 billion gallons total). Try to find any soft drink (or food, especially in a mini-mart) that does not contain high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is made from corn, and is a cheaper, more sweet replacement for the white table sugar we're used to, which is also not all that healthy. Corn grown in the U.S. is 80-90% genetically modified, with the land use, environmental and health concerns that come along with big agriculture and GMOs (watch the movie King Corn). But the HFCS alone has been suspected and implicated in the rash of obesity and diabetes over the past decades as it has simultaneously increased in our foods.

According to Dr. Mark Hyman of the Ultra Wellness Center, "The average American increased their consumption of HFCS (mostly from sugar sweetened drinks and processed food) from zero [in the early 1970s] to more than 60 pounds per person per year. During that time period, obesity rates have more than tripled and diabetes incidence has increased more than seven-fold. Not perhaps the only cause, but a fact that cannot be ignored."

For those opting "sugar-free", this usually means aspartame. This chemical has an interesting past. Aspartame was synthesized in 1965 by a chemist for G.D. Searle & Company, a pharmaceutical company, as he was developing a test chemical for an anti-ulcer drug. He accidentally licked his finger, and the rest is history. In 1985 Monsanto bought Searle, and in 2000, the aspartame business became a standalone subsidiary: Nutrasweet. There is a long history of allegations of questionable testing for human use, attempted congressional investigations, and other shadiness, with suspicions of migraines and other brain afflictions remaining. The Splenda/sucralose history is less interesting, but there is a similar controversy over uncertain health effects, and FDA "safe" levels, which alone should give one pause.

We also like our drinks ice-cold. Coca-Cola alone has about 10 million vending machines worldwide. A typical refrigerated vending machine uses about 400 watts, which means nearly 2 tons of coal per machine, or almost 20 million tons of coal mined, shipped, and burned, just for Coca-Cola's pop machines for one year.

So, what did our great-grandparents drink, before plastic, HFCS, and aspartame? Besides milk that was delivered to their door, they also squeezed their own orange juice. Oranges can be shipped from Florida (where oranges are not really native), so that was not local and cost us some fossil fuel petroleum. But we were able, and still can, produce our own local apple juice and apple cider, as well as berry juices and local grape and berry wines. Some wineries, including in Lake and Ashtabula Counties, even grow native grapes to make our local wines - and grape juices.

Drinking tap water, right out of the faucet, and carrying it around in a glass container*, can be the best and easiest action a person can take to save money, improve health, protect biodiversity, offset climate change, support environmental justice, lessen big business's influence in our lives and legal system, and keep access to clean water our free right. Just add a little local organic juice, or make some sun tea.
________
* Note: Stainless steel is another option. Glass was selected here since you can see into the bottle, dirt or contaminants are more obvious, and steel involves more intensive mining practices. If selecting stainless steel, ensure that it is high quality, to reduce the already small amount of leaching of metals, per LifeWithoutPlastic.com. Both stainless steel and glass are 100% recyclable, but reusing is best.