You might think it bad enough that Republicans choose lies over science in order to claim global climate change dies not exist to generate more profit for criminal corporate polluters. However, they have found a way to make it far worse. They are attempting to mandate indoctrinating our school children with these lies. I bet you can guess which infamous brothers are behind this.
On January 16, the Los Angeles Times revealed that anti-science bills have been popping up over the past several years in statehouses across the U.S., mandating the teaching of climate change denial or "skepticism" as a credible "theoretical alternative" to human-caused climate change.
The L.A. Times’ Neela Banerjee explained,
"Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom."
What the excellent Times coverage missed is that key language in these anti-science bills all eminated [SIC] from a single source: the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
ALEC Exposed: No, Not Alec Baldwin*
In summer 2011, "ALEC Exposed," a project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)**, taught those alarmed about the power that corporations wield in the American political sphere an important lesson: when bills with a similar DNA pop up in various statehouses nationwide, it’s no coincidence…
Inserted from <Truth-Out>
Few organizations are more addicted to Koch sucking than ALEC. I urge you to wander over to ALEC Exposed for more information about this Republican cancer threatening the heart of America.
27 Responses to “ALEC a Source of Climate Denial”
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More “standing up to the experts” in the tradition of teaching “intelligent design” and abstinence-only sex education. When are these people going to learn that ignorant politicians interfering in science education always end up embarrassing themselves?
They can embarrass themselves all they want. It’s the rest of us that concern me.
The Klanservative Klanbagging Kochsuckers are stupid. Proudly stupid. They celebrate stupidity, and they attack anything around them that puts a light on their ignorance. So it doesn’t really matter whether or not that we know about ALEC, because the Klanservative Klanbagging Kochsuckers don’t really care whether or not ALEC is right. They just take comfort in a big organization assuring them that they aren’t as stupid as they are.
JR, I just love that name “Klanservative Klanbagging Kochsuckers” and oh so appropriate!
JR is a master at handle hanging. 🙂
JR, you will love one of tomorrow’s short takes.
I have read both and they are excellent!
When will people open their eyes and see what is happening in our country? Denying climate change doesn’t make it so.
Perhaps it’s because, not satisfied to hide their heads in the sand, Republicans have opted for another orifice.
ALEC is a disgrace to our democracy and should be disembodied at once.
I have to support their freedom to associate, but many of theur practices must be outlawed.
People can live very comfortably with delusions– for a very long time ; problems come when the denial that is the base of the delusional system is challenged; ; The Kochs — ALEC — knows that– if students learn, before they are knowledgeable ,the system their delusions are based on is correct– it takes much longer to shatter that system , by which time the damage is complete/-
Most astute observation, Phyllis.
How about they prove that climate change isn’t true before they put it into the curriculum for school. That God I live in the North States where you don’t have to worry about such bullshit.
Lisa, I hate to tell you, but it’s worked its way up to North Dakota.
“There is no greater hatred than that of ignorance for knowledge.”–Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo’s Dream
How about stupidity for intelligence?
Republican base and intelligence are mutually exclusive terms, my friend.
I could try to be humorous, but this is far more disturbing. True dumbing down of the masses is absolutely to their benefit – to make it nationalized propaganda intended to be taught in the classroom is very disturbing.
I here you Lee. In the sixties, I got a better education in high school than many get in college today.
AMEN!!!! to that. So did I.
For some time, and from both sides of the political table, there has been a concerted effort to “dumb down” the populace so that we, the 99%, would not understand what the 1% is doing to us. I am thankful for the Occupy movement, an apolitical organization that is graphically pointing out our headlong rush into oblivion as precipitated by the 1%. It is inconceivable that any citizen who is not a part of the 1% could possibly think that his/her wellbeing is being given even the most minuscule attention by elected officials, corporations and banksters.
Welcome Emily. 🙂
While I agree that we should be thankful for the OWS movement, there is no factual basis for the notion that the dumbing down is bipartisan. Democrats have as consistent a track record for supporting education as Republicans do for limiting it to the scions of wealth.
politician are not human, they only want our money but their families will suffer consecuencias like us. i hope they know that.
Welcome Silvana!. 🙂
I hope so too. 🙂
The only thing that ALEC does is serve it’s masters, the Koch brothers, and their corporate agenda. It tries to diseminate misinformation to create a culture that supports their corporate greed, but not just for this generation, but generations to come.
But what will happen to those generations when the sea rises and they don’t understand why? What will happen to those generations when the temperature extremes become unbearable? What will happen to those generations when the earth shakes non stop from the effects of fracking etc, not to mention the normal seismic activity? Will those generations be intelligent enough to see what their inbred culture of greed has done? Will they wake up in time, or will they go “down with the ship”, this ship we call Mother Earth, the bright blue planet?
These idiots, so many of them Republican/Teabaggers need to be put out to pasture. Better still, put ALEC on an Antarctic ice ledge that has broken free of the continent due to climate change and see how they deal with endlessly drifting in the sea and an ever dwindling community space. When it becomes too small, how will they decide who has to swim? Then what will they teach their children?
Centuries ago, science was dictated to by the Catholic Church. The Church taught that the earth was flat and that the sun and moon revolved around the earth. And anyone who said differently was subject to ridicule, excommunication and/or death. Now we know that indeed the earth is round and the moon revolves around the earth and the earth around the sun. So much for the Church’s science teaching. Their power was in knowledge and if that knowledge changed, then their power was lessened. ALEC is doing the same thing.
Lynn ALEC has a long list of other corporate masters as well. Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians have taken over the role held by the Catholic Church in Galileo’s day.