Call to Action Against ALEC in Phoenix this November

north america / mexico | crime prison and punishment | anarchist communist event Saturday August 20, 2011 07:14 by DAFM

ALEC thinks they're meeting in Scottsdale, AZ this November...

ALEC thinks they’re meeting in Scottsdale, AZ this November…

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a massive non-profit
body that brings corporations and legislators together to draft “model”
legislation. For example, AZ Senator Russell Pearce and Corrections
Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison firm,
have been members for years. ALEC finalized the model legislation which
became, almost word for word, Arizona’s SB1070, aka “Support Our Law
Enforcement.” It’s the latest in the historical pattern of colonization,
slave codes, convict leasing, and the drug war, that CREATES crimes and
therefore criminals, for profit.

With British Petroleum (BP) and the Koch brothers as some of their
funders, ALEC has pushed for Three Strikes and Mandatory Minimum
sentencing, as well as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. More than 200
of ALEC’s model bills became actual laws throughout the country over the
past year.

We’re a group of people in occupied Indigenous lands, now called Arizona,
who demand the end of SB1070 and 287g, the criminalization—and then the
incarceration—of migrants, and the militarization of the border. We oppose
private prisons, detention centers, and security companies, not simply
because they are private, but because we are sickened by profiteering on
human misery. ALEC desires “free markets” and “limited government,”
which means they use the state to support profit-making, the continuance
of colonization, and neo-liberal policies (NAFTA, CANAMEX, etc.) that draw
lines, make laws, and build freeways and prisons to exploit labor and the
earth.

Whether maintained by the state or corporations, we’re against all systems
of control. We are for freedom of movement for all people.

ALEC should know there are a million better things to do with their time
than plotting mass incarceration. But there’s nowhere we’d rather be than
confronting their meeting. We’re calling for four days of action here in
occupied Onk Akimel O’odham lands from November 29th – December 3rd, 2011, with an emphasis for action on November 30th (N30!). We encourage a
creative diversity of tactics on N30, the 12th anniversary of the Seattle
uprising against the WTO. No matter the acronym, ALEC is no different
than all the other gangs of businessmen, politicians, and bureaucrats that
we’ve been resisting for over 500 years.

In solidarity with everyone locked up and locked down in AZ, and all
O’odham, Yaqui, Lipan Apache separated by the border, and anyone
dispossessed by the wealthy and powerful…

Project Baldwin
projectbaldwin@riseup.net

More information on ALEC and resistance at azresistsalec.wordpress.com

More to come.