Minnesota's Own Medtronic QUITS ALEC!!!!

This has been a great week for ALEC news!  We have the corp-o-rats leaving the Pirate ship of ALEC.
I couldn't be happier to see this particular home-grown Medical Technology company getting out of the corrupt entity that is ALEC!
ALEC corporations write the legislation, IN SECRET not transparently in public forums, which is crafted so that it
benefits them, and pays both directly and indirectly to have conservative majority legislatures pass the legislation which benefits their special interests rather than the public interest.  We elect these legislators to serve US, not to serve a corp-o-rat master, often out of state. 
I for one do not want to see a company like Medtronic funding the social culture wars as part of getting preferential treatment for their business in this underhanded, corrupt manner.  Corruption has been defined, as the best working definition I have seen, of use of public office for private gain --- and these ALEC corporations are buying public government for their gains - and they DO make unfair gains at public expense.

'swinging' corp-o-rat pirates

We need to be supportive of innovative industries like Medtronic in Minnesota, but we need to do so in the full light of day, not by buying off legislators to make dirty secret deals.  Personal disclosure, my family has old, profitable deep ties to the  Medtronic corporation, going all the way back to the earliest days of the corporate founders.  So I am especially happy to see the corporation leave the dark side of dirty conservative 'pirate' politics as the public pressure for ALEC disclosure and abandonment continues.  In the interim, there is an almost unlimited number of images available of rats as pirates for me to play with for these stories of ALEC diminishing.
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As was noted in a recent op ed rebuttal posted in the Star Tribune, "Bribery equals corruption -- from any angle" about business ethics (or lack of them) generally, and WalMart core corporate member of ALEC specifically, good business can act legally and ethically, and still be very successful.  This is not ONLY about bribery in Mexico; the WalMart executives who did so are now sitting smugly in the corporate boardroom of WalMart, having earned big corporate rewards in terms of personal compensation for doing so, and having apparently violated U.S. law not once, but twice in a cover up effort.  They should be fired, not promoted, if any corporation is serious about their ethics.  And if WalMart were serious about not bribing American politicans and authorities, they would quit ALEC, and not simply move their shady practices to the cover of other entities instead -- as is allegedly the case with ALEC as more and more businesses end their support for it.  The right wing is not about government reform, it is about private greed, and only the most blindly ideologically ignorant continue to support it believing otherwise. In opposing the looting and pillaging and bribery and other forms of corporate corruption on the right, conservative voters are hurting themselves, and they are hurting the rest of us -- INCLUDING honest Minnesota businesses.   The author of this op ed piece is NOT 'anti-business', the usual label that the right tries to paste on their critics to distract from their corruption, and he is quite famliar with both good honest capitalism thriving in Minnesota - and with Mexico.


From the STrib:

Bribery equals corruption -- from any angle

A columnist recently argued that without doing bad, we can't do good. Not true.

Article by: MILES B. CANNING

Updated: May 3, 2012 - 8:20 PM

Counterpoint
In "A little greasing of the wheels is good for a local economy," (Opinion, May 1), Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman argues that the United States shouldn't try to enforce its ethics elsewhere. He cites the case of Wal-Mart executives allegedly bribing local Mexican officials in order to (successfully) penetrate and quickly dominate the Mexican supermarket industry.
Not only are the alleged activities serious crimes, but the alleged six-year cover-up multiplies the ethical damage Wal-Mart has done to itself, to the Mexican market, and to the reputations of both the United States and Mexico.
I have enjoyed the fruits of capitalism as a businessman in Minnesota. I have also been lucky to spend several months each winter living in Mexico over the last decade. I have witnessed a rapid and welcome growth in retailing, specifically with the entry of Wal-Mart and the growth of other supermarket chains.

The Mexican middle class is growing, and its standard of living is improving. I am not opposed to progress, modernization or globalization. I am opposed to bribery.
Chapman argues, "Economic growth is a good thing, even when it's lubricated by graft." He argues that if we Americans don't bribe our way in, some other country with fewer scruples will, and we'll lose out. But he doesn't extend his logic just a few more steps and see that bad business begets more bad business.
The real losers are the local suckers who are sold down the river by some bureaucrat or greedy businessperson who pockets the bribe and favors the crook. Local businesses that refuse to give or take bribes are disadvantaged. They're the injured parties.
Chapman suggests that everybody's doing it and therefore we're somehow mistakenly self-righteous if we don't also cheat. This is elementary ethics. The law makes these practices illegal because they support coercion. They give unfair power to greedy people and dirty politicians. Their illegal practices destroy markets; their "business as usual" attitude discourages investment. Every crooked deal displaces a healthy, win-win deal that benefits more people.
The crux of Chapman's argument is that without doing bad, we can't do good, and that by being too self-righteous, we prevent ourselves and others from enjoying all we have to offer. This is simply saying that the ends justify the means, which in this case is commending Wal-Mart for stopping at nothing to bring their business to Mexico and their profits back home. This is greasy capitalism run amok.
Finally, the alleged cover-up. I read David Barstow's New York Times article. The author makes a compelling case by uncovering false statements, sham investigations, whitewashed reports, doctored books, personnel shifts and so forth.
Many of the targets of these years of alleged bribes and the people allegedly responsible for the cover-ups now have senior positions in the Wal-Mart corporate empire -- they're still running the show today.
I have some solutions to Chapman's greasy dilemma. Call out bribery, corruption, cronyism, favoritism and illegal payoffs -- every time. Name names. Write letters. Protest as a shareholder. Boycott as a shopper.
Let politicians know you demand fairness and transparency. Support the watchdog groups and the regulatory agencies that investigate, build cases and prosecute. Resist the temptation to go along to get along.
The international communities must keep striving for transparency. There's a cost in paying bribes that should extend far beyond whether or not you can afford it or believe that it's inevitable.
Every crooked deal eliminates an honest one. Every crooked deal erodes business trust. That's why they're illegal. If U.S. companies choose to break the law, the penalties should be enormous.
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Miles B. Canning lives in Greenwood, Minn., and Manzanillo, Mexico.