Bloomberg posted another article on the American Legislative Exchange Council this morning. For the most part it was standard boilerplate, until you get to this part:
An ALEC session on Wednesday was rather more conspiratorial about why some businesses are no longer members. The title: "Playing the Shame Game: A Campaign That Threatens Corporate Free Speech." Three panelists told a rapt audience that union activists are out to get ALEC—that they're following Saul Alinsky's playbook on browbeating corporations into submission. Unions are often shareholders in public companies thanks to pension fund investments. That means they get to offer proposals, such as "resign from ALEC," in annual shareholder meetings.
"The real objective here is to silence dissenting speech," said panelist Paul Atkins, a former Securities and Exchange commissioner under President George W. Bush. "They want to paint a picture of evil big corporations. They know that disclosure has a way of scaring people away. There's a huge chilling effect."
The tell here is the use of the term
chilling effect, which has a very specific legal meaning. Making this attempted usage here all the more ironic, because perhaps the best examples of it in practice exist in
SLAPP cases in which companies attempt to silence critics with threat of well funded legal harassment. Remember too, that ALEC itself has employed
similar tactics against critics in the past. And, just this morning apparently has a member under arrest at their SNPS in DC for
physically assaulting someone who had the audacity to exercise their rights in a way that offended ALEC.
ALEC, thou doth protest far too much, methinks.