Freedom, democracy, and unelected legislatures

In my readings, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been appearing more and more.  A recent article was "Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws Across U.S." Alison Fitzgerald, Bloomberg, 2011-07-20,

ALEC arranges meetings with legislators and corporate representatives to write model legislation.  This legislation is often introduced verbatim into legislative agendas.  Raegan Weber, an ALEC spokeswoman, says the group simply facilitates the sharing of information and “good conservative policy.” ALEC’s mission is to promote free markets, limited government, federalism and individual freedom, according to its website. “All of our policies are in line with those principles,” said Weber.

To me these nice-sounding words mean unrestricted operation for big corporations, government that stays out of the way of big corporations, government at the state level that is easier to control, and individual freedom for executives.  George Orwell's Newspeak is alive and well.

Missing in all these fine words are democracy and small-r republicanism.  The people and things public (res public) are left out of the picture.

Do we have these Orwellian people in our midst?

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.  We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power.  Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power.
…
The German Nazis and the Russian Communists … pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.  We know that no one ever seized power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end."

- "1984", George Orwell, p. 263, Signet Classic paperback edition

Has this prediction become true?

"In a way, the world-view of the [Manipulators] imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it.  They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening.  By lack of understanding, they remained sane.  They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as a grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird."

Who are the manipulators?  In George Orwell's "1984" it is the Party.  Who would it be in our world: corporations, the military-industrial complex, the national security establishment, the Tea Party, …?

Could the attack on public education be an attempt to ensure that people are incapable of understanding the manipulations?  Could the attack on true health care be an obfuscation to cloud understanding.  Could the use (or misuse) of words like patriotism, free market, tax burden, job creation, and on and on be used as "flagrant violations of reality"?

Could all this manipulation be a means to confuse people so that they became "not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening" and therefore not even show up to vote?