.
Astroturfing and Republicans – a match made in heaven a sleazy back office. Have you noticed any similarities between those lovely tea parties and the current disruptions at Democrat townhall meetings? It’s all about astroturfing and if you’re not familiar with the term, this should help.
Campaigns & Elections magazine defines astroturf as a “grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them.” Journalist William Greider has coined his own term to describe corporate grassroots organizing. He calls it “democracy for hire.”
Conservatives and Republicans have organized themselves with a single objective in mind: disrupt honest debate on health care reform and any other policy discussion coming out of the White House. Period. Think Progress obtained a leaked memo (read it) which is a detailed guide on exactly the methods by which organized protesters are to disrupt town hall meetings held by Democrats. Via CrooksandLiars comes this piece in Whiskey Fire.
Which brings us to today, where by the miracle of wingnut headcase engineering, the Moral Wall Switch for coordinated attempts to disrupt other people’s public events has been hastily and incompetently flipped from Evil to Good. To wit, here’s the Tea Party-associated Freedom Works offering advice to Tea-Baggers about how best to disrupt town-hall meetings held by elected Democratic officials who want to discuss healthcare with their constituents:
– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”
Unsurprisingly, this is precisely what the Tea-Baggers have been doing.
And what has been the reaction from those who invented imaginary liberal behavior and are watching as their side actually does precisely the stuff they only pretended liberals were doing and which they denounced as Wicked, Deranged, and Perfidious?
Cheering it on, of course. Duh.
This folks, is the sorry state of the Republican party. Pretty sad.
Rachel Maddow puts it all together…
.
.
___
To receive email notifications of new posts from MarioPiperniDotCom, click on Subscribe.
.
How soon we forget about ACORN.
Don’t you all get it? Both sides are guilty! They want you bitching about the other team. It keeps the real problems from being discussed.
I’ve got to say. I don’t care what your Political Persuasion is, it should really, REALLY make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see these weasels squirming.
But again here. You attack the messenger and their method. Doesn’t anyone think these Congressmen and Women should be able to answer the hard questions put to them?
So sad to see both of you so badly misinformed. To start with, let’s clear up the ACORN allegations. ACORN is an organization that wants to register voters and inform them of their voting rights. In order to do as many registrations as possible, they hire people who are often homeless or unemployed or both in order to get the work done. Some of those hired as independent contractors turned out to be lazy and just went to a phone book or made up names on the registration cards and then turned them in to get the money. This behavior was caught by ACORN itself and the cards destroyed and thrown away and the people involved were reported by ACORN itself to the Election Commission. At no time were any of those bad names ever placed in the files as legitimate names nor did ACORN have any part in perpetrating any kind of fraud and they were the ones who both reported it and dealt with it decisively. No “extra” votes ever resulted from it and, therefore, no fraud was ever committed nor did it ever result in election throwing or manipulation of any kind. So lay off ACORN!
Next, let’s deal with the hypocrisy of the Republican Party in saying that issues should be dealt with honestly and that adult discussion of issues was what they wanted. They then turn around and are so afraid of the truth or of a substantial discussion of the issues that they can’t attend a meeting and act like adults nor can they engage in valid discussion of the merits of the matter at hand! Only coward will behave in such a way. The idea that general public citizens would accept Republican money to thwart the ideals of a democracy in the United States of America and still claim to be law-abiding, law and order loving full citizens is ludicrous. They might want to consider just joining the Neo-Nazis and make their love of fanatical and coercive behavior clear for all to see! Nuff said!
Melody!! I understand you being p.o.’ed at Tommy. I mean, it upsets me also when he points out obvious contradictions in liberal thought processes. (That “wascal”)
But what did I do?? All I said is I enjoy watching those weasels squirm no matter who causes it!
@Melody You are factually correct but you’re wasting your time trying to convince wingnuts that it could be anything else than what they’ve heard on fox or read on some right wing smear site.
Melody…your support of ACORN pretty much says it all. ACORN is under investigation in something like 20 states. There is obviously some wrongdoing there. No one knows exactly to what extent just yet.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124182750646102435.html
I’m sure some of the protests are organized. But not all. Watch the coverage. There isn’t just 1 or 2, or 7 or 8 people standing up, applauding and demanding answers. The whole crowd stands and applauds. Do you not think that many people in the U.S. are upset with how this is being handled? Do you think that everyone who raises their voice against the policies of this President is only doing it because they have been misled?
You do yourselves no favor to believe people that think differently than you only do so because they are simply repeating what they are told.
So, just to be clear on this Melody:
1) Acorn works to sign up voters
2) They sign up mostly democratic voters
3) Their operations are paid for by government funding, given to them by the democrates that are elected.
And you DON’T see a conflict of interest there? And you think that republican’s efforts to encourage constituents to speak their minds is bad because….
ACORN registers voters in poor areas populated by people of color. You know, people who are under represented or completely shut out of the democratic process. It’s not ACORN’s fault that the Democrats have a platform that better tends to their needs than the Republicans do.
Anyway, this is really nothing new. Conservatives have always gotten away with saying the craziest things possible. That’s their strategy. This crazy talk only gets scarier the more it’s repeated. It’s like a game of telephone. They sort of read a bill on healthcare, for example. They read that end-of-life counseling will be provided to seniors and covered by Medicare. After going through the conservative filter, that turns into “The government will force you to have this end-of-life counseling.” After going through the media filter, that turns into “You’re going to have to make decisions about euthanasia and plug-pulling and all that.” After going through the ears of some seniors, that turns into “Some government official is going to come to my house and tell me how I’m going to die.” And then that senior asks President Obama if this will happen, when he’s trying to have a serious discussion about healthcare reform. When the conversation is derailed, the conservatives have won. Instead of answering another serious question about healthcare reform, Obama has to entertain this poor woman who can’t afford to wonder if these wingnuts are just playing politics. Of course, the conservatives know that they’re lying to people. They don’t care, as long as people believe the lie. It’s very cynical.
#1 Acorn is not paid by the government. Each member must attend training to become a voter registrar and the training is free from the Election Commission. So there is no “conflict of interest”. They do just believe in political activism.
#2 The comment made about how many people were involved in screaming at the town halls, did you listen to Rachel Maddow tonight? She laid out the facts that those people were paid, that many were brought in, even by bus! Many don’t even live in the area! They were told to “spread out” to look like they fit in! They were told to intentionally disrupt the moment the speaker began to make any points. A copy of their memo to those protesting was revealed on air! Go watch Rachel Maddow lay out the facts. It was one hell of a good job of reporting accuracy and I aught to know. I graduated top of my class in Broadcast Journalism.
#3 If anyone takes offense, sorry, but I deal in the facts. It makes life a little easier and as a trained journalist I was taught to verify every story with at least two confirmable sources. Rachel did that tonight so I am proud of her work. Go watch it.
I stand corrected Melody. Acorn does not receive its money from the government. They say so on their website:
http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=17857&tx_irfaq_pi1showUid=161&tx_irfaq_pi1back=P2lkPTE3ODU3&cHash=3b5f677fec
As a trained journalist, can you find out the specific groups who do fund Acorn? It would be a similiar story to the one Maddow presented.
Melody…This from a source you should trust:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/19/barney-frank-michele-bach_n_205529.html
“(Barney) Frank also pointed out that ACORN received significant federal funding from the Bush administration.”
I have been searching for 20 minutes. I have found no other source other than ACORN’s own site that reports they do not receive Federal Funding.
I’ve watched this video at least 3 times. Can you please point me to the segment where Maddow “laid out the facts” that these people were paid? I may have missed it. But I did not see it.
As a matter of fact, could you also point me to where she “laid out the facts” or in any way proved that any of these people were “brought in by bus” or “didn’t even live in the area.” I didn’t see that either, although I may have missed it.
I would disagree with you that Maddow laid out the facts or did “one hell of a good job of reporting accuracy.” And I agree with you…you or any other reasonably intelligent person “aught to know.” Aught [sic] to know better.
What Rachael did was prove this memo existed. No question there. Prove there was a lot of angry constituents at these meetings. No question there. She did not draw any substantive connection between the two. She left the viewer (you and I) to draw their own conclusions. What she did was suggest there was a connection. (Powerfully) She did not establish or prove a connection. Again, if I am wrong, can you point me to the segment where she proves any of these people were acting because of, influenced by or directed by this “memo”.
Those are the “facts” as I see them. I understand you see them differently. I have outlined my reasoning to you. Can you please point me to specific information that suggests I am in error.
In my opinion, Maddow’s piece is an effort in “guilt by assumption”. Or “Suggestive Journalism” (if that’s a term). She has suggested a connection but has proven nothing.
Take care.
ATTN Cons: ACORN has nothing to do with this, and the election is long over. Nobody cares. Stop parroting Glenn Harold Hill Beck’s talking point and get back to reality.
VP…”The election is long over…” So why do liberals and the President continuously harp on “the previous administration” and “eight years of failed policies.”
The election is over, not the effects of the last administration.