politics
On the nature of astroturf. . .
A friend has called me out as a dupe because (gasp) a conservative foundation has launched an anti-Obamacare patient advocacy group and has been called out (oh noes) by some progressive leftist public interest organizations and blogs. Wow, one set of highly organized partisans deeply invested in the outcome of a political issue are dismissive of their opposition because it might (gasp) involve a set of highly organized partisans deeply invested in the contrary outcome of same political issue. Whoda thunk?
Perhaps more germane is the fact that using the involvement of partisan organizations in any political protest to invalidate the protest itself is a distraction. It is a feat of rhetorical legerdemain that allows one to sidestep the argument by pointing at people with complaints and saying, “oh they aren’t sincere,” “they don’t know what they’re talking about,” without dealing with the legitimacy of their complaints. Oh, someone somewhere might have given someone some funding, we don’t have to listen to them.
It’s also kind of illustrative of the echo chamber effect. In the Wonk Room post linked above they use the following language:
After orchestrating and funding the so-called Tea Parties movement, Americans for Prosperity — a nationwide front group founded and funded by the right-wing polluter Koch Industries — is launching an ad campaign characterizing President Obama’s effort to reform the health care system as a government take-over that will ration care and care and deny treatments.
Wow, you can see why my friend Steve thought I was a dupe. According to that graph, the evil “Americans for Prosperity” are the invisible hand behind the whole tea party movement. (BTW isn’t it asinine to use “So-Called” when you’re already using the word’s “Tea Party” as a slur. Or are there some ligit form of “Tea Party” you want to distinguish? Oh well, moving on.) If you follow the first link, though, you find that:
Despite these attempts to make the “movement” appear organic, the principle organizers of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works.
Okay, sloppy language in the first post, they obviously meant that Americans for Prosperity was only one of two “principle organizers.” (Weasel word alert. Define the level of support required to make a “principle organizer.” How many tea parties do you have to organize? All? Half? 25%? A dozen? Six? ) So what have they done? Well Freedom Works’ sinister plans involve a trio of websites (apparently you can make a web site look “amateurish” by having a slick flash intro, good to know) distributing literature, and advice on sign construction. Americans for Prosperity went so far to hide their hand in the movement by posting a half-dozen events on their website. Damn them!