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There seems to be a lot of astroturfing going on, especially with the whole healthcare mess. However, it seems that most of it is coming from the pro side and isn't being seen as astroturf.
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@Vandelay Import Export: All of the groups behind the disturbances at town halls and the supposed patriot groups are astroturf organizations.
BTW. Verizon tried to get the state cell phone tax repealed a few elections ago. Once word got out that Verizon was behind the ballot initiative and that the cities involved really needed the funds the voters KEPT THE TAX. Exposing these groups can do wonders.
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@Vandelay Import Export: Who stands to gain the most from reform: The poor, the uninsured, the under-insured, and those who care about the plight of the poor, uninsured, and under-insured.
Who stands to gain the most from no reform: Insurance companies, and those who care about the plight of the insurance companies.
Which of these two has the resources and the motive to create fake grass-roots (astroturfing) groups?
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@Vandelay Import Export: Most? I find that difficult to swallow. Almost all of the monied interests are on the anti side.
So SEIU does not count? ACORN? Moveon.org?
All have been caught busing people into townhalls to pack them.
SEIU has even let pro-healthcare townhalls be held in their offices!
@PunditGuy: It takes money to organize a website or other venue to disseminate information to people so they can get behind one side of a topic with a group of like minded individuals. This is not astro-turfing. This is people volunteering their time to make a stand for their beliefs. When you are paying people to be in a certain place, at a certain time, to say certain things, that is astro-turfing.
Seems to me that when the left organizes, its labeled grass-roots and when the right organizes, its labeled astro-turfing.
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@Vandelay Import Export: A group organizing for or against something is not \"astroturfing\" if it's people who genuinely believe in a cause and joined a group to promote it. It IS astroturfing if it's a group paying for people to come in and pretend to be grassroots activists, concealing their true interests in the matter.
@MostlyHarmless: Since you guys wanted examples:
These guys are all at 601 Pennsylvania Ave in DC:
America's Health Insurance Plans - these guys fund them all
The Coalition for Medicare Choices
FreedomWorks
All of these guys reside at 1726 M Street NW in DC:
Americans for Prosperity
Patients United Now
Patients First
Not sharing quarters with the above, but involved in the health care stuff:
60 Plus Association - worked with one Jack Abramoff
Conservatives for Patient's Rights
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@rblancarte: I appreciate your effort, and i must say well researched indeed...
But I clicked 3 links, and all 3 seem to be the conservative and anti healthcare types. And atleast one actually looked like it was a grassroots organization that honestly believed in reducing government spending.
I was asking Costanza to provide examples of his alleged astro turfers on the pro side.
Again, in general, let me repeat: Grassroots organizations and corporations openly throwing their weight for or against something does not count as astroturfing.
Thanks for the links though. I did not know about most of them before now.
@MostlyHarmless: Heh, exactly the dance you would do.
Show me proof.
Here is the proof.
That is the other side! We can't believe them!
Just watched a NatGeo last night showing Truthers doing the same exact thing. No proof is good enough if it contradicts your preconceived notions.
I remember showing anti-war guy the Amenisty International proof that Iraqis were Gassed by their own Government...
and that was still not enough proof.
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@Snowblind: You are correct! And here's proof - the guy that delivered the gas to him:
...wonder who he was working for....? Obama?
@Snowblind: Iraqis gassed by their own government....
Truth
Iraqis gassed by their own government with gas gotten from the USA....
The Whole Truth
@sinfonian94: Please, don't make the right wingers heads spin, they can't handle irony. Go back to FOX news, wingies - Reagan is still Jesus, and GW was protecting the country, and Rumsfeld just ran into Saddam Hussein while he was hitchhiking the Alps, and...
@Snowblind: Just a quick note about your examples etc:
SEIU - Around since 1921 - it was started by janitors.
ACORN - Around since 1970 - founded by a community & labor organizer.
MoveOn - Started in 1998, but was grassroots - email lists to contact Congressmen. They are a 527 PAC.
These WERE/ARE grassroots organizations from once upon a time. Do they have political agendas? Sure, but they started as small organizations that were begun by a small group of people.
Realize this - the act of getting your organization to participate in rallies is not astroturfing. Busing in people to participate in debates and mobilizing your organization to action (voting, protesting, etc) is not astroturfing.
Astroturf organizations are groups that are designed to look like grassroots organizations (and call themselves such), but in fact are generally created by large corporations, political action groups and/or PR firms. They are not small groups, but backed by big money. The problem with them is that by claiming they are something other than they are, they have an appearance of being noble, when generally they are only serving the interests of big money.
@Snowblind: But MostlyHarmless was asking for proof of astroturfing being committed by the pro-health care reform (HCR) side. All the proof submitted thus far on this thread is of astroturfing by the anti-HCR side. So, no. This isn't a \"the proof came from the other side! We can't believe them!\" issue. This is an issue of proving apples and calling it oranges.
are you guys purposely ignoring my previous post of examples?
View here such classics as:
ORGANIZE TO PASS HEALTHCARE REFORM!!! EARN $10-$15/HR!!! (Los Angeles)
Canvassing: Winning campaigns and building organizations one person at a time
@waltja26: Seems pretty obvious what they are doing and who is funding them.
It ain't Monsanto pretending be a neutral scientist claiming Round-Up Ready is organic.
Jesus, democratic participation doesn't always start and stop at the ballot box.
@MostlyHarmless: Ok, first off - you are right - I missed the \"from the pro side\" by Costanza (WHOOPS)
To agree w/ you - and fortify your argument - if a group is truly grassroots, and they get funding / support from a corporate entity, in the end, that is not astroturfing. There is nothing wrong w/ true grassroots getting corporate support.
In terms of what I posted, these were all groups that were FOUNDED by corporate money, and have ZERO organic qualities about them at all.
Here is a fun Graphic for you all:
Who is paying to kill health care reform?
If paying people to spread your message as \"battle-tested grassroots professionals\" is not astro-turfing, then I guess my examples were not astro-turfing. Yes, we should all be out in the open. In fact, they're checking IDs at the town hall meetings now. Guess this guy is clean:
>And don't go on with that BS about how Fox News is not credible, the video speaks for itself. It's only on Fox because only Fox would air it.
Oh, how about the busloads of SEIU goons armed with pre-printed \"protest\" signs?
... or this pack of HCAN (now THERE is an astroturf outfit if there ever was one) yahoos being coached on how to shout down opposition at meetings?
Fish. Barrel. Bang.
@waltja26: I dont know about much else, but you certainly have no idea what \"astroturfing\" means, do you?
Ok, wise guy. What IS astro-turfing then? Why don't you define it instead of just saying I'm wrong, with nothing to back it up?
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@MostlyHarmless: Oooh, I know this one! It means \"When people employ the exact same tactics that the left has been using for the past eight or so years, except now it's bad and also, big evil corporations!\"
You can play semantics all you want, it doesn't change the fact that real people are really upset, and apparently that's scaring the crap out of a lot of you.
@TomCoughlin: Excuse me, but you have amply exhibited on a previous thread that you are only interested in whining and making attacks and then acting all offended about something. I refuse to have any sort of dialogue with you.
Now if you will excuse me, I have better people to talk to.
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@MostlyHarmless: Ain't it grand when, during a discussion concerning the definition of \"astroturf\", the wingnuts decry people arguing for the correct definition of the term as \"mere semantics\"?
...Somewhere in the Deep South, a 4th-grade English teacher is quietly sobbing.
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@rickyjulianbubbles: I don't doubt the essential information, but anybody who uses the term \"Obamacare\" is highly suspect in my view.
In what sense are they goons? Are you referring to the \"brutal attack\" where someone was standing over a SEIU member who was pushed down and someone pushed him out of the way. The videao shows him to be wandering around just fine, until a few days later when he decided he was \"brutally attacked\" and went on Fox News
@ngoandy: While the SEIU isn't technically astro-turfing, they are being brought in to purposely intimidate those with legitimate concerns (think senior citizens) and intentionally disrupt the meetings on behalf of the politicians.
It's like when the Rolling Stones hired Hell's Angels to do security at the Altamont concert in 1969.
@HunanGarden: Not at all, you idiot! It's more like someone saying, \"please shut up so we can talk\" to an unruly 5 year old!
@sinfonian94: Maybe those FOX News 5-year-olds ought to be taken out to the woodshed for a whipping!!
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@HunanGarden: I must have missed the union \"goons\" with truncheons pummeling Granma at these meetings. All I see and hear are the same old buffet-denizens, birthers, and Faux News zombies parroting the talking points hammered home to them every evening. Someone should just start numbering them to they can shout out \"number three!!\", so they can get it over with.
\"I want my country back\" indeed.
@HunanGarden: Yes, and those people who are openly brandishing weapons (sorry, excercising their constitutional rights), are not intending to intimidate anyone.
Those with legitimate concerns- the ones who have been instructed to scream and chant and prevent discussion.
@ngoandy:
When they bus in from out of state to pack a meeting, that's not astroturfing? Interesting.
Whether they are or aren't astroturfers, though, they're definitely goons.
@rickyjulianbubbles: Who's the goon? The person screaming and not allowing any debate? Or the person telling the first one to Shut the Fuck Up so we can have reasonable debate?
@rickyjulianbubbles: Whether they are or aren't astroturfers, though, they're definitely goons.
Really? And you can tell that, how, exactly?
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@MostlyHarmless: There have been reports of funded organizations paying people to go to the town halls earlier this summer and shout out misinformation (such as senior citizen death panels) to congressmen. The problem is, no one seems to be able to track down just who is funding these organizations.
My favorite piece of propaganda regarding the health care debate (other than the death panel, which is ridiculous) is the one where senior citizens are made to believe they can't trust government run programs while they happily collect Social Security and use Medicare.
@chiieddy: What's even funnier is to see all sorts of politicians and their front groups saying medicare is a great program that sets the mold for healthcare reform because it lets people keep their own doctors and doesn't intefere with the patient-Dr. relationship and then conveniently ignore the fact that medicare is on a collision course with bankruptcy.
@Scott4: Only because of the regressive payroll taxes that fund Medicare. Lift the $100,000 cap on taxable income for Medicare, and it'll have no funding problems for the next century or two.
@sinfonian94: Wrong answer. The rich people want it destroyed, that's why they \"care so much\" to keep repeat that it's failing. It's called a \"self fulfilling prophecy.\"
It works on this model:
1) Right Wingers (Demo and Repub) hire incompetent idiots (oh, say a horse racing buddy of GW gets to run FEMA) and place them into important government positions.
2) Situations arise and/or activity happens, the idiots either don't lift a finger, or intentionally lift the wrong finger due to their class bias.
3) Results: idiots create a big mess. Then worsen it.
4) The \"CEO\" of the government's idiot is then used as a poster child, claimed to be \"evidence\" that government can't do a damn thing right.
5)\"CEO President's\" uses his own incompetence to justify outsourcing to private, unaccountable CEOs.
@sinfonian94: You are incorrect. There is no limit on medicare payrol taxes, I know this for sure. You are probably thinking of the limit on social security taxes which is at $106k, I think. That one obviously makes sense because benefits are similarly limited.
@Scott4: You're assuming social security is like a 401K, where you get in what you put out. It's not. It's an income-forwarding device where today's working Americans help yesterday's. Your analogy is broken.
@Trai_Dep: Sure, but using a failing system as the mold is quite silly and claiming it is a great system while ignoring its huge problem is intellectually dishonest (and something we should expect from our politicians).
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@Scott4: Isnt it not that the system is failing, but rather that it can't keep up with rising healthcare costs? Insurance is one of those strange things that only gets more expensive as time goes on. If not, that's Still the reason healthcare reform is needed. Whether or not to socialize it is another issue (and I'm not using socialize as a \"bad word\").
@chiieddy: He said \"on the pro side\". What you are talking about, is an example of \"on the anti side\". And death panels and medicare misinformation comes straight from the likes of Sarah Palin and Chuck Grassley and Fox News.
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They forgot the first rule:
Find out if George Soros is a funder.
@Snowblind: please do enlighten us and tell us which \"front groups\" are funded by George Soros!
sounds like he has funded many many of them so this should be easy, right?
@Snowblind: I thought the first rule was to not talk about astroturfing.
@Snowblind: Thank you. I thought I was the only one tracking a slight bias.
@Snowblind: Thank you for writing that. It seems the editors neglected to mention the story was implying only one side of the political spectrum was sponsoring front groups. When such 'mistakes' are made editorial credibility is significantly diminished.